I’ve long been disgusted at The Secret and the whole deceitful money-machine behind it… but today they sink to whole new level of vileness, by sucking their unthinking and unwitting followers into an ultimately fatal act of stupidity: to wit, locking yourself in a Very Hot Room with 50 or 60 other zealots and precious little air to breathe or room to cool down in.

Unsurprisingly, two of these poor, deluded followers of the guru are now dead. One wonders if James Arthur Ray is going to stick to his guns and claim they had it coming to them, and it’s a result of something they did in a previous life (and to add insult to injury, the unfortunate buggers paid some $9,000 for the privilege – great “pay $9,000 to be crowded in a room and fried to death”. Sounds like a fucking bargain to me).

Now, it’s tempting to label these people as being simply “stupid”. And indeed they may well have been stupid… but this doesn’t follow from their seemingly stupid actions.

You see, these people were not thinking. None of them ever are. No one who gets involved in a religion, business cult or gurus’ schemes is thinking at all: they’re simply feeling, and backing up what they feel with post-hoc reasoning.

They already know what’s true, whether it’s their Holy Book or the irrational and illogical pronouncements of their guru. They already believe and they’ll shut out anything contradicting those beliefs (indeed, one particularly loathsome specimen of this species actually encourages people to just believe… while at the same time taking their money for his seminars, of course).

It’s a sad fact: just a few minutes’ critical thinking could have made the difference between life and death for these two people.

Something to reflect upon next time you read something from anyone claiming to have some “secret truth” to sell you.

But, there is a Special Kind of Creationist who in a typically rotten-apple kind of way tars the others with his own foetid patina of dishonesty, hypocrisy and intellectual cowardice.

Let me explain.

Yesterday, I posted a link to the video below on my Facebook page.

I highly recommend you watch it, because it’s an interesting list of dishonest and frankly nasty little tricks some Creationist scum use to silence people who show their silly, illogical and scientifically unsupportable ideas up for the ludicrous fairy-stories they really are.

And, lo! Some anonymous scumfuck, some lying and cowardly hypocrite marked it as… “abusive”.

Oh my… irony so thick you could call it a Creationist.

But, what does this arsewipe hope to achieve by this act of cowardice? If he or she had just been quietly offended yet respected my right to free speech and expression, then a few people would have seen the video… and that would have been that.

Instead, I am rather goaded to action, to make a point of promoting the video in as many places as I can think of where it can be seen by far more people than it would have been before (including from this post).

So, I guess I share the sentiments expressed in the video. Without ire, irony, sarcasm or satire, I thank you, Anonymous Coward for revealing yourself and your kind as the pustulant anal boil that you most certainly are and for reminding me how important it is to keep speaking the truths you don’t want to hear, precisely because they are truths.

It’s hard to know where to start with this, because there isn’t a single subject I can think of where someone, somewhere doesn’t believe there’s some big government conspiracy tied up with it.

Let’s take the current thing on vaccinati0n, for example. And let’s start with something pretty simple and mundane: a few days ago a young girl was given a shot against HPV and, sadly, died very shortly afterwards.

Immediately the Tinfoil-Hatters are shrieking about how dangerous and deadly vaccinations are and how the evil government conspiracy has slaughtered this innocent young woman, yadda yadda yadda.

But it actually turns out she had an extremely large tumour in her chest which was eating away at her heart and lungs… and she could have dropped dead at any time.

I’m not in any way making light of this, and it must be awful for her parents, but the fact is it’s just a miserable coincidence (one the Christians might like to explain in terms of a “loving God”, but that’s another story).

Now, it’s entirely possible and for all I know very likely the event of having the vaccination prompted her death at that point, but the truth, if the autopsy is to be believed, is pretty much anything could have done it.

How do the Tinfoil-Hatters respond to this?

It’s a cover up, of course. There was obviously no tumour and it’s really a case of doctors, the coroner, the mortician and the big pharma companies all conspiring to invent a fucking enormous blob so the rest of us don’t wake up and spot those pesky shape-shifting lizards from the 5th dimension.

Never mind the exasperating bonkersness of all this, there’s a very simple question I’ve asked these numbnuts that none of them seem able to answer.

Just bear with me.

Imagine for a moment you want to hide the real cause of death in this girl. Imagine she’s had an adverse reaction to something in the vaccine and if this gets out it’s going to expose the abovementioned lizards and bring planet Nibiru crashing down upon our heads on Thursday afternoon.

What do you do?

1. Claim her death was something simple and easier to hide or fake, like a brain aneurysm? Or…
2. Claim it was a huge tumour on her heart and lungs which means you then have loads of evidence to fabricate and a great big cancerous growth to pull out of your arse?

See, if these people are so smart they’re running the entire universe for their lizard masters, why do they choose such a dumb way to cover up this death?

But the Tinfoil-Hatters don’t stop here. No. Not only are current vaccinations an attempt at genocide, but previous vaccinations have been unnecessary. Apparently polio and smallpox never hurt anyone, and were in fact caused by vaccinations.

Never mind the evidence suggests otherwise. They know and the fact evidence does suggest otherwise is proof the lizards have a hand… um… claw in it somewhere.

I have my own ideas about conspiracy theories, and I’ll write about them in due course (when I’ve managed to find and eradicate all the surveillance devices in my house and found a way to block the lizards’ mind-control beams), but for now I’ll settle for saying this: the fact that people in governments, big pharma companies, and most large corporations are lying evil shitbags in no way makes the absurd claims of the Hatters true.

It doesn’t make them untrue either, but they’re the ones making extraordinary claims and so should provide extraordinary evidence to back them up. And simply saying “wake up, you’re just one of the sheeple if you don’t believe me” isn’t evidence.

My question to Hatters is always the same: what evidence will you accept to demonstrate your conspiracy theory is false?

Invariably they’ll say something like, “nothing, because I KNOW the truth!“.

And that, people, is all you need to know to conclude they’re illogical, irrational, and quite, quite bonkers.

Ignorance, too, is not a crime. It’s not even a huge problem because it’s always a potentially temporary condition and one easily cured. What’s more, we’re all ignorant about something. In fact, if you sum up the whole of human knowledge then we’re all ridiculously ignorant about most of what’s known. You don’t even have to think about what we don ‘t know yet to realise how profoundly ignorant we all are.

So, no, ignorance by itself is unavoidable and no great shame.

But wilful ignorance is another matter. Refusing to draw back the curtain on one’s ignorance because of dogma or a foot-stamping emotional connection to one’s existing beliefs is something else entirely.

Obviously, religion comes into this depressingly often, but it’s not the whole story by any means.

I think most people who rail against religion have it all wrong — they see it as the cause of something, rather than the symptom of something more fundamentally fucked up in human beings.

Because when you think about it, dogma isn’t confined to religion, is it? From the fuckwitted homeopaths and “alternative medicine” asshats, to many business-cults (including so, so many NLPers); and 2012-ers to conspiracy theorists, there’s a determined and sometimes eye-opening ingenuity to how they ignore the evidence so they can go on holding to their silly fucking beliefs.

A case in point: one of the big cuddly “truths” about NLP is if you visualise yourself being the person you want to be and then fix that in your mind your subconscious will take you there, and effortlessly to boot.

Sounds fucking wonderful doesn’t it? And it’s being taught and promoted and sold as a self-evident truth up and down every country on Earth.

The only problem is proper peer-reviewed and controlled scientific research suggests it not only doesn’t help you achieve your goals but can actually hinder your getting there.

Now, mention this to NLPers and they’ll splutter and fume and tell you “But I’ve seen it WORK!”.

Ask them if they’ve done controlled randomised peer-reviewed research and they’ll tell you they don’t need to… because they know it works, no matter what science says.

Like I say, wilful fucking ignorance.

At this point you might be thinking this is all very interesting, but pretty harmless.

Possibly, but I think it reveals something rather sinister and very depressing.

I mentioned the 2012ers a short while ago, those odd people who, despite no evidence of anything so large as a fucking huge planet just 2 or 3 years journey away from us, believe it’s there regardless.

That, too, is harmless, I suppose.

But what concerns me most is this idea that after the catastrophe — no matter what form that takes, incidentally — the world is going to re-emerge, phoenix-like as some kind of Utopia where everyone loves each other, no-one is greedy, and all the women are bisexual, buxom and busty and fuck like rabbits at the drop of a tinfoil-hat.

I hate to be the one to tell you this but… that ain’t gonna happen.

You see, the world around us is the product of our nature. After 2012, the Rapture or whatever other catastrophe your brain can think up, any survivors of the human race are going to be just the same as they are now: self-centred, violent, and irrational.

Even if all the survivors are somehow hand-picked and screened, their offspring won’t be. New religions will spring up, new irrationality and cults will grip the minds of men and women and turn them into unthinking, wilfully ignorant morons who’ll refuse to think critically and instead swallow all kinds of bullshit fed to them by someone with a seductive voice and a silly hat.

Face it, folks: we’re fucking doomed.

Today, of all days, then, would be a good day to rail against that most poisonous and dangerous of human institutions, religion.

Coming from a very secular background I still find it hard to grok the truth that many people actually do believe this bollocks. Never mind there are more than 30,000 flavours of Christianity alone, along with their dozens of “genuine” made up bullshit Holy Bibles and you somehow get to know through the wisdom of your magic fucking underpants that your particular strain of this nasty little mind-virus is the right one, but there are hundreds of thousands of other batshit-crazy religions out there all claiming the same thing.

Yes, people, we have the technology to send man into space, to split the atom so finely we’re looking for the fabled Higgs Boson (now there’s something to be in awe of), to communicate with one another in real time with pictures and sound for free… yet we still have individuals, yea, entire communities and countries who believe the Earth is 6,000 years old, that homosexuals should be hanged, and 80yo old men fucking little girls is A Really Neat Idea.

Take your pick. It’s easy to pick on one religion, point fingers and say they’re backward, medieval and superstitious pigshit… but that’s unfair.

Because they’re all backward, medieval and superstitious pigshit, and have no place in a world where reason is prized.

So, I’m hoping the more enlightened ones among you will join me in clasping your hands together, raising your eyes heavenward and saying with me…

“I deny the Father, the Son, and their invisible flying buddy the Holy Ghost, and may all priests, ministers, imams and other Slayers and Deniers of Reason suck a long, steaming turd from my sweaty arse. Amen”

Now, that’s what I call blasphemy.

It always seemed a little bit silly to talk of being “proud to be British” when being British, for those of us born there, is something you have no say in or control of: you’re born British because your parents fucked and your mother got pregnant, and by some quirk of fate you happened to be born in a place or circumstances which mean you’re arbitrarily “British”.

It makes about as much sense of being proud you have blue eyes, or two legs or you’re exactly 5′5” tall.

Silly, as I say. To me pride is best invested in what we achieve, not what we’re given.

But.

When I was a kid there was a certain pride in holding to the values generally regarded as epitomising Britishness. We probably look at this through the rosy and soft-focused glasses of nostalgia, but I think it’s true the British were generally known for being just and having a sense of fair play, and always but always backing the underdog. Our legal system and the British Bobby were the envy of the world.

Yet now?

We have become a police state, almost a perfect mirror of nazi Germany against whom we went to war in the name of freedom; and any hope or pride I had in the values of the Britain have dropped away, and all there is now is disgust and loathing for what we’ve allowed – nay invited – the scum of successive governments to do to us. All we’re missing is the concentration camps, and I predict we’ll have those within 20 years.

For yesterday it became apparent a British policeman launched an unprovoked attack from behind on a totally innocent member of the British public who was walking away from him. The video clearly shows this.

Yet when the claims were first made, before this damnng evidence came to light?

The police denied every fucking word of it. Lying filthy scum. They do not deserve to be recognised as “police” any longer.

Just four years ago, I thought we had plumbed the depths of fascism when the filth summarily executed Jean Charles de Menezes on the London Underground. Despite eyewitness accounts contradicting the police’s version of events, no one was held to account. It was, instead, pretty much bagged-up and labelled as “collateral damage”.

Yet in some ways this is even worse. Because this is on camera. There can be no doubt at all what happened, and there is no need to rely on perhaps unreliable human memory: it’s there in glorous technicolour – a piece of shit attacking an innocent man from behind, all dressed up like a fucking stormtrooper, safe in the knowledge his cocksucking friends will lie for him (and surprise! They did!).

And the reaction?

Oh, an “investigation” overseen by the filth themselves. And Jaqui “the taxpayer can foot the bill for my sad fucking husband’s porn films” Smith’s response? “… if it [the film] identifies – and I can understand people’s concerns – if it identifies the need for a criminal investigation, that then also needs to be pursued.”

IF? There is no fucking IF about it.

To be sure, a jury and a trial will establish guilt (and for the record, I don’t personally think this is actually murder; but it is an unprovoked assault by a piece of shit), but the video itself clear evidence there is a case to answer. Yes, there also needs to be an inquiry, but that particular uniformed weasel-turd should, even as we speak, be under arrest (perhaps he’d do the decent thing and hang himself in his cell, and spare the rest of us from having to share our oxygen with him).

I predict no one will be held to account for this, though. No officer will be identified, no officer wil be charged, and perhaps some “emergency” will be manufactured to draw attention from it so it can be quietly brushed away.

This is perhaps our last chance to grow a spine and tell these vile cunts we are a free people.

It’s time for the British people to refuse to support the dunderheaded fuckweasels growing fat at our expense.  It’s time for us to take back the rights and the power we have allowed them to strip away from us in the name of “freedom” and “security”.

It is perhaps the last chance we’ve got to show we really do understand they serve us and not the reverse.

But we won’t.

Shame on us.

Shame. On. Us.

Anyway, this is the email he forwarded to me. He’s received it himself from someone who’d come across him on Amazon.

My friend’s question was, “what the fuck?”

There was no way he was going to deal with this guy at all; I suspect he was just shocked scumfucks like this get to share the same air we have to breathe with us. Just think your daughter could come home and tell you she’s going to marry one. Jesus.

It did get me thinking though: why be honest?

It’s not even really a matter of morality. We can leave that aside. As it happens, my personal morality tells me dishonesty is generally a bad thing, and always comes with a price. Not to say I’d never tell a lie, for example, because there are times I would; like, to save my life or the life of another. Same’s true for stealing: I wouldn’t steal or misuse another’s property without permission unless it was a matter of life and death.

But, as I say. Let’s leave all that aside. You almost certainly have a different morality from mine and we won’t agree on every detail in every area, so it’s pointless arguing about it. There is evidence that a lot of human morality does indeed come from without.

Ohh that’s got you all worked up about the God Fella now, hasn’t it?

Sorry to lance your boil, but the “without” I’m talking about is our genetic makeup — stuff that’s outside our rational thought processes. We’re programmed for certain behaviours, and what we generally call “moral” behaviour appears to be among them. Research does indeed demonstrate most people do the “right thing” most of the time in most circumstances.

No. God. Required.

And let’s also leave aside the fact the guy is an illiterate moron who ought to be ashamed at his feeble grasp of English (for reasons I won’t go into, I happen to know he has a degree-level education, which makes his rank illiteracy even more shameful).

Regardless of how we feel about this kind of dishonesty (and, indeed you might feel it’s OK to cheat Amazon out of their commission because they have plenty of money already), there are some very good objective reasons why it’s a bad idea from the point of view of rational self-interest.

Here are just a few of them:

• It’s stealing. Regardless of how you feel about it, it’s a criminal offence. If you get caught the possibility is there the law will be enforced by men carrying guns. Amazon will cancel your account and your business will be in shit-street. You might end up regretting it while you’re being buttfucked in the prison shower thinking, “if only I hadn’t cheated Amazon out of their commission” to the rhythm of Bubba’s hairy and sperm-engorged scrotum slapping happily off your buttocks. That’s what I call a disproportionate punishment, but it could happen. And it’s so easy to avoid.
• If word gets out, it will destroy your reputation. After all, what’s the difference between cheating a go-between out of their legitimate commission and, say, taking money from a client or customer and not delivering on your promise? The only difference is expediency. If you can think of a reason to make it “ok” to steal from Amazon, you’ll be able to think of a good reason for cheating customers and clients when the “need” arises. Morality aside again, that will destroy your business.
• The guy who wants to work outside the system is himself fundamentally dishonest. If he’s prepared to cheat Amazon, what would lead you to believe for a second he won’t cheat you too? With PayPal it’s easy to get the goods then raise a dispute. What’s the difference between his cheating Amazon and his cheating you? The only difference is expediency. If he can think of a reason to make it “ok” to steal from Amazon, he’ll be able to think of a good reason for cheating you when the “need” arises.
• The guy seems to imply he’s some sort of hot-shit business man. If so, why is he quibbling about a few quid on the price of a book? Most successful business owners know the value of education and the value of their time. Was it even worth the trouble of writing the email to save such a small amount of money? No. Well, perhaps… if your business is shit and you’re not making any money.
• Again: the guy is dishonest. What would lead you to believe for a second you’ll get your fee? I’ve had experience of people like this before: sly and evasive penny pinchers who are hard to please, pay slowly (if at all), and complain when their marketing doesn’t “work” instantly. Could part of it be their reputation is shit so no amount of copy can help them? Heaven forefend such a possibility.
• The guy is an ignorant dickweed: “I’m willing to give you a trial run, I have other copywriters at present, but if your copy outperforms, i’ll hire you for my future projects”. Translation: “Write for me for free and we’ll see how you do. I’ll make some money from the fruits of your labour, but I’ll tell you it didn’t perform well so I don’t have to hire you again; meanwhile, I’ll go on to the next idiot in line. And by the way, I always tell people about my mythical ‘future projects’ so I can reel them in to come do work for me for free”. Fucking arsewiping motherfucking motherfucker. I hope his eyes rot and his children are born spastic and with inoperable spinal tumours. I’ve dealt with cunts like this before. They always get the same answer: “fuck off”. I don’t care how difficult times are and how little business you have, you do not want to be dealing with mouth-breathing bottom-feeders like this. “I’m willing to give you a trial run”. Oh, you are, are you? Well, I’m willing to let you suck a long, steaming turd out of my arse, you fucking pond scum.

So, just off the top of my head. I personally would like to see this waste of protoplasm tied to a chair and beaten with hammers. But that’s perhaps just me.

Honesty always pays in the long run. It can be temporarily painful and is certainly not always easy. But it’s usually for the best, even without considering any moral issues you have with it, or the prospect of that big invisible man in the sky being unhappy with you.

Dishonesty, on the other hand, always has a price, even if it’s just having to remember the lie you just told.

I’m not claiming to be perfect here, but I regualrly monitor myself for signs of dishonesty. To be sure, it’s often easier to tell that “white lie” to protect someone’s feelings, or to tell a client the reason he didn’t get the email you didn’t send must be down to a spam filter somewhere (I’m sure most of us have used that one before. I have, to my regret). But lying and the more material forms of dishonesty really aren’t good for us, or for others.

Jefferson said “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance” and I think he was dead right. But it’s also the price of pretty much everything else in life we value, too: relationships, business, and our own personal moral code.

When we set high standards for ourselves we don’t always keep them, and the less we examine them and how we measure up to our own ideals, the more we backslide. Because dishonesty is tempting, and it is easy.

So check yourself regularly.

And, finally, don’t do it because I or someone else tells you it’s “right”. We have no place in telling you what your moral code should be. None of us have perfect and complete knowledge of anything, so we’re necessarily speaking from ignorance and our own beliefs.

But do it anyway, because as I shared with you above, it’s in your own rational self-interest.

Simple answer is I don’t.

This frequently causes some consternation with the usual mealy-mouthed shit coming forth about how so many millions died so I could enjoy that right, yadda yadda yadda.

Um, no. They didn’t. They fought and died for what they believed in. I didn’t ask them to and I had and have no choice about things. I was born without being asked and am subjected to a form of government I don’t agree with whether I like it or not. And if I don’t obey the rules they have decided I will live by without actually consulting me about them, they’ll use guns to make me obey. If I resist, they’ll deprive me of my liberty or perhaps even kill me.

And as it happens I think democracy is a really fucking dumb idea.

Why?

Because you’re not really getting much of a choice. The real and fundamental issues, like do we need a government at all? simply aren’t aired. What you’re really choosing is the style and flavour of the arse-fucking you’re about to receive at the hands of the Appointed. The length and girth might vary, and the depth of penetration and speed of delivery, but it’s still an arse-fucking, no matter how you look at it.

And let’s face it – they’re all acting like we are, in their own rational self-interest; so they’ll say whatever they need to say to get elected, and then do whatever they need to do to maintain their hold on power.

Just look at Gordon Brown, if you can stand to have the fat one-eyed Scottish idiot in your sight without vomiting – when he came to power he spoke grandly of an end to the cycle of “boom and bust”. Well, now we’ve had the boom and the bust looks like being longer and harder than Peter North’s cock, so he’s busy bailing out privately-owned businesses with our fucking money.

Why isn’t anyone asking him about this supposedly broken cycle? Why isn’t he unilaterally coming up with an explanation of why he’s failed to deliver on his promises?

So no, I don’t vote. And I won’t vote until there’s a none of the above box for me to put my cross in, either.

Because none of them are fit to govern.

Of course, then I get treated to the old “but what if everyone thought like you did and no one voted?”.

Mercy me! Fucking brilliant! The whole country deciding none of the scumfucks on offer are fit to govern! Well, then we’d have to see how we’d get on without some bunch of lying, thieving hypocrites forcing their arbitrary opinions on us with force of arms, wouldn’t we?

Me, I’d come in my pants.

First, it becomes apparent they were fully aware that illegal rendition was going on through British airspace and using British airports; it’s more recently been alleged MI5 and MI6 agents were present at interrogations in foreign countries, too. As if that all wasn’t vile enough, the filthy scum then lied to Parliament and the British people about it.

And then, today, I read that dumb cunt Harriet Harman has come out with this gem: “The Prime Minister has said it is not acceptable and therefore it will not be accepted. It might be enforceable in a court of law this contract but it’s not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that’s where the Government steps in”

What the fuck?

Is this foetid pile of shit of a woman really proposing to change the law on a whim of public displeasure? Never mind any sane and objective legal principles, let’s just make the fucker up as we go along, reaching back over time to confiscate money from people legally entitled to it just to pander to the bleating of some slack-jawed sheeple.

Obscene though is most certainly is this cocksucker gets £650,000 of taxpayers’ money for royally fucking up in his job, more obscene by far is this evil bitch’s idea of essentially rewriting history to make a retrospective crime of a past event.

Can you imagine what this precedent would then lead to, knowing the labour party’s penchant for poking their fucking noses into people’s lives? Not one of us could afford to feel safe, not knowing if what we did perfectly legally last week, last year, last decade was suddenly to become a crime you’d committed. Paid your taxes? Not if they suddenly decide retrospectively to change the rules you haven’t.

I struggle to find words vile enough to hang on the scum who infest our government. Really I do.

They are not fit to govern. I don’t think they ever were, but this week they’ve demonstrated it in spades. Why the British people aren’t filling the streets demanding they resign, I don’t know.

I’d prefer to see them all burned at the stake, or boiled to death in a vat of their own sewage.

But I’ll settle for resignation.

First, let’s recap some things are impossible. They just are. Anyone telling you “you can do anything you set your mind to do” and “just make that decision and believe” is either a liar or a fool, and is definitely after your money.

But sometimes actually believing the universe is looking out for you and if you want something badly enough the cosmos is going to move to make sure you get it can actually be useful, so long as you don’t take the belief too far and base your entire life in it.

The phrase “talk softly and carry a big stick” comes to mind here for some reason, meaning take the easy route by all means, but carry some insurance.

So, why can some small measure of irrationality be useful?

OK, let’s go back to something really simple.

One way of looking at the universe and your place in it is like this:

And people tend to fall into four categories:

• Realistic optimists: We find these people in Quadrant 2. They’re realistic about what’s doable, and they believe they can do it. You’ll almost certainly find most “lucky” people are in this Quadrant for much of the time.
• Unrealistic optimists: These are the denizens of Q1. They tend to be strangely deluded about the way the world works and you’ll find them often with high credit-card balances and attending “success seminars” where they’re told “anything is possible if you just believe it strongly enough”. Unfortuantely they seem to believe there is someone out there who can tell them the Truth, and if they believe that Truth, then everything will work out.
• Realistic pessimists: They’re in Q 3. It’s entirely healthy and reasonable to visit this place, but you wouldn’t want to stay here. It’s good to take a sanity check and look into Q3 but if you spend all your time here you’re just focussing on what can’t be done rather than what can be done. So if you spend a lot of time here, you’ll probably not achieve very much.
• Unrealistic pessimists: live in the dark, shadowy world of Q4. They don’t believe they can do anything, or they’ll ever amount to anything. At best the universe is conspiring against them; at worst, people are, too.

Now, in an ideal world we’d all map nicely to Q2, and with perfect knowledge we’d believe possible all and only things that are.

But, it’s not an ideal world and we certainly don’t have perfect knowledge.

It seems to me most of us spend far too little time in Q2 and probably too much in Q4. With critical thinking we can probably avoid most of Q1 (that’s where you find those glassy-eyed people who love everyone and can see angels oozing from the walls), and anything that’s genuinely in Q3 is good (just don’t spend too much time worrying about it).

Now, I want to save the topic of Critical Thinking for another day (many other days, actually, because for reasons I’ll give below if I remember, it’s hard work, a learned skill, and it doesn’t come naturally to us).

So for now, let’s look at trying to maximise our time in Q2 and minimise our time in Q4.

It comes down to luck.

Ha! That got you. What I really mean is it comes down to the study of luck by Professor Richard Wiseman, in his book The Luck Factor and then its sequel Did You Spot The Gorilla? Incidentally, save all the thousands of groats you were going to splash out on those namby-pamby pinko-commie-bastard feelgood seminars and just buy Wiseman’s books instead.

And tangentially to incidentally, I use “groats” to denote whatever unit of currency your government has decided you’re going to conduct your trade in, whether you like it or not. For my American friend it’s dollars, for my ex-countrymen Brits it’s pounds sterling, and for my new Irish countrymen it’s euro. I get sick of worming my way around the vernacular, so now it’s “groats”, so fuck off.

Back to the main thrust: luck.

Wiseman showed we’re all equally lucky, in the main. Yes, there are extremes of good and bad luck, but in the main we all get good and bad shit happening to us in equal measure all the time. If you get an aeroplane crashing on your house, and especially if you’re in it at the time (the house or the aeroplane, I guess), then that’s definitely extreme bad luck.

But outside these extremes, the chief difference is in perception: so-called lucky people tend to notice and remember the good shit; and the so-called unlucky people tend to notice and remember the bad shit. And for various reasons, two people often have very different perceptions of the same event.

When my wife ran off with another bloke, the same thing happened to my pal a few doors down the road at about the same time. Probably less coincidental than you might think, but that’s another story.

We were both in thoroughly miserable marriages and I was glad to be rid of her in the main; he, on the other hand, felt cheated and hard-done-by, even though he was pissing and moaning about losing something he didn’t even fucking want.

It’s that simple, really.

I bring this business of “luck” up because it’s one demonstration of the fact we humans tend preferentially to see evidence which confirms what we already believe, when really for a rational existence it has to be the other way round: we should really believe what the evidence tells us, regardless of where it leads. Bloody good job Darwin had that kind of monumental integrity, for sure.

We tend to get into a cycle of expecting good things, for example, so that heightens our awareness for spotting good things — so we see more of them. That leads us to expect more, so we see more… and so on, until we spend our entire days enjoying endless spontaneous orgasms. Or perhaps that’s just me.

And it works the other way, too, with bad things and our expectation of them.

So what does all this have to do with it being healthy to have some faint suggestion of irrational beliefs?

Well, go back to what I was saying about finding evidence to support what we believe. It’s true not only of what we expect to happen to us but also of the things we think we can or cannot do.

Simply put, we tend to achieve the results we expect.

The problem is, and this is the crux of the whole matter, we tend to believe we can do less than we actually can. And the moment we tell ourselves we can’t do something, we’ll do our damndest to make our evidence fit the “fact”.

In short, we sabotage ourselves.

So sometimes it’s actually beneficial to be aiming too high — to be literally trying to achieve the impossible, because while you won’t reach it (if it’s impossible, you can’t), you will find where your real limits are.

Years ago when I was younger, skinnier and less bald, I studied karate for some years, and one of the odd things we used to do was put various body-parts through inch-thick pine boards. And one of the little tricks we used to help us accomplish this feat was to aim for a point an inch or two behind the actual board, so at the point you hit it with your fist or whatever, you were still striking with full power.

Aiming for your goals can be a little like that: aim beyond what you really want to achieve. The old saying is “if you want to hit an eagle, aim for the moon” and I think it’s a useful philosophy to have.

I also think it can be a useful to act as if the universe really is going to send nice things your way and “move” in response to your thoughts and desires.

It really isn’t, of course, but it’s a useful model of reality to have in terms of making the best use of the all-too human hard-wiring you’ve got in your brain. You’re going to have to deal with your brain, warts and all, and there’s not a lot you can do to change it. So you’re probably going to get the best results if you work with it rather than trying to change its essential nature

By having a model for the universe in which nice things happen to you because it’s sending them your way, you’re priming your brain to be looking for the good stuff and ignoring the bad.

That’s generally A Good Idea.

But here’s the rub: always remember it’s just a model you’ve constructed to represent a small part of reality.

Not only is is not reality itself, but it’s also an incorrect model. You have to be aware of its limits and not take it to the extreme (physics bods among you can draw a parallel here between Newtonian mechanics and Einstein’s relativity shit — Newton is wrong, but approximate enough at speeds below all but a few % of c to be close enough for most purposes).

So, while perhaps it’s going to serve you well to believe if you follow a process, a sequence of actions which have in the past given you and others good results, the universe is going to shower you with abundance and opportunity… it’s probably not such a good idea to extend this minor infractions of the rules to loading up your credit cards and attending an unending programme of $5,000 seminars where you’re told you can have anything you want if you want it badly enough.

Fuck, I’ll tell you that if you like, and you won’t have to pay me a penny. Here: anything is possible and the Law of Attraction will bring the abundance of the universe to you even if you just sit there on your fat arse and do nothing.

It’s not true, of course. But it’s no less true when I say it than when the Success Peddlers do, and I haven’t made you pay me for the honour of having me lie to you.

The question to ask yourself whenever you’re doing anything is “what am I getting from this?”.

I’ve found most people who go to motivational seminars do indeed come away very motivated, but on being pressed, that’s all they seem to come away with. And once they’re out of the group setting, they very quickly return to their normal state of motivation. It’s like a drug and why they keep coming back, time and time again.

I don’t know what your goals are: money, to grow your business, learn Urdu… whatever; but you ask yourself that question and the answer isn’t telling you you’re actually some measurable distance closer to your goal, then I think it’s a good sign you’ve taken your reliance on flawed although sometimes useful model too far.