And now I feel guilty, snivelling about my terrible sufferings when, really, I’ve hardly had any suffering at all, and my failures have chiefly been of the salutary variety. I’m just your typical, middle class, white, westerner, and my whining would look pretty pathetic to someone with a serious illness, or to someone in a refugee camp, or a prisoner of some awful totalitarian regime.

My only defense is this: this is my experience, and this is also the kind of experience of many, probably most, people who might be reading these entries.

Reflecting on the much worse sufferings of other people can be a useful way to get some perspective, but done too much, it is mainly a way to beat yourself up with yet more guilt… in its way, just as self indulgent as whining. After all: me feeling guilty is hardly going to improve the lot of someone in the devloping world – it may spur me to action, but I can’t help thinking that if action is what is required, guilt is the least good way of aquiring it. People soon get fed up with feeling guilty, and go on to something else. Only some more steady, positive belief can make people actually do much useful, apart from occasionally throwing some cash into a collector’s bucket.

Having said all that, I am probably going to stick largely to “informative” posts – possibly of a theological nature, though I am open to suggestions.