I was trying to resolve the paradox of parenting for two friends of mine recently (who don't have children) - how you can moan endlessly about the struggles of having children, while almost in the same breath exhorting friends to hurry up and have their own because having children is wonderful and magical and amazing!
I don't think I did a great job of explaining anything to them - it is hard to understand. I often feel surprised by things I see in myself that come out in parenting - intolerance, patience, selfishness, generosity, mood swings, durability, anxiety, serenity... like at a deep level I am being subtly guided by a suddenly slightly unfamiliar force that takes a little getting used to.
Take two examples:
1. I was enjoying my breakfast of coffee with toast and jam one morning this week, and of course Timmy was helping me out with the toast. I realised that everytime I gave him a bite I carefully, and without thinking, manoeuvred the juiciest, fattest blob of jam I could into his mouth... A very unusual instinct for a man spoilt and selfish as I can be in some ways.
2. At dinner with Stephen on Tuesday evening I was really enjoying a fresh and beautiful piece of lemon sole which I don't have very often. Timmy went out to the toilet and, without going into explaining why this happens with 3 year olds, I got up from my lovely delicate supper four times to wipe someone else's backside - and of course still really enjoyed my meal. Not defiantly, not self-consciously, not self-righteously - I just did, and that surprises me!
I sometimes think about this sense of the limit of the conscious 'me' - that I can 'observe' other parts of me that I don't know and that feel somehow detached from the 'me' I see, hear and think about 99.999% of the time. As if I'm riding a horse, or sitting in the back of a car being driven by someone else.
Oct 17, 2008
The Power of Community - How Cuba survived Peak Oil
I was very fortunate to attend a screening of 'The Power of Community - How Cuba survived Peak Oil' last night in Midleton, hosted by the new Midleton Transition Town group.
For those of you who haven't seen this film it is a fascinating documentary about how Cuban society was forced to react in the early 90s to the fall of the USSR and US trade embargos. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. The film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call "The Special Period."
The evening was intended as a food-for-thought evening and a seed for discussion of what lessons east Cork and Midleton could perhaps learn for the future. Interestingly one member of the audience felt moved to emphasise the extreme differences between Cuba in the early 90s and Ireland in 2008 and the futility of trying to glean anything from their experiences. He made some interesting points, but I sensed that the gentleman in question felt threatened by the misconception that environmental activists wanted to turn Ireland into some quasi-neolithic society!
I agree entirely with the gentleman that it would be wrong to throw out the baby with the bathwater (not that anyone really wants to in my view however) and revert to a different way of living for its own sake. In Cuba, this wasn't really a luxury they could afford due to dramatic political and economic influences. In the Irish context of course I think that some ways of life really are worth reverting to - such as stronger reliance on the power of community and local economies, and other sophistications we've developed are also worth keeping. In many ways we seem to be doing this, although some of us would like to go a little faster than others!
To me progress should always be a forward step, although perhaps paradoxically this can also mean re-embracing ideas and ways that have gone out of fashion along the way.
For those of you who haven't seen this film it is a fascinating documentary about how Cuban society was forced to react in the early 90s to the fall of the USSR and US trade embargos. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. The film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call "The Special Period."
The evening was intended as a food-for-thought evening and a seed for discussion of what lessons east Cork and Midleton could perhaps learn for the future. Interestingly one member of the audience felt moved to emphasise the extreme differences between Cuba in the early 90s and Ireland in 2008 and the futility of trying to glean anything from their experiences. He made some interesting points, but I sensed that the gentleman in question felt threatened by the misconception that environmental activists wanted to turn Ireland into some quasi-neolithic society!
I agree entirely with the gentleman that it would be wrong to throw out the baby with the bathwater (not that anyone really wants to in my view however) and revert to a different way of living for its own sake. In Cuba, this wasn't really a luxury they could afford due to dramatic political and economic influences. In the Irish context of course I think that some ways of life really are worth reverting to - such as stronger reliance on the power of community and local economies, and other sophistications we've developed are also worth keeping. In many ways we seem to be doing this, although some of us would like to go a little faster than others!
To me progress should always be a forward step, although perhaps paradoxically this can also mean re-embracing ideas and ways that have gone out of fashion along the way.
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