Which is why I have chosen to write about the humble Crunchie.
I used to dislike Crunchies. Yes I was a heathen, without taste or style, unlikely to progress past the lower echelons of Tesco's employment programmes despite years of hardcore sugar stacking. But I simply didn't like them. And then something changed, a miracle, whereby what had once been odious to me and had remained unwrapped in a Cadbury's Christmas selection box for months on end until an overwhelming desire for sugar would force me to unwrap it, ram it down my throat unchewed and instantly regret it became something of an addiction. Now the very smell of a Crunchie is enough to melt my insides and send me dizzily into a state of ecstasy, let alone the taste of its delicious, cinder toffee centre. God, I'm getting tingly just talking about it. Is it right to feel this passionately about a confectionary item?
Where am I going with this? I'm not sure but we'll get there, don't worry.
What interests me about this change, besides opening up a new possibility when stood in a newsagents agonising on how best to further expand my waistline, is the fact that it proves something that I never believed when I was younger; that you can grow to like something. I had always thought that this was a clever ploy used by adults to coerce you into eating something that was in fact inedible, but slowly and regrettably I am coming to realise that what they said was entirely true. I remember my first sips of beer, pretending I loved it and could drink a whole pint whilst in fact thinking that someone had just poured the contents of their blocked drain into a glass and served it to my unsuspecting father. Indeed, I remember asking what whiskey was like and thinking someone wanted to kill me when my dad gave me a sip, cursing as the burning liquid scorched it's way down to my stop like some kind of aqueous dragon. Both of these things I now thoroughly enjoy, alongside many other delicacies I would never have delighted in a few years ago, and the fact is that on this occasion as on many my parents were completely and utterly correct; your tastes can change with age.
This goes for many other things as well. Go back two or three years ago and I was a committed communist (insofar as you can be committed at the age of sixteen). I riled against a capitalist system I had very little understanding of and believed I lived under a corrupt political system that I could barely comprehend and wasn't even old enough to vote for. A lot of these beliefs I still hold today and would argue passionately in favour of an improved welfare system and more democratic style of government and election. But I know see that, despite the beauty of a egalitarian utopia, one cannot escape the fact that that is indeed what it is; an unachievable dream, a flawed goal, an enigmatic ideal. Call me cynical but, whilst mankind continues to be flawed and imperfect (which is a polite way of saying "we're all buggering it up"), the creation of a perfect world is impossible; the best we can hope for is to aim high and expect to achieve a little less. This is so hugely contradictory to my old beliefs that you would be forgiven for thinking they were two different people, but they were both me; just at different stages in my continual development as a human.
And so I guess in a roundabout way this blog serves as a contrast to my last; looking forwards as opposed to behind. If I have changed so much up until this point, how much more can I expect to change? Will I discover that certain things are fundamental to my being, or is my character to be eternally shaped, moulded and manipulated as I continue on the path of life? This sounds deep, and possibly like the words of some ancient philosophy professor who, after years explaining Descartes and Socrates, has given up and now lives with his cat, a bottle of rum and a collection of amusingly shaped vegetables. But I find the prospect both interesting and exciting; I like to think that age will add to as opposed to erode what constitutes my being and that, with a little humility, life will only become richer and more beautifully mysterious. As much as life is scary, every so often its promise gives you a thrill that's as addictive as a drug, and the only way to approach it is to embrace it and be prepared to leave behind the things that are slowing you down.
Even so, I won't be trading my Gameboy for a golf club too soon.
Come on, something more interesting must be happening in your life, surely?
ReplyDeleteSpelling mistake: "But I NOW see that" ;)