The Seven Deadly Sins

I imagine that most of us have succumbed to the lure of at least one of the Seven Deadly Sins at some time in our lives, although not, probably, all at once – it would, after all, almost certainly prove fatal at my age.  I could probably just about manage two at a time these days, providing I could do one of them lying down.  I thought that I ought to take the opportunity to consider what I might have been missing…

Pride – I think of this in terms of excessive pride – perhaps what I would call vanity, or what Dante described as ‘love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one’s neighbour’ – because, like every other rational person, I am proud of e.g. my family, but I’m quite happy for everybody else to feel the same about their own.  My mind conjures up only two images when I think of this sin: one is Ernst Blofeld, stroking his cat and smiling crookedly as the sharks devour the barely clothed female unfortunate, and the other a man with the vainest comb-over of all time, a tower named after him and a meglomania that looms above all of it.  Although I have never owned either a cat or a tower, I none-the-less gave up pride with a capital ‘P’ about the time of my second vasectomy (Oh do keep up – I’m not going over all that again!) and I’ve never really picked it back up.  It is such a useless sin.  Unless you want to make a career in politics and die, friendless, hooked up to an intravenous drip of vitriol and an ermine collar, I would seriously recommend that this be the first sin to give up.

Greed – (or avarice).  I suppose we’d all quite like a little bit more.  Wealth is ok – we’d all like a little bit of that – but extreme wealth probably less so.  The mega-rich do seem particularly prone to bad decision making – I mean, if they’re going to give some of it away, there’s a limit to how long I can stand here holding out my mug.  The desire for possession is, unless you have a particularly understanding credit card company, almost directly allied to wealth: it’s ok to want more, but not everything.  And power?  Oh dear, the desire for power is seldom good is it?  It is the result of the complete conviction that you know best and is linked almost symbiotically with the craving for wealth and possession.  It seldom ends well.  Think what we’d all like to happen to Vladimir Putin. 

Gluttony – As above, but with chocolate and wine.  The other sins may well make you very unpopular, but this one will almost certainly kill you.  The fight back has to be gradual: always leave one square of the chocolate bar uneaten; always leave just enough wine in the bottom of the bottle to be able to prove that you didn’t drink it all.  Always go for the pub special offer 2-course instead of the 3-course or, if you do go for the latter, always start with soup – it’s just a drink really, isn’t it?

Lust – almost certainly something I could not manage these days without suffering an attack of the giggles.  Of course, as a teenager I first saw Jenny Agutter (completely shorn of her ‘Railway Children’ red bloomers) in ‘Walkabout’ and later Jamie Lee Curtis in ‘Trading Places’ and was aware of the hormones bubbling out of my ears.  These days I live for Reeta Chakrabarti reading the news and Louise Lear telling me which raincoat to wear.  It’s not the same I know, but it means I’m much less likely to spill my tea…

Wrath – This is a hard one when there is so much in this world to get mad about.  I am a black belt in Impotent Rage.  I think of this more in terms of vengeance for wrongdoing, real or perceived.  Wrath is so destructive for everyone that it is really best avoided.  Wrath is best delivered by a higher power – be that God or karma – leaving you free to watch on with a knowing smile on your face.

Envy – Thinking how much you would like something that somebody else has got (usually ice cream in my experience) is ok.  Deciding that you would be perfectly happy to deprive them of it in order to get it, is not.  Aspiration is not a deadly sin.  Envy means that you can never be happy with what you have.  Envy makes nations go to war with nations, it makes Credit Card Companies very busy.  It makes plastic surgeons very rich.

Sloth – Find yourself a photo of a sloth.  Isn’t it the cutest animal in the world?  Who wouldn’t want to be a sloth?  Extreme lethargy and apathy can be caused by many medical conditions – usually a hangover – and can mask all manner of mental issues.  If you find yourself asleep and hanging from the door frame, seek medical help at once.

And we all have our own idea, I think, of what the eighth deadly sin should be.  I think mine would be Not Knowing When to Stop…