On the Irish and Slowing Down

I will keep this as short and sweet as possible.

ITEM ONE

The Irish aren't good at a great many things. Speaking intelligible English. Saying anything worthwhile, for that matter. Sobriety. Humility. Not gossiping or getting into fights. Ethical business practices. Heck, ANY business practices *cougheconomycough*. Plus they've produced some real blackguards like Bono and Colin Farrell.

What can we credit them for? Guinness. Corned beef and cabbage. The Book of Kells. Fantastic music (I don't mean U2). CS Lewis. The best traditional artwork of any peoples on the planet. Kenneth Branagh. That about does it.

ITEM TWO

People need to slow down. I was walking home from the market (three miles away, and a good long while to ponder), listening to The Cranberries (a credit to Ireland), and thinking about how people driving must not see anything except for where they were going. This isn't bad, I suppose, as we wouldn't want them to get into accidents, but do people ever just sort of take it slow and enjoy life? Why are we so caught up in this idea that we must be on the move all the time?

Discounting the myriad of possible answers for a moment, I just want to suggest that it is the rampant disbelief in God that compels us to pace our lives in such a way. We create meaning for ourselves. That's existentialism. Oh no, you might say, let's not open up this Costco bulk size can of beans. I won't. Or rather I will, but I'll just open the Albertson's size can of ATHEIST existentialism.

So here we go, creating meaning in a world that is essentially meaningless. We drive our cars to work, we make phone calls, appointments, drive home, pat the little ones on the head, and REM cycle our way back to the beginning. It takes a whole twenty four hours to do this, and not a moment is spared for anything except what our nature demands. The catch? None of this still matters, even though you want it to. It's your meaning, your calling. We're too afraid to not have meaning because all there is to do outside of busy work is walking down that hill after the boulder and contemplating our own mortality.

Camus lied. The truth is that there is plenty to ponder, and there is plenty of meaning to be had without doing anything. We eat, we breathe, we think. Being busy may give us meaning, and maybe it is scary to have nothing but death otherwise, but even if you don't believe in a deity or some ulterior intelligence, we still have this planet. We have animals and plants that don't need to be understood with a microscope to be fully appreciated. We have ingenious innovations using terrestrial components to convey and engage us extraterrestrially (I'm using the literal Latin meaning here, mmkay?). Just stop for a minute and see. You might just realize that life doesn't actually need to have complexities in it to give it meaning. Maybe it's enough just to be.

But it's not, of course. Because we do think, there MUST be something. A reason. You can go on living by the fundamentals set down in existentialist thought and rely on yourself. Thinking selfishly is how we survive. It's moving too fast that renders our delusions completely redundant. Atheists: if none of it matters, why not slow it down and bask in your own cleverness? Theists (more specifically Christians): If God is in control and you trust entirely in Him, why rush things? Where is it going to get you? Yes we are mortal, but we are living longer. We have plenty of time. Don't you see that this speed high we're on is why we're spiralling backwards from Enlightenment? We celebrate the carnal nature of Man because there is no God (or there is, we've just forgotten), and nothing matters. Yet we live life as though it matters too much. Am I making any sense whatsoever?

There's too much to say, and I have no skill in organizing my thoughts, I know. You didn't read this anyway.