The Aardvark Blog

Why We Do What We Do
18/09/2024

As one gets older and hopefully just a little wiser, one finds oneself starting to think about motivation (our own and other people's) and what it is that leads people to do the things that they do, for good and ill.

Recently I discovered a new author - Kevin Wignall (see bookshop.org list ) - who specialises in psychological thrillers. It has been a long time since I came across an author in that genre who can both plot, produce believable characters, and write well. One of his clear fascinations is making his characters examine their own actions - they may be spies or assassins but theirs are not unexamined lives.

Curiously I may have mentioned that the best book by far that I have read this year is by Michael Lewis (he of "Liar's Poker" fame). Called "The Undoing Project", it is ostensibly the story of two groundbreaking Israeli experimental psychologists. However what it is really about is the difficulty that all humans have in evaluating evidence, deciding whether the evidence they have is enough to use for decision making, and being humble enough to know when we don't truly know. In other words, why do we do what we do, and what makes us think that what we do is entirely rational, when all too often it plainly isn't.

It is strangely true that the best generals are not necessarily the bravest or the brightest, but often those who can tread most lightly across the facts that confront them. Think of Yeats' "Long Legged Fly": knowing each piece of evidence, but not attaching too much weight to any particular fact.

And perhaps the greatest mystery of all is why people who care, really really care. As a wise person once said to me, you can pay someone to show up, but you can't pay them to care. That comes from inside, and is not a matter of Pounds, Euros or Dollars.

And so it is that last weekend found Katie Johnson of the famous Wots Cooking demo team, laughing and joking with the cooks and celebrities at the Ludlow Food Festival even though it was less than three weeks on from her having been hospitalised with a life- threatening bout of sepsis. As her doctor said to her last week, "Katie, I am not sure you realise how seriously ill you were!"  And yet there she was at Ludlow, because she cares and because she didn't want to let anyone down.

And speaking of Ludlow, what a pleasure it was for us again to act as Festival Bookseller for the Ludlow Food Festival's 30th edition, with so many brilliant and talented cooks and authors. Ethel is still talking about her hug from Vito, but that's another matter. We have a full table of signed copies of the books from the Festival in the shop for those who couldn't get to the Festival and Lucy has done a list of all the available titles on Bookshop.Org.