An Interview with Julia Hones

 

In June, before The Luck Illusion was published, I contacted Julia Hones with a casual enquiry about a possible review. Julia offered me the chance of an interview later in the year. It has now appeared on her blog, My Writing Life.

Julia has gathered a wealth of book reviews, author interviews and other writing across many genres. I felt privileged that she was willing to include my serious nonfiction book among them, and to give its ideas room for more than a brief description.

The interview explores why I began questioning what we mean when we call someone lucky or unlucky. I explain how teaching children from very different backgrounds shaped my thinking, and how living in Bulgaria brought me closer to people whose prospects were shaped by circumstances beyond their control. Running a smallholding and later dealing with cancer gave me further reasons to examine the part played by effort, timing and events we cannot foresee.

There is more personal ground, too. I talk about why I chose to tell Walsdos’s story within a nonfiction book, how I came to enjoy writing after years of finding it a chore, and the rather unsuccessful warning my father gave me about becoming a dustbin man if I did not read. The interview also touches on the books and writers that have influenced me and on what I am writing now.

Thank you, Julia, for the invitation and for making space for The Luck Illusion on My Writing Life. You can read the full interview here.

Scepticism and the Freedom to Think

The older I get, the more sceptical I become. I want to think there is some wisdom involved, although much of what I have learnt has come through making mistakes, sometimes with consequences that could have prevented me from getting any older at all.

Almost drowning while trying to save a friend’s life, receiving an electric shock through my own ignorance of DIY and getting through depression have given me plenty to reflect upon. At the time, you are occupied with what is happening to you. The thinking comes afterwards, when you begin to understand how close you came and how little you understood beforehand. Having survived enough of my own mistakes, I am cautious about claiming wisdom and can only hope that I have learnt something along the way.

One consequence has been a gradual loss of trust. There are only a couple of people in this world whom I trust completely, which is perhaps a sad thing to admit. This distrust has developed over the years, almost without my noticing, as experience has given me reasons to question what people say and the confidence with which they say it. These days, information passed on without any apparent questioning often meets with more contempt from me than it probably deserves.

Writing has added to this. When you spend time considering the words you use, you become more aware of what you can do with them. An account can be perfectly readable and persuasive while leaving out something that would change your understanding. I find myself questioning what I read, wondering how the writer knows and whether the certainty on the page is justified. This can make reading a rather uncomfortable occupation.

Most of my reading has been to find information and understand subjects that interest me. My starting point as a writer is usually something I have witnessed or experienced, or a thought that has grown out of ordinary life and refused to leave me alone. I then look further into it, because my experience will only have shown me part of what there is to understand.

Having spent less time absorbed in other writers’ work, I would like to think that my ideas have had some room to develop in their own way. How original they are is difficult to judge, especially when I consider how much I will have absorbed through everyday life. I generally begin with a question of my own and follow it as far as I can. Whether the result feels fresh is ultimately for the reader to decide.

My scepticism is less comfortable in conversation. I tend to ask where somebody obtained their information, and the answer is often that another person told them, or that they heard it on television. I am then left wondering about the source, while the person I am speaking to may feel that I have questioned their ability to judge what they hear.

I can see how this rubs people up the wrong way. Nobody enjoys feeling that an ordinary conversation has become an examination, and I am sure there are occasions when I could put my questions more gently. Agreeing to keep everybody comfortable is difficult for me, especially when an opinion is presented as fact.

The news is a constant source of this unease. It is blared out day and night, with the same stories and interpretations repeated until they become familiar enough to pass into everyday conversation. I wonder how often we mistake that familiarity for understanding, or how much we could explain about the basis of a story we have heard so many times.

My misgivings about the news concern the political interests behind it and the opportunities it gives those who want control and power. Even an accurate report involves decisions about what to include and how to present it. I find it difficult to believe that those decisions can always be separated from the interests of the people involved. What we are encouraged to be angry about deserves examination, as does what barely receives a mention.

It is a shame more people do not question this, although I include myself when I say that an account that suits our existing views can escape the scrutiny we would give one we dislike. The same questions about honesty apply to any alternative source we turn to. If I am going to ask where information comes from, I have to ask even when I am pleased by what I hear.

I value the freedom of thought that scepticism allows. Being able to consider something for myself gives me room to write about the things that trouble or interest me, including those which other people appear to have settled to their own satisfaction.

There are difficulties in living with doubt so habitual that trust has little chance of surviving. I can miss something worth hearing because I have already become suspicious of the person saying it. People can tire of having their opinions questioned and come away feeling that I have dismissed them. I need to consider how often my wish to think independently has that effect, and how sound my own judgement is on those occasions.

For all its difficulties, I would be reluctant to lose my scepticism—the prospect of having my thoughts directed by people whose interests I do not share troubles me deeply. Whenever I accuse others of following like sheep, I ought to consider how willingly I might follow a direction I already approve of.

I want to keep asking where the information came from and what grounds there are for believing it. I also need to listen properly to the answer. After all these years of questioning other people, I hope I can remain willing to give my own thinking the same attention.