What Makes Me Tick

      The two most important things, for now, that you need to know about me, are, that I am Irish and an optimist. And a third - if you are good with numbers, that I am looking forward to the rest of my life.

As for my Irishness, (the stuff of boyhood dreams), that, for the past thirty years has been bastardized by the IRA: "patriots", who, have gone about wantonly disfiguring, or blowing to bits, their fellow countrymen and women, and in the name of "liberation".

No less reprehensible, (though somewhat distinct from the dark side of Irish Nationalism), was the nuclear arms race of the 1970's and 80's, that I and others campaigned against, while at the same time, trying to convince the pro-nuclear lobby, that we were not "unpatriotic." The analogy that I used was simple. "If you saw your child in the garden playing with the bread-knife, you wouldn't sit there speculating as to what might happen next. Instead, and fearing the worst, your instinct would propel you out into the garden to recover the knife and save the child from harm." The point being, that the only reasonable assumption that we can make about nuclear weapons is, that they will be used, and that is what makes having them at all, unacceptable.

More recently myself and Jenny went to Amsterdam, and as people do, we visited the home of Anne Frank. Later this year we will go to Auschwitz. Rightly, just the though of going there is chilling, nor is it an idea that sits easily with the thought of a holiday in Poland. But for me, it is necessary to confront this evidence of the worst excesses in the human condition.


So, where you might ask, is the optimism?


Well, given our capacity to self-destruct, it seems to me, that the most remarkable thing about being "civilized", is, that we are here at all, and that we have achieved so much. And having been to places as far apart as China and Cuba, another pleasing aspect of what it is to be human, is, to have experienced first hand how every language and culture has within it, the capacity for enjoyment, for works of art, for music and laughter. And that brings me nicely to "the rest of my life."


When I cease to be an employee of the government, "retire", that is, I hope to devote many years to serious writing, especially to poetry, to writing that however dark in places, at its core is optimistic. So here is something spontaneous and I hope not too profound, but before I share it with you, a last thought.


My religion is, as it were, on stilts, but when the time comes and assuming that I am still tottering around on them, my hope will be in the crucifixion and death of Christ, and not in literary or personal achievement. Why? Because having made reference to the shortcomings of others, I must acknowledge also, that I too am flawed.


Messing it up

Life wouldn't be life if it were satisfactory

which is why we live on the edge of an abyss,

waiting for the moment when we mess it up completely.

And life wouldn't be life without the will to cling on -

                                                 at least until tomorrow,

so that we can marvel at yesterday,

and wonder about today,

and look forward to tomorrow - knowing -

that that, just might be the day when, we will, -

mess it up completely.

__________

© Cormac McCloskey

N.B This blog was edited by me on 22 09 2014 : some changes were made to the punctuation, and some alterations, for the better, we made to the phrasing.

Note: "What Makes Me Tick" was first published, by me, on Windows Live Spaces on 31st July 2005