One of the books I bought was John Stuart Mill's essay On Liberty. I think it's the first out-and-out philosophy book I've ever purchased. I don't know if it's going to be the first of many because this is an area I've never really been interested in. I've got to start somewhere though and this was made to sound quite interesting in an online lecture I watched recently.

The other book I bought is one of Sigmund Freud's. It's called The Future of an Illusion. I know I've recently been pretty critical of psychology but it was that, and a recent conversation, which prompted me to buy this.

Mia came over and spent the evening here two days ago. A few times the conversation turned to life at sixth form and we reminisced about what happy times those were. Mia and I met in A-Level psychology and we both share similar experiences of it. She said to me, "Those lessons were such a waste of time. Do you remember how Miss Elvery would spend ages either flirting with Ash, talking about Razorlight or sharing the most boring details of her life?"
I said, "Course I do. I remember once she had been yammering away for about 15 minutes—talking about something completely irrelevant. I looked around and thought to myself 'why is nobody outraged at this?' So I said to her once, I put my hand up and said, 'Is this going to be on the exam? Should we be taking notes?' It was so inappropriate what she was doing."
Mia said, "I remember you asking that. Do you remember what happened next?"
"I don't think I do" I said. "I remember it didn't endear me to her though."
"Well she got really embarrassed" Mia said, "but then she just carried on like nothing had happened. I don't think I learnt anything in that year because she spent most of the time chatting to us."
I replied, "I was exactly the same. Exactly the same. In fact I think that all I learnt in that class was how to identify pop-culture references to the subject and why psychology jokes were funny. 'Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?' for instance. I understand why that's funny thanks to that class, but that's about it."

It's absolutely true that the class was a waste of my time, but I was thinking that it's not something I should be proud of. I don't think it's my fault that my teacher was more interested in making herself popular amongst the students than by educating us, but it would be my fault if I didn't try to do something about it now. I thought I'd start with Freud, since psychologists love him so much. It's tough to pick a starting book though, since he's notorious for being wrong about the majority of the things he has said. That and self-medicating with, and prescribing to patients, cocaine.

We'll see how it goes. It would be nice if these books were both gateways to a larger world I could enjoy learning about. If they are then I expect to fall back in to the past pattern of visiting Amazon and being bullied in to buying books I didn't even know I wanted.

For example I think I'm probably the only person ever to have gone in to a job centre and put the phrase "ipso facto" in to a sentence. The look on my advisor's face whilst he tried to reconcile my appearance with my speech was priceless. I might have looked like a simple shit-muncher but I can manoeuvre bureaucracy effortlessly.

And now here I sit. My feet are up, my slippers are on and a bacon supper is sizzling on my grill. My book's nearby, my glasses are perched on my head and Stairway to Heaven softly fills the room. You know what it feels like? It feels like Home.

I remember once asking Sam (the roomie), "If you had to listen to one song on repeat for the rest of your life, what would it be?" I've no idea what he said. I didn't really care. I only asked because I wanted him to ask me what my choice would be. My choice was Little Richard covering Johnny Cash's Get Rhythm.

The recent revelation, while walking past stranded seniors, was that this song might actually be my favourite of all time. Somehow it subconsciously rose through the ranks and now I can listen to it over and over happily. It always makes me smile and it always makes me want to sing along.

I encourage you to listen to it.

If you can't play the song, or can't see the player, you can listen to it here.

Hello!

I am one of five students living at 90 Corporation Street. My room-mates and I moved in here around last September and, having recently graduated, expect to move out within the next few weeks.

Today a man from the council knocked on our door and told us that his department had received complaints from neighbours of ours who were filing about a build-up of rubbish behind the back of our garden. The man from the council (Dave something or other) told us that this was fly-tipping and asked if we were responsible. I told him no, because we weren't.

He then asked "If I were to go through the rubbish, would I find anything linking it to you?" Again, I said no, because it's not our rubbish. He asked if we would be happy with perhaps putting the rubbish in our wheelie bins. Before I could ask "is that safe?" he read my mind and reassured me "I've had a cursory look and there are no needles." He even went further and added "There's a spade out there you can use to shovel it in to your bins." Just what I need.

My room-mate and I went out back to look at the damage, expecting to see a few torn bin bags, some cardboard that would fit in to our recycling bin etc. The kinds of things that we could reasonably clean up and put in to our bins. But that wasn't what we found.

There was a disused pool table, shelves, a shoe, some torn bags, one of those metallic poles used to air and dry clothes in a garden and other assorted trash. How we were supposed to put any of this in our bins was beyond me. Even with the spade, it is still a geometric impossibility.

Now, according to direct.gov.uk, I am warned not to a) touch the waste because obviously it could contain needles, syringes, toxic mould, asbestos, glass etc. nor am I b) to disturb the waste because it would make it more difficult in future for people to investigate where it came from.

So instead of trying to work out how I am supposed to shovel some stranger's pool-table in to my small wheelie-bin, I wanted to alert the council--I am, after all, reasonably assured that cleaning up fly-tipping is the council's job and not the person who happens to live next door to it--and also highlight the way the council worker who visited us tried to imply that it was our responsibility and that, despite the frightening dangers of plunging our hands in to who-knows-what mess, we should remove it.

Thank you for your consideration on this matter.

Yours faithfully, Phil.

If you're a boy then you know the answer already. He might be a little pissed off, he might feel insecure, jealous or envious. Or he might not care. It might make no difference whatsoever. It has the potential to be a small problem or no problem at all. It's certainly not going to be a deal-breaker.

Now imagine the girlfriend gets drunk one night and has sex with a stranger she meets at a party. Now all bets are off. The boyfriend could break it off with her, he could become violent, angry, he might even do something drastic. It's not uncommon to see horrific stories on the news that are motivated by sexual jealousy. Compared to the first hypothetical, this has a strong chance of ending badly.

The conclusion? Boys feel more strongly about sexual encounters than they do about emotional ones. If you're a girl then you can be best friends with other boys. That's not going to cause too many headaches. Having sex with another boy on the other hand is going to cause headaches. Things will probably never be the same again.

I've always known this. For years I've known it intuitively and I've seen it. I've never experienced it first-hand but, like any deep thinker with too much time on his hands, I've imagined how I might feel about certain scenarios. Sexual infidelity is always the most severe.

At a younger age I also learnt that the opposite was true for women. Fellas, can you believe that women are likely to be more upset at you if your best friend is another girl, as opposed to you getting drunk and doing something stupid with her? I know, it makes no sense.

I remember once discussing the issue with an ex-girlfriend. We were walking down the street together. I've no idea how the topic came up but I remember telling her how any reasonable person must surely regard sexual indiscretion as the most severe breach of trust. She said no, no, no. Sex doesn't mean anything. Emotional connections though, those are the really important details.

I understood her in theory, but in practice? Sorry, there's no reasoning with millions of years of evolution. Or so I thought. At the time I had no idea where the difference came from. As always though, looking at the instincts as adaptations took away all the mystery.

You've got to remember, whenever a behaviour or a trait is shared by vast numbers of a population, there's probably an evolutionary reason for it. To figure out the reason you've got to go back to the data. In this case that means the circumstances under which life flourished in the EEA—the Era of Evolutionary Adaptiveness. I mentioned this in my last blog entry. It's the time and place to which evolution suited our bodies and our brains.

So jump back 200,000 years. Let's say there are two couples, the Rubbles and the Flintstones. The Rubbles have no jealous tendencies whatsoever and don't feel territorial over one another. If Barney cheats on Betty, she doesn't mind and vice-versa. The Flintstones however are very jealous. Just as in love but they're not willing to share each other.

Before I continue, let's establish one thing. Men and women cheat. There are evolutionary explanations for why these tendencies arose—different reasons for each gender—but they're not worth going in to. It happens, or else there would have been no reason for jealously to evolve. Just accept it and move on.

Imagine that one day Betty begins a sexual relationship with Fred. Betty has no intention of leaving Barney, she just wants to have sex with both men. Barney makes no effort to stop her. Nine months later, Betty gives birth. The baby is Fred's, but nobody knows this. Barney assumes the child is his and raises him as such. Barney's indifference to his wife's sexual infidelity has resulted in him expending time and energy in to raising another man's baby. Barney's indifferent genes are not being passed on to future generations because they allow his wife to have other men's babies.

Imagine that one day Barney develops a close personal relationship with Wilma. They aren't sleeping together, but he feels a closeness to her that could rival what he feels for Betty. Betty makes no effort to keep Barney and Wilma apart. Eventually Barney decides to leave Betty in an effort to be with Wilma. Betty has no way of fending for herself and her illegitimate child, resulting in them both dying. Betty's indifference has prevented her un-jealous genes from being passed on.

You don't have to assume that both examples occurred at the same time. Either one of them would result in passive males or females not passing on their genes. Barney's indifference to Betty's sexual forays kept his genes from spreading, while Betty's nonchalance regarding Barney's emotional endeavours kept her genes from spreading. Thus passivity would not spread quickly.

Now let's turn to the jealous Flintstones. Wilma begins flirting with Barney as a prelude to a sexual rendezvous. Fred stamps it out quickly and demands that Wilma cease her cuckoldry. She complies and doesn't have a relationship with Barney. Nine months later Wilma has a baby. It can only be Fred's. Fred's jealous genes kept Wilma from cheating and they have spread to the next generation.

Fred begins to get close to Betty. They talk on the... phone... for hours and become very involved. Wilma puts a stop to that shit pronto and tells Fred to keep his eyes on her. Fred complies. He continues to care for his wife and child, ensuring that Wilma's jealous genes continue in to the next generation.

Once again this shows how sexual jealously on the male part can keep his genes in contention for survival and how a female's jealously of emotional bonds between her husband and another woman can keep the husband from deserting her and her baby. Incidentally, this is also the same reason women compete with one another.

I wrote a while back that I couldn't for the life of me figure out why women compete with each other. Women put on make-up, they get fake tans, they beautify themselves endlessly. Why? Men already want you. It turns out they do it to keep their men from leaving them and their gene-filled children to die alone. It's not just about attracting a man—which any woman can do—it's about keeping him.

To complete the prehistoric metaphor, let's return to the Flintstones and see what happens when each person commits the "lesser" kind of cheating. Remember men don't care much if a girl develops a relationship with another man and women care a lot less if a man has sex with another girl (which still sounds ridiculous every time I say it.)

So Wilma and Fred have a child and they're all happy. Let's imagine Wilma gets close to Barney. They aren't having sex—Fred already put a stop to that—but they're very friendly. Well so what? Wilma is still caring for her child, meaning Fred's genes continue to the next generation whether or not he intervenes. He doesn't, because he has no reason to. Men didn't have to evolve to care who a woman spends her time with, just who else she's sleeping with.

Now for the opposite view. Fred isn't going to leave Wilma for Betty, meaning he's not going to leave Wilma's child to die, but he is going to sleep with Betty. Again, so what? Wilma's genes survive because she doesn't have to care who Fred sleeps with. It's only a problem if Fred leaves her. If Fred has kids with Betty and he makes Barney raise them then Wilma doesn't lose anything.

It might undermine my point by using the Flintstones and the Rubbles to comedic effect but it shouldn't. If you can follow the trains of thought then you should see how a man's sexual jealously kept his own genes propagating and how a woman's emotional jealousy kept her husband from deserting her.

But this isn't to say that we shouldn't feel hurt if our significant others cheat on us, even if it's the lesser form of cheating. We're complex animals. We feel, we hurt. It's very natural to feel pain when we're deceived. Knowing a little about where these instincts come from though might be the first step to controlling them.

Here's an example of how we can overcome our genetic dispositions. A man's genes tell him—at all hours of the day—go and have sex with something. Why? Because these genes lead to lots of babies. So what do men do today? They have as much sex as they can. But they wear condoms. 200,000 years ago, obeying my genes would have gotten me a bunch of kids. Today I can obey my genes and not have to worry about kids.

Our genes will always be feeding out instincts and our baser urges. That doesn't mean we have to be slaves to them. We can overpower them and control them. This is why not all people cheat, why we use birth control and why we're nice when nobody is looking. One day I hope we can learn to control our emotional response too. It would certainly make the evening news far more pleasant.

Even if you ask older people—those that remember getting along just fine without Google and on-demand porn—then their answers will still be skewed by personal experience. Water-treatment facilities, proper sewage systems, these are all the things that helped get us out of the mud and in to the life of relative luxury. And they're decent nominations for Best Invention Ever.

But do you know what I think deserves a mention? Something that's never given consideration? Glasses. Now I don't wear glasses—not very often, anyway—but I know that one day I will and I'll need them and I'll very grateful for them.

It's an unfortunate consequence of evolution that our brains have evolved much faster than the rest of us. They've matured us as a species to to point where we can communicate, cooperate and thrive; living to ages that evolution did not prepare our bodies for. We used to die at about 25 years old. If you had an underlying medical condition in those days then it didn't matter. Brain tumour? Schizophrenia? High blood pressure? Not an issue. We all died young.

One condition that all early humans would have developed anyway is called Presbyopia. If you're over 40 and you need glasses to read, this is what you've got. It's caused by a natural deterioration of your eyes. As sure as you're going to have wrinkles and grey hair one day, you're going to have this.

But this shouldn't come as a surprise. Not unless you believe God created you. If that's the case than you should be given pause to wonder why he installed your eyeballs upside down, back to front and in steady decline. Anybody that understands how evolution works needn't be shocked. Back in the Pleistocence—or the Era of Evolutionary Adaptedness, as it's sometimes called—survival didn't depend on reading. Certainly not at old age.

But with discoveries and breakthroughs—sometimes insightful and sometimes painful—our species began to grow. We stretched far beyond the meagre age of 20 and began living to riper years. By this point though we had stopped evolving. Our adrenaline glands weren't going to get any smaller, our pre-frontal lobes weren't going to get any larger and our thumb/forefinger opposition wasn't going to improve. The die had been cast and these were the bodies we were stuck with.

Fast-forward to today. We live in societies that have been and continue to be enriched by the written word. We write to communicate with others, we read to learn about the world and we use our eyesight to navigate a world that would have been alien to our ancestors.

Now imagine a world without glasses. Once you get to 40 it's game over. You can't read, you can't write, you completely lose touch with the world and you are left behind. We should all be so thankful that there is no longer a clock hanging around our necks, counting down the number of days that we can continue to learn from books, or write our thoughts down so that in years to come people might know we were here.

You might think this is just a moot point; glasses were always inevitable. "There's no point in imagining a world without them because they'd have been invented by somebody sooner or later." As far as I'm concerned, this just underlines their importance.

Do you know who Cesc Fàbregas is? He's currently the captain of Arsenal Football Club, he just won the World Cup with Spain and Barcelona are willing to spend at least £30 million on him. He's five months younger than me. Sports can be so depressing.

I think this calls for a sausage and egg barm. Or "roll" for all you southerners.

My babies are going to have secular naming events. And they aren't having god-parents. They will have mentors and guardians. There will be no hymns, no prayers and no church. Don't religious traditions seem much more fun when you take all the religion away?

This is exactly the sort of thing that would be discussed in my A-Level psychology classes. Well not this subject matter, but some behaviour would be identified and then we'd have to argue over what causes it.

Well Freud said that pretty much everything is caused by unrequited love for a parent or from childhood trauma, so all the people that have low self-esteem must have... No, behaviourism says that humans learn behaviours through reinforcement and so as a society we must be in the habit or urging less attractive women to maximise their options by being total... No, no, no, cognitivism says all humans are born with innate faculties which shape our reasoning and leads ugly women to...

And on and on. I mentioned how completely marginalised evolution was in these discussions, didn't I? I think that one substitute teacher we once had actually believed that dinosaurs and humans co-existed, so you can see just how little stress is placed on human history.

But, as usual, looking at a problem through from a biological point of view will solve everything. If some humans are more promiscuous than others then you can bet that there's a gene, or a combination of genes, which leads to different grades of promiscuity. You could have genes to make you sexually conservative or genes that make you very popular in secondary school.

But why do the good-looking girls seem to have more of the conservative genes? Natural selection to the rescue.

Two million years ago when we were evolving in Africa, making sure you mated with strong partners was a big deal. If you had sex with a loser then you'd have loser babies. How are loser babies going to survive on the Savannah? With great difficulty. So it is in the best interest of your genes that you choose carefully.

If you're a good-looking primate then you'll have a lot of options. All the boy primates will want to show you how worthy they are so they'll compete to show you their strengths. One might demonstrate his intelligence by showing you that he has figured out how the seasons work, and how he can predict where and when abundant food will grow. Another might demonstrate his strength by killing an animal and offering it as a gift. You get the picture. If you're sexy then all boys desperately want to commingle their genes with yours.

This means that the choosier that sexy girls are, the better chances they have of having successful offspring. Less attractive girls on the other hand can't afford to be so choosy. If they're too picky—we're still on the African plains, remember, not here and now—then nobody is going to spend too much time competing for them. So the ugly girls that are choosy die out without passing on their genes. The ugly girls who aren't choosy though will manage to get lots of sex—because male genes are screaming "have sex with all of them!"—and ugly, slutty genes will spread in the gene-pool.

So for the next two million years you see good-looking girls taking their time over choosing a partner and being rewarded for it with the strongest possible kids. Less attractive women are rewarded for their indiscriminate approach to sex by having babies with the first man they can get.

This is why I hesitated to use the term self-esteem earlier. It has nothing to do with self-esteem. In fact I'm not even sure there is such a thing. Genes that tell a girl "you're pretty" have a high chance of being paired with genes that tell her "don't jump in to bed with any old guy". Genes that tell a girl she's not very attractive have a good chance of being paired with genes that say "have lots of sexual partners".

Psychology classes could really do with setting aside Freud and Jung for a while and listening to what Darwin and Mendel had to say.