The descent into madness
I had a rather revealing personal insight today.
It started when I had to get up early to go down to the village at nine.
Without going into details, there was a prescription I needed rather urgently and seeing as I couldn’t get through to Doc on the phone, the only recourse was to request it in person. Hence my trip to the village.
It wasn’t too bad. They have blocked off any remaining parking spots and have completely closed off one road and the main village square. The latter is now full of heavy machinery such as cranes and cherry-pickers. There were crews everywhere stringing bunting around the place and adding tons more plastic flowers presumably to replace those that have been pinched by The Great Unwashed.
So I parked in the reserved car park [now officially reserved for residents only, thank God] and made my way back to Doc’s. I ordered the prescription off the receptionist and was told Doc couldn’t do it then as he was up to his eyes and booked solid for weeks ahead. People suddenly seem concerned about their health for some strange reason? Anyways there was no point in hanging around so I arranged for the script to be dropped over to the chemist and they’d phone me when it was ready.
I went home.
A while later the phone rang: the prescription was done and all I had to do was pick it up from the chemist. Fine. I could park in the disabled spot outside the chemist’s door and nip in to collect it.
I drove down. The first sign of trouble was at the bottom of the hill. There seemed to be a lot of traffic coming out of the side roads and some even trying to do a U turn in the middle of the crossroads. I made my way through and down to the village and there I saw the problem – the place was at a standstill. it was total gridlock. There was a double decker bus stuck behind a huge cherry-picker which in turn was stuck behind an articulated lorry. Traffic had built up behind them and was solid and stationary in all the roads leading into the village. Access to parking outside the chemist was completely blocked. I parked in the car park, nipped back to the chemist, collected the prescription and back to the car again. The traffic was still stationary except that it had now been joined by another bus and a massive crane. There was just no point in trying to get home that way. Nothing was moving.
So I took to the back roads away from the village and managed to skirt the mayhem on back roads.
It was then I had my startling insight.
I wasn’t annoyed. They have beaten me into submission. I am now accepting total and complete chaotic madness as being normal. It is now normal that the village is just a complete Disney fairyland, bedecked in flowers with paper lanterns strung across the roads. It is now normal that the grocery shop is now a hardware store and the hardware shop is a butchers. It is normal that at eleven on a Monday morning that the pavements and half the roads are packed solid with throngs of The Great Unwashed wandering around just staring and taking photographs. It is now normal that a quiet country village is now solid with vehicles and hundreds of people.
That acceptance is really frightening. When the insane appears normal then surely I have joined the ranks of the insane?
I have finally cracked.
'The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to avoid falling into the ranks of the insane'
A quote from the wisest of all Roman Emperors, Marcus Aurelius.
It just shows that nothing ever changes.
My problem then is that I'm never on the side of the majority but haven't avoided falling into the ranks of the insane
Not necessarily: being temporarily resigned to a dystopian state of affairs ain’t the same thing as a permanent acceptance. They will all bugger off soon and leave you in peace, although your nerves may be temporarily in pieces. It will get back to normal.
You haven't cracked yet. You will have cracked when you go down there with a weapon and start blasting away.
Mind and leave your account details with someone who can update us with status reports. I've done so already for my logins just in case.
I think you are in a latter day version of the Stanford Prison Experiment and a psychologist will eventually step forward and call a halt and explain that it was all just a test of human nature.
As you know Grandad, I live in Cork City which has suffered all of the ills you list in your corner of Wicklow only ten times worse. Developments everywhere and if there is a spare ten foot by ten foot to be found, they’ll stick three houses on it and sell it as 12 luxury apartments. There’s crowds everywhere, aimlessly roaming around and causing congestion.
Happily though I live in one of the most disadvantaged, anti-social and violent suburbs in the city. It’s wonderful here because nobody from outside the area would ever dream of coming into it. There are no attractions whatsoever in Mayfield and to give you an example of the natives, Roy Keane is our sole intellectual.
So nothing changes up here, no new developments, no crowds, no real traffic jams and no, there’s very little anti-social activity going on either. But don’t tell anybody that because we’d be swamped in no time just like your little village.
We’re delighted with our bad name and hostile reputation and if you’re thinking of coming up to have a look yourself, you can fock off!