Arguing with teabags

I only wanted a fruit tea, not a transcendent experience

In the Old Days (think black-and-white 405 lines TV) PG Tips never tried to sell us a lifestyle, unless it was the prospect of the chaos of a chimps’ tea party. But increasingly the groceries are trying to make me a better person. Don’t get me wrong: I am always up for a bit of self-improvement, since I still have a long way to go to live up to even my own ideals, but I’m not really looking for a sermon on the back of my cereal packet, or eco-friendly credentials in every spoonful of yoghurt. I just want a bit of breakfast!

Systems Engineer: noun. a machine for converting coffee into requirement specifications

(Adapted from the definition, attributed to Paul Erdős of Mathematician = “machine for converting coffee into theorems”)

Some years ago I cut down on caffeine. It was the first step in my metamorphosis from a blurry insomniac (when I used to take the words “Radio 3 Through The Night” at face value) to what passes for a functional human being. It was a time when my colleagues and I seemed to take coffee consumption to new heights as a competitive sport, and even though I did not invest in the full panoply of espresso machines, bean-to-cup engines, aero-presses and other barista paraphernalia, I still loved my cafetière of strong, black Ethiopian coffee. I still do, but now only once a day in the morning. After that it’s no more caffeine for me ’til bye-byes.

So for a while I only drank fruit teas. Yes I yawned a lot, but soon got used to it and self-medicated on lemon and ginger to zing up the morning, followed by rooibos and red teas later on. Most red teas would do: raspberry & lemon, rhubarb & strawberry, beetroot & bat’s blood. OK, I may have made up the last one. Then after several fads and failures I found my ultimate fruit tea: Yogi Tea® Organic Lime Mint. Each tea bag comes in its own little green sachet, and is deployed on a string so it can be fished out when optimum deliciousness is achieved.

But there is just one thing about this nectar, this fruit tea of the gods, that I take issue with: the yogic aphorisms on a ticket at the other end of those strings. I could ignore them, for sure, but what else to do when waiting for the teabag to steep to perfection? And so nine-times-out-of-ten I find myself arguing with a tea bag.

I am quite happy with “Accept who you are. Focus on what you want to become” – a bit of self-acceptance is something we all need, along with something positive to aim for, unless we are already a narcissistic world leader. And “Trust creates peace” is aphoristic apple pie & custard: it links two things that indeed rely on each other, both being in short supply (as opposed to being in short-crust pastry). “Beware the power of the spoken word” is also sound advice, whether it’s the verbal deception peddled by those aforementioned so-called-leaders, the madness of the mainstream media or a healthy awareness of the barbed nonsense that can blurt out of our own mouths.

But what about the following Thoughts For The Day, from a typical week’s half-past-tenses alongside one’s digestive biscuit?

• “Your manifestation is your reality” – a manifestation is what is seen by the eye, or perceived in the mind. Of course what the eye sees is notoriously not what we perceive, because that depends on assumptions, expectations. But yes, in the end what we perceive in our heads IS the reality we construct.
• Mind dwells in the sound and sound dwells in the mind” – now sound does indeed dwell in the mind, once again because it is a perception for which our hearing sense is one of the inputs. But can I make any sense of mind dwelling in the sound? Perhaps a repeated mantra can take over, perhaps even shape our thoughts, in some form of meditation? More often than not it is some annoying ad jingle or bad 1970s novelty song lyric that is ear-worming its way through my head.
• “Totally control the concentration” – I am inclined to pay attention if this means being careful around boiling water. But somehow I expect it is supposed to be more profound than basic health and safety advice. [C’mon Simon, I think you are being a bit flippant now…]
• “Your base should be accurate, and you projection should be accurate” – and now I AM confused why advice for budding architects should be dispensed at the health food shop. [Simon, I don’t think you are feeling the spirituality…]
• “You are the master of your judgement, decision and action” – ah, but are we really? [Oh boy, here he goes again…] Psychological experiments show how it is close to impossible to be free of our unconscious biases; cognitive science shows that much of our conscious decision-making is an illusion, because the motor signals to raise our hand, for example, precedes the decision-making brain activity by several seconds sometimes! Is free will itself an illusion for which we write a post hoc narrative.

Yes, I know it sounds like a lovely thing to put on a motivational poster (BTW is there such a thing as ‘Athena’ any more, that staple of student bedroom walls?) but “Befriend your soul” is a metaphor too far for me these days. The mind-body-soul image can serve a good purpose, because there are many aspects of life that need to be expressed. But mind-body duality was a Greek philosophical idea that got completely out of hand in neo-Platonism as perpetuated by theology. [In my humble opinion!] After all I might be a robot. Or a simulation. Or just biologically alive, with the wonderful emergent property of self-awareness – I think that’s enough.

Cocoa doesn’t give me any of this trouble.

Elsewhere

• PG Tips – Wikipedia – The controversy of the “Tipps Family”, featuring the much put-upon chimps of Twycross Zoo.
• Home of Demotivators® – The World’s Best Demotivational Posters (despair.com)