Today, a break from politics for some indispensable life advice. What should we do, people never ask me, to live a happy life?
In his celebrated work, The Path to Rome, Hilaire Belloc enumerated a number of activities in which he believed people needed to engage in order to be “reasonably happy”.
These activities, he suggested, were things that “the human race has done for thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years”, and were so “buried right into our blood from immemorial habit that we must be certain to do [them] if we are to be fairly happy”.
He observed: “This is a matter of such moment that I am astonished people hear of it so little.”
The same thought, I have to say, occurs to me regularly when writing this column.
Anyway, what did Belloc have in mind?
“One should from time to time hunt animals, or at the very least shoot at a mark; one should always drink some kind of fermented liquor with one’s food – and especially deeply upon great feast-days; one should go on the water from time to time; and one should dance on occasions; and one should sing in chorus.”
OK, maybe a trigger warning might have been advisable, at least in respect of the dancing. Nonetheless, you’ll agree that all this seems eminently sensible. “For all these things,” he noted, “man has done since God put him into a garden and his eyes first became troubled with a soul.”
Belloc went on to add that someone else had suggested to him that to these should be added “that every man should do a little work with his hands”. And, being one of the leading Catholic intellectuals and writers of his day, he also advised that people should go to Mass and partake of its rituals.
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All of these things seem doable from time to time; perhaps especially so at Christmas, when the incessant pace of modern life relaxes and maybe allows us to rediscover the rhythms of another, slower, more connected way of living. So let’s go through them.
I recommend a day’s shooting. This is wrongly assumed by many to be an elitist, aristocratic pursuit; perhaps so in the neighbouring jurisdiction, but not in Ireland. Shooting is simply something that lots of people, mostly but not all from the countryside, do. There are about 25,000 members of gun clubs, according to the National Association of Regional Game Councils, and around 240,000 legally held firearms in Ireland, governed by probably the strictest gun laws in Europe.
If you don’t fancy blasting away at wildfowl or assorted birds, there are lots of places where you can shoot at targets and where your teenagers will be taught the basics. I promise you, they’ll love it.
Belloc’s advice to always drink fermented liquor needs little elaboration. He was an enthusiastic guzzler of beer and wine himself, as the occasion demanded, and author of the immortal lines: “Catholic men who drink red wine/Are deep in the water, and frank, and fine/Wherever I travel I find it so/Benedicamus Domino.”
Words to live by. Though we might add the advice of GK Chesterton, Belloc’s great pal: “Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable.”
Let me add my own two cents, as someone who has conducted extensive primary research in the area: the greatest improvement in the quality of wine is between a bottle you spend €10 on, and a bottle you spend €20 on.
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Is a bottle you buy for €40 better than a €20 wine? Yes. Is the quality gap as big as the one between the €10 and €20 bottle? Rarely.
“One should go on the water from time to time” – well, of course. Why do you think billionaires buy yachts? But you don’t have to be Denis O’Brien. You can rent a small boat in lots of places; you can go kayaking with the seals at Bulloch Harbour in Dalkey; you can even get vouchers for Christmas presents. Or get the ferry to Cape Clear. Make sure you wrap up well.
Belloc also suggested you should dance on occasion, though for most of us this seems unwise, if enduringly popular. My esteemed colleague Róisín Ingle wrote movingly of dancing in the church at the funeral of Manchán Magan; frankly, I would rather be in the coffin myself, but she certainly enjoyed it. Maybe you would too.
His other suggestion in a similar vein, I am happier to endorse. Indeed, singing in a choir is especially appropriate at this time of year. If you haven’t done it for years, try it. There is lots of research on how communal singing has psychological, physical and social benefits (even if you’re not very good at it).
Men’s sheds have been encouraging working with your hands and proselytising for its benefits for years. Making hurleys, stools, scissors holders, a bit of light DIY, whatever: it’s time well spent for those of us gifted with especial dexterity in these matters (yes, that is a joke for a small but important audience) but also for those who hack their way through it. I suspect the benefits are just as great, if not greater, for the latter group.
Finally, church attendance as a uniform social activity has collapsed in recent decades, for obvious and probably predictable reasons. For many of us, especially at this time of year, there is a comforting familiarity to its ritual and cadence. The spiritual side you can figure out for yourself, but it never feels like time wasted. Many of us will creep back at Christmas. And resolve, perhaps, to do so more often in the new year.
Dining and Cooking