Introduction
You often confront a world shaken by political turmoil and the psychological strain of growing older. Navigating this uncertainty leaves you searching for stability amid global chaos. Jan Morris addresses this search in Thinking Again through a series of late-life diary reflections and essays.
The central thesis of the book holds that personal routines, enduring human kindness, and ancient regional identities provide a steadfast psychological anchor against global chaos and the trials of extreme old age. Morris demonstrates how private rituals and simple grace outlast the noise of modern history.
The book is structured into reflections on daily survival, cultural memory, political observation, and the discipline of aging. You will discover answers to several enduring questions as you read:
- How can daily habits protect your mind from modern chaos?
- What role does language play in preserving historical memory?
- Why do simple acts of kindness matter more than grand political schemes?
- How do you maintain personal dignity through the physical decline of extreme age?
1. Routine and Kindness Amid Chaos
Personal rituals offer psychological stability against global uncertainty, while kindness remains the most effective virtue for navigating human struggles.
Jan Morris argues that compulsive daily rituals, such as touching wood, reading before sleep, or adhering to strict walking habits, offer a sense of order and security. You can rely on these habits to anchor your mind when external events threaten your peace.
The author performs a daily walk regardless of the weather and strictly consumes specific marmalade on designated days. These small acts create a predictable structure that neutralizes unpredictable external turmoil.
Daily Superstitions
Minor superstitions and physical routines provide a comforting psychological anchor in everyday life. You may find that keeping exact patterns in your morning or evening gives you control over a chaotic environment.
- Compulsive rituals like touching wood offer immediate mental security.
- Strict walking habits maintain physical and mental stability.
- Scheduled consumption of specific items reinforces daily order.
The Power of Goodness
Amid widespread political turbulence and human cruelty, kindness serves as the pathway and ultimate destination through human struggles. You discover that goodness requires no elaborate philosophy to guide your daily choices.
The author finishes reading a 960-page edition of Anna Karenina translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude. That specific volume bears a receipt from a 1999 bookstore purchase costing 22.79 dollars, with Anna's suicide occurring on page 905.
Concluding this narrative, the author reflects on the character Nicholas Levin, who finds philosophical clarity under the stars. This moment mirrors the overarching theme that kindness is the ultimate answer to life's complex mysteries.
Kindness serves as its own supreme moral compass, independent of changing dogmas, creeds, or formal religious institutions. As traditional religious certainties fade, adherence to simple goodness offers the only reliable route through the world's confusions.
The author champions kindness by quoting prophetic texts and political figures like New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. You can join this informal Party of Kindness to navigate personal and societal divisions without relying on an elegant variation of moral rules.
2. Language, Art, and Memory
Etymologies and Language Games
Modern vocabulary carries historical echoes that reach back across centuries. Exploring modern vocabulary, the author traces the evolution of the term algorithm, noting its historical connection to problem-solving rules and mathematical notation.
The word algorithm originates from the ninth-century surname of Abu Ja’far Mohammed Ben Musa. You can consult the fourteen volumes of the big Oxford dictionary downstairs to trace how words morph algorithmically over time.
Language can also serve as a playful private code. The author illustrates a coded linguistic exercise called Desperanto, where English phrases are condensed into letter and number homophones for humorous communication.
The author's son Twm introduces a lesson titled In the Café featuring dialogue lines like I.C.U.R.B.C. You can use similar letter substitutions to turn ordinary conversation into an amusing cipher.
Warped Memories and Environmental Art
Extreme old age can blur the boundaries of memory, causing genuine confusion between real-life experiences and fiction. The author notes that a professional reliance on memory can subtly warp past recollections, turning real encounters into untraceable anecdotes or merging them with imagination.
The author cannot find written evidence in archives of a suspicious encounter with a suspected KGB agent on a snowy Russian train or of a visit to a Red Air Force pilot in Leningrad who had not made his bed. These events occurred during travels in the Soviet Union in the 1940s, roughly forty or fifty years ago.
Grand royal weddings often provoke public cynicism regarding excessive expenditure and sycophancy. Reflecting on royal nuptials over the decades, the author contrasts the overwhelming public display with a republican distaste for preposterous flummery.
The author published critical letters in The Times regarding the royal weddings of 1981 and 2011. You can inspect the public record on 29 July 1981 and 22 April 2011 to see these exact critical notices.
Large-scale environmental art projects can be viewed as virtuoso baloney lacking genuine aesthetic substance.
While acknowledging the audacity and commercial success of installation artists like Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the author dismisses temporary landscape wrappings and floating barrel structures as purposeless exercises. Born in 1935, Christo collaborated with Jeanne-Claude until her death in 2009 to produce monumental visual spectacles.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude created installations involving thousands of fabric gates in Central Park, wrapped shorelines, and floating barrel structures named The London Mastaba. The London Mastaba installation on the Serpentine relied on 7,506 barrels.
Other ambitious works reveal astonishing physical scales:
- a 24-mile-long wrapped strip of land in California;
- a German inflatable object visible from a distance of 25 kilometres;
- an expenditure of 400,000 dollars spent on fabric in Colorado;
- 14,000 square metres of cloth hung in the Rocky Mountains;
- 29,000 tons of concrete supporting the Colorado valley project;
- 7,000-odd saffron fabric gates arranged in Central Park.
3. Politics, Civility, and Universal Solace
Direct referendums generate political quagmires, yet international culture and civil manners offer powerful solaces against societal division.
Democratic Tangles
Simple political questions often mask immense complexities. When you ask voters a straightforward yes-or-no question without accounting for deep consequences, the result can be a disorienting mess.
The British public voted in a straightforward referendum to leave the European Union, plunging the country into a disorienting political quagmire. The author argues that Brexit plunged Britain into ignominy because a straightforward democratic choice failed to account for immense political and economic complexities. Protesters proposed a five-year-old timeframe for another referendum to resolve the split in what the author describes as a dis-United States.
Football and Public Decency
Global sports can unite populations across hostile borders. International football acts as a universal solace that transcends borders, diffuses racial prejudice, and fosters a sense of shared human comradeship.
During the 2018 World Cup, the global tournament provided a shared sense of community. The author observes that massive crowds at international tournaments are passionately enthusiastic yet unvindictive when beaten, largely because players are internationally traded and multi-ethnic. Association football rules were first codified in Warwickshire, England, in 1863.
Good manners should govern public life even when you confront controversial leaders. Critics in London prepared a nearly twenty-foot-tall balloon portraying President Trump as an angry napped baby during his state visit. The author disagrees with using crude public mockery against visiting foreign leaders like Donald Trump, maintaining that diplomatic grace and personal courtesy are more valuable standards.
Local communities once possessed distinct and self-sufficient cultural identities. Porthmadog transformed from a coastal village into a thriving port with its own shipyards, businesses, navigation school, and town orchestra. Reflecting on photographs of the Welsh port town of Porthmadog from its 1820s to 1920s heyday, the author notes a vibrant local society built on slate quarrying, civic bands, and strong linguistic traditions. A 1905 Tremadog Board school photograph captures fifty performers in the town orchestra, displaying the creative buoyancy of identity.
4. Aging, Discipline, and Identity
Strict physical routines and personal insignia help preserve stability, even as advanced age and caregiving bring profound challenges.
The Burden of Long Life
People are living too long in the modern world, creating a strain comparable to climate change. You might feel well past your sell-by date when reaching ninety-two or ninety-three years old after being born in 1926. The earth would often be better if people left earlier, while explicitly rejecting euthanasia and officious interference.
Arthur Clough wrote his poem in 1861 about not striving officiously to keep alive. You can apply that poetic line first to an aging grandfather clock and then to yourself.
Living with a partner suffering from dementia can insidiously affect the caregiver, leading to moments of cruel exasperation. While caregivers generally manage well, the frustration of repetitive interactions and ruptured communication can provoke unexpected moments of cruelty and guilt in the partner of the afflicted.
You might experience moments of demonic takeover in behavior and language when dealing with dementia symptoms.
Displaying physical infirmity in public immediately brings out the fundamental decency and kindness of strangers. When walking with a wobbly balance and using a stick, everyday people, drivers, and youths consistently step forward to offer help, proving that the human race prefers to be decent.
Gigantic lorries stop, uncouth youths hold doors open, and harridans offer queue gaps simply upon seeing a walking stick.
Rigorous Discipline and Badges of Belonging
Strict adherence to physical and mental routines, such as daily walking counts, provides stability and spiritual exercise through old age. Regardless of severe weather or advancing age, maintaining a strict discipline of pacing thousands of steps preserves a sense of control and resilience against external chaos.
When a howling hurricane prevented outdoor walking, the author completed a thousand paces by marching around the cluttered two floors of the house at ninety-two years old.
You can follow specific steps to maintain physical resilience:
- Count a statutory thousand paces of brisk walk daily.
- Adapt the route indoors around furniture if severe weather prevents outdoor walking.
- Maintain rhythm using mental music or whistled tunes.
Personal identity and loyalty can be anchored by physical insignia that represent a lifelong journey through distinct historical and educational institutions. You can observe this in a custom-made blazer bearing two rare crests: Christ Church College, Oxford, and the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers of the British Army.
The author shares a blazer given as a Christmas present that features both the Christ Church cardinal's hat insignia and the regimental crest of the 9th Lancers. This commemorates history from the 1525 founding year of Christ Church College through to 1936 when the author became a child chorister, 1945 when the author became an undergraduate at Oxford and served in Italy, and 1960 when the 9th Lancers lost their independent identity under the motto we do not retreat.
10 Key Ideas
- Compulsive daily rituals, such as touching wood, reading before sleep, or adhering to strict walking habits, offer a sense of order and security to anchor your mind against global uncertainty.
- Amid widespread political turbulence and human cruelty, simple goodness serves as the ultimate moral compass and pathway through human struggles.
- Modern vocabulary carries historical echoes that reach back across centuries, while language can also serve as a playful private code like the Desperanto exercise.
- Extreme old age can blur the boundaries of memory, causing genuine confusion between real-life experiences and fiction.
- Large-scale environmental art projects can be viewed as virtuoso baloney lacking genuine aesthetic substance.
- Direct referendums generate political quagmires when a straightforward democratic choice fails to account for immense political and economic complexities.
- International football acts as a universal solace that transcends borders, diffuses racial prejudice, and fosters a sense of shared human comradeship.
- Living with a partner suffering from dementia can insidiously affect the caregiver, leading to moments of cruel exasperation and guilt.
- Strict adherence to physical and mental routines, such as daily walking counts, provides stability and spiritual exercise through old age.
- Local communities once possessed distinct and self-sufficient cultural identities, such as the Welsh port town of Porthmadog built on slate quarrying, civic bands, and strong linguistic traditions.