There is no doubt that we live in troubled economic times in Ireland with our newspapers offering a daily dose of dire articles accompanied by dissertations, charts & explanatory data analysing the cause for our current malaise and offering dire warnings of our impending financial meltdown as a people and indeed as a nation. In this extremely gloomy environment, one could be forgiven for dispensing altogether with the news media and even adopting the age old Irish solution when faces with cruel reality, namely ‘taking to the bed’. However, my wife and I have found a small but significant antidote to this perilous panic by adopting a form of positive thinking, as opposed to thinking positive, which is even beyond us at the moment. This process, I hasten to add, does not involve recourse to any drug induced stupor, a withdrawal into a state of transcendental meditation or even passive yoga like contortions. Simply stated, we have begun to regularly do the Simplex crosswords and the 3 no Sudoku puzzles in the daily Irish Times. By firmly concentrating on achieving a satisfactory solution in these pleasurable puzzles, we can both shut out the dark forces of economic gloom while at the same time stimulating the mind. In this way we can block out and negate the influence of even the most menial matters by adherence to simple mental modes.
Of course, the adopting of this new mental health work out regime is not entirely without its drawbacks. For instance, while my wife and I would seem to share a generally similar educational and social background, our creative ‘performance’ in finding a solution to our puzzling paradigms would seem to differ significantly. Simply stated, my good wife seems much better than I at completing the crosswords (I have in shame had to refer to the dictionary on many occasions to get me over a difficult word blockage) while I would seem to have the greater facility when competing the Sudoku puzzles (my wife sometimes has an endless stream of numerical notations on the border of and sometimes even within these puzzles). Perhaps this is a left brain, right brain thing? Thus, we can face a minor irritation or two in achieving a satisfactory resolution to our pursuits of puzzles or should that be our puzzling pursuits! However, I’m glad to relate that after a spell of relationship counselling, not to mention the adoption of proven anger management techniques, we have completely resolved our differences. Yes, our egos have landed satisfactorily as it were.
In our finally agreed ‘word’ document, I am allowed to ‘look up’ the dictionary on occasion provided I acknowledge this in writing to the other party before doing so. My wife in turn has agreed to absolutely confine her numerical experimentation in the Sudoku puzzles to numbers between 1 and 9 and not to exceed the allocated numbers within each block. Thus, in a resolution which could be a prototype for others with similar ‘small’ marriage difficulties (why are there no marriage easies?), we have now no cross words over our puzzles and our Sudoku endeavours are normally ‘blessed’ with joint success.
Perhaps others could adopt a similar response to the nation’s woes as I firmly believe that such efforts, if encouraged by reference to our most famous Irish National Newspaper, could truly prove to be a positive sign for our Times.
Warning Note: This blog entry is for comic purposes only and it should in no way be considered as reflecting adversely on my fine wife’s ‘alleged’ shortfall in numerical skills. (See chapter 4, subsection 1.02c of our written agreement)
Of course, the adopting of this new mental health work out regime is not entirely without its drawbacks. For instance, while my wife and I would seem to share a generally similar educational and social background, our creative ‘performance’ in finding a solution to our puzzling paradigms would seem to differ significantly. Simply stated, my good wife seems much better than I at completing the crosswords (I have in shame had to refer to the dictionary on many occasions to get me over a difficult word blockage) while I would seem to have the greater facility when competing the Sudoku puzzles (my wife sometimes has an endless stream of numerical notations on the border of and sometimes even within these puzzles). Perhaps this is a left brain, right brain thing? Thus, we can face a minor irritation or two in achieving a satisfactory resolution to our pursuits of puzzles or should that be our puzzling pursuits! However, I’m glad to relate that after a spell of relationship counselling, not to mention the adoption of proven anger management techniques, we have completely resolved our differences. Yes, our egos have landed satisfactorily as it were.
In our finally agreed ‘word’ document, I am allowed to ‘look up’ the dictionary on occasion provided I acknowledge this in writing to the other party before doing so. My wife in turn has agreed to absolutely confine her numerical experimentation in the Sudoku puzzles to numbers between 1 and 9 and not to exceed the allocated numbers within each block. Thus, in a resolution which could be a prototype for others with similar ‘small’ marriage difficulties (why are there no marriage easies?), we have now no cross words over our puzzles and our Sudoku endeavours are normally ‘blessed’ with joint success.
Perhaps others could adopt a similar response to the nation’s woes as I firmly believe that such efforts, if encouraged by reference to our most famous Irish National Newspaper, could truly prove to be a positive sign for our Times.
Warning Note: This blog entry is for comic purposes only and it should in no way be considered as reflecting adversely on my fine wife’s ‘alleged’ shortfall in numerical skills. (See chapter 4, subsection 1.02c of our written agreement)
Colm, I love your post! No cross words indeed. Your witty, intelligent, postive outlook on life is contagious. I am so glad you wrote the post and took the time to announce it to me via twitter. With my best regards from Austin, TX. Allie Dillon
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