Forbidden Ordinariness

Through bad planning, I will be late to bed tonight. When I have cooked a meal before, I have a good idea of when it will be ready, but I don't have a wide enough repertoire yet to rely only on familiar things. With new recipes, Hofstadter's law applies: a task always takes longer than you think it will, even when you take Hofstadter's law into account. Fortunately I cooked enough to put one complete meal in the freezer, with some other components left over to simplify some other meals too, which is pleasingly economical on both time and resources.

So, reflections on a Saturday. One spent on my own in the absence of the person whose further acquaintance is my current project.

As my clothes requirements are a little different to what they were, I decided to go shopping for some. Also, as I needed distraction, I thought maybe I could visit a cinema - something I haven't done in quite a long time, since losing my old movie-watching companions rendered it a solitary activity. It isn't quite the same without people to compare notes with.

It wasn't strictly necessary, but that plan made me decide that London was the place to go.

The great benefit of that is that I can more or less guarantee not to meet any brethren. London is firmly out of bounds except on "king's business" (anything to do with brethren management) or, if sufficiently important, just plain business. London, you see, is a risk. People set off bombs there. Besides, it's cosmopolitan, and that makes it no place for a christian. You get all sorts in London. Actually, that's part of the reason I like it. I reckon native English-speakers are in a minority, and it's pretty much a land of its own, nothing much to do with the rest of the UK.

Shopping isn't an approved activity, either. Brethren are often quite keen on it in spite of that, but ideally they shouldn't worry enough about their appearance to wish to spend time choosing clothes. "The bargain counter" is a phrase used by those wishing to push the point in meetings. In actuality, of course, it is quite noticeable that brethren have fashions of their own, only loosely related to the fashions on the outside, but just as shifting and vitally - if superficially - important. Still, shopping is near enough to recreation that doing it on the Sabbath (Saturday, not Sunday, but Sunday would be even worse) is frowned upon.

And, of course, cinemas are the gates of hell. Personally I enjoy the ambience, but apparently the fact that I don't feel the breath of the devil while in my tip-up seat is a worrying sign that I may not even be a christian. It's understandable that anyone might be tempted into such wickedness, but I should at least have the grace to feel horribly guilty about it.

Recreation in general is not really on, anyway. It is permitted to enjoy activities, but only as long as one doesn't engage in them solely for that reason. Brethren often get very good at constructing elaborate fig-leaves of earnest justification for things they enjoy. The happiest are those whose natures allow them to enjoy the activities that are compulsory, and it often escapes everybody's attention that having inclinations that run that way doesn't make them inherently more spiritual.

So, to sum up my ramble, my perfectly ordinary day buying two pairs of jeans and seeing the Simpsons movie with running commentary from a small child across the aisle, would in fact be a source of horror to my old friends and relatives. Hopefully tomorrow will bring more such forbidden and morally dangerous things to do.