May you live in interesting times....

Interesting Times by (Sir)Terry Pratchett

Extract from the beginning of the book.... (if you like it, you can follow the link to a website I found where the whole darn thing is there for free, along with all his other books in the Discworld Series - oh, and by the way, I am actually going to blog, this is just a bit of a scene setter for my rambles.  Whether the scene is even in the same vicinity as my ramblings is for you to decide!)

There is a curse.

They say: May You Live in Interesting Times

This is where the gods play games with the lives of men, on a board which is at one and the same time a simple playing area and the whole world.

And Fate always wins.

Fate always wins. Most of the gods throw dice but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been using two queens all along.

Fate wins. At least, so it is claimed. Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been Fate.

Gods can take any form, but the one aspect of themselves they cannot change is their eyes, which show their nature. The eyes of Fate are hardly eyes at all - just dark holes into an infinity speckled with what may be stars or, there again, may be other things.  He blinked them, smiled at his fellow players in the smug way winners do just before they become winners, and said:

'I accuse the High Priest of the Green Robe in the library with the double-handed axe.'  And he won.

He beamed at them.

'No-one likesh a poor winner,' grumbled Offler the Crocodile God, through his fangs.

'It seems that I am favouring myself today,' said Fate. 'Anyone fancy something else?'

The gods shrugged.

'Mad Kings?' said Fate pleasantly. 'Star-Crossed Lovers?'

'I think we've lost the rules for that one,' said Blind Io, chief of the gods.

'Or Tempest-Wrecked Mariners?'

'You always win,' said Io.

'Floods and Droughts?' said Fate. 'That's an easy one.'

A shadow fell across the gaming table. The gods looked up.

'Ah,' said Fate.

'Let a game begin,' said the Lady.

There was always an argument about whether the newcomer was a goddess at all. Certainly no-one ever got anywhere by worshipping her, and she tended to turn up only where she was least expected, such as now. And people who trusted in her seldom survived. Any temples built to her would surely be struck by lightning. Better to juggle axes on a tightrope than say her name. Just call her the waitress in the Last Chance saloon.

She was generally referred to as the Lady, and her eyes were green; not as the eyes of humans are green, but emerald green from edge to edge. It was said to be her favourite colour.

'Ah,' said Fate again. 'And what game will it be?'

She sat down opposite him. The watching gods looked sidelong at one another. This looked interesting. These two were ancient enemies.

'How about. . .' she paused,'. . . Mighty Empires?'

'Oh, I hate that one,' said Offler, breaking the sudden silence.  'Everyone dief at the end.'

'Yes,' said Fate, 'I believe they do.' He nodded at the Lady, and in much the same voice as professional gamblers say 'Aces high?' said, 'The Fall of Great Houses? Destinies of Nations Hanging by a Thread?'

'Certainly,' she said.


..... Terry Pratchett is without doubt my favourite author of modern times.  As a teenager, I lost myself in fantasy fiction of all kinds written by people such as David Eddings, Anne McCaffrey, Piers Anthony etc, and I loved them all, but then I grew up... and then I discovered Pratchett.  I found him in University and it has resulted in a cerebral love affair with him and his Discworld books for 15 years or so.  I was a history buff, I studied history, but I read history books 'for fun', I watched documentaries about the Roman and Greek empires to kick back and relax, enormous tomes of Ancient world mythology were my bedtime stories from the time I was ten....  then here was Pratchett.  His books took history, politics, mythology, old world fairie-tales and wove them in with a sarcasm and dry humour that I could not help but marvel at.    It became a game to spot the references to historical figures (Leonard of Quirm being an obvious reference to Leonardo da Vinci, Lord Vetinari being a not so obvious reference to the Medici of Italy- Its in the name ....you'll figure it out)

One of his books is called 'Interesting Times' and is based on the so called ancient Chinese Curse "May you live in interesting times".  I find we are living in very interesting times, and I wonder who it was that cursed us to it.  Maybe Fate and Lady Luck are playing games, just like in the book....

Sir Terry (the Queen wisely decided to give him a knighthood) is a remarkable man from a very unremarkable background.  He grew up in the UK, is the most prolific and most sold writer of modern times, despite his inevitable millions, he is still living in the UK and did not decide to escape like some of us, is friends with Tony Robinson (Baldrick from Blackadder) who narrates many of his books on audio book collections, and is a sufferer of Early Onset Alzheimer's.

Here is a man who has built a career from being able to store and recall pieces of seemingly useless information, like what a Boggart is, and weave them into a story to make millions of people smile, is slowly having his memory taken away from him at when he is still in the prime of life....  That's Fate having a laugh right there....

So, while we live in interesting times on a national level, there are always the individuals suffering as well, and most do it in silence.  Pratchett, did not and does not suffer in silence.  He speaks out about his disease and its consequences, and he is also bringing the subject of assisted suicide to the table while he's at it.  He wants to be able to chose to die before every part of him is sucked away by this, and frankly I can't say I blame him.

(OK time to get to the point of my ramble...) Lots of people hide things like this, from fear, from embarrassment, but the more people talk about things the more people can sort out their problems, whatever they may be.

I have 2 little 'issues' of my own.  Firstly, I suffer off and on from Depression.  Secondly, a week before my second daughter was born, I filed for bankruptcy.

I know other people who have been through both these things, one quite often inspires the other!  The main difference is that most of them have been embarrassed, fearful of what other people would think.  Depression can bring on financial woes, financial woes can bring on depression.  And guess what.... there isn't an App for that!  Mr Jobs may be working on one right now from the other side of the pearly gates, but right as of this moment there is no easy fix, you can't press a button and take it away.

My husband and I used to work for the same place.  Another couple we knew did too.  One day we got told it was shutting down.  We were lucky, we got new jobs, less wage but jobs nonetheless.  We rented our home.  We managed.

Our friends didn't get new jobs for a few months.  They owned their home....or rather the bank did.  Because they missed payments, the bank hiked up their payments to nearly $3000 a month once they were working again.  Their truck was repossessed in the middle of the night.  My friend contemplated suicide but could not do that to her husband and daughter because she had no life insurance and they would have had to pay funeral costs.  She spiralled into depression and her marriage nearly broke up.  They told no one except their family and us...

When we found we were going to have another child, we contacted the credit card people, the banks etc and told them I would be going on mat leave and could not afford to pay for a while.  They would not listen.  We asked to work something out, they would not listen.  So we claimed bankruptcy and they had no choice but to listen.  Unlike our friends, when we found we were in the same situation, I told anyone that wanted to know how things were.  I was open with my friends and I found out more than one had been through bankruptcy in the past, but had kept it quiet.  There is so much shame attached, but in an economy like the one we have today, really, it is nothing to be ashamed of.  Banks take you for everything they can while you are on the up, but as soon as you are down they don't want to know.

It was the best thing we ever did.  18 months later, we are coming to the end of the 21 month period, and we have not paid the full amount, we will likely be paying something every month for another year to fully clear it, but the point is, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  There is always a way, and you can get through, you just have to breathe deeply and be honest, with your self and with others.  Shit happens!  and it happens to good people.  We struggled for 3 years on hardly anything when we moved to Canada.  We went without meals to feed our child.  I wore boots with holes in for a full winter, arrived at work with soaking wet feet in minus 40 degrees to make sure she was warmly clothed.  We tried.... but sometimes something just has to give.  We live in interesting times and sometimes it can be a curse, but it can be a blessing too...  We became a closer family because of it.  We became less materialistic....  We came to understand what was important, what wasn't, when to fight, and when to admit defeat and ask for help.

With depression you can get a pill to help you feel better, but with financial worries you have to ask for help.... not to borrow money, but real help in sorting it out.  In a year, we will be done. We will have a terrible credit rating for a few years, but we will have no more debt.  We will have spare cash to pay for new clothes, dance and guitar lessons for our kids, pizza night, date night, maybe even a holiday.  These are things so many people take for granted, but really, most of us are only 2 pay cheques away from disaster.

Our friends lost their home in the end.....  but from bad things come good.  They moved back to their hometown on the other side of Canada, they are close to their family again, they are done their bankruptcy and both have stable jobs.... they have pizza night and the occasional vacation.... they are happy.... they had their interesting times and now they know what is important again....

So my message after all this.  Embrace adversity.  Revel in the Interesting Times in which we live.  For every time of hardship we enter there is a time of peace as we leave it.  Every rain storm finishes with a rainbow.  The bigger the storm, the more vibrant the rainbow is.  As Christmas approaches, don't worry about what you don't have, treasure what you do, and most of all, be true and allow others into you life so they can help you and you can help them....