My husband Andreas has an original view, no-one could tell you what he tells, he seems to see the soul of things. I would not be the same person if I had not met Gary, he sparked off my vision of the world. He directed my reading, Bertrand Russell, Huxley, Proust, introduced me to art and music. Then in my late 30’s I met my friend Gary Ness. Malcom introduced me to art but no light went on. In my late 20’s I started to understand politics, the hippies politicized us, there were “underground” bookshops. Aged 18 or 19 my friend Susan who I had met at teacher training college introduced me to theatre. Although I read it was not until I was 11 and went to grammar school that I discovered literature. How do we cultivate our Best Self? I give you my own example as a child I was not spiteful and because of the crucifixion I knew there was suffering in the world. The moral fibre is light –that “desire for the things of the mind for their own sakes and for the pleasure of seeing things as they are”. The cleverest thing to say about the Best Self is that you know it – it’s when you’re kind and brave and stand up for things.Īrnold elaborates on the passions of the Best Self. Our ordinary self does what it likes: feeds on desire and wants immediate gratification – sucking up what it can – childish it loves to act, often with passion but without much thought it wants material success, is envious and gets its adrenalin through gossip, causing trouble and the “culprit” is punished.
We all know our Best Self, especially when we compare it to our ordinary self. Light is the scientific passion, our mind. The concept of sweetness and light (originally put forward in “The Battle of the Books”, Jonathan Swift) prepares the way for understanding the Best Self, these two passions are complements, the dynamics of the Best Self.
This and the concept of Sweetness and Light are ideas I have carried with me since my first reading a good twenty years ago. It is a star to live your life by: it is Arnold’s concept of the Best Self . What I am about to tell you is the wisest thing I have ever heard and it’s the greatest advice this diary can pass on to you. (Arnold was the son of Dr Arnold who founded Rugby school) I have been re-reading “Culture and Anarchy”, Matthew Arnold 1869.
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