Tomred's Opinion

Watching Wrestling

2012-02-15T03:21:00.001-08:00

Lately, I've been spending a “fair” amount of time indulging in one of the more outlandish passtimes of my younger years: professional wrestling. What can I say? Partial employment leaves ample time to overanalyse things that, on the surface, seem like a complete waste of time. And watching old wrestling videos could certainly be qualified as such. Nevertheless, I suspect there may be something more to this nostalgia of nonsense. And at the risk of trying to intellectualise the unintellectual, I'm going to try and explain why.

For the benefit of those who haven't experienced the madness of professional wrestling, allow me to provide a brief insight. Professional wrestling is a hybrid of athletics and theatrical performance in which any number of wrestlers engage in a contest that is pre-determined. The modern form of professional wrestling, popularised by the American based WWE, is an amalgamation of various forms from all over the world, some of which trace their origins to the 19^th century. Since a boom in the 1980's, professional wrestling has evolved into a storyline driven phenomenon formatted for mass consumption via television.

In 1994, as the WWF (as the WWE was then known) geared up for it's tenth annual show-piece, Wrestlemania X, I took my seat in the worldwide audience. In those days wrestling played up to the traditional struggle between “good guys” and “bad guys”. The good guys were characters with whom the audience had a natural empathy. They played by the rules, promoted wholesome living and were always portrayed as the superior wrestlers. Bad guys were the exact opposite: manipulative and inherently dishonest, thereby overcoming their inferior abilities. It doesn't take a genius to work out why this vehicle was so successful. On a base level, it was a reflection of the conflict between what life should be and what it actually is.

The main event of Wrestlemania X pitted the 500lb Yokozuna, a sumo wrestler whose triumphant waving of the Japanese flag stoked the flames of western xenophobia, against the hero character of Bret “Hitman” Hart. Having being beaten by his rogue brother Owen earlier in the evening, Bret was the perfect underdog. For most of the match, Yokozuna seemed to pound him into oblivion. With the hero's “damaged knee” proving an easy target, I quickly became desperate for him to pull off the “unlikeliest” of victories over the devious villain. And it wasn't just me- the whole of Madison Square Garden seemed to share the sentiment. Imagine then our collective elation when Bret scored the 1-2-3 after Yokozuna, while poising himself for the deadly “banzai drop”, suddenly lost balance and fell from the ropes. When I look back now, I can't believe how ridiculous this particular stunt looks. Yet Bret's post match celebration, in which he is joined by all his “good guy” friends and a host of invited celebrities, still manages to evoke something in me. The exhausted Hitman can barely stand but with the WWF championship belt over his shoulder, all is right with the world again. I'll leave it to the referencing system of human emotion to explain why, after eighteen years, something about this scene still appeals to me.

But even at tender age of eight, I was well aware that Bret Hart and Yokozuna were actually just actors playing out the most convenient of illusions. In another way though, it didn't matter. That's because the ability of the wrestling audience to temporarily suspend disbelief is without equal. Watch any wrestling match and you will see people of all ages, genders, races and creeds embrace the spectacle with maximum enthusiasm. However preposterous it may seem, make no mistake- this works. In fact, a few months after Wrestlemania X, I was so disturbed by the prospect of Bret losing the WWF belt to his evil brother that I prayed that it wouldn't happen. And not in a metaphorical sense either. I remember actually being at Mass, receiving holy communion and begging God to ensure Bret's eventual victory. If ever there was evidence that the WWF was doing a good job, this was it. Though on this particular incident, they probably had some help from Catholic mysticism.

After a year or so, the allure of wrestling started to wane. As it happened, I was so disillusioned after Bret lost the belt to Shawn Michaels, a former “bad guy” who had been positioned as the new hero, that I simply stopped watching. In my teenage years, I tuned back in and found the WWF had become a much more violent spectacle in which a beer guzzling redneck, Stone Cold Steve Austin, had become the new favourite. This coincided with an era when the WWF enjoyed it's biggest commercial success to date. Consequentially, the wrestling world had become a lot more secure with opening up its workings to fans' long held curiosity. This led to my viewing of a documentary which followed Bret Hart's last year in the WWF. Wrestling with Shadows still ranks as one of the most interesting films I have ever seen. Whilst mainly dealing with Bret's struggle to keep pace with the WWF's new direction, it also uncovers an even stranger backstage world where the line between fiction and reality becomes remarkably vague.

I haven't had much time for wrestling in the intervening years. Probably because the business itself seems to have entered some sort of terminal decline. Hyper communication via the world wide web has left wrestling's previously guarded secrets exposed for all to see. In turn, it is much harder for fans to abandon the knowledge that it's all just entertainment. Of course I could also put my indifference towards the modern WWE down to the fact that in my ever expanding “maturity”, I've simply outgrown the senselessness of it all. But the fact that I've been spending so much time trying to reconnect with a world where right and wrong is so cut and dry would seem to suggest otherwise.

The Incredible Alternative

2012-01-29T12:19:00.001-08:00

It was in the the relentlessness of Twitter this past Friday that I was made aware of Eamon Dunphy's concurrent appearance on The Late Late Show. As ever, the "maverick" broadcaster was causing quite the division of opinion, this time with his bleak assessment of Ireland's current predicament.

I usually have time for Eamon. Aside from enjoying his regular espousal of an agreeable sporting philosophy via RTÉ's soccer coverage, I always find his mediation of current affairs to be, at the very least, entertaining. It was then with some anticipation that I caught up with his Late Late appearance on the RTÉ Player. After watching, I was pleased to find that, once again, he had me thinking about the absolute "state" of the nation. But it wasn't toward the predictable scapegoats of Eamon's scorn that my antipathy was directed; instead, it was Dunphy's own skewed analysis of Ireland's woes.

His first criticism was of Ireland's current leader, who drew ire this week for attributing the country's plight to a period of "mad borrowing" at the World Economic Forum. Eamon suggested that Enda Kenny doesn't have a genuine grasp of the debt crisis. A fair point perhaps. The Taoiseach doesn't always inspire confidence. But what national leader does these days? As Eamon himself later surmised, the current crisis is an international phenomenon. It has left leaders all over the world bereft of any tangible solution. Such is the puzzle of economics, a speculative discipline that is often mistaken for being scientific. Indeed, the only consensus that has been reached so far is that the global economic crisis will require an international solution that relegates domestic politics to a secondary tier.

But Eamon seemed more interested in recruiting a new type of Irish politician who approaches international diplomacy as if it was a "war". Michael O'Leary was his first suggestion. This isn't the first time we've heard the Ryanair chief's name being touted as someone who would do a good job in politics. However, without questioning Michael O'Leary's business acumen, the ruthless CEO of a budget airline is not someone I consider sensitive to the disadvantaged and dispossessed. This is a guy who disallows staff from charging their phones on Ryanair premises. O'Leary has also termed the European Commission as "morons" and the European project in general as "The Evil Empire". Yes he is good at what he does and yes he is Irish. But this doesn't qualify him as some kind of negotiator. A more glaring example of the “green jersey” mentality would be hard to find.

Dunphy then explained that his yearning for this new type of Irish politician stemmed from his disillusionment with the current standard of public servants. Basically, Eamon is tired of teachers being tasked with politics. Enda Kenny is a teacher. Michael Noonan is a teacher. Micheál Martin is a teacher. Teachers are the problem? If this wasn't what he meant, then he should have explained him self better. Instead, he delivered a half-baked critique on the political class, merely serving to simplify their shortcomings in the most plastic of ways.

But it was in the eventual excursion into Eamon's own participation in a McDonald's ad that his populist, unfocused and frankly, ridiculous vision became clear. Admitting that he had "sold out", Eamon justified his partaking in this shit advertisement by exclaiming that he needed something to "pay the rent". The very "gimme gimme" culture that has landed Ireland in this mess is the one he exudes by lending his name to the world's premier fast food outlet. "It was good for them and it was good for me" he explained. What better phrase would describe the attitude of politicians, bankers, developers and builders in pre-bust Ireland?

The only semblance of controversy came when he exclaimed that Ireland is "a dump". More depressingly, this is what solicited the biggest backlash on Twitter where counter arguments were best encapsulated by the phrase "I'm proud to be Irish!". Why are we offended by someone calling Ireland a dump? It's a sentiment I hear expressed regularly in everyday discourse. And it's not just Irish people. People all over the world regularly chastise the country they are living in. In fact, I would defend to the hills anyone's right to call Ireland a dump. This soundbite was the least annoying thing about Dunphy's interview.

What is annoying is that Eamon was clearly brought on the Late Late Show to represent a view opposed to that of the status quo. And whilst he may have identified the problems we face with considerable accuracy, he was woefully incapable of communicating a coherent vision. Instead, we had to navigate through a plethora of mixed messages and double standards that left an alternative looking as incredible as ever.

January Blues: Live

2012-01-12T07:04:00.000-08:00

There he is. The man himself. Mr Bryan O'Regan. Looks a little awestruck doesn't he? And well he should be; he's about to take to the stage to perform in Ryans' coveted open-mic session. But he'll be ok.

The real question is whether Ryans is ready for Bryan? Because he isn't getting up there to give his take on the jaded role of “singer-songwriter”; rather he is delivering a strange new adaptation of this blog's most recent entry- January Blues.

It ALL began last Monday night when Bryan showed up on my doorstep waving his new smartphone in my face. Accompanied by my dear friend Thomas, Bryan was boastful about how he had gotten such a good deal. I was keen to bring him back down to Earth.

“Yeah yeah well done” I said. “You've sold yourself away to the illusion that your more communicable than ever but really all you have is a over hyped piece of plastic to delay the inevitable isolation of the hostile universe”.

Never a great listener, Bryan walked right past me and sat himself down at my kitchen table.

“So I was down in Colm's today” he said while donning a wry smile. “And we we were thinking of doing some beat poetry in Ryans with that thing you wrote last week”.

Immediately exicited at the prospect of having something l wrote taken out of the blogsphere and into some sort of real-life situation, I was quick to express my approval.

“YEAH MAN TOTALLY DO IT!”

It wasn't long before Bryan was reciting January Blues in the sort of way that made my dear friend Thomas and I want to shimmy around the kitchen in some lazy groove. I became ever more insistent that he get on stage.

“THAT'S CLASS MAN YOU HAVE TO DO IT!”

The next night, after being laid low by Werner Herzog's Lessons of Darkness at Casa Del Michael Norton, I was treated to another rendition of the poem. This time Bryan was accompanied by the guitar wizardry of Colm O'Caoimh (Caladh Nua, RSAG). After several recitals, they seemed happy to let Ryans have it.

And so, on what was the quietest of Wednesday evenings, we ventured down to Friary Street's favourite haunt. With a few of Kilkenny's mid week stragglers in the audience, Bryan and Colm took to the stage and delivered their avant-garde piece. Their understated delivery was the perfect compliment to Ryans' sparse ambience.

Indeed, after trying to argue my way out of it for at least two hours, Bryan even managed to convince me to stand in between them and provide the poem's customary “pop”. Needless to say, I felt like a bit of a spare tyre. But the comedic element was certainly worth it.

Afterwards, they performed another poem based on an email Bryan had gotten from a female friend. Let's just say Ryans' open-mic will never be the same...

I managed to get a recording of January Blues by Bryan O'Regan and Colm O'Caoimh earlier in the night.

You can have little listen here-http://soundcloud.com/rentafriendsounds

January Blues

2012-01-02T14:30:00.000-08:00

With 2012 now in official residence, you once again find yourself facing the annual challenge of surviving the post Christmas winter. More than any other time in the twelve month cycle, this time constitutes the most severe anti-climax in the societal vibe. So if you find yourself feeling a little deflated, you shouldn't be afraid to say so. After all, only a lucky few escape the January blues.

New Year's Day was the end of any fleeting attempt to hold onto the notion that you're still on holidays. You dug through the memories of New Year's Eve, wondering how you managed to spend so much money on those extra drinks that you really didn't need. You may have a few more days before you go back to work, college or the day to day struggle of unemployment. But it was in the scant daylight of January 1 that you realised that the holiday bubble had burst.

As the Christmas lights are taken down over the grey streets of your town, you may find yourself wondering what you should do now. And who could blame you? You've just spent three months being bombarded by the relentless commercialism of the holiday season, and now you find that previously championed items of materialism can be yours at a lesser expense to your volatile finances. But they don't seem so alluring anymore. Not without all the tinsel and jingle bell music. Indeed, with the woes of economic illness now firmly established, “January Sales” sounds more like the last desperate plea of a consumerism that can't accept that it's had its day.

Already the terms “downturn” and “debt crisis” are resuming their premier positions in the dreary news bulletin. Google isn't tracking Santa's sleigh anymore and dog pounds are being filled with pooches suffering the consequences of people's failure to grasp the age old proverb that begins with “A puppy isn't just for..”

Your emigrant friends have returned to the places that they spent most of Christmas describing to you with a wondrous glow in their eyes. “There's no place like home” now reads like some kind of disingenuous jibe that mocks the precarious foundations of your speculative career path. In destitute January, you may feel like you have more in common with the recent hysterics of the North Koreans than those few lucky enough to have the elusive “plan”.

In the next few days, you will find yourself reacquainting with people somehow absent from your Christmas mingling. Most of them will probably tell you they had a “quiet one”, conjuring up images of them sipping on a solitary glass of wine beside their modest Christmas tree. Those people were way too sensible to have gotten themselves involved in the spendthrift shenanigans of your hazy holiday. You wish you had their foresight.

Others will approach the new year under the desperate guise of “keeping the best side out”. They'll be all smiles and chat, informing you of their “wonderful” Christmas. They'll have probably got a new pair of jogging runners, complimented by a “really handy” new contraption to strap their ipod into. You'll be hard pressed to hear any “negative” (to you: honest) words from their mouths. Instead they'll be coping with the January blues contented in the knowledge that the new “The Secret” book has instructed them to think positively all the way to the promised land. You won't be able to relate to these people. Not because you don't appreciate the power of positive thinking, it's just that anyone who's fooled themselves into being positive at this time of year is clearly best left to themselves.

If you're lucky though, someone will be honest enough to tell you that they're feeling just as blue as you. Together, with an "all you can do is laugh" attitude, you will share the way through this miserable experience. Who knows, you might even enter into a pact, whereby you hold each other accountable for doing something just a little better than 2011. And then, as January changes to February, and the ones who had a “quiet Christmas” crumble under the boredom of their self-imposed sanctuary, and the “positive” fetishists succumb to the absurdity of their naive faith, life may seem that little bit more tolerable.

2011-05-31T15:14:00.000-07:00

I've delved into some history/current affairs (contradiction?) to write an article for a new UK online magazine. I hope to make a habit of it. Check it out here- http://www.dealign.co.uk/art/royalvisit.html

Tear Down The Wall

2011-05-15T05:38:00.000-07:00

'I know people who got into The Wall and didn't come out for five years, they just locked themselves into this frame of mind of whatever they were getting out of that album. Most of it seemed to be positive but during those five years they became very distant from everybody..very alienated' -Axl Rose, 1990

That's right. I'm starting this entry off with a quote by Axl Rose. Do you know Axl? He's the guy who started a full-scale riot by fighting with a member of the audience. The front-man who took his previously 'dangerous' band in strange new directions by producing extravagant short films as music videos. The singer who took 14 years to make an album whilst losing all of his original band-mates. The diva who won't go onstage until he feels he is absolutely ready to deliver his explosive performances. Performances which regularly include stopping concerts because of things being thrown on-stage or because someone in the first few rows, for unknown reasons, is annoying him. As the enigmatic leader of Guns N'Roses, Axl's bizarre behaviour has left him few friends. Occasionally though, he communicates some things that make me sit up and say 'Yeah! Axl gets it!'. His above reference to Pink Floyd's 1979 album, The Wall, is an appropriate example.

I had first heard of Pink Floyd when, whilst on holiday in France, my brother cursed as 'Another Brick In The Wall, Part 1' played in the bar we were hanging around in. 'We don't need no education, We don't need no thought control'. Aged 14, I looked at Brendan inquisitively and asked 'Who's that?'. 'Pink Floyd' he said, with a drag in his voice. Brendan was a follower of Kurt Cobain, who had deemed Pink Floyd undesirable. As Kurt was an idol of my own, I decided to follow my brother's lead on avoiding our dead leader's hated bands. Indeed, this contempt from all things Punk-Rock for the perceived self indulgence of 'Progressive Rock' was something that held me back from listening to Pink Floyd until much later on. Until then, there was still the important practice of scribbling anarchy symbols over my schoolbooks and sticking anti-McDonalds signs to lamp posts.

Eventually, the hostile a nature of punk music started to wear thin. I got tired of blaming the Government and multi-national corporations for all my problems. Slowly, I started to open my ear to other types of music. Like heavy metal. But although blistering guitar solos and double-pedal bass drums seemed brilliant at first, I got a little tired of evaluating bands on how technically sound they were. Looking for something more, I stumbled into more multi dimensional places. Sifting through the pantheons of older bands, I eventually started listening to Pink Floyd. Before long, their ambient moods, thought provoking lyrical concepts and elaborate stage shows had captured my imagination like nothing before. I dove head first into the Pink Floyd experience, immersing myself in everything there was to about 'the floyd'. One might say I became a little obsessed.

I often wonder why so many people allow themselves to be taken over by a band, or a certain type of music. Like my brother before me, I had a track record of smothering myself with various bands to the point that my knowledge of them became almost weird and unhealthy. When I think of my various love affairs with bands now, I find myself wincing as certain names come into my head. Limp Bizkit represents an obvious low-point. How I related to such a horrible representation of white American male urban angst, in which merit is defined to how many times the word fuck could be used in one song, mystifies me. Such unfortunate tangents now seem like the pitfalls of searching for some kind of identity in the convenience store of popular culture. In the youthful act of rebelling against the life being prescribed to us, we inevitably make some dismal choices in adapting other, equally prescribed, personas. Sometimes though, we embark on some interesting journeys.

The intense relationship I had with the music of Pink Floyd represents the last time I made such a journey. And what a journey it was. As a Pink Floyd obsessive, I sometimes felt that I was experiencing something totally unique. Acting like I was on the verge of some new state of consciousness, I ritualistically listened to Echoes and The Dark Side Of The Moon in near trance, letting the beautiful yet unsettling sound take me where ever it would. The multi layered composition of their whole presentation seemed so well thought out that something bigger, something important was behind it. This arcane factor that Pink Floyd fans display is something which annoys people the world over. I must have been as annoying as any of them. Nothing lent itself more to this 'quality' than my fascination with The Wall. A rock opera which tells the story of a reclusive rock-star who's life falls to pieces after his childhood experiences of abandonment resurface, The Wall came to signify one of the most profound pieces of art I had ever been exposed to. I still think of it as a remarkably palpable expression of human emotion. But it's not to everyone's liking. Lots of my musical friends have expressed contempt for The Wall, calling it one of Pink Floyd's worst albums. They consider it bloated, over-considered and musically subordinate. Some people don't have time for the rounded analysis that the album requires, not just as a piece of music but as statement of abject nihilism.

To me though, the album offered unavoidable intensity. Something I embraced with open arms. The sheer density of the album was perfect for someone, as I was, trying to fill some kind of void. It's a bit like the way everyone thought Johnny Cash was singing about them when he sang Hurt. Or how we nod in despairing unison to Mad World whilst welling up at the end of Donnie Darko. The Wall takes this process of identification to new levels. The melancholic, terrifying and nightmarish feel of the piece sums up some of the worst fears one might have about where they are headed in life. As a result, I was looking through the lens of the despair that the album so poignantly presents. Needless to say, the whole endeavour became a little frightening.

Eventually, although with less brevity than previous affairs, the majesty of Pink Floyd started to wane. My mandatory investigation into the lifespan of the band revealed a bitter split that, in itself, became an integral part of the Pink Floyd story. Many will be familiar with the schism between Roger Waters and the rest of the band after the former's artistic vision compromised the others' celebrated musical tact. The sheer nastieness of the whole affair made the English quartet seem less mystical and more predictably human. After Waters left the band in 1985 and embarked on a speculative solo career, it became clear that his concepts were mush lesser without his former friends. Indeed, Pink Floyd themselves, now led by David Gilmour, seemed a little tame without their fiery bassist. In the end, it was the wall between the band themselves that proved that they were not as esoteric as I once thought. The irony of it all.

In retrospect, the most striking thing about my interest in music was the attempt to find some sort of meaning in it all. Much more than the simple enjoyment of it's sonic base, it was, ultimately, some kind of profound connection that I sought in music. The parallel with a dogmatic's search for fulfillment in scripture, even though this was something that I had wholeheartedly rejected as illogical, is now abundantly clear. It was probably simple naivety that blinded me to the intellectual inconsistency that I was partaking in. In the end, it is the home truth that satisfaction is something not present in idolisation that prevails most. Whatever about the dangers it incurs, mutuality is something essential to the search for the satisfaction of our tendency to like, love and adore. Looking for this in the auspices of impersonal culture rather than the people around us is null and void. In our diversions away from such a sentiment, we may find ourselves in dark places indeed.

And Now For Something Completely Different..

2011-03-31T12:17:00.000-07:00

I have been fairly neglectful of this blog for the last month or two. This is due to my ongoing participation in RTÉ Storyland. Storyland is a web-based competition, run by RTÉ, for aspiring film makers in Ireland. This year, ThanklessFilms, our film company, managed to get into the mix with our very own mini series- Rent a Friend.

Rent a Friend is the story of two young men, Dave and Der, who decide to set up a business renting themselves out as friends. The idea is scantly based on Dave Minogue (Director and Writer) and I (Actor and Writer) trying to set up our own business last year. Scantly. So far we've managed to make two episodes but are counting on public votes to make more..

I would really appreciate your help in this endeavour.

http://www.rte.ie/storyland/episodes-rent-a-friend.html

Montreal-Toronto, July 2008

2011-01-24T05:23:00.001-08:00

Adventure! What a word. It stirs within us a great feeling of excitement. The idea of breaking the routines we have by catapulting ourselves into something completely different. It's so appealing. How much we can learn by getting outside of the box, the comfort zone.. Nothing strikes down the cancer of apathy like looking beyond what is familiar. Exploration of the unknown is one of life's greatest thrills. May we always strive to live new experiences.

Such were my musings during the month of July 2008. My friend, Conor, and I were on the cusp of a great adventure across the geo-colossus that is Canada. I had spent 2 months in Montreal, walking the tightrope of life in a bilingual city.. A little dramatic perhaps.. The only real difficulty I had was trying to fit into my job where French speaking colleagues sounded so often to be bitching about even though I had no idea what they were actually saying. As much as we had come to settle (lots of 'settling') in to life in Montreal, we decided that we would see as much of it as possible.

Our first stop was Toronto. Not so unfamiliar, I had been there two years previous. This time though, I had timed our presence in correspondence with a gig that I really wanted to see. I couldn't wait! Better still, we were adventurously travelling the 5hr trip in a 'rideshare'. Being all progressive, I had arranged the 'ride' over the Internet with an anonymous man who would take us to Toronto if we contributed money for 'gas'. The plan was to meet him at Station Sherbrooke at 9am on a Sunday, July 27th. There, Patrick (prospect of conversation about his Irish name noted) would pick us up and we could share the ride all the way up Highway 401 to Toronto.

So it was on that bright summers morning, we hugged our neighbour Jake goodbye and started trekking down to Sherbrooke. The first snag on our great adventure was that Conor had to carry his very heavy bag after it's wheels jammed. Worried that we would miss our rendez-vous with our ride, I started pacing ahead to get there on time. Every now and again, I looked back at a blank faced Conor, who still managed to convey how annoying his bag was becoming. We did, however, succeed in getting there on time. At around 9.05 I might have commented on how annoying it was when people weren't on time. By 9.20 I was calling Patrick from a payphone. No answer. By 9.40, it was clear that the great adventure was struggling to get out of Montreal. 'Fuck sake Patrick, you said you'd let us ride with you'. We cursed the ambiguous rideshare system and resigned ourselves to the dreaded bus journey which took about 7hrs.

First impressions of Toronto were that we were in an English-speaking part of Canada, where stop signs said 'STOP' as opposed to 'ARRET' and where approaching strangers for directions didn't require the preamble of 'Parlez-Vous Anglais?'. That night we went to the gig that had I had spent the whole day trying to make it to. Even though Propagandhi rocked my socks off, I was too worn out to properly appreciate it. My abiding memory is watching revelers throwing themselves violently from the stage. I wondered where they got the energy. After spending the night in a hostel, we spent the next day roaming around 'downtown' Toronto. Highlights included pretending to take a sip of this junkie girl's drink after she kept offering us some. We were also accosted by a pretty young woman who told us that she had just had a fight with her boyfriend and who kept asking if she looked ok. 'Yeah, yeah..you like fine'. In a hazy state of mind, we walked through Chinatown, repeatedly commenting on how it felt like we actually were in China.

That night we made contact with a friend I had made on my previous visit. She offered us her couches for the night. We were delighted to accept. She did mention that she had a cat that was a little crazy. Ever the animal lover, I brushed aside any suggestions that this cat would actually interfere with our sleep. 'It's a cat..How bad could it be?'

Bob introduced himself to us by making a spectacular jump from one couch to the other. 'Well he certainly is a livewire, but I'm sure he'll settle down once he tires himself out'. Emily looked at me doubtfully. 'If he's a pain in the ass, just throw him in the bathroom'.

Apprehensively, we turned off the lights and lay down for some much needed sleep. I hadn't even reached the relaxation stage when Bob started to set out his stall for the night. He began by performing several more jumps around the living room furniture. Conor and I made no comment. I was hoping that these leaps were Bob's bedtime routine, a closing expenditure of any energy he had left.

After an hour or two, it was clear that this was wishful thinking. Bob was now carrying out routine attacks on both of us. His black coat blended in with the dark and so it was without any warning when his paws traversed my face. Or when my hair was being fiddled with by a stealthy and erratic claw. Bob's madness grew as the night wore on. When he wasn't bothering me, I heard monotone expressions of frustration from Conor. 'Fucking cat', 'Get off!' 'Jesus Fucking Christ'. Enough was enough. I decided to act on Emily's advice and confine him to the bathroom.

I'm not sure how I actually got him into the bathroom. I doubt it was physical force. He wouldn't have liked that. Whatever the means, I did manage to secure his confinement. I closed the door and returned to my couch, feeling a little cruel for resorting to imprisoning him. It was his turf. Who were we to just turn up and expect him to give up his space? And then lock him up when he wasn't conforming to the standards we expect of a 'good little pussy'.

Bob's false imprisonment was abruptly ended when I could stand his sorrowful bellowing no more. The prospect of him destroying the bathroom was too daunting to consider. When, with Conor's support, I went to release him, I opened the door to find him dangling from the toilet roll holder with a look of defiance etched across his face. He made for his escape quickly, immediately returning to his armchair pulpit. As I passed him by, I begged for a cessation of his escapades. 'Please just go asleep Bob'.

Vindicated by his victory over my conscience, he resumed his frantic attacks against our pursuit of some kind of serenity. The whole situation was starting to look like a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the forces of occupation. Bob, the determined rebel, against us, the usurpers of his residency, in this little insignificant part of the world; Emily's sitting room.

The Ontario sunrise was now scantly illuminating the room. We grabbed whatever sleep we could in between Bob's regular attacks. At one stage, Conor and I sat up and looked across at each other. We shook our tired heads as Bob's wild eyes assessed our condition from his armchair. And then, with some sort of divine intervention, Bob lay down outstretched and closed his eyes. After a few more minutes it was clear that if we were going to get any kind of sleep, now was the time. Already jaded, I battled with my anxiety at the possibility of him waking up and finally fell into proper sleep. I awoke a few times to to look at Bob still sleeping. When, on one occasion, I saw that he had moved, I was joyfully surprised to see him curled up on the bottom of my sleeping bag. 'See Bob, we can do this, we can work something out..We don't have to fight'.

I woke properly a few hours later to see Bob proudly looking out of the apartment window at the Toronto skyline. I spoke to Conor to see if he was awake. He was. 'Got a few hours there at the end, did you?'. Conor turned around to reveal several scratch marks on his face and neck. It seemed that Bob's early morning tactics involved an aggressive targeting of him. 'We can't stay here again tonight...'. Before long, Emily was up and about. 'How did you guys sleep?'. 'Ah yeah, Bob gave us a few frights but fine yeah, we slept fine.' Emily went over to Bob to get his side of the story 'Were you being a pain in the ass Bob? Eh?'. Bob didn't respond. Emily then verbalised our thoughts whilst affectionately petting Bob and adopting that sort of 'baby talk' voice people put on when they talk to animals. 'You're a crazy fucker aren't you Bob? Eh..You've got issues..haven't you..' Bob turned away.

We had a few days left in Toronto. Emily offered us another night on her couches. We replied politely. 'Really? Thanks so much!'. It wasn't that we didn't appreciate the offer from someone who, after all, we didn't know that well, it was just that another battle with Bob was a scenario that we felt undesirable. I checked a few guest houses to see if I could stretch my 'adventure budget' to purchase a cosy room usually occupied by middle aged professionals on business trips. And that didn't have mentally unstable animals. But I was in over my head. Too expensive. Conor, ever the economical one, was steadfast. 'I'm not paying for a room! I can handle him'. I admired his bravery especially while looking at his wounds from the night before.

We returned to Emily and Bob's place that evening. This time I played with the little bastard for a while. It might have some effect. That night, Bob's attitude was a lot less hostile. We managed to get a lot more sleep even if we it was marred with weariness at Bob's presence. The next day we bade Bob goodbye and prepared for our departure to Vancouver. Our plans to 'hitch' across Canada had been shelved after the film RoachTrip (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoachTrip) left us unsure about the wisdom of such a feat. We hung out with Emily that day. She shared with us her disdain for the pretentiousness of climate-change awareness and her obsession with the American Civil War. We were sorry we didn't get to hang out some more with Emily. She was fun.

That night Conor and I separated. He went to avail of a late Couchsurfing offerwhilst I stayed in the Global Village Backpackers hostel. There, I made acquaintance with an English guy. Playing Pool, I inexplicably managed to pull off some majestic pockets. He was impressed. I was perplexed (I'm normally really shit at Pool). I had a few drinks with him. He started on about what drugs he had taken and how they had nearly killed him. He was kind of weird. And I just wanted to sleep. I left him with an Irish acquaintance I coincidentally ran into. (I've never really reflected on how big a coincidence it was to run into John. John Prendergast. From Kilkenny). He was with loads of Irish people. I had a drink with them. Then I left.

The next day I met back up with Conor.

'Well, how was your night?'.

'Great.. Your one was sound'.

'Good for you. I bet this English guy at pool'.

'Yeah right'

'I wonder how Bob is'.

As we packed up our stuff and prepared for the trip out to Pearson International, we ran into the pretty girl who had asked a few days earlier how he she looked. She still looked pretty good. The funny thing was that she didn't remember us at all. It was a weird end to a weird couple of days. It wasn't easy, but our great Canadian adventure was underway. Even if the romantic musings I had in Montreal had been destroyed by a guy named Patrick and cat named Bob.

Animals

2011-01-02T06:18:00.000-08:00

Celebrity Cows

I was about 8 years old when I watched, in the company of family, the 1991 comedy film City Slickers. For those of you who haven't seen it, it deals with three urban dwellers who try to escape their mid-life crises by taking part in a rural cattle drive, presumably to find some perspective on things. Traversing dangerous terrain, the three men and cattle herd eventually arrive at their destination after negotiating a dangerous river, where one calf really struggled to make it. For me, the film could have ended there. My young mind took great comfort in knowing that through some kind of interspecies harmony, both man and cow had arrived safely. It was to my absolute shock and horror that the closing scenes revealed that the herd were to be slaughtered for meat. Whilst I sobbed inconsolably, I remember my brother trying to tell me that the cows in the movie were some kind of 'celebrity' cows that would never be harmed. Beside the fact that I didn't believe such reassurances, I was way too emotionally involved in the story to accept such an ending.

Dominion to Factory Farms

The type of relationship we have with animals is probably best described as a bi-product of our ability to exercise power over them; an evolutionary facet of our transition from hunter-gatherers to civilisation. But it's a relationship that's been revisited and examined time and again throughout history. The Book Of Genesis (1:20-28) dealt with the question by giving humans 'dominion' over non-humans. Hence, the Bible supposes that God put animals here for us. Later, the French philosopher, Descartes, on similar lines, concluded that animals are lesser than humans because of their supposed inability to reason.

Nevertheless, even the most fundamentalist human societies did begin enact laws to reduce the suffering of animals. In Puritan England, legislation was introduced to curb the practice of bloodsports, which were widespread in the 17th century. The Puritans interpreted man's dominion over animals as one hinged by responsibility. Enlightenment philosophers like Locke and Kant opposed animal cruelty because of it's effect on human relations with each other; the idea being that indifference to animal suffering would reduce our capacity to empathise with human pain. By the 19th century, a more rounded concept of animal protection was beginning to emerge. In 1822, the Irish MP, Richard Martin, secured the introduction of legislation that outlawed the the ill-treatment of farm animals. In one of the earliest prosecutions under the law, Martin, seeing that the magistrates were unmoved by the plight of a donkey who had been beaten by a costermonger, decided to parade the injured animal in front of the shocked court. Seemingly, it wasn't until the court was actually confronted with the suffering animal that the case was taken seriously. Martin was later involved in the creation of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, an organisation who's members developed the concept that animals have rights.

By the 20th century, there had been a dramatic emergence in new attitudes toward animals and how they should be treated by humans. These attitudes weren't always always a product of general benevolence. For example, it was the Third Reich that passed some of the most progressive animal protection legislation. Hitler himself espoused the virtues of vegetarianism and would often try dissuade meat-eaters with accounts of his visit to a slaughterhouse. It is said that, whilst watching films depicting moments of animal suffering, Hitler would cover his eyes until he was told it was over. Nazi ideology removed the hierarchical barrier between humans and animals. Instead, it looked upon wolves and eagles as second only to Aryans, with rodents and Jews making up the bottom end. In effect, the Nazi's protection of animals was founded on the notion that 'subhumans' would take their place in the reception of unspeakable barbarity.

Since the Second World War, animal rights movements have grown in tandem with the marked increase in animal testing and industrial farming. Some groups like the Animal Liberation Front, advocate direct action in the pursuing an end to animal exploitation. The late 20th and early 21st century has also seen efforts by food manufactures to placate the growth of vegetarianism. The championing of free range animal products and the idea of 'humane meat' demonstrate new attempts to placate human concerns over animal treatment. So the idea that we should treat animals better isn't at all new, nor is it going away.

City Slickers:
Deleted Scene

I live in Kilkenny, a medium sized town surrounded by a well developed agricultural industry. My mother comes from a farming background and my father used to work for Glanbia, a leading dairy company that also produces meat. Nevertheless, whilst understanding the concept of food from animals, I was never really exposed to it. When I think of it now, I wonder that this might not have been purely circumstantial. As the City Slickers incident illustrates, I was always fairly sensitive about animal welfare. The common sight of cattle trucks on the roads always solicited a turning in the other direction, as I didn't want to look at the cows sticking their heads out from behind the bars as they were taken to their deaths. My concerns weren't limited to human treatment of animals. I still find it difficult to watch nature programmes that document one animal hunting and killing another. However, it was the contrived and mechanic slaughter of animals by people that troubled me the most. This was consolidated by my sister's vegetarianism. It was her lifestyle choice, which I think was more taste driven, that made me aware that animal slaughter isn't necessary. And that today, we do it just because we can.

It wasn't until my teenage years, during my discovery of punk rock music and the ideals amongst it, that I realised that there was a well established culture of vegetarianism that opposed animal consumption on more ethical grounds. This philosophy endorsed vegetarianism and in particular, veganism, as an extension of a general belief that it is fundamentally wrong to impose one will at the expense of the welfare of another. It equated animal freedom with that of humans, arguing that sentient suffering is essentially uniform. These ideas, whilst appealing, seemed extreme in the context of my surroundings. We ate meat every day; the music I listened to wasn't enough to undo that, not whilst it was confined to rhetoric anyway. It was then, with real unsettledness, that I listened to the track 'Purina Hall of Fame' by the Canadian band, Propagandhi. The song opens with a thirty second documentation of the sound of a sow been beaten by workers on a factory farm. The haunting scream of the animal was enough for me to fast forward every time the song came on. The inevitable visualisation of the event didn't quite match up to my eventual viewing of slaughterhouse footage on the internet these past weeks, something I've avoided doing for years. The reality of seeing defenseless animals been beaten in the most heinous ways is enough to cement my decision in becoming a vegetarian. Of course, I don't believe that all people who work in slaughterhouse's are as psychopathic as the workers in the videos, it's just I don't want anything to do with anything that even remotely resembles such scenes. If only the closing scenes of City Slickers documented the cattle's last moments in the abattoir, I might have followed through on my eight year old threats of refusing to eat meat. Enough is enough. If this has been been at the back of my mind for most of my life, it's time I started acting like it.

A Reasonable Emotionalism
It is then
with a certain amount of emotion that I have made the decision to stop eating meat. This has made me consider how wise my decision is and how I might be blinding myself with my own subjective views on right and wrong. The doubts I have about vegetarianism have always been th
ere and it's only now that I really have to challenge them.

The notion that vegeta
rianism is a defiance of the natural order of things is one such concern. For a long time, I thought there was no point worrying about animal slaughter because it was merely a reflection of nature. I was being faithful to the fact that we are the planet's dominant species by dutifully eating meat.
It's true that a large part of the heritage of human dietary habits is the consumption of animals. But human dietary habits can hardly be classified as infallible in a world where McDonalds is King and diabetes is rampant. However, it has been forwarded that the size of our brains could be directly tied to our meat-eating tradition (it has also been suggested protein rich nuts could have been more influential). But, even if that were true, what does it mean?

The basis of evolution is that a species is anything but static, that we survive and prosper on our ability to change and adapt to the world around us. Such change is apparent to anyone who compares today's world with that of before. The flat earth, divine right of kingship, religious dogmatism, slavery, racism, sexism and homophobia are all examples of previously held assumptions that have been challenged and lessened by our scientific and intellectual development. And is it really absurd to suggest that the darker side of humanity has something in common with the norm of animal genocide carried out on this planet every single day? Right now, as I write, and you read, conscious beings with fully functioning emotions and nervous systems are being terrorised and butchered so that we can eat food that we do not need to. It's making less and less sense every time I think about it.

It's been three weeks since I stopped eating meat. To call it a lifestyle change would be a dramatic overstatement. It's been too easy a change to qualify it as such. As such, I can see how my contribution to the reduction of animal suffering is only the smallest of drops in the ocean. Having taken the first step, I have already started thinking about what's next. The glue in my runners, my leather belt, the milk in my tea; living a cruelty free existence is a tough prospect. And have I properly considered that medical advancements may hinge on testing on animals? Even if many of the world's most threatening diseases thrive on the lifestyle that we choose to adopt.

And then there's the social implications. In such an economically sensitive time, asserting that an industry that provides livelihoods to so many people is ethically unsound is a big statement. Yet the issue at hand seems so much bigger than economics (if anything really is). Besides, to single out the meat and dairy industries as the 'evil' profiteers in this whole affair would be arrogant. Our treatment of animals is more of a cultural question. It's about a fundamental issue in our lives; how we treat other living things. The distant prospect of a cruelty free existence may only be attainable in a painfully slow recognition that there is something inconsistent about seeking understanding from a world where we impose such immeasurable suffering.

Eulogy For A Loyalist

2010-12-21T02:47:00.001-08:00

I've recently been coming to terms with the passing of our West Highland Terrier, Scotty. The death of a pet is a strange experience. There are no sympathetic callers, no funeral arrangements, no formalities. The reactions to his death have been both sensitive and indifferent. As a result, I am sometimes unsure about how to feel myself. But when I devote any kind of thought to him, I realise just how sad I am. As such, the following is some kind of acknowledgement of his short time on Planet Earth.

Since St. Patrick's Day 1998, when we took him from his protesting but helpless mother, Scotty had been an integral part of our family. He lived with us until last year when he took up sticks with my sister, after a new family home was deemed spatially insufficient for him. Scotty wasn't the typical obedient and always adoring dog. Like we all fall out with each other, each of us fell out with him on more than one occasion. He wasn't always restrained in his protestations to something that was bothering him. Wicked would be a good word to describe his darker moments. In fairness to Scotty, this became less common as he got older. Though he did retain the threat of violence through his customary growl. However, he also had another more human way of expressing dissatisfaction. The most striking example of this was his refusal to have anything to with my mother after she accidentally stepped on his paw. His temporary rejection was especially strange because he usually displayed the utmost respect and admiration of her, possibly because she fed him whilst the rest of us were at school, work or wherever. She even went to the length of actually requesting his attention, something previously unthinkable. All in vain, Scotty must have been trying to make a point. He made classic amends by choosing to forgive her on Christmas Day whilst the family exchanged the annual pleasantries. He must have known there was an above average supply of food under her control that day.

Scotty didn't get on with many people outside the family. Many of my friends often told me how much they didn't like him, presumably because of the frosty reception they received upon arrival at the house. There were, however, some people that he did warm to. They understood that Scotty's friendship was a journey more so than a destination. Scotty often won over his opponents by demonstrating his ability to watch TV, something I deeply regret not capturing on video. He was especially fond of animal documentaries and horse racing. He did show his intellectual limitations by trying to follow the animal off the tv when they ran off screen, only to find that they weren't running across the room as he had expected.

Despite his sometimes lukewarm attitude, Scotty's true colours often shone bright. He rarely went beyond 100 yards of the house, proudly patrolling the garden against the perceived threats of low flying crows and the odd feline. He would be especially fierce in these pursuits after we would give him the verbal command of 'Go on Scotty, Get Him!', as if trying to impress the superiors in his pack. Despite being accused of cowardice, he often stood determinedly against the daily 'threats' of the postman and unfamiliar visitors. These confrontations were usually fanned by the stranger's frantic kicking, fight like stance and constant retorting of the immortal phrase 'Goway you little fucker!'. Scotty's finest hour came when he alerted my brother and I to the ailing condition of my very elderly grandmother as my mother tried to prevent her from fainting to the floor. With the TV volume at high level, it was Scotty's yelping and scratching of the living room door that drew our attention to what was happening.

Despite this dramatic example of just how worthy a dog can be, it is his more subtle friendship that I will miss most. These were much more apparent when one spent some time in the house alone. The cliché image of an owner using their dog as some kind of sounding board for daily thoughts and concerns is one that I can greatly identify with. Of course, he never answered, even if I sometimes imagined he did. But he did look like he was listening, even if he was probably just scanning for the words 'dinner', 'walkies' or 'Duxie' (Scotty's local canine rival).

I often wonder what went through Scotty's little brain when he was alone in the house. I wonder if he ever worried that we wouldn't come home. I always hoped not and tried to tell him, as we left, that would we see him later. Just weeks before he died, I took him to the vet for a haircut and a check on the worsening state of his ears. As the procedures required Scotty's anaesthesisation, I had the uncomfortable experience of having him plead for me, from the inside of his cage, not to leave. It was with reverse emotion that he greeted me upon return. Scotty was given a clean bill of health and sporting a new clean trim, he looked well below his 12 years. When I left him back to my sister that evening, I told him I'd see him later. He didn't take much notice. It was whilst I was out of the country these past few weeks that Scotty's deteriorating mood and turning of his head to one side forced another trip to the vet. This time there was a tumor found growing inside his ear. The vet warned of an increase in suffering and a consequential cutting of Scotty's relatively short fuse. My sister, who had a particular bond with Scotty, was forced to take the painful decision.

I wasn't sure how to take it. I had told myself after our last day together that he had another few years in him. After hearing of why and how he had died, I sat on the couch. As the above memories surfaced, I couldn't help but let go. I'm still reconciling with the fact that I've lost one of my best friends. A fellow sentient being that saw at my best and my worst, my surest and most doubtful, my happiest and saddest; Scotty knew me as the whole package, the complete human being that I am. I will miss him alot.

Confessions Of A Recently Qualified Driver

2010-10-18T13:19:00.000-07:00

I learned to drive this year. Yes, it took me until age 24 to finally get behind the wheel. I started not under the guidance of a parent, sibling or friend, but under the tuition of a stranger through driving lessons. I wanted to learn from someone I didn't know. When I was younger, I remember my two older brothers bitterly exchanging words over a failed project, where one had tried to teach the other how to drive. The student in this situation had warned me not to learn to drive from someone I know. Apparently, the whole event was marked with derisive sarchasm, insecure defensive snaps and intermittent automobile movement between sudden stops. In fact, seeing the car behave in such ways is something I can recall from my cautious peeking through the curtains at this particular 'lesson'. I always remembered that.

12 years later, I decided that it was time for me to face my fear of taking control of an automobile. My first driving lesson went quite well. My instructor had scoffed at my suggestion that I might not have been ready to get out on the road on the first day. I was thrown straight to the wolves in a novice negotiation of a spacious commercial estate. The wolves though, didn't bite. I surprised myself. It all came to me so quickly. 'Ok. Foot gently off the clutch, simultaneously applying slight pressure to the accelerator. That's not so hard. Ok my braking probably shouldn't jolt me forward like that. Ok. I stalled a bit at that junction but the driver in that car behind me didn't seem to mind. I'll get better. Hey! It's only my first lesson. I can do this! Top Gear Baby!'

Over the following months, I steadily progressed. Hill starts, reversing around corners and 3-point turns became almost bi-daily exercises as I prepared in focused anticipation for my driving test. My confidence grew and grew. I was ready! My driving test took place in late June. Despite a few hiccups, such as leaving my provisional licence in the car after I had gone inside to begin the oral test, I felt the test went fairly well. I even asked that the examiner put on his seat belt after he sat in to the passenger seat. Upon return, after the 45 minute tour of Kilkenny residential estates, I was DELIGHTED to have him tell me that I had passed. In fact, I was so happy that I offered him an enthusiastic handshake, something he clearly wasn't used to. My other memory of that day is returning to my car as a fully qualified driver, beaming with pride. As I unlocked the door, I noticed another candidate who had taken his test simultaneously to mine with a different examiner. He and another man, presumably his father, sat in his car, somberly looking over the test score card. I really should have had the presence of mind to refrain from making any gestures toward him, but before I knew it I was offering two thumbs up, backed up with a elemental smile of excitement. I don't know what I was trying to communicate. I think it was something like 'How did you do? Mine went well!!'. The glum expressions that they returned signaled to me that they wanted me to leave their field of view. Immediately.

Brazenly, I took to the roads as a fully licensed driver. Without the spectre of the test hanging over me, I started loosening up on the road. I felt like an equal now; liberated of those almost self-derogatory L plates. Passengers would compliment me on my 'assured' driving and congratulate me on the relatively short period of time it took me to get a full licence. I really started to enjoy driving. I still do. I haven't quite gotten over the novelty of being able to drive people from one place to another. Once, a friend of mine cringed when, mid-drive, I turned to him in the passenger seat and said 'You know what Michael, I really enjoy driving'.

Of course, such self-assurance could only yield some kind of grief. One day, as I creeped down a busy urban street, I started day dreaming. It gets boring travelling at a speed of 5km/h. In heavy traffic, the power of the driver diminishes, unless one wants to cause carnage, and reep the consequences. On this occasion, my mind wandered away from my location. I was probably thinking of something menial, like what I was going to have for dinner or what my next blog entry was going to be about. It was only when I casted my eyes back onto where they were supposed to be that I noticed how the car in front was really close to my bumper, and getting closer.My mind suddenly awoke from the day-dream. Too late. THUD. 'Fuck'. Fearfully, I noticed the driver of the struck vehicle angrily scan his rear-view mirror as he applied the handbrake, opened his door and stepped expressively out of his car. I pre-empted our little chat with some apologetic facial expressions and 'guilty as charged' hand gestures. I measured him up. He was middle-aged man. His car looked newish. I was scared. He looked closely at the point of collision and turned to me for an explanation. I felt it important to get my apology in first. 'Sor..Sorry..Is it bad?'. His reply was swift. 'Have you no brakes on that thing'? I giggled a little at his sarcasm, hoping to find some basis for harmony. I explained what happened. 'Look, I'm really sorry. I just lost concentration'. When he heard that, he seemed to let his guard down a little, as if he had some understanding. His tone of voice became less aggressive. 'I'd say you were away with the fairies were ya?' I seized upon this, 'Yeah.... I'm really really sorry... Sorry.' I got the feeling that he was actually a nice guy and was only behaving in this confrontational way because he had watched too many episodes of Top Gear and was trying to do what Jeremy Clarkson would do. He turned back to look again at the damage. I asked him if it was 'okay?'. Resuming his previous posture of indignation, he told me 'I hope so' in the least nice possible way.

After a couple of days of increased concentration and appreciation of the dangers of complacency, I managed to regain any confidence lost. Soon, the angry middle aged man was a distant memory and driving was enjoyable again. Allowing old people to cross the street, giving attractive girls the right of way and of course, giving every one a lift. It made me feel important, like I was making a difference. Driving had really improved my life. It was with such aplomb that I approached a long-distance journey this past week. The requirement for such a journey was a meeting with fellow stammerers in a hotel in Mullingar. The two-hour drive up went very well. I even got out on the motorway for the first time. No problem there. The hotel parking was a bit tight but I manged to squeeze my Opel Astra into an awaiting space. Sprightly, I jumped out of the car, immensely satisfied with yet another a smooth running journey. As I entered the hotel, I fleetingly thought about how it might be a little tricky to reverse out of that space. 'Nevermind', I thought, 'I'll worry about that later'.

Four hours later, I exited the back entrance of the hotel in a similar way to how I had entered. The day had gone well. My stammering demon was silenced. I wasn't having those toxic thoughts of self-consciousness. I really felt in control. Like, more than ever, this life is mine to live. It was one of those moments where one felt genuinely grateful. I looked at my car as I approached it. 'And now I get to drive all the way back to Kilkenny!'. As I sat back in for the 2 hour return journey, I noticed that an orange jeep (I don't know what brand) had parked perpendicularly behind me, in his own imaginary parking space. In the rear view mirror, I noticed that it was actually fairly close. 'Shit, I hope I can get out here'. At this point, I probably should point out that parking and negotiation of tight spaces is something I still haven't quite got the hang of. It was with such background thoughts that I started to reverse out. I tried going one way. Nope. Then the other. No. Two cars, parked closely on either side meant I wasn't able to avail of the turning space I needed to compensate for the lack of room I had to reverse straight out. I kept trying. To no avail. 'Bollocks'.

After a good ten minutes of trying various turning combinations, I decided I need to step out. I looked at the jeep that was causing all this and cursed at it. 'Fuck you. Fucking...Jeep'. I walked around the back of my car, and surveyed the situation. 'What do I need to do here?'. I tried to gather my thoughts and dispel the frustration that was starting to cloud everything positive about the whole day. The liberated feeling of ten minutes earlier was quickly subsiding. I was out of control again, falling into the vicious circle of doubt and angry frustration. It was at this frail time that I noticed the sound of knocking on a window. The car park was at the back of the hotel and in perfect view of hotel guests in their rooms. 'I really hope that's not for me'. I looked up to see where the noise was coming from. On the top floor, I noticed three girls, of similar age, waving down at me from the top floor. Yes, I had an audience. They looked giddy, possibly drunk. They were probably part of a hen party or something, getting ready for their 'big night out'. They must of thought that this was all great 'craic'. 'Oh look a man who can't park!'. Unsure of how to handle my new followers, I decided to start playing along with their amusing points of view. I gestured to them in that familiar 'what can I do' stance. They all laughed. I pretended I was 'having a laugh' at the whole thing. Of course once I turned around and my face was out of their view I was quietly willing them to 'Fuck off'.

With the onlooking females and their birds eye-view now very much part of the equation, I decided I needed assistance. 'Get someone to back me out! Yeah, at least that will make me look less alone in all this'. I walked around the car park looking for the nearest man. There were already enough women involved. Eventually, I came upon a smoking hut filled with about seven hotel staff. As I approached the hut, I noticed the familiar sound of employee banter. I didn't want to have to interrupt their sacred escape from work. At this stage though, I had no choice. Hesitantly, I filled a rare silence in their chatter with a meek 'Sorry would someone be able to give me hand backing out down here, there's a jeep blocking me in and I can't really..'. Before I could finish, there was a man on his feet accompanying me down to the car. He was around the same age as me. Yet, I kind of got the impression that he was unsure of how he was going to help me. Maybe he thought I would tell him what to do. He wished. As I returned to the cockpit(sometimes I imagine i'm a pilot), I had some hope that I might actually get out of there.

And so we began to co-operate in this temporary alliance. 'Yeah..yeah..come on...keep coming....STOP'. Move forward slightly. Repeat. Despite the efforts of my new friend, I soon found myself in laughable angles, wedged diagonally between the two cars on either side. I was literally moving milimetres, forward and back, trying to seize any turning space I could. His barks of 'STOP' became ever more frequent, suggesting that the whole thing was becoming painfully futile. I felt so ridiculous. Every now and again he would say things like 'Now, just move up there and you should be able to get out'. 'Move up where?' I thought. 'Haven't you noticed that there is nowhere to move!'. Of course, I didn't say any of this to him. Instead, I replied with macho utterances like 'Right so' and 'No bothers'. Eventually he realised that we weren't getting the desired result. He stood my window, with his hand on his head, confusedly looking at the angle. I was just about to offer him a go when we heard the distant shout of a female voice. 'Turn back the other way. That Renault is too big!' The girls from above were now offering their advice. The man looked at me, almost as if he came up with it himself, and told me to 'Try going back the other way'. I knew it was no use. I had already tried that. But just to placate the awkwardness of the situation, I decided to go through the motions. When that was over, and the girls were quiet again, I asked him if there was anyway of finding out who the jeep belonged to. If I could get them to move out of their self-made parking spot, all would be well. 'Go into reception and give them the reg, they might know who owns it'. Off I went.

Inside, I relayed the details of the whole situation to the girl at reception. I was terrified that I'd see one of my friends, who had stayed on, and have to explain why I was still at the Hotel an hour after I had bid them farewell. It's funny, I have no problem opening up to these people about something as deep set and emotive as a speech impediment, but I wouldn't want them to know that I wasn't able to reverse out of a tight parking space. The girl at reception wasn't sure how to handle me. She asked me to point out my car on her CCTV image of the car-park. 'Why?' I thought. 'Do you not believe me?'. Eventually she decided to contact the boss. He would figure it out.

I waited around for a few minutes before he showed up. It wasn't hard to spot him. He was moving through the lobby at lightening speed, like only a Hotel Manager would. It looked like he had ten different things to do. He was already talking to me from about 10 feet away. 'Now, are you broken down is it?'. Obviously he hadn't picked up the synopsis from the girl at reception. 'No, I can't get out of a space there because there's a jeep parked where it shouldn't be parked'. Of course, he didn't mind that. He's managing a business that relies on customers. He would let them park on the roof if they could get up there. 'Right, shir I'll go out and have a look at it'. I knew what was coming. The final stage of my humiliation. He was going to do it for me. At this stage, with my pride so wounded, I was content with that. When we got outside to the car-park, I pointed it out to him. He wasn't even nearly phased. He never actually stopped moving. 'I'll have a go at it there'. I handed over they keys. 'Yeah, you'll have a go', I thought. As if this was going to be some sort of challenge to him. There was no go to be had. He was going to just do it. He sat into the driver's seat and revved up the engine aggressively. Now here was a driver. I looked around to see if my new girlfriends were still watching. Thankfully, they had dispersed. 'Maybe they'll come back, see that the car is gone and presume that I finally pulled it off instead of getting a 'real' man to do it'. As I watched him manouvere the angles, a part of me hoped he would have similar trouble to me. No chance. Within about 30 seconds, he had achieved what I had spent the past hour aspiring to. I'm not sure what he actually did. It all happened so fast. He jumped out and enthusiastically handed control of the car back to me. 'Got it first time'. We both had a big laugh. His laughter was filled with 'There you go now you retard, don't forget to come back again and pick an easier spot'. Mine was charged by a simple attempt to divert the pain into the laughter, thereby surviving that horrible moment. I quickly looked back up at the girls' window, just to confirm they hadn't seen the final shaming. They had. I didn't even wait to see what they would do. I took my control of my freed vehicle and scurried out of Mullingar.

As I drove nervously through the midland night, I tried to absorb what had just happened. The embarrassment was immense. I decided that I would never go to Mullingar again, or possibly even Co. Westmeath, for fear of meeting some of the witnesses. Then, I thought about how the guy that had done his test at the same time as me would have loved to seen this newly qualified driver guillotined with humiliation. I could almost see him and his dad on the road in front of me, laughing at me and mockingly imitating my two thumbs up. I thought of how the girls would tell this story for years to come. How they had watched 'this chap trying to back out of a space for an hour'. And how all their boyfriends would laugh and point out that the driving test isn't hard enough if it allows 'lads like that' on the road. The middle aged man who's car I had bumped was there too, pointing me out to Jeremy Clarkson who was making shitty jokes at my expense to his sheep (audience). Of course, the humor of it all was also beginning to dawn on me. Now, having reflected deeply on the whole experience, I can appreciate more than ever the healing power of laughter. What a wonderful thing it is that can strip me of so many of the vices that I've written about in previous entries. Pride, doubt and anger don't seem so strong in the face of the ability to laugh and not take it all so seriously.

Black October

2010-10-04T08:29:00.000-07:00

In these recessionary times, lots of numbers get thrown around. 34 billion to bail out Anglo-Irish Bank, Government deficit of 32%, unemployment rate of 13.7%. The problems we face are so much bigger than any one of us. Our country, like many others, teeters on the edge of financial abyss. We are witnessing one of the most defining moments in our history. But what can we do? Without our swollen wallets, we feel so powerless. The human consequence of our depleted economy has been to drain us dry of any semblance of hope. Television and radio seems to be offering an endless re-run of national despair. There's a lethargy in the air, a distinct atmosphere of paralysis. And yet, there is no better time to change the future. It's in these uncertain times that new attitudes and ideas can be woven into the public psyche. Now would be a worse time than ever to succumb to our doubts and fears.

A few weeks ago, I watched Harry Barry, a doctor who deals with mental health issues, warn of the dangers of the recession on our mental health. One of his observations centered around the notion that there is a tendency amongst many Irish people (and probably many others) to evaluate their personal worth on their level of employment. If this is true, which I suspect it is, imagine the battering our self-worth is taking in the current climate. What must we be telling ourselves? The collective stream of consciousness must be awash with a vile negativity. Such assertions correspond to a 24% rise in suicides in 2009 from 2008, representing the biggest ever surge in the national suicide rate.

Of course, as mentioned in a previous entry, we would be naive to think that a swift correction of our economic woe would alleviate us of this concern. It's probably more accurate to suggest that the financial crisis represents a triggering mechanism for self-doubt, a sentiment already well-nurtured before the current situation arose. Without a job, people may feel that they have lost their purpose, that they have become a dreg to society. The simple remedy would just be to go out and find something else. Not in this recession. International economist, Paul Krugman, warned in April 2009 that Ireland is really and truly without options until there is an international recovery. In October 2010, he seems vindicated. Without the constant stream of employment that flowed through the previous decade, people may find themselves in an unfamiliar state of idleness. When combined with various pressures, like putting food on the table and keeping up with mortgage payments, some people may find this stagnation too much.

The impact of the recession has been all the more dramatic because of the context of what went before. In 2005, The New York Times described this land as the 'Wild West of European Finance'. The idea seemed to be that Ireland's rapid economic growth had fostered the growth of a dangerous laissez-faire attitude toward the financial sector, on both public and governmental levels. But it didn't matter, questioning wasn't in fashion back then. The vast majority of us weren't interested in why we seemed to becoming so wealthy, only that we were. Alot Done, More to Do. That sounded more like it. The year before the collapse of the economy, we elected Fianna Fáil to their third consecutive reign in power. We really did believe that they were in steady control of all our fortunes. It wasn't until late 2008 and early 2009 that we realised just how ignorant we'd been. Our failure to properly regulate the banking industry, described by Thomas Jefferson as the most dangerous threat to liberty, left us sifting through the rubble of our previous prosperity.

Recently, the Minister of Finance, Brian Lenihan, has been at pains to explain why we must sacrifice so much to ensure the confidence of international bondholders. Watching him on Prime Time a few weeks ago, I noticed how he dealt with a question on how he could justify public spending cutbacks to ordinary people who find themselves in desperate situations. In short, he didn't. Instead, he turned our attention to the national deficit. He saw it as more important to soften the blow of future cutbacks then to tend to the wounds of previous ones. This kind of diversion corresponds to a broader government strategy in recent weeks of trying to dissuade the pessimism now rife in the country.

Forward thinking. Turning the corner. If we pull together we can do it! Enough of all this Pessimism! National consensus! Come on get on that green jersey! We can have our economic independence!

And the bondholders can have all their money back. For what? Just so they can lend it all to some other maverick Government that will leave some other nation in peril? And so we can start blowing some other bubble that will eventually just burst again. Yes, it all makes perfect sense. For me, that has been the lasting impact that this recession will have. The absence of fairness and triumph of big business over the rest of society. Sometimes I wonder how we're supposed to retain any moral outlook in the shadow of what is happening. Our propping up of the very same institutions that landed us in this mess signals just how free we really are not. And don't be so quick to blame capitalism either. If the free-market was genuinely free, the banks would have been left to sink. But you wouldn't want to know what would happen then!

Therein, lies the real moral dilemma of the crisis. The banks and financial institutions have always championed the free-market. The less interference exercised by the State, the more

money there is to make. When the banks are benefiting from the free-market, the rest of us play along. We take out mortgages, borrow excessively and pay high interest rates. Yet, when the free-market no longer favours the banks, and exposes their gross levels of greed, they can hold the rest of us to ransom with the threat of their non-existence and the subsequent impact on our society. And so we comply. Banks are returned to the playing field of the free-market, their existence guaranteed by the state. For the rest of us, there is no half-time. Instead, we are left to run ourselves into the ground trying desperately to hang on to our futures. It's no wonder we get terms like 'patriotism' and 'consensus' thrown at us. If we are going to affect the future for the better, we cannot rely on it from the top down. Change has to come from the bottom up.

But do I really want to change this? Sure, if I was losing my home or getting jailed for falling behind on electricity payments, then I might get revolutionary. But do I really have the stomach to come up with credible alternatives to the way things work? Who am I to speak up anyway? I'll just keep my head down and hope that I can stay afloat. I'm sure neo-liberal economics will smile on me again. I might even get rich some day.

The rationale is strangely familiar. Caution, passivity, fear. Defensive coping mechanisms, repressing the difficulties we have with the world around us, in the meek hope that it might come good some day. The relationship between our collective and individual behaviors isn't so blurry. But what a bleak picture it is. It may not be just the recession that is vacating us of hope, it could also be our sheer inability to be anyway constructive about it. Just as we feel unmoved to confront our own personal fears, we are just apathetic about our collective problems. Does this explain the correlation of higher suicide rates and the continued descent into further financial trouble?

The truth is that there actually is so much we can do for ourselves. Broadly speaking, we can try

and ensure that we prevent, to the best of our ability, a similar situation in the future? This means education. Not an education that leads to degrees or doctorates, but one that empowers us as citizens. This means an individual responsibility to learn more about the world we live in. Economics would probably be a good place to start, since it bears such relevance to our existence. Personally, I was lazy about understanding economics because of the terminology involved. Now I can see that it is precisely such lazieness that allowed things to get as bad as they are. By taking that particular plunge, we can find out about things like Roosevelt's Glass-Steagall Act, enacted after the Wall Street crash to dissuade the fusion of investment and depositary banks, and to control financial speculation. By acting individually, we can also encourage the creation of stronger and more resilient communities. At a time when charities are over-run from the fallout from the economic collapse, there is so much we can do to contribute, and so many ways to do it. Our political system reflects how involved we are in it. If we have problems with the way the state is run, it is up to us to change it. That is the essence of a democracy. If there is no-one worth voting for, then spoil your vote. Let your voice be heard. No matter how small or seemingly irrelevant. If enough people agree with you, you'll eventually get a politician who listens.

If you're sighing at what you have just read, then I've beaten you to it. It's that 'doubt' problem again. I can't believe how 'preachy' I sometimes sound. I can't quite get used to idea of actually having something to say about all this. I've already visualised your eyes raising toward the heaven. What chance do I have of doing something when I carry all this baggage of fear. It's a problem I have with my perceptions. In Werner Herzog's film, Wheel Of Time, the Dalai Lama remarks how the centre of universe is at the subjective viewpoint of each individual person. Essentially, the world around us exists only as we are seeing it. This suggests that necessary abolition of commonly held inaccuracies. Learned inaccuracies. Take, for example the 'employment/self-worth' example mentioned earlier. If we choose to believe that we are worth no more than how much we are being paid, we are putting our lives in the hands of the fickle economy. Our existence is relegated to contingency on the self-serving whims of investors and bondholders. Is this a sane way to exist? Change won't come easy. But it starts within.

Doubt

2010-09-19T13:48:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine once told me how he had lost hope. In the middle of being irked about nothing in particular, we started to discuss the origins of our doubts.

It's like when you're young, you're told all this stuff and you think the world is all orderly and fair...With a God in heaven and Santy at Christmas... And then you grow up and you realise life is actually beyond understanding..Totally unfair.. And dominated by people who just really annoy you..

I agreed. He didn't have to explain why he had arrived at that conclusion. I understood. Though it troubled me a little, I enjoyed the honesty. And besides, the philosophy it bestowed on us was an easy one to live by. Sure we might have been succumbing to some sort of eternal misery, but at least we were admitting it. It shrouded the deeply set pressures of life like pursuing a career, and led us to believe that nothing really mattered. By recognising the fallacy of what we'd been told, we were somehow above it. All we needed to do was doubt. We didn't need all those standards and etiquettes. And if we did, in some small way, bemoan our rejection of conformity, it wasn't our fault. It was theirs.

Them! Parents, teachers, the government, society! All they ever did was lie to us to us about how fair and rewarding this world is. And at the end of it all, we were supposed to nod back smiling. As if we were understanding of why they had built up all our hopes, only to have them shattered by the inadequacies they hadn't told us about. And what? Now we're supposed to conform and repeat the whole process just like they did. Fuck that! I'm the victim here! I don't owe anything to anyone!

Ah yes. The bitterness, the anger! It was almost a way of life. I kept myself busy being angry. In many ways, I still am. Arghhhh!!! Though not as much as those later teenage years. My view was askew. I chose to see things that fed my disillusionment with the way things were. Being 'right' offered some satisfaction. Cynicism, however, is an infectious thing. Once you start looking for the bad side to everything, it's hard to see anything else. Maybe there's something in it. After all, I probably wouldn't have bonded with alot of people the way I did unless we had some sort of common dislike to bitch about. Isn't talking about what we don't like one of the most common forms of bonding? Nevertheless, it eventually came to me that I was probably being a little close-minded. I always felt threatened by people who didn't agree with what I had to say. Sometimes I would stumble upon something worth saying but most of the time I was just spewing anger. I wasn't really contributing anything in particular to anything at all. Like calling myself an atheist, not being able to wait before telling everyone exactly what I didn't believe in. Wouldn't it have been better to come up with something more positive? Something that said what I did believe in. Instead of attacking so vehemently what I didn't.

Now, I've changed! I see the world so much more clearly now. What we need to do is....No, that's not it. My doubt's not finished yet. The truth is that the world can still look as troubling as ever. And trying to change that or even talk about it seems so pretentious. In fact, I have to confess a considerable amount of doubt in even writing this entry. It's so self-indulgent. Talking about myself and my intellectual development as if I was some kind of modern Voltaire. Who do I think I am? I'm only 24 and I write these blogs like I've seen it all. As if I've spent time carrying out rigorous analysis of the human mind. I haven't! It's all just pseudo psychology. Put together from my biased observations of the world, each one complimenting my ego-driven beliefs. Besides, I've been noticing a lot of defects to this whole thing. Like the other day when a friend told me that he had read the last entry on Pride. That was fine. However, we just so happened to stumble into a big discussion/debate/argument about something. Afterwards, I couldn't help feel that the whole discussion was tainted by my previous admission that I sometimes help turn heated discussions into matters of egotistical pride. I felt bad. This feeling was compounded when someone else described parts of this blog as 'preachy'. Doubtful as I am, I suddenly feel myself self-righteous and hypocritical. Like a real idiot. The way things are going, it won't be long before someone tells me what they really think of me and tell me what I can do with my 'blog'. That word. Blog. I hate it. It's so...Western! Who doesn't have a blog these days? It's almost as bad as the 'singer songwriter' epidemic. What? You have a guitar and wrote some mediocre songs and now we're supposed to take you seriously and 'hush' while you play? No, I don't think your heartfelt and sentimental. Ha! I doubt that very much. You're just an insincere attention seeker, clinging to the latest trend to try and make yourself relevant. And what about tweeting and status updates? The Internet has given people the undeserved privilege of having an audience for their stupid observations and half-witted ponderings, as if they deserved to be heard. And if they're not doing that, they're telling us what menial task they are currently engaged in. Why? Why?! Because that's the way it's going now? This is our evolution, is it? The relegation of communication to the most bland and mundane things we could think of. Like anyone GIVES A FUCK. Don't we have better things to be doing? To be finding out? Like how to survive this messy monetarism, in this downward spiral into some sort of economic wasteland. And here I am, joining in, writing about things like Pride and Obsession. Typical intellectual bullshit.

Ok, I think I'm done. Yep. So there it is, my doubt in all it's glory. I have to say, I noticed myself getting a little excited there. I was typing that little bit faster. I felt I had that little bit more to say. Words came easier to me in my state of doubt. There were so many easy targets. I was in such a rush to put everything down. But now, having said all that, I actually feel like I haven't really said anything at all. It was all just a big rant about how everything disgusts me. And what do I have to show for it? Nothing. I don't feel any satisfaction. No gratification or vindication. No solace. Nothing. Empty.

Listening to the radio the other day, I heard a man paying tribute to his father, who had recently reached 100 years of age. Asked about what he thought kept his father in good health, he said something that struck me. Rather than appraising dry brown bread and sugarless tea, he instead communicated that his father could always find the positives in everything, especially people. When someone was out of favour, he would always seek to understand rather then condemn them. I thought of my grandmother, who herself lived until 100, and noted how I had never heard her talk down anyone. Maybe these people live so long because they don't carry around all the begrudgery mentioned earlier. They decide not to ware themselves out with tiresome indignation. They're not looking for the next thing to whine about. They are contented and secure people with no chip on their shoulder. They live and let live. (And die, eventually)

We all have our grievances. At one time or another, we feel as if we've been let down or cheated. By someone or something. It's hard to be serene in a world that sometimes seems so unfair, on so many levels. Of course we're going to get a little distrustful from time to time. But what happens when we bury ourselves in our defence mechanisms? Life just becomes a roundabout of derision, spitefulness and self-consciousness. Why, instead of trying to find the falsehood in everything, don't I look for things that I can relate to? Some kind of common ground. Wouldn't it be much more interesting if we could try and see ourselves in each other? Instead of trying to highlight how we're so different from each other. And how I'm on that side and you're on the other. And that's what makes you WRONG! And me RIGHT! Maybe If I refrained from all that meaninglessness, I would feel less compelled to complain about things that I'm not even sure annoy me that much. Maybe If I gave myself a push and tried to disprove my insecurities, I wouldn't fall into that hostile disposition toward everything else. Maybe. Maybe not. Actually, that's what I doubt the most.

Pride

2010-08-27T05:53:00.000-07:00

Sitting forward, his arms crossed in defense. His head slightly cocked, turning horizontally, back and forth. He talks with such aggression, as if there is a lot riding on the outcome of this debate. I know, as I make my point that it's all so futile. He's not going to change his mind, and even if I did manage to alter his perspective in any little way, he would never admit it. Look at him there, his eyes glazed over with his cynicism, looking at me with feigned condescension. Trying to make me feel small. Trying to frighten me off with his whole demeanor, like a cat that arches it's back at the sight of a curious canine. It all ends in tension. It got personal. He made it personal. Trying to personalise an argument, the hallmark of a bully. Littering the interaction with attacks on my character. And so I rose; thinking attack was the best form of defence. I sunk down to lower levels and calculatedly moved in on his weak points. After a while, I'm not sure either of us were really sure what we were even talking about. It was harder and harder to concede that he actually had made some good points; things I hadn't thought of before. In the end, a third party had to intervene and change the conversation topic because we had both become too annoying to listen to. It felt so unfinished. Nobody had won. Nobody ever does. And so we sat there bitterly, stewing in our own miserable pride.

The pitfalls of pride have long been recognized. According to Sacred History of Profound Things, by Charles Panati, it was the Greeks who first assembled a list of man's most dangerous behaviours, a list that would later be modified by the Christian Church into the seven deadly sins. Evagrius, the Greek author in question, was so worried by pride that he put it right at the top of his list. When Pope Gregory devised his seven cardinal sins, he retained pride as the most dangerous. Gregory's definition of danger arose from the degree to which the sin interfered with love, of God presumably. Accordingly, pride was seen as the sin from which all others arise. As with all the seven deadly sins, pride became associated with a particular animal (horse) and colour (violet). It was also afforded it's own specific punishment. Those guilty of excessive and unrepentant pride would do their time on the breaking wheel in Hell.

WE'LL SEE HOW PROUD YOU ARE AFTER THAT!!

So it's obvious that pride is no modern ill. It's stigma stretches across millenia. But you wouldn't need to study ancient Greece or the early Christian period to know that pride isn't something others always take to. Pride isn't one uniform set of behaviours. It's meaning and implications are varying. The old scholastic interpretation was pride as self adoration. Self-adoration was and sometimes still is associated with someone who sees themselves as being above others. It's seen almost as a denial of humanity; a rebuttal of imperfection. Those bearing this kind of pride need not say that they consider themselves better. Instead they communicate it through their demeanor, their body language, the way they treat others. This kind of pride is probably the most blatant. A modern example would probably be best captured in Cristiano Ronaldo. Those who follow soccer will be well acquainted with the Portuguese attacker. For those of you don't, he's the one who changed clubs at the cost of 95 million euros and currently gets paid almost 250'000 euro each week. A week! Ronaldo's self confidence is beyond measure. Earlier in his career, he was criticised as a show boater who was more keen on showing off his individual skill as opposed to working for the team. Yet he overcame many of these criticisms by becoming an integral part of a well decorated Manchester United team. It took him a while. I remember watching him do truly embarassing things like doing multiple step-overs over the ball only to pass it straight to an opposing player. Showing off got him into trouble. His pride seemed like his Achilles heel. I remember many people disagreeing with me that he would eventually turn into a world class player. 'Too cocky' they said. But it was that cockiness that made him the player he is now. Ronaldo never let all the embarassing mistakes dent his confidence. He didn't care what anyone else thought. His lack of humility and total belief/worship of himself carried him through. He's good but he thinks he's the best (which he isn't). Cristiano is pride personified. He has his pride to thank for getting him where he is now. If Pope Gregory was right, he'll be doing a few eternities on the breaking wheel. But that might be a little harsh.

Being proud doesn't always mean being as big of a poseur as Ronaldo is. There are far much more subtle ways of considering yourself above others. In many ways, implicit pride is much more obstructing and annoying then the overt type. People with this kind of pride can be identified by doing things like refusing to admit they're wrong in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In an argument, they are very unlikely to say things like 'Yes, that's a good point' or 'I suppose I hadn't thought of it like that'. Instead, they become aggressive and condescending. Yet, when one looks deeper, it's seems more like they are defending themselves. Concession must be too threatening. It's like as if they have nothing else. Nothing else to lean on, no peace of mind. All they have is their pride. They would rather antagonise, be unreasonable and put others down than admit that they might not be 100% correct in what they are saying. I think all of us have been guilty of such behaviour at some stage in our lives. I also think that we can admit (those of us who are that little less proud) that it wasn't always our convictions or belief in what we thought was right that cemented our refusal to budge. There was something else. We felt as if we were under attack. We didn't ask for the fight.

He started it, thinking he could shove all his bullshit opinions down our throats. And what? We're just going to listen to that? Accept that? I couldn't let him win. He can't get away with that. We trade some blows. I can't be wrong. He can't be right. The thought of him thinking that he won this battle, that he defeated me is something I just cannot allow to happen. That's not the way it's supposed to be. Never.

What happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object? Too many times we find ourselves in the stalemate of an argument of attrition. The interjection of a third party pleading for us to stop. It's hard. A heated argument fueled by our sickly pride leaves us charged with a bitter feeling. It's so hard just to let go.

We've gone too far. There has to be a winner. Yet we both know there won't be. I hate you now as much you do me. We're never going admit our weaknesses. This is pointless. So we'll turn away, trying so hard to escape this horrible situation that our stupid pride got us into. But it's so hard. I look at you there trying to put a calm and indifferent face on you. As if anything I've said hasn't even registered with you. As if all your thinking about is what you're going to have for dinner. When really, I know your just as charged as I am with this bile of pride. I'd love if you fell over on your way out of the room. I'd love if you dropped that cup of tea your drinking and let a little girly scream out of you when all the hot tea landed all over your stupid t-shirt. I'd love to watch you blush in humiliation. Anything just to take you down off that high horse of yours. You fucking....

I like to think of myself as a reasonable person. However, too often, though not as often as before, I still find myself in these deadlocks. I find myself portraying arrogance because my pride is too important. It's not what I want to be. I want to be open-minded. I don't want to think like I have it all figured out. But I don't want anyone else to either..

That, perhaps, is where the problem lies. When we are confronted with a stubborn pride, we often feel the only we can respond is to reflect our opponents behaviour back to them. We want them to feel as frustrated as we do. Trading insults designed as argumentative points perpetuates itself. We could go on forever with this. It won't achieve anything. It just entrenches bad feelings of each other. Yet the truth is that we don't really resent each other. Deep down, beneath all the armour, we may actually find a profound respect for the other person. Eventhough we detest admitting it, we actually do appreciate their points of view. We can understand why they think the way they do. We regret the fact that we are locked in this bitter dispute.

Over what? I can't even remember what we're arguing about. No you said that...No I didn't say that..What? No I meant...You did? No? Oh....

Sometimes we get so bogged down in the act of arguing that we forget what even started it all. Pride truly has taken over. Even when we realise that we were actually in agreement all the time, it makes no difference. The damage has been done. The most remarkable thing about our pride is that it turns us against people we normal consider friends or allies. Maybe we're just not happy with our smoothly running friendship. Too many things are perhaps, being left unsaid. We need some excitement, some conflict. Or maybe we feel pride is more of a necessity. Our last line of defence in the great war of ego's. And all the while, I sometimes notice that we rarely talk each other up. We're almost afraid compliment each other, even though we actually do appreciate each other. Recently, I heard someone say that Irish people show affection by mocking each other. I can certainly relate to that sentiment. Yet, if true, it also means that our affection and derision may become somewhat indistinguishable. The mixed messages of such behaviour means we can sometimes be unsure whether someone is expressing their like or dislike for us. Either way, it wouldn't hurt to let each other know that we actually do think they're good people and that we appreciate them. How do we do that? I don't know. Let go of your ego, cringe a little bit and let some nice words flow out. The other person will probably reject the compliment; calculating that you are being sarchastic because you've spent your whole friendship avoiding being openly supportive. Eventually, they might learn to say 'Thanks'. Perhaps then, we would not need to fall back on our solitary pride as the only way to provide us with some sense of self-worth. All those frustrating tit for tat arguments would be a thing of the past. We could actually discuss, debate, contend, concede, agree, disagree..We could be genuinely reciprocal, taking from and giving too each other our ideas without the threat of our personalities being derided. We would feel comfortable with each other, not defensive. And if this new appraisal starts to create some Ronaldo's in our midst, then how bad? At least we can rest easy anticipating them being broken up on the wheel.

Obsessed

2010-07-31T07:10:00.000-07:00

It was one of those summers where we just kept smoking. Day after day we'd end up in that familiar haze. Our eyes constantly bloodshot. forgetting the simplest of things. Like leaving the key in the door on the outside. Or feeding my dog twice in the one day. Every day without fail.. Waking up with that groggy feeling. Realising that I had no milk in the morning because I just couldn't resist that bowl of Special K the night before.The same thing every day. The fits of laughter where the most mundane things would become comedic beyond our understanding of the word. That was the best thing about it. Laughing. Night after night we seemed to wait longer and longer before we would start, almost because we got lazier and lazier. And then, one day, after scraping together 40 euro for another quarter, we were told by our faithful benefactor that there was 'nothing around'. One night away from our ritual seemed long enough, though I did notice myself thinking a little clearer. Not enough to think differently about this smoky existence. But it wasn't to be. There was still 'nothing around'. Shit! What do we now? You mean we have to try and get by without the accompaniment of being stoned. Moods darkened, tempers worsened. My friends didn't seem as good company as before..Without hashish, we spent more time by ourselves at home. But that could only go on so long. We couldn't go on like this. Waiting for some shady delivery. Something had to change..WE had to change..What had we become? Only teenagers and already immersed in the dark underworld of illegal drugs. Already skipping a heart beat at the sight of the Gardaí. Enough was enough..We'd been in this maze too long. It was time to grow up, to discard the pipes and the bongs. To start dressing a little better. To start having more pride. To start putting ourselves out there! It was time to start drinking..

Teenage hood in a small town wasn't always easy to deal with. The pressures of ripening sexuality, childhood's end, increasingly suspicious parents projecting their own inconsistencies, the Leaving Cert. Nothing prepared you for it all. Narcotics and alcohol were like a God-send. They were an escape from the roles we had been ascribed. We could be different. We could be in another place. We didn't have to worry. No wonder we took to them with open arms. No wonder we were obsessed.

We don't like to think of ourselves as obsessed. With anything. Yet if we look hard enough, we see that obsession is all around us. As opposed to being confined to extreme cases of OCD, the irrationality is widespread and infectious. But where does obsession come from? Do we really get ridiculously attached to things because we really really like them? Hardly. Take for example, an addict of substance; the alcoholic. It contradicts reason that someone of sound mental health could become so attached to alcohol. I'm not anti-alcohol. I drink. However, I've never been able to relate to the continuous consumption of alcohol over a period of time. To me, it's just not enjoyable. My mood degenerates, my stammer seems uncontrollable and I find myself considering worst case scenarios that are barely even plausible. Luckily, an obsession with alcohol just isn't for me. For others, the benefits outweigh any inconvenient side effects. Some people look at alcohol and see potential rather than poison. For hours at a time, it can provide the much sought after feelings of confidence, indifference and self assurance. It can alter a personality so much that the drinker may seem unrecognisable to those around them. Someone shy and reserved may suddenly appear as outgoing and extremely friendly.The chances of sexual encounters increase ten fold in a drinking environment (how couldn't someone be obsessed with alcohol?!!). However, alcohol has another dimension. Just as easily as it inscribes all the above positive feelings, it can also solicit negative and destructive ones. Depression, self-pity, disillusionment, anxiety, anger, rage.. The darker side of alcohol can unlock a vault of emotions buried inside. Such powerful feelings often reveal themselves in drunkenness because of how much they are hidden in inhibitive soberity. Obsession with alcohol is born out of trying to escape from these inhibitions. Instead, it becomes a web of addiction, denial and destruction. In limbo between sober reality and the tinted glasses of intoxication, the obsession poisons the life of the alcoholic and those around them. Family and friends are left negotiating the uncertainty of which person the alcoholic is on any given day. Even when not drunk, the alcoholic displays the malice of obsession by exercising control, deceit and manipulation of those around them. They use all means to protect their love affair with drink. Simply put, it becomes the most important thing in their life. Obsession finds few avenues more brutal than that of alcoholism.

It would be easy to point to alcoholics and drug addicts and exclusively describe them as obsessed. As dramatic and obvious as their obsession is, it is but one of many ways of escape froma negative self-concept. Another notable form of obsession comes in the form of romantic infatuation. Just as alcoholics are addicted to substance, those displaying infatuation centre their obsession around a particular person. Before meeting their 'perfect match', these people find themselves in a cauldron of self-doubt relating to the lack of love they feel directed toward them. As one of the most ecstatic of feelings, reciprocal love represents one of the most elusive concepts known to man (and woman). Proponents of Freudian theory argue that our understanding and definition of love is formed by the relationships we have with our parents. Accordingly, if a girl feels some way rejected by her father, she is likely to be attracted to men who treat them in similar ways as a grown woman. Such people often find themselves in the torture room of unrequited love. Worse still, they may even continue to choose the wrong person over and over again, enforcing the template of rejection formed in early childhood. They are, perhaps, unaware that their infatuation is merely a playback of the childhood yearning for parental affection. Consequentially, they become obsessed with trying to win the heart of the person they chase because it matches with their template of rejection. Obsession manifests in the thought that if they can secure the affections of the person they want, everything else will fall into place. This even happens in established relationships where one side is loving more than they are loved.These relationships are shrouded with doubt, distrust and jealousy. Yet when threatened with losing their partner, the obsessed person will panic, certain that being half loved is the best that they can do. They calculate that losing the one shred of love they have will force them to face the problems that they have as a person. Rejection is unfathomable, too painful and simply not bearable for the romantically obsessed.

It doesn't stop there. The epidemic of obsession has still more ways of expressing itself. Let's start mildly(but annoyingly), with the attention seeker. Friends, fans and popularity are the craven goals of the try hard status seeker. We've all met these people. They're the ones who laugh excessively at a joke you didn't even make, desperate for you to give them your approval. Or if they don't consider you a worthwhile project, they're the person who is using you to get closer to someone else, someone more important. They're the empty vessel not even listening to what you're saying as you realise that your simply a pit stop on their navigation of social circles. Thay talk the loudest, want to be in every picture, make the shitty jokes...Yet, because of all their lame acts, they usually find themselves with few real friends. Instead they have to make do with a plastic popularity; obsession often confuses quality with quantity.

And then there are those who keep busy by trying to meet their own obsessive standards. The problem is these standards are usually set against the almost impossible task of accepting themselves as they are. These people usually obsess about correcting something they as see as wrong with themselves. In an aesthetically inclined world, most of these self-obsessions relate to body image. The obvious example are eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia where the obsessed defy natural animal behaviour by avoiding eating and voluntary vomiting. This control type of obsession probably arises from childhood experience of non control. In a way, it is the most tragic type of obsession because it places the obsessed at the mercy of themselves rather than another, where there might be the chance of some sort of benevolent intervention to break the obsessive's delusion. Having to convince yourself of the flaws of your obsession isn't easy.

It has the most subtle of beginnings. However, if left unchecked, the downward spiral of obsession is truly crippling. Good mental health is centred on a rounded treatment of our physical, psychological and emotional needs as human beings. Obsession is a rejection of this need for moderation in life. It pathologically excludes the variety of life so that it can feed an excessive amount of time and attention into one specific thing. The common factor in obsessive is the desire to escape. Obsessive's are on the run. From themselves. Yet they can never truly escape. What they run from is always inside, ready to emerge. It's the drunk alcoholic eying the river he is about to jump into. It's the rejected infatuate 'balling' at the horrible reality that the person they long for just doesn't like them. It's the attention seeker's loneliness when they have nobody to turn to. Obsession is a regressive coping mechanism. It's just another price we pay for treating our minds as if they were incommunicable. As if anything we had to say wasn't worth hearing. As if we didn't matter one bit. As if we weren't worth it. As if.

Snap! (You look like an idiot)

2010-06-24T11:01:00.000-07:00

Abusive.. Derisive.. Bitter.. Just some of the words I would use to describe my behavior. How could I sink so low? I let myself become everything I hate; the repulsive side of the human condition. The ugly act of preying on the weak, making oneself feel strong. Wanting to make my target submit to my will, to beg for me to cease this tyranny, this destruction, this madness.. Yes, that was me. And yet I could not succeed. My victim did not speak, nor cry, nor beg. Instead, it lay on the ground broken, it's contents spread amongst the glassy debris. It took me a few seconds to realise that I wasn't dealing with a living thing. Instead, I had launched my furious tirade against a jar of mayonnaise; Helman's Mayonnaise. This particular jar had made the fatal mistake of jumping from it's position on an overcrowded fridge shelf after someone had tried to squeeze a carton of orange juice along side it. Shattered on the tiled floor, it's last moments witnessed a grown man pointing, swearing and stamping on the floor with widened eyes and and a reddening face. How attractive.

Anyone who knows me may be surprised to learn that this gentle soul is capable of such moments (although a few will not). From an early age, I've been prone to lashing out ferociously against something that challenges the plans i make, be it big or small. I can recall several occasions where my brother, five years my elder, would imitate me being in a frantic state. Even at the tender age of seven or eight I would wince at the thought of myself in these blind tantrums. This, perhaps, contributed to the fact that such outbursts remained confined to the homestead. In school, in the company of many a child with the same tendencies to lose control, I never even approached the same level of frustration. Probably because I was good at steering clear of trouble and confrontation. Indeed, the older I got, the less any people would witness these episodes. Instead, they became more common when people weren't around. As a result it was inanimate objects that would suffer the consequences of my inability to stay calm when the littlest things went wrong. It's only been in the last year or so that I've began to consider what is really going on during these moments of rage.

What is it that anger seeks? What is it yearning for? Control; order; security. Concepts that have eluded and continue to elude mankind since the advent of civilisation. As a longtime student of history, I've become well acquainted with the fact that human society have always struggled to produce genuine stability and security. It has also become apparent how common it is for human beings to overestimate our capabilities to control the world around us. Take for example, the fact that the world's only hyperpower, the United States, cannot plug a leak at the bottom of the ocean, resulting in the worst environmental catastrophe in living memory. Or closer to home, where the people of Ireland have painfully digested the fact that the Celtic Tiger died a whimpering death after being neglected by those entrusted to protect it. Consider that on one sunny day, in Wordsworth's sacred Lake District, an average, everyday Joe Soap decided that he would end the lives of whoever happened to be around. The erratic nature of unfortunate happenings isn't just felt on a collective level, on the contrary, it is reflected in the individual lives of every man, woman and child on the face of the earth. Phrases like 'Shit Happens' and 'Everybody's fucked up' wouldn't carry any weight if they didn't resonate with our perception of life and the lives around us.

Even with such universal truths abound, there remains a distinct inclination in many people to try and exact a stringent control over their lives. Such behaviour is probably a response to previous psychological trauma, usually in childhood. As children, we may have found ourselves in some sort of turbulent environment, helpless to arrive at a feeling of security. At the most impressionable time of our lives, a mental template of intense fear and fundamental absence of control is formed. Fearing that such suffering might replicate at sometime later on, the mind resolves to operate much more cautiously. Day to day existence becomes an unnecessary negotiation with a threat that is only very minimal. Rather than realising that our previous turmoil can be explained, understood and dealt with, we instead repress the experience and maintain our veneer of content. Our whole approach to life is one of self-defense. Our days become dominated by fear and the rewards of risk remain permanently out of reach. And yet our sense of being in control is fundamentally weak. It is a control full of doubt and underestimation of ourselves. It's raison d'etre is to prevent us from feeling vulnerable. Inevitably, we do eventually find ourselves in situations where we feel helpless. As our self-perception of being in control crumbles around us, the haunting vulnerability of before returns. Surrounded by the feelings we sought so hard to escape, our thoughts and actions lose all rationale. Snap!

But why the jar of mayonnaise? Is one broken glass enough to unearth my feeling of self-control? Not quite. It would be more appropriate to say that such innocuous events only shake the foundations. Common sense would usually dawn on me only seconds after it had seemed the whole world was collapsing. After such episodes, I would usually struggle to understand why I had lost my temper so easily. And why lose my temper at all? It was only when a sibling related his particular thought pattern during his 'snap' moments that I realised what I was actually doing. Flowing through my mind in these few seconds was a mantra of negative thoughts and a slideshow of moments I would rather forget. Those few seconds of frenzy represented a boiling over of bubbling thoughts and memories. Even though the loss of control was minimal and basically irrelevant, the over proportionate reaction signaled to what extent I felt I needed to defend myself. Yet, the only abiding feeling I would end up with is one of sorrow and regret. Extreme anger is not a natural reaction; it is a regressive learned behavior that serves only to shroud, rather than solve, the problems that confront us. Happily, I can say that I have managed to gain a much better understanding of broken glasses, dodgy Internet connections or whatever else upsets the fluidity of my day. A quiet and simple 'Bollocks' seems to suffice.

Despite being an unstable, unreliable and unforgiving emotion, political leaders have often used anger to create an indignation that suits their pursuit of power. Would the Bush administration have been able to invade Iraq without stoking the anger of the American people with constant referrals to 9/11? Would the Nazi's have successfully carried out the partial extermination of the Jewish people without a systematic arousal of flawed antisemitism in the ordinary German? Ethnic 'cleansing' in the former Yugoslavia; the Rwandan Genocide; the cycle of violence in Northern Ireland, all examples of events perpetuated by the fanning of people's anger. To use anger as a political tool is one of the most grotesque and dangerous methods of exercising power. It gives precedence to passion in a world that desperately needs reason.

Thankfully, I never developed the habit of using my short fuse as an instrument of my will. Instead, I've developed a healthy sense of loathing for such behaviour. Now, it's hard not to look on people who get angry easily as somewhat pathetic. Even worse is the cultural glamourisation of anger as something quintessentially masculine and powerful. T-shirts carrying slogans like ' You Don't Want To Piss Me Off!' or 'Don't Fuck With Me!' capture this idiocy fairly well. And remember not to test the patience of those merry folks who 'just don't give a fuck'. We wouldn't want to draw them away from their important work. Or how about the Limp Bizkit song Break Stuff ? A song that warns those who test our patience that we have a chainsaw with which we will 'skin' their 'ass raw'. This macho rubbish becomes all the more laughable when one considers that all this anger is actually an inner child crying out for the love and compassion it never had.

How many times have you felt yourself on thin ice around people with the propensity to get angry? Whether it be parents; teachers; colleagues; friends or family, there is a familiar mode of appeasement we adopt when in the company of these individuals. Though they may not be bad people, their inclination to snap gives them an uncomfortable aura. We seem to grant them a certain privilege. We may be less willing to question or challenge them. Basically, we afford these people too much respect. Like spoiled children, people with anger issues can learn to use the threat of their anger to exercise their will over those who do not want to be on the recieveing end. In effect, they are rewarded for their over-zealous attempt to control because of the fear that they instill in others. In a political comparison, this is the same as submitting to the will of the mindless populism described earlier. If we allow our political and individual lives to be ruled by the fear, arousal and championing of anger, we are a miserable bunch indeed.

Maybe I Want To Give A Fuck

2010-06-01T15:25:00.001-07:00

''I don't give a fuck''. The mantra of apathy. So proudly proclaimed by so many. Yet, there is an air of desperation to the statement. Something's not right. Why tell me that you don't give a fuck? What am I supposed to take from that? Am I supposed to be impressed? Is it really necessary for you to tell me how much you don't care? Ok, maybe I'm over-reacting. They are only 5 words after all. And i'm sure I've uttered them at many times myself. Yet, there is something I have often noticed in the eyes and voices of the speaker when the famous words are spoken. The eyes seem to widen a bit. Sometimes the speaker uses hand movements, gesturing toward the self, as if to clarify that it is definitely them who does not 'give a fuck'. The slight tremor in the speaker's voice indicate that the words are being carried by a certain amount of emotion. And why keep repeating it? I heard you the first time. Are you even listening to me? Hello?... Of course, it is good advice to command a healthy amount of indifference in life. If we allowed ourselves to be worried about everyone and everything, we would decay all the quicker. However, to overestimate our ability to be unscathed by the trials and tribulations of modern life is probably just as regressive.

I began thinking about this the other day whilst skimming over Facebook. During this all too regular act I took note of a new Facebook group calling itself ‘You cannot fathom the immensity of the fuck I do not give’. Upon further investigation, I was unsurprised to see that the group had received approval from over 500,000 users. Knowing that one should never seek to make too much sense out of Facebook and its’ environs, I just couldn’t leave it lie. Of all the places to profess the degree of one’s ‘don’t give a fuck’ attitude, Facebook seems like a strange choice. Like one great big scrabble for attention, Facebook is founded on the premise that people can advertise themselves to others (where else would I publish this blog?). Not lending itself to traditional ‘you can count your true friends on one hand’ philosophy, Facebook perpetuates the growth of an ever elaborate global network where one has access to an ever present audience of ‘Friends’ waiting to respond to whatever it is one wants to say or do. In a nutshell, it is the attention seeker’s dream come through. I recently heard someone expressing the idea that Facebook, Twitter and other internet based networking might serve to eclipse ‘old world’ prejudices such as ultra nationalism and racism, the idea being that hyper communication would render these concepts obsolete and meaningless. Without wanting to discount the notion, the sheer volume of emptiness evident in cyberspace seems to suggest that such an occurrence would be painfully slow. It appears as though we have to first wait for people to express harmony with the universal philosophy of ‘not giving a fuck’ and other important issues.

The reason for so many people being attracted to this sentiment of indifference is probably because they are anything but care-free about how other people see them. As social animals, relation and connection to other people is a fundamental part of our make-up. Individually, our lives are coloured through a quest for companionship. In infancy, we develop intimate relationships with our parents. As children and young adults, one of our primary concerns is the acquisition of friends and acquaintances. We also begin a new search for intimacy with romantic partners. As adults, we often work for ourselves and our families to become members of the wider community. The ability to communicate and form relationships with others, generally speaking, is probably the single most important attribute in people. The most dreaded outcome of our pursuit of friendships and relationships with other people is to be turned down. Even those of us who enjoy time to ourselves cannot claim that we would be content with social exclusion; spending too much time with oneself can be an uncomfortable experience. The fear that people have of social rejection can be very real. It probably emanates from a complex within us that there is something about us that’s repellent and rejectable. These feelings, as discussed in previous entries, are some of the most deeply buried and non-communicated of human experience. Yet, their influence on our personalities is profound. Perhaps it’s the denial and eagerness to escape these thoughts and portray ourselves as anything but worried about our lives that makes the spectre of indifference so appealing. Further still, maybe it's insecurity of this false indifference that forces our darker sides to the surface in strange and destructive ways.

Whatever our own troubles may be, we are also surrounded by the world we find ourselves in, where hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis can quickly erase hundreds of thousands of people out of existence. Aids, cancer and heart disease spread through the human population indiscriminately. If disasters and disease aren’t enough, we also have to contend with man-made problems like war, famine and environmental catastrophe. Just knowing that the human race is capable of inflicting such devastation is a worrisome consideration. There are also the more common threats we face in everyday life, such as the relatively good chance of being killed every time we drive on roads (traffic accidents are the world’s ninth biggest killer). Not only concerned with our own flesh, we also have to worry for those of whom we love and care for in this dangerous existence. There is also the matter of trying to comprehend that our whole existence is akin to the smallest of needles in a gigantic haystack, as the magnitude and complexity of the universe reveals itself. Yes, the context of individual life is alot for us to consider. The words ‘You cannot fathom the immensity of’ as employed by the previously mentioned group on Facebook would probably be better suited to precede ‘things you have to give a fuck about’.

And yet, in the midst of this chaos, we try to eek out some kind of purpose for our existence. The natural way of doing this is to procreate and serve the biological craving for passing on the cells that we have inherited. Parenting a healthy offspring, watching them grow as one once did into the people that they become, is probably one of the greatest sources of fulfilment for the human being. In my experience, I have found those exhibiting the most genuine and palpable ease with the world to be ‘post parenting’ parents of a happy progeny with whom they maintain a warm and reciprocal relationship. Perhaps it is because parental love, the most deeply set and immovable of human affections, has been rewarded with the outcome it so desperately sought. If any objective meaning to life can be extracted, this process certainly springs to mind. The road to such a feeling has been travelled with a careful, thoughtful, diligent and exhausting approach through the obstacles of life, i.e., very much ‘giving a fuck’. This is not an attack or attempted falsification of those who are self assured. To be self assured is to be comfortable with your ability to overcome the problems that you have or will have. It is to quietly, yet evidently, have faith in yourself. It is not to feign invulnerability and deny weakness. It is to acknowledge yourself as a human being, nothing more or less. It is, perhaps, what we should all aspire to be. So why pretend to be anything else? Go ahead. Give a fuck.

Talk About Stammering, Talk About Life

2010-03-29T03:39:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had one of those dreams when you feel as if you desperately need to say something, only to find that the words just won't come out? People gaze at you, waiting for the words to come. Inside your head, you hear the words echo around, you push and push to try and make it come out, but the harder you push, the harder it gets. Paralysis. For most of us, this kind of experience will only ever occur in our sleep, in something that could be termed an 'anxiety dream'. However, for many, this kind of experience is commonplace in everyday waking life. Stammering, or stuttering, affects around 1% of the world's population. It usually begins in early childhood. The initial causes of stammering remain undetermined. It has been suggested that it relates to childhood trauma of some sort. However, this has still not been scientifically verified. Most children who stammer will 'grow out' of the disorder. For others, the stammer will solidify its presence. Just as the cause of stammering is uncertain, so too is any cure. People have suddenly stopped stammering but why this is so is unclear. The longer stammering remains present, the less likely it will be to depart. Those who still stammer at the onset of adulthood are likely never to be any different.

For the non-stammerer, it can sometimes seem irrelevant if someone stammers or not. However, even for those who display seemingly minor stammering, it is probably one of the biggest factors in their lives. In general, there are two types of stammerers. Overt stammerers are those who exhibit clear and present disfluency. Someone in conversation with an overt stammerer will notice frequent speech disruption in the guise of prolonged sssssssssounds, many r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-reptitions and severe ------------------blocks. Overt stammerers may also display diversionary behaviours to try and cope with their stammer such as erratic facial movement, eye closure, head jerking and short sharp breaths. The overt stammerer finds speaking to others a real struggle and will openly project this. Listeners may feel awkward and sympathetic and try and lessen the load on the stammerer by finishing their words or nodding before they have completed their sentence. Parents will often tell a stammering child to calm down or to take deep breaths. Such actions, whilst well meant, only serve to create and enforce the stammerer's sensitivity, leading to more and more disruption.

Covert stammerers are much less inclined to project physical struggle in speaking. They may let the odd disruption out here and there, but it is more than likely that listeners will view them as someone with a mild and irrelevant stammer. However, for the covert stammerer, the stammer is anything but irrelevant. Instead, they resolve to conceal the stammer at all costs. They cannot handle an open projection of their speech disruption; for they are too ashamed. Openly stammering is probably one of the most detested things a covert stammerer can do. Consequently, they undertake avoidance behaviour. This means that there are certain words and sounds that they will try to avoid saying. The problem is that the feared words usually represent important personal details like one's address, phone-number, and most devastatingly, the stammerer's name. Hence they will often try and communicate these details non verbally through e-mails, text messages, or the trusted aid of friends and family. They even develop ways of getting the person that they are talking to to say the words for them.

Whereabouts are you from?

Ah..just down there in the south east, beside wexford and above waterford..

Tipperary?

No..It's beside that too

Kilkenny?

Yeah Kilkenny, I live in Kilkenny.

(It is often the case that hearing someone else say the word releases the tension the stammerer feels about saying the word)

This kind of avoidance enforces underlying feelings of sensitivity and anxiety and can also make the stammerer appear socially inept. When they do find themselves in the dreaded situations, where they have exhausted all avoidance and have no option but to actually speak, the avoided words will come out through severe and prolonged silent blocks, separated by visible facial distress and clear embarrassment. The covert stammerer is likely to feel disillusioned and even depressed after such an event. Despite their best efforts, they have failed to conceal their hated ailment. The trauma of 'exposure' leads them to work harder and harder to conceal future stammering. And so the cycle continues..

As someone who has had a stammer since early childhood, i have become well acquainted with all of the above behaviours. In my case, unusually, the stammer did not become a real source of anguish until i started 3rd level education. Adjusting to new surroundings, new people and an unfamiliar way of life had a dramatic impact on my speech. This was all the more distressing for me since i had come through primary and secondary school being reasonably confident in my speech, i had even captained a debating team. However, by the end of a stressful first year in college, i found that saying my name was becoming an impossible task. The more i had to say it, the worse it got. One particular telephone conversation left me feeling very down after it had taken me nearly one minute to identify myself. As a covert stammerer, i tried desperately to cover it up saying that the telephone line was bad and that i couldn't hear my co-converser. My first attempt to do something about it was to enrol on a well known programme that advertised considerable success. It focused mostly on breathing. I did quite well at first but soon found that the technique needed almost militaristic enforcement, something that i was just not ready for. Eventually my speech deteriorated to even worse than it had been before. I felt guilty for not keeping the technique i had been thought and as a result, I fell deeper into negative and repressive habits. Eventually, i became an overt stammerer because 'avoiding' was eroding my vocabulary so much that communication was becoming extremely difficult. I decided that being overt was the only, if painful, option i had.

The loneliest aspect of stammering is the fact that your concerns and anxieties are so alien and incomprehensible to the 99% of people that don't. It's difficult to explain why i can sometimes seem mostly fluent and at other times, practically mute. I can't really convey why it feels so exhausting to avoid certain words and replace them with others. Such things can never really be truly understood by people who don't have the problem. This sentiment creates mental alienation within the stammerer. Consequentially, you try and suppress the emotions involved in stammering because you feel that nobody can ever really understand you. The observation of this process led American speech pathologist, Joseph Sheehan, to compare stammering to an iceberg. He came to this by outlining that most of a stammering problem is psychological. This psychology is made up of all the negative thoughts emotions that the person associates with their stammer. Due to the isolation, lack of understanding, and sheer sensitivity being felt by the person, they decide that being open about stammering is impossible. Hence, their emotions are kept below the visible surface. They remain uncommunicated and fester in the person's mind. They are treated as unspeakable, both mentally and literally. They are the bedrock of the stammerer's anxiety and the driving force behind a stammering problem.

Recently, i undertook new therapy to try and escape this never-ending nightmare. The whole experience was profoundly relieving. The simple act of spending time with people who suffer the same problem was therapeutic in itself. We were asked by the the programme directors, all stammerers themselves, to open up and talk about our experience as stammerers. Slowly, the anxiety in my mind started to wane. It felt good to start melting the iceberg. The most profound thing I learned from the programme was another quote from Joseph Sheehan, the pathologist mentioned earlier. He classified a stammering problem as a 'false role' disorder. That is, the reason people struggle with stammers is because they are try to play the false role of someone who does not stammer. Hence, they are placing unquantifiable psychological pressure on themselves not to stammer. As a result, their physical speech is impacted and disrupted by the sheer force of mental pressure being self-applied. Logically, this suggests that if stammerers stop trying 'not to stammer', they will stammer less. Further still, it suggests that we should even stammer on purpose. Voluntary stammering is a psychological and physical technique of subtly advertising your stammer to the listener. It is c-c-calm, mmmeasured and controlled. By doing this, stammerers are defusing the tension that is always present every time they speak. It also dissuades the stammerer from the long and winding road of avoidance. Patience is required as it takes time for the mind to internalise new ways of dealing with stammering.

Another facet of the therapy was to encourage us to make a link between our stammering problem and other emotional problems that we may have had. The idea behind this was to recognise that as human beings, our problems are not isolated from each other. Rather, they are interlinked and overlapping. Therefore, the emotions that we experience from stammering are not exclusive to the stammer itself. The triggering mechanism may be different, but the emotions are not unique. This led me to consider that all the negative emotions I felt when stammering were may not be all caused by the stammer, and that some are instead, being facilitated by it. This pseudo-epiphany helped me realise that treating my stammering problem means that I am also examining other parts of myself that i consider problematic. Hence, I am obliged to look at myself holistically to try and identify sources of tension and anxiety, and i am all the better for it. In this way, I now realise that having a stammer may not be such a bad thing after all; it has helped me to take a long, hard look at myself and start tackling issues that I felt unapproachable. So even though this long piece has primarily been a step in stammering desensitisation, i hope that it is a practical example of me 'walking the walk' after the wordy rhetoric of my previous three entries.

For more information on stammering, you should check out the Patrick Kelly Stammering Course, just type into google. You can also look at the Irish Stammering Association's website at http://www.stammeringireland.ie/

God, Money and Whatever Comes Next: Our Obsessive Escape From Ourselves

2010-02-19T10:16:00.000-08:00

If you have read either of this blog’s previous entries, you will be aware that it is concerned with the culture of intolerance that exists in Ireland towards the well being of our minds. This intolerance has led to the entrenchment of a mental health problem in the country. Such problems always produce side effects. I have already discussed our love affair with alcohol and how we rely on it for social interaction. Yet the alcohol problem seems to offer more escape from, as opposed to ignorance of, the darker side of our personalities. It didn’t take long for me to think of two of our more open obsessions. Obsessions that we have openly embraced and championed. Obsessions that we have sought meaning and purpose through whilst we tried to smother our more sensitive sides.

The degree to which the Catholic religion once permeated the lives of Irish people cannot be quantified. From baptism to the deathbed, the auspices of Catholicism were ever present throughout most Irish lives. Religion was everything and it was everywhere. The angelus bells still ring twice a day on national radio and television, just as they have since 1950. Our urban skylines are dominated by church spires whilst the countryside is dotted with grottos. The children of Ireland have been schooled through religious institutions. Their history lessons inform them of Ireland’s proud heritage as a stubborn Catholic rock in the waves of reformation. A lesson re-enforced by the troubled North, where sectarian conflict echoed our oppressed past. Independent Ireland was founded on our identity as a Catholic people. De Valera’s 1937 constitution references the Holy Trinity in its preamble. The legal ramifications didn’t stop there. Legal Divorce has only existed since the mid nineties and remains a complicated procedure. Abortion remains prohibited and until 1993, homosexuality was classified as illegal by Irish law.. Other religious checks on personal freedom came through Pastoral enquiry into why a married Catholic woman wasn’t having children as well as demanding the details of the layperson’s guilty conscience through confession.

Today, Catholic Ireland is a shadow of its former self. Despite the fact that mass attendances have seen a revival since the beginning of the recession era, the church remains fledgling and increasingly out of touch. The last 15-20 years has also seen a tide of almost unending revelations of clerical abuse of children, as well as an alarming culture of denial and deceit on the part of the Irish hierarchy. This week, Pope Benedict has drawn the ire of abuse victims and the public at large for failing to apologise outright for the suffering of countless victims. Ireland’s past obsession with Catholicism has been replaced with an uncertainty. Religion is no longer the fabric of our society. Strict adherence to its principles is few and far between. In fact, the Church’s survival probably hinges on an a la carte Catholic laity which picks and chooses what it likes and what it dislikes about religion. ‘I like the going to heaven part but I don’t like the no sex before marriage part’.

Ireland’s divorce from religious obsession was, for a long time, softened by the excesses of prosperity. It was convenient that the Church’s descent from the role of social conditioner happened in tandem with the swelling of our wallets. Financial power probably made us feel less dependent on religion. Before, it was God who gave us all we needed. Money, on the other hand, could buy us all we wanted. Just like religion before it, money was everywhere. We were in awe of ourselves and our mighty Celtic Tiger. The repression and banality of old Ireland was replaced by the indulgence and false confidence of the new one. The Celtic Tiger was like the perfect drug, providing Ireland with a monetary high that eclipsed our strange religious upbringing. Its effects are now wearing off and uncovering a sober reality. With nearly half a million people unemployed, still having a job has become an achievement. The Government has just cut €4bn from its expenditure to save us from financial meltdown. If the Celtic Tiger was a drug, then this is the comedown.

What now? Do we turn back to religion? Put it back on the pedestal to which we looked in absolute devotion? Whatever your theistic or non-theistic persuasion, I think we can all agree that even if there is a God, it hardly needs that much praise. It couldn’t be that vain, or insecure. And if the human side of religion is rife with corruption, then surely faith is better expressed in smaller, personal and more humble ways. Bertie Ahern once warned of the dangers of 'aggressive secularism'. Yet anything of the sort couldn’t possibly be as damaging as the pseudo theocracy that previously existed in Ireland.

Waiting with bated breath for another Celtic Tiger would also be a futile exercise. Since the recession began, much has been made of how we have lost our self-belief and confidence as a people. However, if our self esteem hinged on our fickle economy, it was hardly that well founded in the first place. And that, perhaps, is where the problem lies. Have we ever been confident? Have we ever had belief in ourselves? Did Catholic Ireland allow us to develop a notion of self worth? Was the excess of the Celtic Tiger a release from all the penance of Catholicism? Did we merely replace one obsession with another? And if so, then why do we need to obsess at all?

Such ideas might help explain why we have shunned our emotional and mental health for so long, and watered it down with lots of numbing alcohol. Our enjoyment and fulfilment in life hinges not on what God what we believe in, nor on loads of money. It depends on our perceptions. How do we see the world around us? How do we see the people in it? Most of all, it’s contingent on how we see ourselves. The stigma attached to psychological issues in Ireland indicates that we are omitting probably the most crucial element in our vision of ourselves. If there’s a part of us that we are uncomfortable with and feel that we cannot communicate, it will fester. It will not be silenced within us. It will not be escaped from. Instead, it will establish itself as an integral part of our personality. One that presents unnecessary amounts of pressure, stress, anxiety, depression and suicide. It will not be placated with regressive religion, superficial wealth or whatever obsession we happen to have next.

Under Pressure. Of Both Kinds.

2010-01-30T04:56:00.000-08:00

Scrolling through You Tube a couple of nights ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find all 18 episodes of a 90’s TV show that I haven’t seen since, well…,the 90’s. Game-On is centred around three 20 somethings, each with their own hang-ups, sharing a flat in Battersea, London. The interaction of three very different, yet somehow similar, characters is both funny and thought provoking. Though it’s essentially a comedy, it portrays the time between the end of education and ‘settling down’ as confusing, misleading and sometimes downright frightening. This reminded me of a recent interview I heard somewhere where the interviewee commented on the early mid life period (approx. age 20-40) as being the toughest in his life.

I’m turning 24 next week so, having a vested interest in the subject, i started thinking some more. Definitely, there is a certain sense that I have to make some big decisions in the next few years. Sometimes I wonder how much of this ‘sense’ is me. There seem to be so many questions to answer. 'What do you want to do in life?' 'Where do you see yourself in ten years?' What's your plan?' . It’s time for action. A time to make myself secure. I’ve finished my prep, it’s time to enter the race. My career. Expectation. Pressure. Some of us will settle for the comfort of security; doing jobs which serve merely to pay the bills. Others will resist, and focus on finding the job that meets their criteria for satisfaction, whether it be lots of money or a simple sense of job enjoyment. Whatever the job one chooses, it stands to reason that it will come to have a massive impact on their lives. It will dictate their place of living, their type of dwelling and what type of people they will dwell with. It will separate their time of work from their time of leisure. It will also regulate their financial situation and consequently what car they will drive, what holidays they will take and what they can afford to spend on others. This modus operandi usually aspires to the ultimate goal of securing a mortgage, which can be cynically termed as lifelong debt. So the pressure isn’t going away. On the contrary, it’s almost as if we’re under pressure to ‘qualify’ for yet more pressure.

Recently, we have been reminded that the whole world of employment, occupation and career can be as fickle as a series of dodgy choices by society's financiers. The whole idea of the modern way of life has been shaken to its core by a collapse of what we thought was a solid and hard earned prosperity. Fear is rampant as we desperately turn to our politicians to right the wrongs of the day. They look back at us with a sense of apologetic helplessness as if to say 'Didn't you know that it was all built on chance?'. Many have been left jobless and destitute. Without the regular arrival of a pay cheque, they have been left feeling vulnerable and lost. The sudden shift from 'You Can Do Anything You Want!' to 'It's Not About What You Want!' has left the so-called 'BOOM' generation in a state of uncertainty and disillusion. The Celtic Tiger era is now painted as some sort of bliss (evidently ignorant) where life was good and our worries were scarce. Yet suicide demographics indicate that the year 2000 saw the highest level of suicides in records that stretch back to 1950, with those aged between 15 and 44 worst affected.

Of course, in our recent prosperity, there were other more universal concerns that we, like all others, had to burden. These concerns haven't gone away. Instead, they now run parallel to the worries of living in a time where opportunity seems absent. They can be described as what we usually term as 'personal issues'. Our defects. Our worries about ourselves and where we fit into all of this. Our belief in ourselves, or lack there of. Our weaknesses. The things we keep to ourselves for fear of others judgement. At this turning point away from dependence to independence, we may start to ask questions of ourselves, 'Am i up to this?', 'Can i really make it?' Nagging complexes can unearth out of their deeply buried dormancy and rush to the forefront of our minds. Not only does they affect our professional lives and our confidence to live them, they can also have a drastic effect on how we interact with other people. If we choose to leave these problems unaddressed, they grow stronger and we start to believe them even more. They might even isolate us, depending on the degree of our 'issues'. It's more probable that most of us will figure out some way of coping with them. But that doesn't mean that they won't continue to influence our modes of behaviour in a detrimental way. They could be the difference in holding back when we really need to move forward. They could keep us sitting down when we really could stand up. They could be the breakdown of friendships, or of a romantic relationship. They could create defence mechanisms that make us seem aggressive when we really want to be benevolent. Eventually, they could be the baggage we pass on to our offspring; the ones that we will influence more than we could ever imagine. Along the way, we may find ourselves holding our heads between our hands; frustrated that we are misunderstood and unable to be who we feel we really are.

Is it really such a surprise that young people, or anyone for that matter, can feel left behind in life? Is it so wrong if we feel a little weak from time to time? If we feel like our head isn't in the right place? And is it so wrong if we tell each other? Is it that unfathomable that some find it all too much to bare? Aren't the pressures of career and financial security enough? Any reasonable person would think so. However, a recent article in the Irish Times revealed that lots of us still just don't want to know. The most startling statistic is that 40% of those surveyed think that undergoing mental health treatment means that we have failed in some way.. It also reported that one third of those questioned regard people with psychological problems as being below average intelligence. The same amount said that they wouldn't want to be friends with someone who had a mental health problem... What is going on? Why are we so stubborn in hanging on to such vicious thinking? Are we so well-rounded? So stable? So perfectly comfortable with our own existence that we reject people who are not? I doubt it..

Sources of information used in this entry can be found in the following locations

Irish Times article on recent survey done on attitude toward mental health (October 2009)-
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1009/1224256256567.html

World Health Organisation suicide study; Irish statistics (2008)-
http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/irel.pdf

For more information on mental health issues in Ireland, visit these locations-

http://www.aware.ie/

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinfo/problems/depression/depression.aspx

Oh and if you want to watch Game-on, go here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7ZubAIq1go

How's the head? Seriously.

2010-01-03T15:52:00.000-08:00

'How are you today?', 'Fine thanks, and yourself?', 'Grand now, not a bother'

These pleasantries, that we exchange everyday, are generally used as conversation starters. They are part of our social script. When we ask these questions, we usually expect a positive response. Sometimes we get a negative one, and when we do, it can catch us unawares.Oftentimes, we don't expect our friends and sometimes even our families to be 100% honest about how they feel, because in truth, we aren't always honest about how we feel ourselves. In 2007, the HSE published a report on awareness and attitudes toward mental health in Ireland. It concluded that there was a stigma attached to the issue of mental health amongst the population, and that for things to improve, mental health would have to become more of an 'everyday issue'. So here i go, without any real education on the subject, i am going to offer my two cents. That makes it more everyday, right?

It would be naive to think that the previously dominant position of the Catholic Church in Irish society was to no detriment on the way we see ourselves and our place in the world, both as individual people and as a nation. Let's take the basic symbol of the Catholic religion-the crucifixion. Have you ever considered the sub-conscious message in worshiping a man bleeding to an excruciatingly painful death on an ancient device of execution? We are introduced to this at such a young age. It's inscripted on our minds to the point that by adulthood, it doesn't strike us as odd. What message does it send? Does it make us feel unworthy of trying to better ourselves as emotional beings? Could it be that it makes us feel guilty for feeling down?

'Jesus suffered for us. So our suffering is a small price to pay for our eternal salvation. So just put up with it. Don't be moaning about your problems. Keep them to yourself.'

I'm aware religious people do a lot of positive things for our communities, but is it crazy to suggest that an inherent part of their faith may be at the very least, kind of weird. Could there be a connection with the strength of Catholicism in this country with the previously archaic attitude to mental health?

Of course there was, and still is, another force at play in mental health in Ireland-booze. Let's not beat around the bush. We love our drink. Imagine Ireland without alcohol...Difficult? Our introduction to drink usually comes in our mid-teens. Some of us aren't interested. I can clearly remember catching sight of many of my teenage friends secretly pouring some of their drink onto the grass and feigning drunkenness. Maybe they were doing it out of fear of getting caught. Or maybe they just didn't like the taste. Whatever it was, it seemed important for them to keep up appearances. Anyway, somewhere afterward we learn to like drink, not necessarily the taste, but the feeling it incurs. It's the social lubricant that opens us up, gives us the courage to talk to potential mates and generally makes us think less about things. It also offers hangovers, which can eventually become a familiar state of fear, anxiety and loneliness. Of course we don't need to be hungover to feel the negative effects of alcohol. Anyone who has ever been drunk will know that it also acts as an amplifier. It's fair to say that anyone who encounters troublesome issues in their heads whilst drinking can easily be diverted onto a bleak train of thought that leaves even the seemingly happiest of us in a state of raw disillusion. The power of this disillusion is reflected in the fact that a 2002 study found that alcohol had been found in the blood of 80% of suicide victims in a given area. Others get angry. Why?
'Ah he's a sound lad, he just gets a bit aggressive when he's drunk.'
Too often, we fail to ask 'About what?' Instead, we usually avoid the awkwardness of confronting the perpetrator in sober time, because we know it's all because of some emotional defect that's too much of a touchy subject to get into.

People suffering from emotional and psychological problems such as depression often refer to how alone they feel. This can only increase the feeling of hopelessness and despair that can eventually catalyze suicidal thoughts. If we fuse this with the previously mentioned 'accepted suffering' brought on by religion, it's easy to see how messy things can get. It's an old cliche, but it remains universally true that bottling up problems is extremely nonconstructive. However, the stigma attached to mental health in Ireland often eclipses such common sense. The HSE report mentioned earlier also reported that 62% of people would not want others knowing if they had a mental health problem. In liberal America, having a therapist is almost a status symbol. How many Hollywood films have we seen where characters routinely refer to their 'shrink', or where the therapeutic session is glamourised in dramatic episodes of hypnotherapy? Of course, this isn't without it's negative consequences. Yet it highlights how different attitudes can be to mental health in other parts of the world.

So after all that, it's safe to say that the Irish probably have to battle a little harder than others in coming to terms with emotional and psychological problems. Some who read this piece will see it as a harsh commentary on our national personality. Don't get me wrong. There are lots of positive characteristics of the Irish people that make us unique as a people. However, overcoming things like a particularly hard economic recession will count for little if we don't look after our mental health first. Both as persons and and as a people.