About The Secret World of
L
ewis Carroll’s observation is more understatement than exaggeration. How many of us could really claim to enjoy half the pleasure we might in life? (And isn’t much of that mass produced, pre-processed pleasure?) Our world is full of complex phenomena, but busy lives are constantly prioritizing and to delve beneath the surface of things takes time. So we’re attracted to an idea yet fail to grasp its reality. Spend our lives engrossed in some activity and never know its essence. (As T S Eliot put it “We had the experience but missed the meaning…”) When attraction can suffice for understanding and familiarity pass for insight, more substantial knowledge ceases to be pertinent. It doesn’t cease to exist. It becomes secret.
“We lose half the pleasure we might have in Life, by not really attending...”
Lewis Carroll
There are many secrets of this kind, multiplying in a world that’s inherently more complex yet increasingly trivial. Denied attention they seethe beneath what’s apparent like so many unconscious drives. Most of life’s experiences have hidden elements we’ll never know, and our lives go on unaffected. However, sometimes something will bear so much on our understanding of ourselves and others that ignorance comes at too great a price. Then its secrets should not be left unexplored.
The Secret World of… seeks to probe beneath the surface of such phenomena, and reclaim the pleasures otherwise lost by not attending.
This theme is expanded on in existing and upcoming books, including:
- Drinking Your Own Words
- The Psychology of Wine
- The Psychology of Dining.
See the serialized narrative You - the Diner, beginning on this site on June 30, 2008, and continuing for four episodes, comprising the early chapters of The Psychology of Dining (to be published in 2009).
If you're a lover of the dining experience, this will open your eyes to elements you may never have considered.
