I’m working on a speech for the Oxford Union, one of the most ridiculous events of my life. There is an inherited penguin suit hanging on the door, which must be nearly fifty years old, to judge from my father’s waistline when he bought it. I have reached the stage of a piece when almost all my time is spent throwing away wonderful ideas that just won’t fit. Here’s one of them: people talk as if the moral cost of a religion consisted in the effort required living up to the ideals. But the real cost is the effort involved in living down to reality, in persuading yourself that this bewildered bunch of ineffective bureaucrats is the ultimate reason that the universe exists in the first place. Live up to an ideal, and you get somehting back, if only self-discipline. Living down to reality just wastes your life.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m working on a speech for the Oxford Union, one of the most ridiculous events of my life. There is an inherited penguin suit hanging on the door, which must be nearly fifty years old, to judge from my father’s … Continue reading