I suppose that the fact that the father of Cynicism was the son of a Banker should not surprise us, as we stumble into the second decade of the 21nd Century. Poor old Diogenes. That barrel can't have been too comfortable, and with so many admirers, you'd think that he could have got himself a flash apartment overlooking the Adriatic. Of course, he would have said that "that which is valuable is battered with that which is worthless, and that which is worthless is battered by that which is valuable" - go figure.
Still, it's vaguely comforting to know that 2,300 years ago, there was a man who was prepared to go against the grain, to suffer the ridicule of the fashionable, for his ... ideals? Ah, and so we come to the question...
Was the father of Cynicism - and ultimately of Stoicism - actually an Idealist? Well, of course he was. He was a thinker and a philosopher. He didn't suffer fools gladly, and he described himself as a dog. "I am Diogenes the Dog. I will fawn upon those who are kind, bark at those who are greedy and bite scoundrels."
My kinda guy then. I suppose he's most peoples' kinda guy - unless he was your neighbour. He'd be a pain in the arse if he was your neighbour. Most oddballs are. He'd be distinctly uncomfortable. Most idealists are.
As I continue to think about 'the state we are in' and the knocking down of all the idols on all the pedestals that we have built ourselves; spiritually, socially, financially, culturally, They are all coming tumbling down.
We need leaders. We need people who are prepared to be ridiculed. We need people to become indignant - as Stephane Hessel would have it - but not tooo much...
Remember the lessons learned in previous centuries - In a vacuum, a leader can become too powerful.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Friday, November 19, 2010
No reason to feel shame
Today, the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, leader of our country told me that I had no reason to feel shame. Strange that I do not feel comforted. Stranger still that he is talking about feeling anything at all. But these are strange days we're living in.
When it comes right down do it, why should anyone feel shame?
The Bankers? Their function is to make a profit for their owners/shareholders. They will charge the highest rate they legally can, and as much as the market can bear.
The Developers? See above...
The Regulators? They were appointed and directed by Government. Shure they were only doing what they were told... weren't we all?
The Mortgagees? Well, 'everyone' said that they'd be left behind if they didn't get on the property ladder - so is it their fault if they tried to live the dream? If the Bankers told them that they had confidence in their ability to pay, who were they to disagree?
And so we come to Government. What are their responsibilities? Is it not the case that they DO have a responsibility to civil society, not the markets. We are their shareholders. Their function is to oversee that the Bankers, the Developers, and all the rest, are Regulated. They do this by appointing people of substance and authority to Regulate. They develop policies according to their manifestos. They legislate in order to protect civil society from insatiable greed and unfettered criminality.
No, Mr. Cowen, I don't feel shame. I don't feel much of anything except anger, that that's all directed at YOU and your inept, corrupt, excuse for a Government.
How DARE you condescendingly state that I need feel no shame.
We'll get through this. My daughter will probably never get to College.
But we'll feel no shame...
My son has had one holiday away, a long weekend with friends in France, in his nine years. He'll probably not see the likes for another 10 years. He'll be lucky to get to Leaving Cert, let alone College. But we'll feel no shame...
I'll probably not have a job after Christmas, my husband will be bloody lucky to keep his part-time job. We'll both have to work like lunatics - probably in the black economy if we're lucky enough to find something. But we'll feel no shame...
When we're choosing between a doctors fee and the electricity bill...
When we're cutting back on those little luxuries we tend to get a taste for - like food...
We'll feel no shame...
I will tell everyone who will listen that the Troika of ineptitude; Fianna Fáil, the PD's, the Glasraí, did this.
I do not feel any shame.
I feel anger.
When it comes right down do it, why should anyone feel shame?
The Bankers? Their function is to make a profit for their owners/shareholders. They will charge the highest rate they legally can, and as much as the market can bear.
The Developers? See above...
The Regulators? They were appointed and directed by Government. Shure they were only doing what they were told... weren't we all?
The Mortgagees? Well, 'everyone' said that they'd be left behind if they didn't get on the property ladder - so is it their fault if they tried to live the dream? If the Bankers told them that they had confidence in their ability to pay, who were they to disagree?
And so we come to Government. What are their responsibilities? Is it not the case that they DO have a responsibility to civil society, not the markets. We are their shareholders. Their function is to oversee that the Bankers, the Developers, and all the rest, are Regulated. They do this by appointing people of substance and authority to Regulate. They develop policies according to their manifestos. They legislate in order to protect civil society from insatiable greed and unfettered criminality.
No, Mr. Cowen, I don't feel shame. I don't feel much of anything except anger, that that's all directed at YOU and your inept, corrupt, excuse for a Government.
How DARE you condescendingly state that I need feel no shame.
We'll get through this. My daughter will probably never get to College.
But we'll feel no shame...
My son has had one holiday away, a long weekend with friends in France, in his nine years. He'll probably not see the likes for another 10 years. He'll be lucky to get to Leaving Cert, let alone College. But we'll feel no shame...
I'll probably not have a job after Christmas, my husband will be bloody lucky to keep his part-time job. We'll both have to work like lunatics - probably in the black economy if we're lucky enough to find something. But we'll feel no shame...
When we're choosing between a doctors fee and the electricity bill...
When we're cutting back on those little luxuries we tend to get a taste for - like food...
We'll feel no shame...
I will tell everyone who will listen that the Troika of ineptitude; Fianna Fáil, the PD's, the Glasraí, did this.
I do not feel any shame.
I feel anger.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Cliché-Fest of the Vanities
As I'm writing, I'm listening to Philip King, Ed Walsh, Ruari Quinn, Ilonna Duffy, and Harry McGee on Marian Finucan's show. Oh, and I almost forgot - John Gormley. It's Saturday, 10th October at 12 noon. It's like a little microcosm of our society.
Ed Walsh is an academic who wants retribution - now that's a dangerous combination. It's one that I can absolutely understand, and I can feel his fury. His comments on Bertie in the Cupboard were the best I've heard.
You really get the sense of Ahern as Leprechaun, dancing on a cliff-edge. The exTaoiseach who spent years carefully weaving the rope that bound him to his brothers, who in their turn created the net that enmeshed (not to say ensnared) all of us. The net that binds all of us ultimately to him, and his ilk - the FF tribe. And there he is, dancing in delight at the security that rope gives him. He holds tight to the pot-a-gold that he helped fill as he granted constructive wishes; the heavy pot-a-gold that will pull all of us over the edge.
John Gormley - Is he an innocent abroad? A politician who should never have gone beyond the local council? Or an ecowarrior out of his tree? In any event, the feeling he engenders in me is that of self-preservationist dressed as a statesman, a bit player who's now in a panic 'cos he's seen how close to the cliff-edge we are. He was just out searching for pods of dolphins, ignoring the danger signs because he had a higher purpose. But I doubt he signed up for this...
Ilonna Duffy - mostly silent. I don't know enough about her, as far as I know she's one of that rare species - even rarer than Leprechauns: a successful Irish business woman operating in Ireland. She's probably pragmatically looking for the best position on the cliff-edge - and who'd blame her.
Harry McGee - deals in facts. They are devastating. He is the one who shines the spotlight on the facts. The facts tell the story themselves. The facts tell us that there was a culture of incompetence, entitlement, greed, waste... He's trying to tell us that the rope is tightening, that the dancing Leprechaun is looking into the abyss - I get the feeling that the abyss has been looking into the dancer for a long, long, long time.
Ruairi Quinn - is a sober and astute politician, long inured to opposition. He is the engineer who is trying to estimate the gradient of the cliff, the counter-weight needed, the depth of the foundation needed. He obviously doesn't trust the Leprechauns who said that this edifice could hold. He looks with a jaundiced eye when they say that they will lead the people along a four-year path out of the crisis. He's wise to the ways of Snake Oil salesmen.
Cow-cough-linehan is no Moses leading his people out of Egypt... and that took 40 years, not 4.
and Philip King - the poet, musician, visionary.
His views will be derided and ridiculed, and he will be called a pollyanna.
But he made a good point, that this state, and every other state, came about because of poets and visionaries. At the end of it all, if we have not been bled dry by the zombies, I hope that there will be some visionaries who will emerge. Why can we not see that we need the visionaries, the one's who look beyond the cliff, the breakers, to the clean blue ocean that could wash the filth away. Some will drown, but lifeboats can be built
This Government in Ireland in October 2010 want our blood. They've taken our money and our childrens' money. They've taken our time, our energy, our spirit, and now they want our blood.
I'd spill my own first.
Ed Walsh is an academic who wants retribution - now that's a dangerous combination. It's one that I can absolutely understand, and I can feel his fury. His comments on Bertie in the Cupboard were the best I've heard.
You really get the sense of Ahern as Leprechaun, dancing on a cliff-edge. The exTaoiseach who spent years carefully weaving the rope that bound him to his brothers, who in their turn created the net that enmeshed (not to say ensnared) all of us. The net that binds all of us ultimately to him, and his ilk - the FF tribe. And there he is, dancing in delight at the security that rope gives him. He holds tight to the pot-a-gold that he helped fill as he granted constructive wishes; the heavy pot-a-gold that will pull all of us over the edge.
John Gormley - Is he an innocent abroad? A politician who should never have gone beyond the local council? Or an ecowarrior out of his tree? In any event, the feeling he engenders in me is that of self-preservationist dressed as a statesman, a bit player who's now in a panic 'cos he's seen how close to the cliff-edge we are. He was just out searching for pods of dolphins, ignoring the danger signs because he had a higher purpose. But I doubt he signed up for this...
Ilonna Duffy - mostly silent. I don't know enough about her, as far as I know she's one of that rare species - even rarer than Leprechauns: a successful Irish business woman operating in Ireland. She's probably pragmatically looking for the best position on the cliff-edge - and who'd blame her.
Harry McGee - deals in facts. They are devastating. He is the one who shines the spotlight on the facts. The facts tell the story themselves. The facts tell us that there was a culture of incompetence, entitlement, greed, waste... He's trying to tell us that the rope is tightening, that the dancing Leprechaun is looking into the abyss - I get the feeling that the abyss has been looking into the dancer for a long, long, long time.
Ruairi Quinn - is a sober and astute politician, long inured to opposition. He is the engineer who is trying to estimate the gradient of the cliff, the counter-weight needed, the depth of the foundation needed. He obviously doesn't trust the Leprechauns who said that this edifice could hold. He looks with a jaundiced eye when they say that they will lead the people along a four-year path out of the crisis. He's wise to the ways of Snake Oil salesmen.
Cow-cough-linehan is no Moses leading his people out of Egypt... and that took 40 years, not 4.
and Philip King - the poet, musician, visionary.
His views will be derided and ridiculed, and he will be called a pollyanna.
But he made a good point, that this state, and every other state, came about because of poets and visionaries. At the end of it all, if we have not been bled dry by the zombies, I hope that there will be some visionaries who will emerge. Why can we not see that we need the visionaries, the one's who look beyond the cliff, the breakers, to the clean blue ocean that could wash the filth away. Some will drown, but lifeboats can be built
This Government in Ireland in October 2010 want our blood. They've taken our money and our childrens' money. They've taken our time, our energy, our spirit, and now they want our blood.
I'd spill my own first.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
I've been sucked back into looking at the political stories of the day. It's doing my head in, I'm sick of it, yet still - I must WANT to punish myself. I've even toyed with the idea of joining a political party, something that I have always assiduously avoided. I'll know next week if that's something that I want to do - or not.
I believe that we are reaching the end of "Representative Democracy" in the form that it has taken over the past x hundred/s years. It appears to me to be self-evident that the incremental steps that lead to a huge shift in the shape of the world are about to reach a tipping point. That's big - isn't it? Yes and no. You see, I believe that there's more to this than our little problems here on the west coast of Europe. There are a few straws that I see floating in the wind, all pointing to one outcome, but I don't have the expertise or background to even verbalise these properly. Nevertheless, here are a few of those straws.
1. Something in my gut tells me that there's a symmetry to all things. The pendulum always swings - sometimes it's a backlash, sometimes imperceptively slowly. The trend has been towards globalisation, and I think that trend must now reverse. There will be many reasons; uncertainty and lack of confidence causing a fall-off in markets world wide, Peak Oil (probably), and many more that I don't understand.
So what is the reverse of Globalisation? I suppose that it must be Localisation. It was interesting reading David McWilliams blog tonight.
http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2010/09/27/recovery-is-going-to-be-local
Wierd to see your thoughts reflected in the writings of a well-known economist!
2. I think that IT and communications technology is going to cause as big a revolution as the printing press did in its time. News is now instant and interactive. We don't have the filter of journalists, broadcasters, etc. any more. DBT (Dan Boyle's Tweet) would be a good example. Mainstream media is now running to catch the coat-tails of 'new media'. The instant nature of new media is important, but it's that interactivity that's really key. Anybody with a computer can join in. Not just consuming the story, but telling it too.
There's more, but I'm tired. I think the answer is Participative Democracy - but I'm too tired to even try to explain. Leadership is required - leaders who are big enough to risk everything - failure especially.
I believe that we are reaching the end of "Representative Democracy" in the form that it has taken over the past x hundred/s years. It appears to me to be self-evident that the incremental steps that lead to a huge shift in the shape of the world are about to reach a tipping point. That's big - isn't it? Yes and no. You see, I believe that there's more to this than our little problems here on the west coast of Europe. There are a few straws that I see floating in the wind, all pointing to one outcome, but I don't have the expertise or background to even verbalise these properly. Nevertheless, here are a few of those straws.
1. Something in my gut tells me that there's a symmetry to all things. The pendulum always swings - sometimes it's a backlash, sometimes imperceptively slowly. The trend has been towards globalisation, and I think that trend must now reverse. There will be many reasons; uncertainty and lack of confidence causing a fall-off in markets world wide, Peak Oil (probably), and many more that I don't understand.
So what is the reverse of Globalisation? I suppose that it must be Localisation. It was interesting reading David McWilliams blog tonight.
http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2010/09/27/recovery-is-going-to-be-local
Wierd to see your thoughts reflected in the writings of a well-known economist!
2. I think that IT and communications technology is going to cause as big a revolution as the printing press did in its time. News is now instant and interactive. We don't have the filter of journalists, broadcasters, etc. any more. DBT (Dan Boyle's Tweet) would be a good example. Mainstream media is now running to catch the coat-tails of 'new media'. The instant nature of new media is important, but it's that interactivity that's really key. Anybody with a computer can join in. Not just consuming the story, but telling it too.
There's more, but I'm tired. I think the answer is Participative Democracy - but I'm too tired to even try to explain. Leadership is required - leaders who are big enough to risk everything - failure especially.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Trust and Politics
This grieving for the boom is messing with my head still. I didn't get sucked in to the excess, so maybe I'm grieving that I didn't even get to enjoy the party while it lasted, and now I'm getting a hangover by proxy.
I know - we all know - that we're being lied to, conditioned, prepared. The parties are on an election footing, and the gloves are off. But somehow, it feels like an inter-necine war... There's an element of collegiality still about the members of the political classes that is stomach-churning.
A few months ago, when I was still more angry than sad about what was happening, I felt like manning the barricades. If someone - anyone - had stood up and said they were as mad as hell and they weren't going to take it anymore, I'd have stood shoulder to shoulder with them. Knowing me, I'd probably be wearing a hoodie that'd cover my face for all intents and purposes.
Yes, I'm still a victim of respectability. Staunchly middle-class parents, with aspirations to be upper-middle-class, ensured that I still can't imagine myself voting Sinn Féin for instance. A sad reflection...
The anger has turned to fear and loathing. I don't recognise myself anymore. I spend endless hours at night, reading the commentaries of experts. I still don't know any more than I did then. There's a kind of paralysis that I know I'm not alone in feeling. I want to be active, to actively contribute to the destruction of the political classes we have spawned. I worry that that same creeping paralysis is becoming more and more apparent.
News stories are less and less shocking. But not because of content, but because of conditioing.
It's bad.
It's really bad
It's REALLY really bad.
This could kill us
It's attacking
We're dead - RIP Ireland
And there are those who see themselves asmembers of the Party! Dead maybe, but STILL members of the Party. Martyrs to a grubby cause. This country is becoming radicalised in a whole new obscene way...
Please someone clean and minty - save my sanity.
I know - we all know - that we're being lied to, conditioned, prepared. The parties are on an election footing, and the gloves are off. But somehow, it feels like an inter-necine war... There's an element of collegiality still about the members of the political classes that is stomach-churning.
A few months ago, when I was still more angry than sad about what was happening, I felt like manning the barricades. If someone - anyone - had stood up and said they were as mad as hell and they weren't going to take it anymore, I'd have stood shoulder to shoulder with them. Knowing me, I'd probably be wearing a hoodie that'd cover my face for all intents and purposes.
Yes, I'm still a victim of respectability. Staunchly middle-class parents, with aspirations to be upper-middle-class, ensured that I still can't imagine myself voting Sinn Féin for instance. A sad reflection...
The anger has turned to fear and loathing. I don't recognise myself anymore. I spend endless hours at night, reading the commentaries of experts. I still don't know any more than I did then. There's a kind of paralysis that I know I'm not alone in feeling. I want to be active, to actively contribute to the destruction of the political classes we have spawned. I worry that that same creeping paralysis is becoming more and more apparent.
News stories are less and less shocking. But not because of content, but because of conditioing.
It's bad.
It's really bad
It's REALLY really bad.
This could kill us
It's attacking
We're dead - RIP Ireland
And there are those who see themselves asmembers of the Party! Dead maybe, but STILL members of the Party. Martyrs to a grubby cause. This country is becoming radicalised in a whole new obscene way...
Please someone clean and minty - save my sanity.
Friday, August 13, 2010
"They either don't know - or they're lying"
Listening to Joe Duffy - for once. Normally, I don't get to hear it, cos I'm at work, but I'm at home today.
There's a man on talking about leaving for England. He calls himself 'a survivor'. Fair play to him. He reckons that there's something very wrong here. How perceptive of him. they don't have the money to get driving lessons - especially in rural Ireland, so he's going.
He said "They either don't know - or they're lying". That's the most perceptive statement that I've heard in a long time.
My brain is in a kind of paralysis. Between the Politicians and the Meeja, both are complicit in sucking the oxygen out of the air - at least that's what it feels like to me...
I'm off to read a historical novel... a bit of alternative perspective would be good
There's a man on talking about leaving for England. He calls himself 'a survivor'. Fair play to him. He reckons that there's something very wrong here. How perceptive of him. they don't have the money to get driving lessons - especially in rural Ireland, so he's going.
He said "They either don't know - or they're lying". That's the most perceptive statement that I've heard in a long time.
My brain is in a kind of paralysis. Between the Politicians and the Meeja, both are complicit in sucking the oxygen out of the air - at least that's what it feels like to me...
I'm off to read a historical novel... a bit of alternative perspective would be good
Monday, May 17, 2010
Grieving for 'da boooom'?
What stage are we at as far as the grief for our lovely and ever-so-defunct (ka)boooooom? I looked up the 7 stages. According to one source, they are:
1. Shock and Denial
2. Pain and Guilt
3. Anger and Bargaining
4. Depression/Reflection/Loneliness
5. The Upward Turn
6. Reconstruction and Working Through
7. Acceptance and Hope
I wish these stooopid politicians would STFU and leave us grieve at our own pace, for heavens sake. They keep on mixing the messages - once minute feigning shock, the next trying to tell us that reconstruction is immanent. Yah-right!
I've had my fill of them - all of them.
Anyone for participitative democracy - anyone? Anyone at all?
1. Shock and Denial
2. Pain and Guilt
3. Anger and Bargaining
4. Depression/Reflection/Loneliness
5. The Upward Turn
6. Reconstruction and Working Through
7. Acceptance and Hope
I wish these stooopid politicians would STFU and leave us grieve at our own pace, for heavens sake. They keep on mixing the messages - once minute feigning shock, the next trying to tell us that reconstruction is immanent. Yah-right!
I've had my fill of them - all of them.
Anyone for participitative democracy - anyone? Anyone at all?
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Pension Blues...
The other day, the guy from the company that handles my PRSA came to meet me. He's very personable and agreeable. He's a brilliant salesman - and not in a shark in a sharp suit kind of way. More the old-fashioned way of telling you what he does, what the benefits are - and he's believable... boy, is he believable.
I checked on a savings-cum-life assurance policy that I've been putting about €60 a month into since about 1988 the same day. About €20 of it was 'savings' and the balance was life cover. It was some quare scheme of a thing whereby the savings allowed you to claim tax-relief I think. I never have claimed the tax relief though. I remembered that it was meant to 'mature' when my daughter went to college, so I asked what the value was. I am now the proud owner of €85 savings. Imagine that - after 20+ years of saving! We wouldn't want to be breeding doctors, now would we...?
So, I don't believe in PRSA's. I still have one, mind you. It's a Pascal's Wager sort of thang. (And no, I don't believe in that Catholic God that I was born and bred on either, but...) I reckon that I'll have about tuppence-ha'penny when it comes to that PRSA, but the company pays € for € what I put in, so I keep putting it in.
I'm probably fairly representative of about 95% or more of this 'society' we live in. I love my family. I work hard. I care for my neighbours. I contribute as much as I can. I will NOT retire at 55 - not if I have a choice. I do NOT break the law in any significant way (said she, as she remembered that the tax is up on the car since the beginning of April...) I will NOT have Directorships and Memberships of Boards etc. being offered to me. I'm not important enough.
I don't want to sound self-righteous, self-congratulatory, or smug. But here's the thing. I LOVE my job. I KNOW that I do it well - well parts of it anyway. I KNOW that I've earned my salary when it comes through - my record is 36 hours straight through without a meal-break to get my stuff done for a deadline. I KNOW that I contribute to my community by doing this job. I KNOW that there are 45+ people who are working, who more than likely would not be in that position but for the work I put in. I KNOW that there are 250+ people who benefit directly from the work that we do, day-in, day-out, even if most of them don't know about the background work that has to be done.
I often wonder what my life would be like now if I had taken another path. If I'd put in this much effort at a business of my own, or another 'big-business' of some kind, would I have developed the skillsets, ruthlessness and instinct for the carotid necessary to get to an equivalent position. I doubt it, but who knows. I've known a few of them, and they are utterly alien to me.
I will probably regret not having spent more time with my children - the old adage of people never regretting that they didn't spend more time in the office. It might sound resentful and jealous, but it's the truth - I KNOW that I can sleep at night. When I wake in the morning, I might dread looking in the mirror, but that's an age thang. It's not the little imps of conscience knawing at the synapses behind furtive eyes.
But there are pensions and then there are Pensions. Some Pensions are worth multiples of an ordinary joe's salary. Some might have to be stalked and pestered into giving - sorry that should be 'Gifting'them back.
Well, my life may not be that luxurious, but I can still only wear one set of clothes at a time, or eat one meal at a time, or sleep in one bed at a time. And that sleep - short and all as it is usually - is precious to me. That might not be good enough for the buiceanna móra making "gifts" of their pensions back today.
No, not good enough for them - but 'tis good enough for me.
I checked on a savings-cum-life assurance policy that I've been putting about €60 a month into since about 1988 the same day. About €20 of it was 'savings' and the balance was life cover. It was some quare scheme of a thing whereby the savings allowed you to claim tax-relief I think. I never have claimed the tax relief though. I remembered that it was meant to 'mature' when my daughter went to college, so I asked what the value was. I am now the proud owner of €85 savings. Imagine that - after 20+ years of saving! We wouldn't want to be breeding doctors, now would we...?
So, I don't believe in PRSA's. I still have one, mind you. It's a Pascal's Wager sort of thang. (And no, I don't believe in that Catholic God that I was born and bred on either, but...) I reckon that I'll have about tuppence-ha'penny when it comes to that PRSA, but the company pays € for € what I put in, so I keep putting it in.
I'm probably fairly representative of about 95% or more of this 'society' we live in. I love my family. I work hard. I care for my neighbours. I contribute as much as I can. I will NOT retire at 55 - not if I have a choice. I do NOT break the law in any significant way (said she, as she remembered that the tax is up on the car since the beginning of April...) I will NOT have Directorships and Memberships of Boards etc. being offered to me. I'm not important enough.
I don't want to sound self-righteous, self-congratulatory, or smug. But here's the thing. I LOVE my job. I KNOW that I do it well - well parts of it anyway. I KNOW that I've earned my salary when it comes through - my record is 36 hours straight through without a meal-break to get my stuff done for a deadline. I KNOW that I contribute to my community by doing this job. I KNOW that there are 45+ people who are working, who more than likely would not be in that position but for the work I put in. I KNOW that there are 250+ people who benefit directly from the work that we do, day-in, day-out, even if most of them don't know about the background work that has to be done.
I often wonder what my life would be like now if I had taken another path. If I'd put in this much effort at a business of my own, or another 'big-business' of some kind, would I have developed the skillsets, ruthlessness and instinct for the carotid necessary to get to an equivalent position. I doubt it, but who knows. I've known a few of them, and they are utterly alien to me.
I will probably regret not having spent more time with my children - the old adage of people never regretting that they didn't spend more time in the office. It might sound resentful and jealous, but it's the truth - I KNOW that I can sleep at night. When I wake in the morning, I might dread looking in the mirror, but that's an age thang. It's not the little imps of conscience knawing at the synapses behind furtive eyes.
But there are pensions and then there are Pensions. Some Pensions are worth multiples of an ordinary joe's salary. Some might have to be stalked and pestered into giving - sorry that should be 'Gifting'them back.
Well, my life may not be that luxurious, but I can still only wear one set of clothes at a time, or eat one meal at a time, or sleep in one bed at a time. And that sleep - short and all as it is usually - is precious to me. That might not be good enough for the buiceanna móra making "gifts" of their pensions back today.
No, not good enough for them - but 'tis good enough for me.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Do-the-(re)-Shuffle
"Shuffling is a procedure used to randomize a deck of playing cards to provide an element of chance in card games. Shuffling is often followed by a cut, to ensure that the shuffler has not manipulated the outcome" - from Wikipedia
To be honest, I think this image here is a bit more appropriate for todays events in Kildare Street...
http://www.4to40.com/images/games/fun/musical_chair.gif
but hey - who am I?
A lowly Worm is all...
Still, there are a lotta lotta Worms out there.
In all sorts of places.
Doing all sorts of jobs.
And if we're cornered - who's to say?
The Worms could turn...
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