humour – Reviews Rants and Rambles

An epiphany is that moment when the penny drops, when the scales fall away from your eyes; that ‘light bulb moment’ when the mystery is solved; when the poem gives up its secret; that Eureka Moment when you realise you’ve been conned for most of your life.

The Bible has many such moments, from Eve and the apple in Genesis to Paul’s conversion on his way to Damascus in the New Testament. As Christians, we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany each year on January 6th, which focuses on the moment Christ is revealed to the non-Jewish world; when the Magi, guided by a star, come from the East to visit their Redeemer.

Epiphanies are mental moments when we are given instant clarity, which can turn into motivation to change and charge forward. But not all epiphanies are created equally. Some demand a deep inward search, while others fly in and out of our lives swiftly, silently, almost unnoticed.

It’s great to have an epiphany, but what you do with that new clarity is what matters most. Most of our habits are so ingrained in our lives that changing behaviour is very difficult. Most epiphanies force us to see situations and ourselves in a new light. The next step takes great courage; taking that step to live out your epiphany is when real transformation happens. In my own life, I have had some powerful moments. So, here are a few examples of some of my totally random light bulb moments…..

I normally don’t do conspiracy theories, BUT I firmly believe the young Viet Cong soldier who tortured American Vietnam hero and veteran, John McCain, for seven years, when made redundant, went back to the fledgling Hoi ChiMinh University and did a doctoral thesis on the benefits of manually induced electro muscle therapy – this was then picked up in Austria or Switzerland and sanitised. Today, it’s known as DRY NEEDLING. IMHO, the overuse of dry needling by overzealous, sadistic physiotherapists will be the rock that modern physiotherapy will perish on.

Donald Trump has never, ever put America first. Indeed, most politicians of all nationalities and all political hues invariably put themselves first. However, a stopped clock is right at least twice a day, and Donald Trump was spot-on when he coined the phrase, Fake News.
In a related epiphany, have you ever noticed that all the major News Corporations are now owned by billionaire oligarchs and moguls? I wonder why. I have come to realise that much of what passes for news in today’s world is fake – atrocity after atrocity goes unreported, and not just because all the journalists have been killed by sniper fire – those who sit at home back in the studio have their hands tied behind their backs for fear they might incur the wrath of the current government.

On a slightly lighter note, did you ever notice that shampoo bottles are designed so that you will always use more than you need? You only realise this when the bottle is nearly empty.

The Catholic Church in Ireland provided an education and health system for Irish people a century before the fledgling state was formed – they deserve to be cut some slack by the newly canonised neo-liberals. That Church, to which I belong, has been under persistent attack for most of this century.

There are 756 steps between Oscar’s Restaurant and Servitar Puerto Azul Apartments in Puerto Rico, Gran Canaria!

Last year, for the first time since we settled in Knockaderry back in 1979, we had no swallows nesting in our garage by the road. In years past, we’ve had multiple pairs, but last year, 2024, was the first year we had no nest. It struck me then that swallows are the modern version of the canary down the mine. Thankfully, this year, after a very nervous wait, a lone pair arrived on May 20th – five weeks behind schedule. They built their nest and hatched four beautiful chicks for us to admire and cherish. The world is very fragile but not yet fully broken!

Global Warming never came to Knockaderry – but Climate Change is a real problem!

I’ve always contended that common sense wasn’t that common, but now I’m convinced that logic is irreparably damaged, and Warmongers now see themselves as Peacekeepers. There’s one who has financed and supplied most of the munitions for an ongoing genocide who claims to have brokered peace in nine global conflicts this year alone. Give that man the Nobel Peace Prize now, or else!!

Your role as a parent is never done. There is never a time, in good times and in bad, when you have full peace of mind, when you no longer need to worry. In reality, as a parent, you are only ever as happy as your saddest child.

Your career as a politician or as the manager of your local hurling team always ends in failure! No matter how successful you’ve been at winning championships or leagues or simply avoiding dreaded relegation, the time will come when you lose the dressing room. The people have spoken, and you must inevitably bow to the tyranny of the ballot box or your local GAA AGM!

Modern democracy is as fragile as a wasp’s nest, papery and brittle, and in my lifetime, it has been emasculated by billionaires and Russian oligarchs for their own ends.

Your health is your wealth. It is a universal truth that we take too much for granted, like being able to put on your socks or pull up your pants or get out of bed in the morning.
Cork GAA and its supporters are so well-served by the quality of their sports journalists. No other county can claim to have writers who, week in week out, report the club scene and the intercounty scene in hurling and football to such a high standard. Names like Tony Leen, John Fogarty, Maurice Brosnan, Michael Moynihan, Eoghan Cormican, Paul Rouse, Kieran Shannon and Cathal Dennehy are among my favourites. And all of those stand on the shoulders of the giants who went before them in the old Cork Examiner: Jim O’Sullivan, Michael Ellard, the great P.D. Mehigan, better known as Carbery, and my own favourite word wizard, Kevin Cashman. In my book, he was one of hurling’s finest ever writers who prized exactitude and calm knowledge, in the same way he esteemed seeing a hurler’s correct technique create lethal elegance.

Finally, to put some order on this randomness, here are eight epiphanies that have certainly changed my life for the better, and maybe they can help you in your own journey.

You aren’t what people say you are.

What matters most is what you say and feel about yourself. You get to choose. You can let others define you and tell you who you are, or you can show them who you are. Be you. The world needs you as you are.

Plan B is often better than Plan A.

The most freeing moment in your life is when you let go of what you think is best for you. Stop holding on to what is no longer working: that job, that relationship, that dream. If it feels like hard work and is causing you more pain than gain, it is time to let go.

You are not the number on the scale.

At the end of your life, after all those weight struggles, food wars, the obsession with new diets, and trying to look a certain way, it will have no relevance. You are more than a set of grades. The only thing that matters is what is in your heart. How you make people feel and how you make YOU feel is more important than how you look.

The journey is more important than the goal.

Setting and reaching goals is important, but the actual process of becoming, growing, learning, and morphing into who we need to become is the real sweet stuff that makes for a wonderful life. Enjoy the journey as much as the reward.

Being alone doesn’t mean you will be lonely.

The fear of being alone strikes the heart and makes many people panic. But when you learn to love your own company, you will see that you are never really lonely.

It will never be all done.

The to-do lists, the chores, and the things we race around to get done will never be done. It is called life. Situations, chores, and to-do lists will always unfold. Instead of focusing on the end result, be in the process and celebrate what you have accomplished, as our wonderful Limerick Hurling team does.

Emotional pain, indeed, all pain, shows up to point out to us what we need to change.

Sadness, depression, and heartache are gentle reminders to probe deeper into our lives. In the Summer of 2024, I had six weeks of agony inflicted on me by an inflamed bursa in my left hip from climbing ladders and clipping hedges. So, look at what is not working and be open to living your life in new ways. No more climbing ladders for me!

Finally, if you’re lucky, you don’t have to find your purpose; it will find you.

The transition period between who you are and where you are going can be painful, but on your journey of finding purpose, recognise that there is purpose in the pain. Each step you take is helping you carve out more of who you really are.

The arrival of the Renaissance and the Church Reformation and the humanism that followed paralleled the advent of the Metaphysical period in poetry. This period also coincided with the death of Elizabeth I and the subsequent weakening of the strong monarchy of the Tudors.

The Metaphysical poets were few in number. They reacted against the Elizabethan literary style and ideas. They rejected the conventional ideal of love held by Elizabethan poets and their indifference to real experience. Where the Elizabethans saw love as a romantic pleasure to be described in general terms the Metaphysicals attempted to analyse personal and intimate experiences of love (and indeed other experiences) on particular occasions. The emphasis was on the experience – things happening now, and so, immediacy was a particular characteristic of their poetry.

They rebelled against accepted ideas, e.g. the deification of nature and the notion of the greatness of kings. Their themes were usually serious, and often satirical. Religion was a constant topic because there was an uncertainty as to what was the true religion. There was little reference to contemporary matters, political or otherwise, but the problems of the time were often reflected in the poetry, especially the religious issues.

The poems were not aimed at a ‘public’ readership, but rather at the intellect of their own closely-knit group.

STYLE

With the reaction against Elizabethan ideas and techniques, the old rhetorical contrived style gave way to a more condensed style, following more closely the wording and rhythms of everyday speech; and to Metaphysical ‘wit’ (not necessarily funny or amusing, but an awareness, an intelligence, an application of learning); and to the ‘conceit’ (a figure of speech with a fanciful image, or an unusual comparison between two very dissimilar things based on something alike in the two)

There was a variety of tone and imagery in a single poem. The style was argumentative and logically worked out, but often there was no relation between the start of the poem and the finish. The form, i.e. the technique of a poem was less important than the content, the meaning. There was often a dramatic approach, an abruptness of phrase, a question, a dramatic use of punctuation.

SINCERE FEELING

T.S. Eliot wrote that in the last 250 years brainwork and emotion have tended to become separate in poetry, to its loss. This is worth remembering when we discuss ‘sincere feeling’. In Elizabethan and Renaissance poetry the first person was used, but since the lyric poetry of the time was linked with the music, the ‘I’ was ambiguous: it might have been as sincere as the ‘I’ of the Romantics, but also as insincere as the conventional ‘I’ of contemporary ‘Pop’ music. Even the devotional poems of Vaughan are not certain to be sincere. Yet the conventions of the poetry of the time were important, and ‘wit’ (with its cryptic ‘crossword puzzle’ approach) was as important as emotion, sensibility, or piety in poetry. So while spontaneous cries from the heart may have been lacking, so also were self-pity and sentimentality. There was no question of ‘sincere feeling’ being essential to a poem if the imagined feeling was well created. It is essential to understand that our own experiences are often recounted and ‘‘adorned’’ in the retelling; yet the original emotion is nonetheless sincere for this.

This also applies to humour in Metaphysical poetry. We sometimes fail to realise that a dry humour may accompany some great crisis in our lives, and that sometimes people die with a joke on their lips. The Metaphysicals often deliver spectacular philosophical ideas, and set out highly emotional situations in an off-hand way, and accompany them with humour and sometimes with paradox.

Finally, Samuel Johnson suggested that the Metaphysical poets were clever men, anxious to show off their cleverness, who had little real ability or interest in poetry. “There is”, he writes, “no freshness of thought or accuracy of description, nor are their words chosen carefully.” It is a point of view!