2006-12-24 - 12:04 a.m.

Back to anonymity.

I'm just watching a Radiohead DVD and flicking through the lyrics to OK Computer. I forget how humanist the lyrics are, even when the music is so superficially alienating.

I think that you could say that characterises a lot of my favourite musicians and writers - that humanist influence. By humanist, I mean they look at the world sometimes wryly, sometimes dryly, but always with compassion. Laughing with people, not at them. Like Bill Bryson - I read 'Neither Here Nor There' again last night, one of his books on travelling through Europe. There is a lot of humour in there, including some laugh out loud moments (and I'm not really someone who laughs out loud at books a lot) - but most of the humour is very self-deprecating, as much aimed at the juxtaposition between the middle-aged, plump American/English traveller and the locals, rather than patronising or sneering at the people he meets.

Terry Pratchett is another writer, this time of fiction, who has some absurdist, not particularly likeable characters - but always writes for them in a sympathetic tone. Witness his Death, bumbling in a way, but naive and innocent also - without malice.

I am beginning to think that I have a very low tolerance for malice. There are some people at work whom I get along very well with, and would admire highly... were it not for their bitchiness. I listen to them finding the worst in people and I guess it diminishes my opinion of them. On the other hand, there are very few people (I can think of two I've met) who always try and think the best, and who try and live by the phrase 'if you can't think of anything nice to say, then don't say anything'.

I try and live up to that, but fail oftener than I would like.

It bothers me that the words for malicious gossip are 'feminine' words - bitchiness, cattiness. I can't think of a gender neutral term which describes the joy in criticising people. Yet my experience is that it is as often men as women who delight in downfall, rumour and innuendo. Sadly, it sometimes seems to me that they are the same people who are 'successful' in the eyes of the community.

It is a hard thing, but a worthy thing, to try and live life positively and optimistically - to believe the best of people and to recognise that everyone has their good points.

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