religion and the royal wedding

Penelope · Mon May 02, 2011 1:19 pm


	Quote: LofS: Basically why have anything to live for?

We can live to enjoy what we are doing for its own sake.....not in order to excel. We'd still have great architecture, art, music....

I have done a lot of cooking, jam-making, baking, making pickles - because I enjoy it - eating it and making it....not because I want to be a better cook or more sophisticated than anyone else. Some people are not interested in food. That's OK.

If I learn to play the piano, I will need to practise - but so that I can enjoy playing the piano, not so I can win competitions.
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Everyone likes to be creative in some way, and that is where we gain our enjoyment, and also give enjoyment to others.

I wouldn't care if they abolished the Olympics....except that it would removed an avenue of excitement and enjoyment for some people who like, and even function, through competition. That's OK.

One of my children, is very competitive in nature, and that is how she functions. My boys are not very competitive and one of them, like myself, just folds up and can't cope when things become competitive.

I'm OK, You're OK - as Thomas A Harris wrote.

I am editing this to add that I have benefitted enormously from our Socialist system, having been brought up from the age of two just by my mother alone. Yet I passed for Grammar School and went, through a grant to help pay for the uniform and multitudinous equipment. My husband became an engineer through our free education system....My mum always worked hard to keep me, we were never on benefits, but the help was there if things got rough, like when I was ill and she couldn't go to work. I have had the advantage of our Health Service and our Education system.

Having benefitted myself, how could I possibly want less for future generations? I suppose it depends on ones' life history.

stahrwe · Mon May 02, 2011 2:45 pm

I agree with Penelope and submit that the idea of excellence, inhibits enjoyment. If I may pick on my wife. She is terrible at making cakes. For some reason they look hideous and though they taste great and in spite of my tortured cries not to do it she throws them away. When we have company; if expected she cleans and cleans and then apologizes for the house not being clean enough, if unexpected she apologizes for the house not being clean enough. The roast is too tough, the potatoes too lumpy, the rice is under done, can we not enjoy the time together without frustrating ourselves? And she is not the only one. A friend comes in and says, I was going to bring brownies but I burned them so I threw them away. I'd have eaten the burned brownies and enjoyed them. Where does this come from; Children leave their parents and work all day every day to compete in the Olympics yet who do I remember? Eddie the Eagle (not one of Penelope's favorites) but a man who competed in a sport he enjoyed and though decidedly mediocre at it ask anyone who saw that Olympics who Eddie The Eagle was and they remember.

Penelope · Tue May 03, 2011 2:11 am

Just try to imagine a world where Bob Dylan wouldn't sing because he wasn't Pavarotti. Irving Berlin didn't make up songs because he wasn't Mozart. Helen Bradley didn't paint because she wasn't Rembrandt.

I didn't cook because I'm not Nigella Lawson.....(mind you I do feel insulted when the birds actually spit out my attempts). I mean, who are they to judge? :lol:

lady of shallot · Tue May 03, 2011 10:36 am

Penny, I think you missed the point of my observations. Neither Bob Dylan nor Mozart would have succeeded without effort on their part. In fact I am saying just the opposite of what you surmise. Without encouragement (hence competition) to succeed or excel in whatever choice of endeavor, there would be no Bob Dylans or Helen Bradleys (sorry I don't know who she is)

Do you mean you did not NOT cook because you weren't Nigella Lawson? Aren't you indeed a better cook than when you started? Don't you pick up hints, suggestions, read recipes, following cooking interests etc.?

This competition question reminds me of a young man of my acquaintance. He is 15 and has just been accorded 4th place recognition (in U.S.A.) in his sport for his age group. The competitions he has participated in for the time he has practiced this sport and the success he has achieved may well be the "making" of his success for his whole life. He is in a singularly disadvantaged economic situation (he and his mother will be moving in with friends as they can no longer afford to live on their own) he is not a stellar student so won't be getting any academic scholarships.

Now would you suggest he abandon competing because you consider it unseemly or somehow negative?

Penny do you know what happened to the cooking forum? I wanted to post on it but it is missing?

Penelope · Tue May 03, 2011 10:56 am


	Quote: Now would you suggest he abandon competing because you consider it unseemly or somehow negative?

No, of course I wouldn't.... If he wants to compete....


	Quote: Without encouragement (hence competition) to succeed or excel in whatever choice of endeavor, there would be no Bob Dylans or Helen Bradleys (sorry I don't know who she is)

Encouragement, does not equal competition. You can encourage a person to excel.....if you think that is important, which I don't. Or you can encourage a person to do whatever they enjoy doing......for that one purpose, enjoyment, which is life enhancing. Bearing in mind that we always enjoy what we are good at.

But if I enjoy playing the banjo badly, then I think I should be encouraged to play the banjo....adequately.....

We live in a competitive world.....that's what it all seems to aimed at. Like the talent shows on TV...

I don't like it......is all I'm saying.

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