The Big Questions: Do we really care about the answers?

Eyes down, look in, people. Time to get deep.

Let's talk about the Big Questions.

How did the world begin?

How will it end?

How does it work?

How did we end up here?


As the only animals on Earth with consciousness, asking those questions is in our nature. If you've never done it, I would assume that the authorities are keeping an eye on you. But at least you'll never be trusted with jury duty.

For those of us playing with all 52 cards you will have found yourself from time to time deep in thought, wondering how stars and trees and chocolate and space and time and Katy sodding Price came into existence, what it's all for, and when it will stop. Especially the last one.

But do we really care about what the answers actually are? Or would we rather believe what we want to believe and call those things 'answers'?

Depending on the questions you're pondering, there are plenty of areas you could have looked for your answers. Astrology, religion, ghosts, demonology, crystals and psychics are just a few, with religion claiming to provide the most.


But all of these things share one big problem - there is absolutely no evidence that any of these are anything other than a load of old arse.

Now, a common argument against taking lack of evidence as a deal-breaker is that you can't disprove any of those things either. Well, no, of course you can't. But the list of things you can't disprove is, literally, infinite.

You can't prove that there isn't an invisible, naked, slightly racist leprechaun living under my bed. But if I said to you, "why don't you believe that there is an invisible, naked, slightly racist leprechaun living under my bed?", you would quite rightly say something like, "because there is absolutely no evidence that such a thing exists, and therefore the burden of proof is on you for proposing that it does." Or, quite simply, "fuck off, you lunatic."


Now, there is no difference between me believing in the leprechaun and, say, a religion. So why should you respect the belief in a religion over the belief in the leprechaun? Well, you shouldn't. I don't respect any belief that isn't based on fact. What I do respect is your right to hold any belief you want to, no matter how mental, so long as it doesn't harm anyone or it isn't forced on anyone. Unfortunately, religion often does both, but that's a debate for another day!

So, no matter what a belief system claims to be able to explain, without evidence it may as well have been written in shit on the wall of a public toilet by a maniac for all the light it can shed.

But why do we keep believing things which have no basis in fact? I'd say there are two reasons.

The first is because those belief systems give us the answers we WANT, which for many of us is better than the truth. Whether it be the prospect of cool psychic powers, being able to predict the future, or assurances of life after death, it's very easy to believe what we want to be true.


The second reason is the reputation of the one place you CAN find answers for many of those Big Questions.

Science.

Even just the word may well have switched you off, and to be honest I can kind of see your point. Science doesn't conjure up many positive images.

Big textbooks. Complicated theories. Hairy, tweed-wearing men who smell faintly of wee. But science isn't any of those things - it's something you can look at however you like, in the same way that football is a sport you can play however you want. You don't have to be a greasy, diving Portuguese with an Adam's apple that's too big for your neck.


So, how to approach science? Well, forget the text books and the test tubes. Quite simply, it's the most complete explanation of everything that exists. If you look at it like that, it'll change your life and the way you see the world in ways that no faith system ever could.

The first is the way you look at the things you see every day. Plants, animals, people, stars... We live in a world of wonders. But until you start to glimpse how those wonders work, you're not seeing them at their most beautiful.

Then there's the stuff you can't see. Space. Time. The beginning of the Universe. The end of the Universe. What everything is made of. There's a whole world out there we can't see and believe it or not, we've already started to answer the Big Questions you've been pondering since you were old enough to eat solid food. You just need to have the will and the balls to forget all the convenient, fictional explanations out there and discover the stunning truth.

And when you do that, science will perform its most amazing trick.

It will humble you.

Science knows what it knows, and it knows what it doesn't know. It recognises that until we have evidence, 'I don't know' is an okay answer to any question - in fact, it's the most exciting place to be. It doesn't invent convenient or comforting solutions to explain the (currently) unexplainable. It seeks the truth, for better or worse and without prejudice. And, contrary to what many religious or superstitious people will have you believe, it is NOT out to disprove anything. It follows the evidence wherever it leads, and the fact that no evidence has ever even hinted at leading to the things religious and superstitious people choose to believe is very telling.

Sure, some of the things you'll discover will be less comforting than others. You'll realise just how lucky and unlikely it is that we even exist at all, but you'll find absolutely no evidence for life after death.

But that's a good thing. Belief systems either have you wasting precious time on things that don't matter or don't exist, or preparing for an eternal life that, much as we'd like it to, isn't going to happen.

On the other hand, science will tell you exactly what your place is in the Universe. And if there's one thing you need to motivate you to live the one life you have to the fullest in whatever way seems best to you, it's that knowledge.


So - stunning truth or convenient fiction. Your choice.



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If chivalry isn't dead, it should be

Women have made huge advances in equality in the last hundred years, and rightly so. These days, any inequality they do face is down to the prejudices of a minority of individuals and their actions rather than the construct of society. I like to call these people 'douche bags'.

But there's an anomaly - the concept of chivalry.


The dictionary defines chivalry as 'courtesy towards women'. I'm not against that. Partly because doing nice things for girls is... nice. But mostly because you should be courteous towards everyone. Unless they've done something to annoy you.

What I am against is what some women think chivalry actually is - being picked up, carried around, and given stuff like they're having their palms greased before a dodgy business deal. It's a classic case of some females being happy to accept inequality because it benefits them.

There are plenty of examples of what I mean by this, but here just a few to convince you I'm not talking bollocks:


- The Man Should Make The First Move.


Well, why? What's stopping a girl approaching a guy if she likes him? Sure, it's not easy. But it's no easier for men. And there's no reason why girls deserve to be approached any more than guys do.


- The Man Should Decide Where To Go Out.


Unless the girl in question has a reduced mental capacity, there's no excuse for this.


- The Man Should Pay.


Don't girls who believe this feel guilty? Going Dutch should always be the default option, unless someone decides to treat the other person.


- The Man Should Buy Gifts.


Again, is there any reason why a guy should give more gifts than he receives?


I could go on, but you get the idea.

Before I'm accused of making generalisations, I should point out that I don't think all women are like this, and not all of the ones who are do it all the time - it's just their default setting, which changes when they're in an especially good mood. But it is very common.

I'm also not saying that there's anything wrong with guys making the first move, deciding where to go out, paying for things and buying gifts. Personally, I love doing those things (apart from making the first move actually, but I still do it!) and I will continue to do them. Granted, I'm single and I don't often get the chance, but I'm optimistic.

So, now that the 'I'm not sexist' bit is out of the way, here's what I am saying.

1. Chivalry should never be expected.


If someone is expected to do something nice, and would be looked badly upon for not doing it, it isn't nice. It's just a transaction. A payment made in exchange for brownie points and no hassle.

What's good about that?


2. Girls should be as chivalrous to guys as guys are to girls.


I'm going to put it out there. I'd love to be 'taken out', and I can't see what's wrong with that.

In fact, I'm going to go even further. I'd like to find a girl who would do as many chivalrous things for me as I would for her. I defy anyone to provide a good reason why I shouldn't.


So if you're one of those girls who thinks she has the right to be 'treated like a princess' by someone who you don't need to treat like a prince, give it a bash. You might find you enjoy it even more.

And if you don't, please don't ask me out. Actually, you wouldn't anyway...



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Is being cool ever cool?

Have you ever really thought about what makes someone truly cool?

To be honest the concept of 'coolness' is something I've always hated, because to me it smacks of unbearable fuckwittery. But when I eventually figured out why that was, I discovered that it wasn't actually 'coolness' I hated - it's what I would call 'superficial coolness'.

Let me explain what the fuck I'm talking about before you collect your pension.

The way I see it, people tend to define coolness as one of two things.

The first is being bang on trend; that is, up to date with the latest fashion, the most popular music, the hottest new TV shows. Let's call these people 'Trendies'.



The second is avoiding the 'mainstream' at all costs; that is, creating unique outfits, listening to the most obscure of indie music, watching The Mighty Boosh. Let’s call these people 'Kooks'.



The funny thing is, even though Trendies and Kooks are both seen as 'cool', they definitely don't see each other that way and often regard the other with complete disdain. Kooks see Trendies as sheep who blindly follow others into the latest fads instead of thinking for themselves. Trendies see Kooks as annoying smug people who are being different just for the sake of it.

Personally, I think that Trendies and Kooks are both spot on and yet also talking absolute testes.

Dealing with all things testicular first; the fact is, both philosophies take an enormous amount of effort to stick with. Whether it be keeping up to date with all things hip or seeking out the vague and obscure, the amount of time and research that Trendies and Kooks need to invest can't be denied. And let's face it - if they didn't genuinely enjoy the things they claim to enjoy, they wouldn't say they liked them at all.

But having said that, both Trendies and Kooks see a kind of denial in the other, and there I think they do have a point. Do Trendies really only have the capacity to enjoy things so hot they could melt Katy Price down to her human components (assuming she is human)? Are Kooks really incapable of enjoying something liked by more people than the population of a Welsh hamlet? In both cases, I suspect not.

So with all that said, can't we conclude that both groups are, in fact, the coolest of the cool in their own way?

Well, it depends on how you think about it (and whether at this point you still give a shit), but I'm going to say no. Because the denial in both groups hints at what I would say is the most uncool thing in the world - caring about what other people think and letting it influence how you express yourself.
This effect is obvious in the Trendies camp - what's 'hot' is defined by what other people think.



But the effect is just as pronounced, although less obvious until you think about it, with the Kooks. For them, the 'mainstream' goes against everything they stand for. And as the mainstream is also defined by the tastes of the majority, Kooks are just as influenced by what other people think - only in their case, they're influenced in the opposite direction. Another way Kooks are sometimes influenced by other people, which for them is kind of ironic, is that they often end up forming what you might call a minority mainstream where you could even argue that they're also 'sheep' following a group. Goths are a great example, and I think they demonstrate that members of minority mainstreams are often even more similar to each other than the majority mainstream they're so keen on avoiding.



So how can Trendies or Kooks ever be TRULY cool, when their 'coolness' is so influenced by others?

Now, the more canny reader is probably thinking that I've used some pretty broad strokes in this blog, and they'd be right. The truth is, while some people clearly fall into either the Trendy or the Kook camps, most of us are guilty of falling into both at one time or another. I know I have, especially in my younger days - pretending to support Liverpool F.C. in a school where being male and not giving a cat's cock about football was seriously uncool springs to mind.

I like to think I've improved as I've got older. I still have my moments, but on the whole I really don't care how popular or unpopular, mainstream or independent, my tastes are. Lost, chinos, The Walking Dead, Coldplay, Elbow, In Treatment and physics all give me pleasure.

Ultimately, it all comes down to your personal definition of 'cool'. But if you agree with mine, we can come to an interesting conclusion.

The most uncool person in the world, is the most cool person in the world.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

You probably won't be interested

So I appear to have started a blog! But why? I hear absolutely nobody asking.

Well first of all, it's not because I'm a particular fan of blogs. I've read the odd entry that's caught my eye because the subject has interested me, but I’ve never followed a blog of any kind.
And it's not because I want to entertain people with my musings. I have no idea what I'm even going to be writing about and, as you may have gathered by the exceedingly clever and evocative title of what you're (not?) reading, I have no expectation that anyone (at least anyone I know personally) even cares what I think, much less wants to read about it.
Of course, I could be wrong about that. Maybe you're reading this thinking, "Holy shit! Jonny Hulatt has started a blog! This is the best thing to have happened since Katrina and the Waves won the Eurovision Song Contest!" If you are, well done. You're a fucking genius. Apart from what you're comparing this event to.
The truth is, I'm doing it because I need to write. It's something I've always wanted to do, but I've never made the time for it - I'm my own worst enemy. I actually want to write fiction; but as I want to write fiction that says something, I figured that just saying something would be a good place to start.
So with that said, it's likely that most of what pours out of my brain and into this blog will reside unread in the electronic ether, until some electromagnetic event in the far future erases everything created by the keyboard rather than the pen.
But that's okay. I'm writing. And you never know... Maybe someone's reading.
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