Let’s build a person.
Let’s make them articulate. Let’s give them a bookshelf filled with lefty tomes, feminist literature and Lonely Planet guides. Let’s subscribe them to Amnesty International with a £5 monthly donation. Let’s cover their bedroom in dream-catchers, fabric drapes sourced from a Bedouin trader and a wall adorned with postcards depicting ying & yang or quotes from Anais Nin. Let’s give them the propensity to buy organic foods. Let’s give them a smattering of creative flair. Let’s give them a bi-monthly trip outside of their urban environment to connect with nature. Let’s give them the ability to understand the basic dictionary understanding of ethics just in case it pops-up in conversation.
With me so far? Good. Let us continue and make them a familiar western creature.
Let’s give them sparkling neurosis. Let’s give them a validation complex. Let’s give them a large glut of vanity. Let’s give them a bulging bank account ready to deck-out the 4 bedroom Bovis home with marble statues of Buddha. Lets drape them in clothing that costs more than the average total-wealth of an African villager, but looks ‘ethnic cool’. Let’s educate them enough in spirituality and morality to help offset their raging guilt when it’s made perfectly clear to them that they are – in fact – a knob.
Oh, and let’s give them a scarf. We mustn’t forget the scarf.
Okay, we’ve finished. So, now let’s all stare with fiery judgement at our newly forged Champagne Hippy. Sorry, I typed that incorrectly. I meant to say fucking Champagne Hippy.
Jesus Haych; please stop me from chewing off my own tongue when I read those words. As a fully paid-up member of club-cynic, I have an innate ability to dislike the majority of you. But the Champagne Hippy (sorry – fucking Champagne Hippy) has a unique pedestal of my hatred to stand on, which – if I had the choice – I would stand underneath and shake violently or set on fire until they plummeted to the ground; leaving nothing more than a sticky pool of half-digested chickpeas and corduroy.
General arseholes can be forgiven for simply not having the opportunity to know better. Your average weekend piss-head will smash windows and sing Beyoncé songs full-bore at 3am because they are utterly frustrated with their lot in life. I mean, I’d do more than kick-in the door of Greggs the Baker if the entire sphere of my existence was a 9-5 job as an estate agent and catching a different exotic urinary-tract disease each Saturday in an alleyway behind Wetherspoons. We can put this ubiquitous stupidity down to social environment and the lack of real education prevalent in a culture such as ours. But the fucking Champagne Hippy has - at the very least - a working knowledge of ethics, yet bloody chooses to live a contradictory existence that uses clichéd morality as a cleansing-lotion.
And at the top of the fucking Champagne Hippy pyramid stands the fucking Spiritual Champagne Hippy. Possibly the most annoying of creatures ever envisaged by a groaning universe, this subset of utter bastards can be frequently found dousing themselves in patchouli whilst sitting opposite a gold-encrusted shrine, meditating on a cushion with such an ornate detail that the Indonesian child that made it has to spend their diminutive wages on cataract and arthritis treatment by the time they hit 30. And I’m not even going to mention the pissing joss-sticks.
Usually, the fucking Spiritual Champagne Hippy will have a self-confessed affinity to Buddhism – you know, the bastardised philosophy that has been murdered over the course of time by people selectively taking its teachings and using them as an excuse to sound sanctimonious and smug whilst chowing-down on Waitrose Fair-trade pickled-onions at dinner parties.
To any fucking Spiritual Champagne Hippy reading this; here are the hardcore basics. Buddha did this a little while ago after many years of self reflection, but it obviously didn’t get through. He never had a blog. So I’ll state the five precepts in my own little way in the extremely vague hope that you grow a pair and actually live by them. Either that or you put away the pan-pipe CD’s and oust yourself as the excuse-ridden, guilt-laden, materialistic arse that you really are.
‘I will be mindful and reverential with all life’.
This doesn’t mean that you simply draw the line at waxing lyrical about dolphins caught in tuna nets. It means that you have respect for those poor bastards who live in the tenement block down the road, who can’t afford clothes for the kids because you help perpetuate a society that devalues welfare and rewards profit.
‘I will respect the property of others, I will not steal’.
This includes exploitation. You know; that thing the company you work for does when you sell needless shite to people who’ve had their self-esteem bludgeoned by your marketing campaign.
‘I will be conscious and loving in my relationships’.
This one is simple really. Firstly, don’t feel proud about that situation during your gap-year travels to Botswana, when you knobbed that person who looked at you like a God for the duration of your time together, but died a little inside when you told them to fuck-off for being clingy after you’d finally come. Also, it is not cool to have an open-relationship, no matter how ‘contemporary’ it makes you feel. But most importantly, it means that you should never ruin the happiness of someone you are close to for your own personal gain. Even if they burn the lentil bake.
‘I will honour honesty and truth, I will not deceive’.
The implications of this would be SO mind-bending to you right now that if I explained how this relates to you and your life, you’d explode in a cloud of indignation and demonic laughter.
‘I will exercise proper care of my body and mind, I will not be gluttonous nor abuse intoxicants’.
Gluttony includes that designer handbag and the expensive trips to five-star yurts with the hand-woven ‘rustic’ bed-linen. Do I need mention the wine suggested by Oz Clarke that you keep in a false-aged wicker wine-rack?
So there we go. Buddhism 101. Now that you know how the whole thing works. Ish. It obviously runs a whole lot deeper than that. But now that you have the general gist don’t you dare open your gob about your spiritual ‘connection’ with humanity if I can see a Coco Chanel label or a Mini convertible parked outside. That’s like talking to me about your understanding the painful plight of the third-world whilst beating a Cambodian to death with their begging-bowl.
Now, I’ll be very surprised if any fucking Champagne Hippy has read to this point. They’ve probably retreated to the chaise-longue where they will discuss my bad language whilst valiantly thinking of excuses why I’m ‘obviously wrong’ to avoid having to self-reflect. And fair play to them. Who would want to have to reinvent their life from the ground-up because some jumped-up little prick with a laptop and colourful vocabulary has pointed-out the flaws in their existence with a 1000-word swear-fest? After all, they have a large enough social group to find comfort in each other when they feel threatened – a group of people who will sagely nod in agreement at the ‘injustice in our world’, then open a bottle of £30 Chablis and have a pissing contest about who spent the longest time in a kibbutz when their parents finally released their trust-fund.
I’d have switched off after the first paragraph.
More fool you if you didn’t.
Dee.
No comments:
Post a Comment