On Being Annoying

Sometimes people just need to be downright irritating, says Tom Hodgkinson

We’re all aware of philosophical tracts and essays which start with the word “on”. Montaigne was the master of these. “On Sleep”, “On Names”, “On Thumbs” and “On A Monstrous Child” are a few examples. The “on” is sometimes translated as “of” and that’s because the Latin word “De” is used in essay titles, as in “De Profundis” by Oscar Wilde.

Renaissance essays and tracts often used the “de” word. There’s a very successful heavy metal band which gets its name from a 1556 book called “De Re Metallica”, meaning “on metallic things”.

There’s also a farming guidebook by Columella, who lived around 70 BC, called “De Re Rustica”. This gave me the idea of starting a folk band with heavy metal influences called Rustica, but I could not convince anyone else of the brilliance of this scheme. I did however use a lot of Columella’s quotes as source material for my slightly strange husbandry manual, Brave Old World (now retitled How to Live in the Country, in a futile attempt to get more sales).

This philosophical naming custom seems to originate with the Ancient Greeks. A good proportion of Aristotle’s essays begin with “on”. We have “On Memory”, “On Sleep”, “On Virtues and Vices” and the lovely “On Marvellous Things Heard”.

The literary shrink Adam Phillips played with this idea with his wittily titled collection, On Tickling, Kissing and Being Bored. And Virginia Woolf wrote an essay called “On Being Ill”.

But among all these “ons” and “ofs”, I don’t remember ever reading a philosophical tract called “On Being Annoying”.

This is strange because if there’s one besetting sin of philosophers and writers and artists of all sorts it’s that they’re really irritating. Socrates was so annoying that the Athenians voted to have him executed. His wife Xanthippe found him totally infuriating. He was always philosophising, and flirting with Alcibiades, and never earning any money. She supposedly tipped a chamber pot over his head in her fury at his annoying ways, a scene that became a favourite subject for Renaissance artists, and was celebrated by Chaucer’s Wife of Bath.

And Socrates referred to himself as the “gadfly of Athens”.

That shows wisdom and self-knowledge. I notice, speaking personally, that though I find other people really annoying, all the time, it rarely occurs to me that they might find me annoying. In my own mind, I am a perfectly rational and considerate being who never irritates anyone else.

My children, thankfully, are quick to disabuse me of my self-delusion. “You’re so ANNOYING!” shouts my daughter when I persist in arguing a point beyond the level of endurance, or when I interrupt, or when I talk about myself incessantly, or when I know better than everyone else, or when I repeat the same old boring opinion or the same old boring anecdote for the millionth time, or do something else really annoying.

I suppose that, seen from a certain angle, annoyingness can be good. Gandhi was really annoying. He annoyed Churchill. “It is alarming and nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir… striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal Palace.” But Gandhi liberated India. And the Suffragettes were annoying. They were terrorists. They caused all kinds of upset. But their irritating tactics and persistence worked.

I confess to being annoying when pursuing well known people for interviews or to write articles in the Idler. But I do it because I think the magazine will benefit.

So I suppose in this proposed essay, I could distinguish between “good annoying” and “bad annoying”, since if the people annoyed are the oppressors, then that’s “good annoying”. Or if the annoyingness leads to an artistic creation that people enjoy, that’s also good annoying. But if the people annoyed are one’s own friends and family members (as is the case with me), then that’s “bad annoying”.

What about you? Are you ever annoying? Or are you more annoyed? Please write and let me know your thoughts.

SELECTED COMMENTS

These comments were mailed to us after an earlier version of this piece was sent out as a newsletter. We like to publish a selection and reserve the right to edit them for clarity. Feel free to drop us a line with your thoughts.

Sir: Albrecht Durer’s wife (in the 15th century) was annoyed at how long he spent in the art studio and used to scold him. She also used to spy on him through a knot-hole in the studio wall to see what he was really doing in there. She didn’t like his art and distrusted the whole “game”. This I found out from studying his notebooks as a student – long ago. Of course, AD was busy at breaking the mould of centuries of medieval art, which was mostly religious, for patrons wanting triptychs and icons for altarpieces – and he was taking his art outside, to sketch the natural world (never done before – the violets, the hare, fir-trees, his own hands…), thus singlehandedly bringing in the Renaissance.
Katherine Pierpoint

Sir: Best gig I ever went to was Metallica playing “in the round” in Brum. Now I know where the name came from.
David Priestman

Sir: The distinction should be between “annoyingly annoying” and “not annoyingly annoying”. I was chairing the Technical Advisory Committee on the Welsh basic income pilot this morning. And I am sure many of my points were annoyingly annoying.
Guy Standing, author and basic income campaigner

Sir: I have a real fear about being perceived as annoying, which I think results sometimes in a disabling reticence. Of course my son would say otherwise (but then our mere existence means we annoy our offspring, otherwise they might end up as dreadful carbon-copies). One of the great “On” essays is, of course, “On Bullshit” by Harry Frankfurt.
Pete Penny

Sir: Pretty sure I’m on both sides of the “annoying” coin – bad when insisting on playing Tom Waits, PiL and “Kamiza” by Joanna Mattrey when other members of the family are in the house, and good when I insist on being awkward with authority by questioning and rebelling against the expected direction of travel – one of the reasons I choose to work part time is to pay less tax and haven’t really been back to office proper since 2015. But as to things that you do that annoy me… (my problem, not yours) I take a view that the only thing worse than a ukulele is a drumming circle – probably seeing the “Motheruckers'”at Larmer Tree and a truly terrible version of “Anarchy in the UK” turned me against that stringed instrument of the devil.
Gary Finch

Sir: I am undoubtedly annoying, but not as annoying as my new colleague. I put together a presentation that I thought was pretty clear. My annoying colleague came back with 20 questions. Not a couple of questions – actually 20 questions. She expects me to sit and type out answers to all of them! To return the annoyance I added a link to each question of the Google search result for that question.
Tyron

Sir: I have a copy of your Brave Old World, and recently bought How to Live in the Country, not realising that a) it was the same book, or b) that I had read it. In fact, I all but finished it before it started to become a bit too familiar. So, your futile attempt to get more sales worked on me and while I should probably be quite annoyed, I’ll let you off.
Steve Bithell

Sir: We are all annoying. I am easily annoyed. Also: it is easy to criticise. This is very important to remember and to remind oneself regularly and everyone else!
Susie Medley

Sir: What an annoying email.
John Stephen

Sir: Many years ago I titled an essay “The Philosopher is an Asshole.” That was my 20-year-old self wanting to grab the reader’s attention. But it was also, as you point out, an observation of what a real philosopher does to most people: wakes them up from their dreams to discover what is real. That is annoying to most people. If we discover what is truly true and really real, then we cannot ever go back to our old life of denial and dreaming. My present-time self sees that if a person is not ready to look at something, then they’re not ready to look at it. You can’t force people to change; you can’t force people to wake up. There is no healing in that. I’ve learned to wake up myself (a moment-to-moment endeavor) and allow people to be where they’re at. And I’ve noticed something: as I allow people to be where they’re at, they notice my light, my peace – and it’s very attractive to them. Now they are approaching me (even if, on a conscious level, they’re not certain why) and engaging with me: so as to discover how they might get a little bit of peace themselves. And I no longer have to be annoying. Love the Idler. Thank God/Goddess some people believe not only in enjoying life, but actually in enjoying doing nothing. I’ve felt a lot of invalidation from others over the years for not wanting to always be working or “doing something”.
Jim Piper, Evanston, Illinois