Pimp my isle

We Irish have been, and are, called many things but ostentatious can never really be one of them. In comparison to our brethren across the pond (the bigger pond that is), we tend to be quite a reserved bunch; then again, who isn’t when viewed in such a light?

Halloween — less substance, more shabby style?

Even at the height of the Celtic Tiger when many people had more (borrowed) money than sense, we never really became too brash or cocky. 

Sure we may have built to excess but we tended to stick to the ‘less talk, more action’ mantra. Things were ‘grand’ (in Ireland that means an ordinary 'fine'); you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone use that flamboyant, quintessentially North American word ‘awesome’.

Perhaps much of this was due to the fact that deep down, even if we didn’t outwardly acknowledge it, we knew our newfound (borrowed) wealth wouldn’t last.

So now that the arse has well and truly fallen out of our ‘mighty little’ economic miracle, you would think being showy is the last thing on our minds – considering, that is, that we traditionally don’t do it, it just doesn’t sit well with us at all. Rather than things being awesome, they’re just awkward.

Yet, as the dust settles on our gluttonous years, one obvious legacy, very much in evidence over the Halloween period, is the desire for young families to pimp up their homes for various events and festivities. 

OK, one might have expected a scaling up in this regard when the country was awash with (borrowed – get it?) money, but there appears to be no sign of scaling back now that we’ve returned to our ‘normal’ financial state (hard-pressed that is).

Christmas decorating predates the boom years and it’s not something we’ve too many misgivings about, although its arrival seems to get earlier and earlier each year with an accompanying increase in the lavishness of these Yuletide manifestations.

It’s the relatively recent uptake of Halloween folderol that has us scratching our heads. 

We’ve always recognised the day, of course – in fact, it’s an Irish festival, its roots going back to pagan times on the island. But the odd costume and trick-or-treater aside, we were never too bothered about jazzing up our houses and streets with a host of Halloween paraphernalia – we left that to the Yanks, in much the same way we ‘let’ them outdo us with the St Patrick’s Day celebrations.

That all seems to have changed now. Decorations are a prerequisite these days – fake spiders’ webs are hung up (while at the same time frantically sweeping away real ones), figures of witches and skeletons put on display and pumpkins are ‘planted’ in every corner of the house.

Decommissioned. 

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with such practices – you could argue that they bring some lesser-spotted cheer to surroundings in these hard-pressed, almost gloomy times (the current state of play being far spookier than any contrived Halloween scare). 

However, when you’re preaching poverty to strait-laced neighbours who happen to be paying your way, being a bit flashy doesn’t send out the right signals, does it? 

It’s a bit like the struggling parents, who apparently never have money for anything, hiring a private photographer when it comes to their little Johnny’s or Mary’s Communion Day. Well come on, they couldn’t be expected to share the one laid on for the group or, whisper it, take their own amateur photos on such a momentous day.

Back to Halloween, how about returning to some of our more, um, traditional, simpler customs? 

The innocent days of kicking some old man’s hard-saved cabbage, launching fireworks and mild explosives at legitimate targets and subsequently getting chased by An Garda Síochána (the Irish police) appear lost in the past. Solid substance has been replaced by shallow style.

Come on guys, you know this showiness doesn’t suit us. It’s not always best practice to slavishly follow Mr and Mrs Jones.

The path not taken

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

'Sail away' as Enya once advised.

An inspiring quote for many that, from the American author Mark Twain. Of course, it does make a lot of sense in a number of ways, encouraging you to take on challenges and test yourself. 

However, the fact that you may be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do in your life over the ones you did is pretty much unavoidable really. Most people, if not all of us, will have doubts, questions and in some cases even regrets over things we could have done but didn’t. There will always be a path we didn’t take. 

Life is all about decisions – choosing one thing over another, or not as the case may be. Throw in the fact that we only live once – well, as far as most of us believe and are aware that is the case – and it becomes extremely difficult to do everything that we desire.

The most important part in Twain’s words, from our point of view, is “Sail away from the safe harbour.” In other words, get out of your comfort zone when and where possible. If you feel your life has become stale and staid, that’s usually a good sign to make a fresh break, spice things up so to speak. Obviously for some this should be relatively easier to do than others. 

For example, those who are married or have long-term partners must balance their own desires with those of their significant other if they are serious about their relationship. 

The freedom you might have to “Explore. Dream. Discover” becomes even more compromised if you have children. Much of your responsibility becomes tied up in their development and desires – at least it should.

"Which way, 'Wrong Way'?"

Even without such ‘constraints’ on your ability to sail away or opt for a new direction, it can be difficult to leave behind your current life, even if it’s not exactly making you happy or giving you a sense of fulfilment. Very often a human being’s adventurous spirit is hindered by his/her fear of the unknown. 

It’s in this scenario where Twain’s quote comes into play. This is when you must ask yourself if the path you’re currently on is really the right one. 

Whatever about choosing one thing over another where the correct option doesn’t seem that obvious or indeed there isn’t a clear right or wrong choice, sticking with something that isn’t delivering you happiness, never mind not challenging you, is unwise to say the least. 

At times all it may require is a short break from a certain way of life or location – it doesn’t always have to be a complete transformation – to get you back on track, re-energise you so to speak. Even in the most restrictive of situations, dire even, there is an out, a new way.

Some may argue that financial constraints can make changing the course of your life difficult. Yes, money or the lack of it can play a part. 

For somebody who might be struggling to know where their next meal is coming from, seeing a way out of such a life can be difficult to envisage. Plus, from a Western, ‘developed world’ perspective (or minority-world view as some countries outside of this group quite accurately term it) quite literally ‘sailing away’ can be much easier than for those in the ‘developing world’.

'Wrong way, turn back.'

But we can, all of us, strive for change or look to alter the direction of our life, if that is our want. If you know deep inside that the path you’re currently on is not the right one for you and you have the ability to change it, then the plan should be to seek to do just that. 

To “throw off the bowlines” as Twain puts it. Eliminating regrets from your life may be difficult to achieve, but at the very least you can try to reduce them.


* For related articles see: "'Wrong Way' begins" http://bit.ly/VtvYn1 & 'Taking stock' http://bit.ly/YE0wQo

Back to the future

We can all be wise after the event – most of us, anyway. In an Irish context, we’ve had plenty of politicians and economists claiming that — after the wheels so dramatically and disastrously came off our false little boom — they knew the bust was coming well before it arrived. If so, the majority of them did a very good job of keeping this valuable information to themselves. Publicly making predictions or at least sharing your thoughts on the future direction of events is something many of our modern-day politicians shirk from. 

'So, which part of Poland can we have?' - Molotov, left, with Hitler.

The same, however, cannot be said for the former Soviet Union Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. Below is a speech he made in Paris on 10 October 1946, on the policy of ‘equal opportunity’ or the ‘open world’ economy that was beginning to take shape in the West. 

Considering how things have panned out in the 60-plus years since he uttered these words, you would have to say he wasn’t that far off the mark on much of what he foresaw here. Of course, depending on where you’re coming from, this ‘equal opportunity’ that Molotov feared is either good or bad. 

Like most things, it’s probably a mixture of both. Right now many of the ‘liberated’ former Soviet states are probably quite happy to be in bed with, so to speak, the USA rather than Russia. There might come a time, though, when that stance will change. Whatever the case may be, you can make up your own mind on what ‘Prophet’ Molotov had to say:

“We know that the United States made a very great effort in this war, in defence of its own interests and of our common aims, for which we are all grateful to that country. But for all that, it cannot be said that the United States is one of those states which suffered grave material damage in the Second World War, which were ruined and weakened in this war. We are glad that this did not happen to our ally, although we ourselves have had to go through trying times, the consequences of which will take us long years to heal.

Now that you know the facts, place side-by-side Romania, enfeebled by the war, or Yugoslavia, ruined by the German and Italian fascists, and the United States of America, whose wealth has grown immensely during the war, and you will clearly see what the implementation of the principle of ‘equal opportunity’ would mean in practice. Imagine, under these circumstances, that in this same Romania or Yugoslavia or in some other war-weakened state, you have this so-called ‘equal opportunity’ for, let us say, American capital – that is, the opportunity for it to penetrate unhindered into Romanian industry or Yugoslav industry and so forth: what, then, will remain of Romania’s national industry, or of Yugoslavia’s national industry?

It is surely not so difficult to understand that if American capital were given a free hand in the small states ruined and enfeebled by the war, as the advocates of the principle of ‘equal opportunity’ desire, American capital would buy up the local industries, appropriate the more attractive Romanian, Yugoslav and all other enterprises and would become the master in these small states. Given such a situation, we would probably live to see the day when in your own country, on switching on the radio, you would be hearing not so much your own language as one American gramophone record after another or some piece or other of British propaganda. 

The time might come when in your own country, on going to the cinema, you would be seeing American films sold for foreign consumption – and not those of better quality, but those manufactured in greater quantity and circulated and imposed abroad by the agents of powerful firms and cinema companies which have grown particularly rich during the war.

'Eh, Minister Molotov, let's give the cinema a miss today.'

Can anyone really fail to see that if, as a result of the application of the principle of so-called ‘equal opportunity’ in small states, unrestricted competition begins between the home products and the products poured out by the factories of the United States or Great Britain, nothing will remain of the sovereignty and independence of these states, especially considering the post-war conditions? Is it not clear that such unrestricted application of the principle of ‘equal opportunity’ in the given conditions would in practice mean the veritable economic enslavement of the small states and their subjugation to the rule and arbitrary will of strong and enriched foreign firms, banks and industrial companies? 

Is it not clear that if such ‘principles of equality’ are applied in international economic life, the smaller states will be governed by the orders, injunctions and instructions of strong foreign trusts and monopolies? Was this what we fought for when we battled the fascist invaders, the Hitlerite and Japanese imperialists?”

Well there you go. A visionary or what, eh?

__________________________

Speech taken from: McCauley, Martin, ‘Seminar Studies in History – The Origins of the Cold War’, PP 119-121, Longman, New York, 1990