The open steppe, a fast horse, falcons at your wrist and the wind in your hair, may famously be the wrong answer, but is Crushing your enemies, driving them before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women! still the option of choice for the modern gentleman or gentlewoman?
For many a young gentle-person just starting out on life, in this our most modern of ages, this timeless philosophical question will inevitably raise its head, and bring with it the companion questions, of:
‘If xxx is best in life, then how should I go about obtaining xxx, or at least the means and leisure to go in search of the rarefied climes in which xxx is reputed to be found?’
For those of us a little further along life’s tapestried hallway, this same question which we perhaps thought to be comfortably answered, may unexpectedly be found to have slipped its bonds and escaped to demand answer once more:
‘While crushing my enemies has certainly been fun to date, is it still Best in life, or have I allowed myself to slip into a comfortable rut?’
Now, whether poised in the verdant Spring of one’s life, or reclining amiably in the Autumn, the root of the question can, nevertheless, remain challenging to answer.
Fortunately, with each fleck of silver added to one’s temples, the modern day gentle-person will also have gained a modicum of wisdom, and after digging out one’s best thinking slippers, filling a small side plate with biscuits, and making a suitably large cup of piping hot tea, it won’t usually take too long before the first cracks are discerned in the formerly smooth rock-face of our problem.
Perhaps something like the following…
‘What is best in life?’ Well, if we’re to get on the track of this particular beast, surely we must first find the preferred scratching posts of its siblings… ‘What is GOOD in life?’, ‘What is BAD in life?’ and ‘What is PLEASANT?’
Each category will have its own herd of beasts, buts if we can be sure of anything, it is that one can’t travel far before encountering the stragglers at the back of the herd of ‘What is BAD?’.
Which particular creature we encounter may vary, but it will surely be one of the all too familiar rear guard…
Uncomfortable trousers, irreverent children, a poor night’s sleep, all perhaps preceded in their aimless wandering by… a poor lunch, modern cinema, and long wet summers.
As we approach the main body of the herd the dust from the individual beasts may cause them to blur together, but the more prominent specimens are still easy to identify… Travelling by plane, a dearth of funds, Monday mornings, and of course tepid bathwater!
Fortunately, what is Bad in life is never to be found in the company of what is Pleasant, Desirable or Good, so after discovering the uninspiring mass of what is bad in life, we need only turn ourselves around and walk in exactly the opposite direction of travel, and before long the spirited gait of What is Pleasant will eventually come into view.
Passing by the stragglers we may once again begin to we pick out the individual animals… Hot buttered toast trotting along in the company of countless other freshly baked breakfast goods, and walking just behind Soft sofa cushions, and The feel of freshly laundered bedding.
The crush of animals thins a little as we move to the fore of the herd and from What is Pleasant to What is Good. And now our practiced eye picks out A lazy Sunday morning, trotting along beside Oversized fluffy bathrobes straight from the radiator.
Tempting as it is to loiter in such company, if we steel our will and push onward, we will soon pass the twin joys of A roaring fireside on a cold winters evening, walking in perfect step with A shady chair on a hot summer’s day.
Ah yes, and here we find the all to familiar ‘Open steppe, a fast horse, and falcon’s at your wrist,’ still toward the fore of the group, but still not quite ‘best’.
We’re amongst the leaders of the herd now, and one could be forgiven for thinking our accumulated wisdom has led us astray, and What is Best in Life is not actually to be found in the lesser company of Pleasant, Desirable and Good, but as we press on, leaving What is Good further and further behind us, yes eventually a solitary figure emerges from the dust far ahead.
Ah yes, as we draw closer, straining our eyes to see to the shape of What is Best in life?, we notice it moves with a strange, ever changing gait which kicks up not a little dust, almost making it appear as though the very shape of the creature changes with peculiar step.
Finally, we’re close enough to be sure of what we’re seeing, and yes this creature is odd, because with each step it twists and changes its shape and gait to match each and all of the creatures we have passed along the way.
We may be confused at first, but with another sip of tea, and dunking of a fiery ginger biscuit of two, the truth finally reveals itself to us…
Choice! Choice is what is best in life.
After all, while vanquishing one enemies and hearing the lamentations of their loved ones will perhaps never cease to be one of the better things in life… A quiet weekend away from the sundering chaos, wrapped in a fluffy bathrobe, with a plate of hot buttered toast can be equally pleasant when one is in the mood for it.