Her apartment’s doorbell rang. She walked over to it and pushed the “answer call” button.
“Hello?”
There was a moment’s pause, then a commanding Bavarian voice: “I haff your delicious vings. Please open ze door so I can deliver zem to you.”
“Hi — you can just leave them in the hallway, I’ll come down and get them.”
“I’m sorry but we must now deliver zem to ze door. New policy.”
She stopped for a second. She hadn’t heard about this change, but with so many food services jostling for customers, it didn’t seem unreasonable. And it was difficult to challenge such confidence.
“Okay, it’s the second floor, apartment twelve.”
She walked to the door to make sure the safety latch was on. The wings should easily fit through the gap anyway.
The delivery driver knocked on the door — donk donk donk donk. Four solid hits. She cautiously twisted the lock, opened the door, and let out a gasp.
Standing in front of her was a tiny man with a massive head. He couldn’t have been any taller than five feet, but his head was a thick block of meat and bone that looked like it had been stolen from a heavyweight boxer. Atop his colossal bonce was a black baseball cap that said “Bratwurst For Life,” with two piercing blue eyes underneath, a wide-bridged nose equipped with cavernous nostrils, and bulbous lips that glistened in the hallway’s lights. He definitely wasn’t a dwarf, but he also wouldn’t look out of place at a dwarf convention. He wore a shiny UberEats jacket that was too big, and the hand that clutched her food was a bitty pink claw that was starting to turn white. He seemed confused.
“Hi, thanks for bringing it up,” she said, composing herself. She stuck her hand through the door’s gap as the man’s eyes followed it.
“Ze gap is too small,” he said, the bass of his voice rumbling through the apartment below. It seemed safe to open the door. She was pretty sure she could overpower what amounted to a loud child if she needed to. She removed the latch and swung it open.
“Sank you,” the man said. “Now, before ve exchange ze vings, I vant you to know I vaited for over thirty-five minutes for zem. It took a long time.”
“Oh, I’m sorry about that.”
“Sank you.” He raised a claw to the crown of his cap and readjusted it. “Given ze troubles, I thought you might repay me vith a drink. I haff finished work for ze night and vud enjoy talking vith you.”
“Oh, I’m sorry but I have a boyfriend.”
He sucked his fat lips into his mouth and bit down on them.
“But I vaited for thirty-five minutes.”
“I’m sorry about that, but it isn’t my fault. You seem… nice. But I can’t invite strange men inside my apartment for drinks.”
“You sink I am strange.”
“Not strange — I just don’t know you.”
“You sink I am small.”
She stifled a snigger. “Well no… you just can’t come in.”
“I am big where it counts.”
She burst out laughing, and an unfortunate fleck of spit landed on his shiny jacket. He looked at it sadly.
“But I haff provided for you,” he said.
“I paid for this food.”
“I gathered zis chicken with my own hans.”
“You collected this food from a restaurant.”
“I vill always provide for you. Look at ze vings I haff brought tonight. I can bring many more vings.”
“Will I have to pay for those too?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry please give me my food.”
He looked down at the bag, sighed, and handed it to her.
“It is because I am small.”
He stared at her for a moment longer, heaved his oversized backpack onto his shoulders, and walked towards the elevator. She could just about see his legs underneath the backpack, diddling along like a centipede’s.
“I’m sorry,” she called.
He turned, his head emerging from behind the backpack like a slab of swinging beef.
Lolita is old enough and infamous enough to be known as a story of unhinged peadophilia. But it’s also a beautiful and depressing love story, with a tortured antagonist who despite his crimes, and due to the skill of the book’s author Vladimir Nabokov, we can eventually empathise with.
The plot focuses on peadophile Humbert Humbert—a handsome, French-born intellectual on the one hand, and unapologetic sexual predator on the other. His double name reflects his double life. He lies so much that you can’t tell front from back, allowing him to disguise his perversion behind a robust facade that few people penetrate. His sociopathic behaviour might be traced back to a sexual experience when he was 13, when he meets his “first love” Annabel—a 12-year old girl who is travelling with her parents. They lust for each other fervently, never quite managing to have sex, but groping and clawing at each other with an intensity that leaves a permanent impression on Humbert. He describes his passion with a cannibalistic “frenzy of mutual possession [that] might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other’s soul and flesh.” Their failure to complete the dirty deed leaves an indelible, unresolved tension in Humbert—an impoverished thirst for early-pubescent girls that carries through to adulthood, which he is forced to lie about.
Humbert loves and hates his lust for early-pubescent “nymphets.” He feels like a round peg trying to squeeze into a square hole, and to douse his hebephilic lust, gets married to a woman who he physically abuses to get his own way. He constantly admits himself to sanatoriums, but finds the doctors ridiculous and uses his intelligence to mislead them. He swings from “ashamed and frightened” to “recklessly optimistic,” craving hedonistic sex with 11 to 14 year-old girls, but living in the wrong country and century. He tries to justify his urges by recounting accepted peadophilia throughout history, but even his vindications are half-hearted and remorseless—he’s a grown man who wants to have sex with children, and there’s nothing to be done about it. He’s an “artist and a madman, with a bubble of hot poison in his loins.” His anguish is illustrated beautifully by Russian-born Nabokov, whose mastery of English is mindblowing. The animalistic language that he uses is both shocking and enthralling, and some sentences are appalling in their vividness. Humbert describes his fantasies as “just winking happy thoughts into a little tiddle cup.” When his lolita Dolores Haze sits next to him on the sofa, he describes it as “squeezing herself in,” and later in the story “gorges on her spicy blood.” Of his failed effort to slay his peadophilic lust by marrying a woman he doesn’t love, Humbert writes:
“But reality soon asserted itself. The bleached curl revealed its melanic root; the down turned to prickles on a shaved skin; the mobile moist mouth, no matter how I stuffed it with love, disclosed ignominiously its resemblance to the corresponding part in a treasured portrait of her toadlike dead mama; and presently, instead of a pale little gutter girl, Humbert Humbert had on his hands a large, puffy, short-legged, big-breasted and practically brainless baba.”
Humbert understands the precariousness of his attachment to Dolores. She’s a hostage who he appeases with countless and expensive bribes, spawning a crippling jealousy that his nymphet will run away with someone else, especially because of her flirtatious nature. She’s a girl who exhibits a “special languorous glow,” and “wags her tiny tail, her whole behind in fact as little bitches do.” The juvenile sensuality of Dolores Haze makes a peadophile and a green-eyed monster of Humbert, who becomes more and more paranoid as the story unfolds. After suspecting her of cheating on him, he traps her in a hotel room, finding nothing but his own lunacy:
“Wildly, I pursued the shadow of her infidelity; but the scent I travelled upon was so slight as to be practically undistinguishable from a madman’s fancy.”
As I relived Humbert’s most dangerous and prohibited moments, I found myself gripped with a disgusted intrigue, which produced a feeling of tension similar to Humbert’s own. As a tormented sociopath, Humbert is a thrilling character to follow, despite the gruesome nature of his actions. I couldn’t wait to find out how the grotesque corruption unfolded, while also feeling a little ashamed about it, which is testament to Nabokov’s skill as a storyteller. He’s taken one of humanity’s most abhorrent crimes and turned it into a tragic love story, written with an expertise that at times, felt enslaving.
Make no mistake, Humbert loves his lolita to the point of obsession, using every available trick to hunt and possess her—violence, manipulation, blackmail, fear, gaslighting, and everything inbetween. He’s bedeviled by the spirit of Dyonisus, living in a frenzy of impulsive hedonism, disregarding all laws of humanity to occupy his pubescent obsession. But the stark reality remains—Dolores is a 12-year old girl whose initial sexual interest in Humbert dissipates after they first have sex, leaving her disinterested in a relationship with a 30-something male, no matter how suave and handsome. She wants “hamburgers, not humbergers,” but Humbert is a man void of principle, and like the “pale spider” that sits in the middle of its “luminous web,” waiting to trap its victim, he ensnares and dominates her.
Despite Humbert’s evil, the fallout from the relationship is heartbreaking. Our empathy for the odious rogue is Nabokov’s greatest achievement in the novel. We both detest and symphathise with him, leaving us feeling confused and perhaps a little guilty—how can we feel pity for someone who rapes a 12-year old? What does that say about me? Humbert’s vile actions and fantasies, in which dreams of painting a mural of “a ripple-ringed pool, a last throb, a last dab of color, stinging red, smarting pink, a sign, a wincing child,” is offset by the regret of his “foul lust,” of memories that snarl at him as “limbless monsters of pain,” and the hopelessness of falling in love with a girl who could never love him back. In Humbert, Nabokov illustrates the complexity of humanity—the motley facets in all of us, even those who have sex with children. Like Humbert’s love for Dolores, Lolita felt like a forbidden fruit, breaking the sturdiest of taboos to illuminate the mind of an infatuated, sociopathic peadophile, which is a mind we rarely get to see.
The writing is gorgeous, the subject hideous, and by the time I closed the book, I knew I’d just finished one of the greatest tragedies ever written.
My fiancé and I went to the Hunter Valley last weekend, one of Australia’s original wine regions in New South Wales, rich in volcanic soil from eruptions that took place 300 million years ago. When in wine country, it’s necessary to go on a tour to learn about the uniqueness of every winery, and taste the deliciousness on offer.
Our tour was on a Sunday, and as luck would have it, we were the only people, which meant we had the tour guide and cellar hosts to ourselves—a private tour but without the $600 price tag. Given that we had the full attention of our hosts, and as polite humans who always want to make the best possible impression, we felt obliged to offer our full attention in return. Our previous wine tours had always been in groups, with the hosts attention divided among many of us, granting us pause to daydream, pass the odd comment to each other, or play with our phones—something impossible on a private tour without being rude. Whenever I find myself thrust into a one-on-one position such as this, I seem to make a lot more effort than usual, so rather than the cellar door host giving their usual demonstration of their wine, which always seemed a little mechanical during group tours, it felt more like a personal conversation between the three of us. We concentrated on what they were saying, asked questions about the little things that interested us, and found ourselves engaged in rapt conversation like a group of old friends. Aside from learning about their wine-making process and the unique flavours, we learned about how climate change and the bushfires had affected their businesses, how they got into the wine-growing game, what they did as their younger selves, whether they expect their children to follow in their footsteps, what their favourite wines were, and more. When leaving each winery, I felt liked and appreciated, as though we’d made an excellent impression on our host, who had enjoyed our company as much as we’d enjoyed theirs.
My fiancé and I have the kind of disposition where we want people to like us, even need people to like us. It reveals our insecurity, but there’s a strange beauty behind it, because it causes us to make a great deal of effort with people, which leads to fulfilling conversations, confidence, and on the odd occasion, friendships. I hate the idea of being disliked by anyone, and so when I find myself in a situation where full engagement seems courteous, I find myself asking questions about the person’s life, which often progresses to a pleasant conversation that we both enjoy. My desire to be liked and appreciated compels me to behave in ways that make me liked and appreciated, and given that human relationships are one of our most fulfilling endeavours, I realise that my insecurity isn’t so bad after all. Or I’m misreading my social life, and people think I’m an annoying twat.
I finished the wine tour in a state of blissful confidence, somewhat due to my blood/alcohol level, but mostly due to the connections that my fiancé and I had made with the cellar hosts. Whenever I find myself in this mood, and attribute it to my concerted effort over the course of the day, a contrast is revealed between the amount of effort I make to impress strangers, and the amount of effort I make to impress the person I love the most: my fiancé. Strangers mean little to me, and my fiancé everything, so why do I behave in such an illogical way? This is not to say that I mistreat my fiancé—I strive to make her happy because I love and need her—but I don’t put in the same amount of concentration and effort as when I’m sat at the bar of a unknown winery owner, which is madness! The very fact that she’s my fiancé makes her seem secured, as though she’s forever mine, assuming that when my complacency becomes an issue, I’ll always be forgiven, but unaware that every act of forgiveness takes an indistinguishable chunk out of our relationship, carving out a horrific hole that becomes impossible to fill. It’s bizarre that the comfort and security of a devoted relationship causes you to lessen your effort, when you need even more effort to keep it alive. Marriage, a dog, and kids can add excitement, but if the complacency isn’t dealt with, if we can’t forgo our laziness and muster the same level of effort as for a stranger, or the effort from our first date, isn’t the relationship doomed? If we’re so damn motivated to create a bond with strangers, we should be motivated to create a stronger bond with the person who we love more than anyone else. Instead, we assume that the bond is unbreakable—that we’ll never love anyone else as much as we love each other, and we end up relaxed to the point of being in a coma. The fact that my fiancé loves me doesn’t mean that she’ll always love me.
Sometimes it can seem easier to talk to a stranger than your long-term partner, given that you know nothing about the stranger, and a lot about your partner. Unless you want to irritate them with repetition, the hundreds of questions you can ask a stranger aren’t available to your partner. But even those who have celebrated golden wedding anniversaries don’t know everything about each other. We develop and mature over time, and possess a rich and fascinating internal life, which remains hidden unless asked about. And this is the stuff we want to talk about more than anything else—conversations that conjure a wonderful sense of meaning, masking the unforgiving meaninglessness of our existence, and bonding us to each other like glue. The reason that we talk about the weather is because talking about the weather might lead to us talking about the stirrings of our souls, and when we’re in a loving relationship, we can skip the weather and jump straight into the good stuff. We won’t have meaningful conversations with our partners all the time, but unless we recognise that our complacency isn’t forever tolerable, and that we must make the same effort with our partners as we do with strangers, those conversations will be forever lost.
If our partner has enough emotional intelligence not to make us feel like idiots (most of the time), we should be comfortable and motivated enough to broach our most desired topics. There’s plenty of questions to ask a stranger, but they aren’t the kind of deep questions you can ask your partner. I can have a conversation with a stranger that makes me feel liked and respected, but it’s difficult to have a conversation with them that makes me feel loved, desired, and needed. That conversation is reserved for the person we adore. We end up taking one of the most precious and wonderful things in the world for granted: a soul-stirring conversation with the guardians of our hearts, that makes us cherish each other all the more, and only to be had through concerted effort—the kind of effort that we put into making strangers like us, but leading to something much more beautiful.
At school, for a period of a few years, I was a racist little bastard. Most of the black kids in my school were taller, wider, and a hell of a lot tougher than I was, putting their physical prowess to use by skipping lunch queues, taking the best seats in class, and shouldering me effortlessly off the ball during games of football, as though I weighed about the same as a cocktail sausage. During break, they’d nestle into their desired spot in the playground, and blast the surrounding concrete with the tinny, harsh sounds of 2Pac and Busta Rhymes, to the distaste of every Verve or Lenny Kravitz fan in the vicinity (this was a boy’s school, so no self-respecting lad in the 90’s would own up to liking the Spice Girls). These injustices, together with the fact that I could do nothing to restore them without receiving an eye-watering pummelling, created a burning rage inside me, discharged among friends with mutters of “fucking wogs” or “those black bastards are at it again.” At the time it seemed the most natural thing in the world; a righteous point-of-view that dragged us from the lowly position of pathetic, weak and useless, to an elevated position of power and superiority, even if it was just in our minds. Puberty was the boggiest of slogs, and when you’re just trying to drag yourself through something in one piece, reality and truth seem to have less importance. Racism just happened to be a readily-available psychological defence mechanism, used to cover up feelings of ineptitude and worthlessness, protecting my meager sense of self-esteem. I just felt like a skinny, useless white boy, surrounded by all manner of kids who were bigger, stronger, and smarter than me. I was like the frightened little dog that barks because of its fear, fooling nobody aside from myself.
In the first year of sixth form, I escaped what would have undoubtedly been a severe beating, after my racists comments were overheard and passed onto the most enormous black kid in the entire school—a six-foot brick shithouse who, if my memory serves correctly, went by the name of Kwame. The charge against me was “wanting to stab a black boy”, which proved to be a complete lie on the part of the informer—a compact Indian kid who wanted to embellish my intolerable racism as much as possible, in order to see me punished. After weeks of successfully dodging the formidable wall of muscle that wanted to squeeze me to death, the snitch pointed me out to him in our common room, and after politely asking my nemesis to step outside (a request that he took as an invitation to fight), I talked myself out of the entire pickle by declaring that someone with mixed-race cousins such as myself wouldn’t dream of saying something so abhorrent, because such a thing would technically apply to my very own flesh and blood, as though I harboured desires to stab my own family to death because of their darker complexions. That part is true, by the way—I do have mixed race cousins. My silver tongue saved me from a trouncing on that day, but in hindsight, I probably deserved a smallish beating.
Today, whenever a racist peeks over the parapet with a unintentionally blatant comment, my first response is usually contempt. I marvel at their ability to pigeonhole an entire race of people, while conveniently forgetting that I used to do exactly the same thing, for probably the same reasons. Thankfully, my confidence and self-esteem increased with age, blessing me with fresher, clearer perspectives, and a hardier ego that didn’t require cowardly racism in order to protect it. For the remaining racists wandering the world—shaking in their steel toe-capped boots whenever a burly black gentleman passes them in the street, and cursing them quietly under their breaths—changing their views might be a lot more difficult, particularly when surrounded with like-minded friends, each one more chicken-hearted than the last. Many racists appear to be nought but frightened pussies who never developed the true confidence of adulthood, but instead remain in pitiful immaturity, shielding their fragile self-esteem with hateful vitriol, but lacking the knowledge or the motivation to understand why they behave in such ways. To know thyself is tough, but judgement is easy, and feels oh-so-good. The easier path is always more tempting, particularly for the psychologically weak, who might trapse along it comfortably for their entire lives, lacking the courage and will to take the harder road, and forgoing a happier existence in the process. Ignorance is most certainly not bliss.
Art has a way of blessing us with truth and understanding, in unintended ways. Aside from an increased sense of confidence, a turning point for my own bigotry was reading Lee Harper’s To Kill A Mockingbird, a book so beautifully written, weaving a story of such crystal-clear clarity, that you’re left with the fiercest sense of injustice for the main characters, and a greater sense of empathy for their terrible plight. I suspect that Harper has softened the views of many a small-minded bigot, with the potential to remedy many more, but in our age of ignorance, where social media and tabloid journalism serve as dominant teachers, conveying little but righteous outrage and fear, the likelihood of such a person reading the book seems about as feasible as Tommy Robinson marrying Malala Yousafzai. These types of noxious media can act as tribalistic echo chambers of disdain, shrinking our world down to scant collections of regurgitated hate, with little existing outside of it, and little chance of us breaking away to something good and admirable. Such comfortable bubbles have a limited amount of oxygen, before we suffocate. An exceptional story, on the other hand, can be a masterful teacher of empathy, and help to shift the views of the most stubborn extremist, if we could somehow force it upon them without impinging on their freedom.
For me, school was a time for survival, rather than self-improvement. I’m fortunate enough to have been raised with the support of kind, caring parents, satisfying the majority of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and once school was over, affording me the luxury of self-actualisation in the guise of endless books. Some people aren’t so fortunate. It’s tempting to become immediately self-righteous when faced with intolerance, but such a response displays a lack of understanding in itself, the exact same source as the racism. Babies don’t emerge from their mothers with their arm held aloft in a hateful seig heil, but instead develop such behaviours as a way to soothe their fear, protect their delicate egos, and forgo the effort needed to actually understand the world. What is a racist, after all, than a frightened dog, yapping to protect itself?
Complacency is one of the main reasons that we drift away from our friends. Photo by Austin Pacheco on Unsplash
Of the billions of people on our little blue planet, scattered across each and every craggy landmass, there’s only a tiny selection that you label as friends. Not merely social media “friends” with whom you’re yet to engage in a meaningful conversation, but genuine companions, who you’d trust with your deepest, darkest secrets—the select few who perceive the very substance of your soul; the people who recognise, appreciate, and love you in your most honest, unfiltered form, and with who you can be unequivocally, unapologetically, and unashamedly you.
“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
Elbert Hubbard
As social animals, immersed in an existence with no inherent meaning, friends such as these can provide the treasured value that makes life worth living. And yet, the people who are most important to us, with whom we share the deepest connections, are the people we’re most likely to take for granted. Our knowledge of their love, grounded in an unshakeable confidence, can lead to the perilous assumption that our effort is no longer required in order to maintain the relationship. We assume that our mutual affection for each other, developed over the course of many years, has gained enough strength to claim itself indestructible—an everlasting, unbreakable bond, joined with the hardiest of glues. This is an insidious notion, working as a passive and covert corrosive, which when harboured for enough time, slowly weakens the bond until it’s nothing but a measly thread. Complacency is one of the main reasons that we drift away from our friends.
Trite as it may seem, it’s worth repeating that all relationships require effort, especially those that we hold closest to our hearts, as these are the relationships that are most likely to suffer from the corruptive forces of unchecked complacency. The more comfortable we become with someone, the more likely we are to take them for granted, whether it’s a romantic partner, a close friend, or a beloved family member, and though they’re often quick to forgive us for our sloth-like apathy, their clemency doesn’t excuse our behaviour. These beautiful relationships can become the very reason for our existence, permeating our lives with priceless meaning, to be reinforced with frequent, determined effort, and a watchful eye on our inflated self-assurity. Though it can be tempting to arrive home from work and spend the entire evening staring open-mouthed at Netflix, offering only a few words to your wonderful partner, such negligence will only be tolerated for so long before your eventual separation, relegated once more to the throes of the ruthless Tinder battlefield, where people appear as dispensable as a used condom. To avoid re-entering such a dire situation, we can take cues from our behaviour at the start of the relationship, when we were eager to demonstrate our desirability, charm nob twisted to the max.
“Do what you did in the beginning of a relationship, and there won’t be an end.”
Tony Robbins
The contented comfort that accompanies a solid relationship is undeniably tremendous. A calm, relaxed ease can be felt in each other’s company, with the stresses of life temporarily abated, for the good of both souls. But the universe in which we live obeys a fundamental rule—all things must change. Relaxation gradually warps into boredom, with thumbs that were previously still now twiddling madly. Comfort becomes agitation, and your favourite sunken spot on the sofa, shaped perfectly to your arse, doesn’t feel quite right anymore. This situation seems all too common, and can be abated simply by putting in regular bouts of effort. Isn’t your partner worth it, after all? Every wonderful aspect of a relationship develops from the willingness to show that you love them, which could be something as simple as putting your phone in your bedside table before they arrive home from work, and just listening to them as they tell you about their day. There’s nothing quite as precious as our own time, which when wholeheartedly committed to another person, is a testimony of our appreciation. It tells them that they’re worth every single second.
“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”
Carl Gustav Jung
All personal relationships have the potential to be good, but that goodness can only grow from constant and repeated effort—a willingness to show the other person that they’re worth it. Without frequent work, we drift away from our friends quicker than Wilson after an ocean storm. Effort is what turns strangers into acquaintances, acquaintances into friends, and friends into lifelong companions. This is by no means a one-way process. As our love grows for the other person, so does the likelihood for complacency; the danger of becoming relaxed to the point where we assume that our friendship is secured forever.
The people whose death would utterly crush you, their dazzling, illuminating vibrancy forever lost, are the people who you’re most likely to be complacent with, and though we’re sometimes too tired to be the perfect companion, only a smidgeon of creative energy is required to sustain the treasured closeness; to remain as affectionate confidantes, bonded in such a way as to make our stressful, obligation-packed existence worth it. Priceless, cherished subjects such as these couldn’t be more deserving of our efforts.
“I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.”
The above picture is the moment that Charlton Athletic—a English football team based in South-East London—scored the last-minute winning goal that would promote them to the higher Championship division, the culmination of a season’s efforts to climb the ranks of the country’s football leagues.
Observe the faces of each and every supporter in the photo, and you can understand the immense impact that sports can have on people’s lives—the sheer, unalloyed joy that comes bursting forth as their team secures a victory that will enhance their position. There’s nothing contrived about this photo, just a plethora of faces—fresh-faced, wrinkled, spectacled, moustached, male, and female—brought together by a team whose actions have rocketed them into the heights of a collective ecstasy. Non-sports fans might be surprised by the emotional intensity—how can something so seemingly trivial as sport create such unbridled fervor? Isn’t it just a game?
Tribalism is the phenomenon responsible for a sport fan’s extraordinary emotional reactions—the flawless rapture that they feel as their team smashes the clincher into the back of the net. In our evolutionary past, tribalism improved our chances of survival by consolidating us into groups, who we trusted, favoured, and depended on. Our tribe became an extension of ourselves, every loss and victory. When a fellow tribesman returned from a successful hunt with a delicious deer tied to the back of his horse, his achievement was our achievement, and was celebrated as such. Similarly, when Charlton’s Patrick Bauer poked the ball past the goal line in the last minute of the play-off final, even though he was the only person responsible for the act, every single Charlton fan in the stadium claimed the victory as their own, with a roar that echoed throughout the country. When we support a football team, we’re no longer a lonely, vulnerable person desperately trying to survive, but a soldier in a formidable army, protecting each other with fierce loyalty, and marching as one. When the club makes a questionable decision—the hiring of an unproven manager; the precarious signing of an expensive player, or a new unethical owner who cares little for the team’s future—the supporters sense the danger as if it were their own; a direct threat to themselves that must be staved off. The fact that the supporters have absolutely no sway over the club’s major decisions makes no difference. It’s our tribe, we’re fully invested, and it must be protected at all costs. The sense of belonging that comes with following a football club is felt in the very marrow of our bones, and we’ll never turn our back on them. After being a supporter of a team for a prolonged period, to change teams is tantamount to treason; the offender an untrustworthy turncoat. We love our tribe and we’ll support them through thick and thin, no matter how embarrassing the performances.
The intense devotion that tribalism can create has obvious downsides, evidenced by the rise of British football hooliganism, when unquestionable loyalty leads to extreme violence. Football fans are taught that it’s good and proper to hate a rival team, just because they’re a rival team—an idiotic obligation in which all sense of logic is thrown out the window. Rival supporters are transformed into dark and deadly enemies, their basic humanity forgotten, and their pummelling justified. Our tribe is the epitome of everything good and true, theirs all that is wrong and false. Clear parallels can be drawn with nationalism and religion, where unbridled tribalism has the potential to create profound hatred. Though tribalism makes sports endlessly thrilling, evoking fervent emotion in its most dramatic moments, diligent caution is required to prevent us from slipping into illogical idiocy, in which other people can become objects of hate, guilty of nothing more than belonging to a different tribe than ours. The competitive nature of sports can warp games into mock battles, and though this is part of what makes them so exciting, the boundary between friendly competition and violent battle can become difficult to distinguish, especially when being swept along by an impassioned, five-hundred strong mob that screams for the blood of the opposition. Conformism for the sake of conformism is foolishly irrational, and in the realm of football, can quickly lead to hateful violence.
At their core, sports are just games, but our tribalistic nature imbues them with extraordinary passion, with the power to create joyful angels, or odious demons of us. A single kick can dispatch us into giddying euphoria, illustrated in each and every face in the photo above, or heart-wrenching despondency, dreams crushed into oblivion, until next season. It’s a rollercoaster ride of intense emotion, the highs non-existent without the lows; the sky-punching jubilance of victory nothing without the sharp sting of defeat. Tribalism is what makes sports so thrilling to experience, and as your club’s defender lurches forward and pokes the ball in the back of the net in the final minute of a game, sending your team soaring into the higher division, a temporary insanity takes over each and every supporter, flooded with fanatical, turbulent emotion.
The team’s victory is your victory, and it feels indescribably fantastic.
Why psychedelic therapy is making a comeback—Image from NY Mag
Back in the 50’s, not too long after Albert Hoffman discovered the mind-bending, consciousness-expanding properties of LSD, scientists starting conducting experiments into the therapeutic potential of the drug. It became a popular area of research, and by the mid-60’s had spawned six international conferences, and over 1,000 peer-reviewed clinical papers¹.
Meanwhile, the first sparks of the acid revolution had been lit, spearheaded by passionate acolytes such as Timothy Leary and Ram Dass, who believed that the drug held the key to shifting our global consciousness, to create a more peaceful, loving human species. It’d be tough to find a loftier, more noble objective.
Then it all went to shit. Governments across the world became concerned about the widespread, casual use of such a potent substance, particularly one that caused its users to doubt and criticise the power structures within their society, often calling for a freer, less restricted world. LSD was promptly banned by governments, forcing chief manufacturer Sandoz to halt production in the mid-60s¹. The first era of psychedelic therapy was over.
Thankfully, there’s been a resurgence. Governments are once again becoming receptive to the therapeutic potential of “party” drugs such as acid, psilocybin, and MDMA, whose reputation has been tainted in part by the greedy fear-mongering of the popular press. Scientific studies based on psychedelic therapy are becoming increasingly common, some with astounding results. The gold-standard treatment for PTSD is prolonged exposure therapy—MDMA has been found to be twice as successful². Psilocybin—the psychoactive chemical found in magic mushrooms—had an 80% success rate in breaking a smoking habit, compared to 35% for conventional treatments³. It’s also been shown to cure severe depression⁴.
“Perhaps to some extent we have lost sight of the fact that (LSD) can be very, very helpful in our society if used properly.”
Robert Kennedy
Though the hardened conservative will undoubtedly raise his eyebrows in disbelief, the people who have spent their lives taking illegal drugs such as MDMA, LSD, and magic mushrooms may be unsurprised at the results. It’s obvious that these drugs have incredible potential for our psychological health. The pristine empathy and compassion one feels in the midst of an MDMA experience tells you everything you need to know. How could such an emotionally positive experience not have therapeutic potential?
In my late teenage years, I found myself surrounded by friends in the comfortable living room of one of our parents, each of us high on ecstasy. Uninhibited conversation was flowing, and upon reaching the topic of our fathers (Freud’s spirit nestled in the corner, glowing with anticipation), for the first time in his life, one of my friends opened up about his difficult relationship with his dad. He expressed sheer, unalloyed pain at his dad’s early departure from the family, followed by the brutal indifference that he exhibited towards him in the years after. There were floods of tears, but no awkwardness from anybody—just pure compassion and sympathy. Afterwards, he seemed as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, finally able to talk about something that had created anguish for years. It remains the most beautiful moment I’ve ever had with my friends. Though we didn’t know it at the time, our drug-taking sessions were a form of self psychedelic therapy.
“What’s unique about MDMA is that it’s actually stimulating but decreases anxiety…it could help people feel calm and comfortable enough to explore painful things that are hard to talk about.”
Julie Holland
The bonding power of MDMA cannot be understated, even with people who you’re already close to. Everyone tends to emerge from a session with a feeling of heart-warming emotional closeness, and a fiercer sense of loyalty towards this magnificent bunch of people with who we’ve spent the last eight hours. Time spent on MDMA can be flawlessly authentic, offering a state of mind that encourages you to delve into profoundly meaningful topics that you’re usually too wary to approach.
As a shy and cautious teenager, I’d often have trouble interacting with people who weren’t my friends—the gut-wrenching awkwardness was too much to bear, so I wouldn’t bother trying. MDMA helped to bring me out of my shell, and not just for the duration of the high, but extending far into the future. The rush of empathy one feels while on the drug, mixed with the feeling of immaculate love towards people around you, taught me not only to more easily identify the inherent good in other people, but to realise that I was worthy of their company and friendship. It accorded me the courage needed to speak and act without restraint, teaching myself—little-by-little—that I was more than capable of being a funny, interesting person, whose company people were eager to keep. By improving my emotional intelligence, MDMA has undoubtedly helped to shape my personality into something better.
Psychedelics such as LSD and magic mushrooms also have a reputation for changing people profoundly. In Michael Pollan’s incredible book How To Change Your Mind—a treatise on the beneficial effects of psychedelics—he reveals that many people who take these kinds of drugs describe it as one of “the most meaningful experiences of their lives.” Psychedelics dampen our Default Mode Network, which is suspected to be the creator of our ego. As our sense of self dissipates, we can feel a profound sense of unity with the world around us, and our brains are temporarily permitted to make brand new connections, illustrated beautifully in this diagram from the book.
This is why creatives in Silicon Valley are spending their work days microdosing—it unfetters their naturally restricted brains, allowing them to be more creative than ever before.
“I’m glad mushrooms are against the law, because I took them one time, and you know what happened to me? I laid in a field of green grass for four hours going, ‘My God! I love everything.’ Yeah, now if that isn’t a hazard to our country…how are we gonna justify arms dealing when we realize that we’re all one?”
Bill Hicks
There’s a big difference between the occasional drug-taking experience, and using substances as a coping mechanism for the pain in your life. Highly-addictive drugs such as cocaine and heroin are a completely different beast, and should be avoided at all costs. This kind of escapism rarely ends well — it’s usually much better to face your suffering head on, with as much courage as you can muster.
“Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important — creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”
Steve Jobs
When it comes to MDMA, LSD, and psilocybin, it’s no wonder that people are willing to break the law in order to experience them. They can function as a form of self-therapy—a vehicle for fundamentally changing your brain, quicker and more effective than any other method. Since the discovery of LSD back in the 50’s, scientists have suspected its therapeutic benefits, kickstarting a field of research that has shown incredible results. But for the general public, stringent scientific experiments aren’t needed to tell them what they already know: MDMA, LSD, and psilocybin—when used for the right reasons— have the power to improve our lives. This is why millions of everyday people are willing to position themselves on the wrong side of the law. It’s not just about goofing around with your friends—laughing but also terrified at the clouds wiggling and shifting into new shapes—it’s about being equipped with the courage needed to leap over personal boundaries—a shift in consciousness that can teach you how to be a better person, with opportunities to encounter the world from fresher, more fluid perspectives. These drug can equip us with the potential to break out of our tired, restrictive moulds. Scientists have known this for years, as have regular, law-breaking users.
It isn’t a question of whether these drugs have therapeutic benefits, but a question of when our governments will be able to get past their antiquated views and embrace them as valuable weapons in our medical arsenal. Great progress has been made with marijuana. In time, and as more scientific evidence emerges, perhaps the same will happen with MDMA and psychedelics.
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Some words of caution MDMA, LSD and psilocybin are still illegal in many countries, and as such, their production lacks quality control. Drug testing kits are essential to test their purity, and obvious discretion required if you’re willing to take the necessary risks to acquire the drugs themselves. This article is by no means an advocation to do so. It’s also worth noting that these drugs aren’t for everyone, particularly for those with serious mental illnesses.
The world is full of horrible people—kill them with kindness. Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash
Most people are repulsed by maliciousness. Being unkind to another human being is unnecessary, and so we want the ghastly offender away from us, preferably in shark-infested waters. There’s something about nastiness that makes our skin crawl; it’s worthless, and the culprit is clearly capable of personally targeting us too. Acting in a cruel way isn’t the best method for making friends either, unless the friends you want to make are equally as cunty, in which case you’re perfect for each other.
In a world where a disgusting, offensive narcissist sits atop the American empire, it’s more important than ever to be kind. Trump has become a global news sensation, his supporters delight in every one of his ludicrous words, despite their nastiness. Perhaps because of their nastiness. Sexual assault victim Christine Blake Ford is a “horseface,” Mexicans are rapists, and Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband. If one of the most powerful men in the world speaks confidently in this way without batting an eyelid, what kind of message does that send to his followers? Gradually, being vile and obnoxious becomes acceptable. But every extreme situation can be countered with something equally intense from its opponents, and in this case, the counterpunch is to kill them with kindness; to be relentlessly and unequivocally courteous to everyone that we meet, regardless of whether they’re showing you the same gratitude. Love conquers hate—the Indian Independence and American Civil Rights movements proved this in the most sublime way imaginable. They decided that love and kindness, not hate and hostility, was the only way to correct their dire situation, with unprecedented success. They decided to kill them with kindness, and it worked wonderfully, producing two of the most heart-wrenchingly beautiful victories ever witnessed.
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it – always.”
Mahatma Gandhi
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Being unkind can be dangerously insidious, particularly when dealing with situations in which the other person is displaying incompetence. Scolding them is effortless and often depressingly efficient. The result is that you’ve probably ruined their day. But hey, you got what you wanted. It can be difficult to keep cool in such situations, especially when you feel that your precious time is being wasted, but to kill them with kindness isn’t easy. There’s often a choice to make: efficient reproach, or less effective, patient kindness. By choosing the latter, it might take you longer to fulfill your objectives, but you’ve made the world a slightly better place in the process. Life can be a gruelling slog, and everyone is just trying their best to drag themselves through it, day by day. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you’re the only person struggling.
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”
Plato
Unkind people are to be pitied, as their behaviour is often a result of their gloomy opinion of themselves. If you hate the world, there’s a good chance that you hate yourself too. A vicious stream of bilious words isn’t going to improve your deflated self-esteem; it just make things worse. It’s a motivation fueled by insecurity—by being malicious to another person, you’re attempting to position yourself above them in order to feel better about yourself. It’s a pathetic illusion of grandeur, and can be shattered by acting as a dogged exemplar of kindness, regardless of whether you get sniggered at.
“How people treat other people is a direct reflection of how they feel about themselves.”
Paul Coelho
Kindness, by contrast, is inextricably linked to happiness. Japanese researchers found that happy people are kinder than unhappy people, and that one’s sense of happiness rises when considering your acts of kindness. Being gracious releases neurochemicals that suffuse us with “helper’s high”, the very same circuits activated from recreational drugs such as MDMA or cocaine. It can also reduce your pain levels, and enhances both your physical and mental health. Being kind is incredibly good for you, and the most beautiful thing about it is that it doesn’t cost you anything at all. The investment that you make by putting a heartwarming smile onto someone’s face is returned back to you with interest. A single modest act of kindness can result in a huge chain of positive effects; it’s contagious, and spreads like angelic wildfire.
Treat others how you want to be treated, and kill them with kindness.
