We've all been there. You’re having what seems like a pretty decent day.
The sun is splitting the sky. You are happy with how you look and feel. Everything appears to be going well.
Then suddenly, out of nowhere, you are stricken down by a deep sense of self-embarrassment.
It might be an old photograph, a memory you’d rather remained forgotten. But instead of a warm, pleasant Niagara of nostalgia cascading over you, a cold and sobering torrent of unbearable awkwardness descends.
You relive the moment, not as you actually experienced it, but from the vantage points of all the others you are sure bore witness to it. The stranger who pretended not to see you when you slipped ungraciously on a busy high street.
The price tag someone kindly reminded you was still hanging shoddily off your cheap suit. The outfit you thought daring that was actually horrendously ill-fitting.
It doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?
Then there’s the showreel of more personal cringeworthy crackers. The home video of you dancing, carefree, as a child, many years before you became a self-serious poser.
The school crush whose rejection caused you to go slightly mental. The friends you berated after a few too many drinks. The grandparent you should have visited more. The ex you should have treated better.
Sometimes I cringe so damn hard at myself that I actually have to blurt out a random word or sound just to block out the thought.
Then there’s the Pandora’s box of social media. Facebook seems keen to induce this awful discomfort, quite deliberately, by reminding us of stupid things we said or did years ago.
Occasionally, an intrepid Twitter follower, trawling through old tweets, might like (or worse retweet with a critical comment on) one of your absolute worse hot-takes, snidey comments or over-the-line remarks.
You’re plunged into self-centred fear, reminded of how painfully fallible you are. You reflect on your past words and deeds and wonder how you could ever have betrayed your naivety, stupidity, or malice in such clumsy and undeniable ways.
You may even dare to confront the terrifying notion that if speaking or behaving ludicrously came so easily back then, what may you be saying or doing today – right now – that might one day cause you to cringe.
The fact cringeing at our past selves is evidence of maturity seems little consolation.
We take few comforts in the reality that everyone else cringes at themselves just as we do. It’s not enough to know that we are but humble works in endless, painful progress. That every spate of personal development will, as a by-product, render some previous aspect of our behaviour worthy of embarrassment.
But wouldn’t you much rather look back on a previous self somewhat awkwardly from time to time, aware that the intermittent dread is the minor toll of evolution, than be spared the mild indignity but never truly change?
Humility can be found in pondering these questions.
To cringe is to be self-involved, to understand why is to be self-aware. Don’t take yourself so seriously. You are, like me, just another unstoppable moron, flailing haplessly through life.
Wha’s like us? Er, the English actually
My family and I got back from a lovely break down south last week.
What a treat it was to enjoy a dramatic change of scenery.
The English countryside is not quite as dramatic as Scotland’s but, deary me, it’s beautiful.
We stayed in an old farmhouse, complete with a massive garden and hot-tub, looking on to a sprawling cornfield which seemed to stretch out for miles.
It was a blast. But on the drive home, it wasn’t the landscape that remained with me – it was how well we were treated by all the locals we encountered.
It left me feeling quite at odds with the conversation often simmering north of the border about England and English people.
This Brexit-induced notion that our southern neighbours are fundamentally different, that they are stuck-up, or xenophobic.
A discourse in which England plays a crooked villainous foil to our virtuous Scots character. But the waitresses, shopkeepers, cleaners, lifeguards and chippies all felt pretty familiar.
Even the lad who gave us a ribbing about the football was perfectly charming.
I’m all for Scottish independence, but I don’t buy the notion that Scots and the English are all that different.
Halfwit of the Cabinet
Matt Hancock, eh? What a concept.
At what point, during a deadly global pandemic, when you’re literally in charge of the public health response, does it suddenly seem appropriate to cheat on your wife with your publicly funded aide?
We all make mistakes but this strikes me as pretty terrible judgment.
We all have our scandals in life. But this is more than being caught with your trousers down – it’s the political equivalent of making photocopies of your own rear-end and then hand-delivering them to every home in the country.
Hancock was always the runt of the Tory litter. He wears the haunted expression of a man who knows he didn’t go the “right” school. That he was out of his depth.
Sadly, he wasn’t even the worst of them.
What a shower.
I suspect the millions waiting for basic medical treatment across the country – while Hancock was getting his jollies – will be rather envious of how well he was stitched up.
