Things I Love
Inspired by JB Priestley's Delights, I post about the things I really bloody love.
As Hamlet taught us, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”. We might wonder - aloud as he does, or in the privacy of quiet moments - what we have “deserv’d at the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither”, but we need not wonder too long about the things that cause delight in us, spark joy, float our boat, tickle our pickle.
Recently, I buried my nose in Delights, Priestley’s collection of charming essays, each dedicated to a simple pleasure. The times have changed and the pleasures themselves, but not our need, I think, to give over some chunk of our time here to enjoying the simple and small things we love. It is probably in those small things that we are most as one: pauper or potentate, villain or viscount, we love the leaves in Autumn when they turn; the little pads on kittens’ paws; the smell of vinegar coming off chips. Be ye ne’er so vile, these things may gentle your condition. I’m pretty sure of it.
So I hope that this little blog, in which I will send to you, my friends, little reflections on the little things I love, will allow you to think about the little things you love too. And in thinking good of the world we might make it so.
G
PS this is for fun so don’t pay anything - the “pledge money” function is one I have not been able to turn off yet.