Thanks makes us ephemeral specks much more happy!

My poor dear loyal colyoomistas, are you starting to dread opening this newspaper each week, in fear of another depressing piece from Charlie? Are you longing for those colyooms of yesteryear when I wrote about going down the pub, getting a bit tipsy and making a right fool of myself?

Despite the fact that recent colyooms have concerned themselves with ill-health, exhaustion, suicide, homophobia and insomnia, my life is something that I am grateful for, and while I’m giving thanks, I’d like to reassure those colyoomistas who have recently sent me messages of concern for my welfare.

Thanks to all of you. I am okay. I am not plunged into the darkest depths of depression. Thankfully I have not had a bout of depression for many months, for which I am grateful, but even when I am visited by my Black Dog, I have a most essential and wonderful tool that never fails to bring me relief.

I give thanks.

I don’t only give thanks when I’m down, although it proves a fantastic help when I do.  I give thanks all the time. It’s hardly a startling new concept, and yet as we rush around in the frenzied mad craziness of modern life, it’s so easy to become blinded to the good.

Some regular readers out there might be wondering to whom this self-professed atheist-pantheist Jewish mutant offers gratitude.

Indeed, with such a flippant-sounding mish-mash of beliefs and lack thereof, why should I be taken seriously?

Well, why not?

I am Jewish because my blood is Jewish; my family is Jewish and when the next bunch of Jew-murdering bastards come to get us, they won’t be asking if I believe in God or not. There are millions of secular Jews in the world; just not very many in the West of Ireland.

As far as the apparent paradox of my atheist-pantheist paradigm is concerned, well, it makes perfect sense to me. I do not believe in a monotheistic god. I do not require a written rule book that tells me how to live my life in order that I might earn a ticket into an ‘after life’ because I don’t believe in an ‘after life’.

I believe I am merely an ephemeral speck on the face of the universe, and that if I am wrong, and there indeed exists some kind of great being, they will judge me for my thoughts, deeds and the impact I have made on the rest of the universe.

If He, She or It requires me to bow down, I will most certainly refuse, not because I am an arrogant fool, but because I already live with plenty of humility and require my own self-respect.

We ephemeral specks are extraordinary, capable of creating stunning works of art and terrifying weaponry. Most of us possess enough self-knowledge to understand what kind of speck we are. Just as fictional Bond villains and the baddies in Batman are very aware of and revel in their own iniquity, I am pretty confident that I am not a bad person.

I make mistakes, upset others and harm myself, but all without malice aforethought and lack of intention.

To read all of the article, get this week’s Galway City Tribune.