Since I was small, I’ve wanted to change the world for the better, but it’s changed me for the worse

Imet the man who didn’t give a damn about no man. He had strong arms from hard physical work and a sinewy jaw from chewing too much gum as a child. Rugged he was and rough too. With, as he said himself, a mind of his own. I know we fought for our independence, but did our heroes die so that ordinary publicans would be tormented? “There’s a lot to be said for it, the not giving a damn,” said he. “I’m my own boss and I do what I want, when I want, where I want.”

“Fair play to you,” said I, for a quiet life, and moved on. I could sense a long speech, and even with the increase of 20c on the price of the pint, the extra money would not pay for the longterm damage to my poor head.

And here I am tied down and bound over by cares and responsibilities.

If I was pushed, I might have added that the country is full of these don’t-give-a-damn men. The worst part is they all have a story to tell and their story is invariably a long one. The fact that I write here gives me a voice, but both the good and the bad side is it gives everyone else a voice as well. There are times when I’m sorry I didn’t apply for a job minding the Blaskets. But I’m a conduit, and this is my role in life.

Ever since I was a small boy, I’ve wanted to change the world for the better, but what actually happened was the world has changed me for the worse.

It was a massive responsibility from the outset, and me not even able to change my nappy. So all these years later, I get the don’t-give-adamn-about-no-man men trying to get me to change the world for them, on their terms, and every single one has a different version of utopia. I was 40 when I realised the changing of the world wasn’t all down to me.

It was a great day of freedom from trying to morph as Super Lad and Spider Boy.

I say “Boy” as I was 40 going on 23 at the time. I was 23 for about 25 years. It took me a long time to transition from being a student. Even to this day, I get a sense of longing for those days of carefree bliss.

I was 19 for the most of 11 years, by my own calculations. Which means in reality I only had about three birthdays from my teens on up to now. I was like a leap-year baby. I was 26 on the morning of my 50th and I woke up to an epiphany.

I have this creative process that sometimes happens to me without any great control on my part.

I often went to bed at night without having the slightest idea of what I was going to write in the morning. It could be the shoe fairies, but the mix of rest and panic usually does the job.

John Steinbeck wrote: “It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.”

I was and am a sort of still-life somnambulist. That’s a big rocker of a word, and this not even a school day.

The somnambulist is a sleepwalker. I learned the word from a man who accidentally, he claimed, sleepwalked into his girlfriend’s room and was caught out by the mother – that’s the mother of the girlfriend.

“I’m a somnambulist,” he said to the mother of his girlfriend. The mother believed him and was greatly impressed by his vocabulary back in the days when learning was cherished. The mother must have been naive as the sleepwalking took place at three in the afternoon.

“Ah, you poor oul cratur,” she said. “God between us and all harm. Sure, you couldn’t help yourself.”

And her daughter nearly gave the game away when she got a fit of giggling.

So I woke up on the morning of the 50th birthday after sleepwalking on the one spot like a treadmill walker and realised for the first time that women are smarter than men. Except for the mother who believed the “sleepwalker”, but it’s a fact that most women are smarter than most men.

They will never be I-don’t-give-a-damn people, because women have at least two jobs, namely at work and working in the home.

Why it took me until I was 50 is down to the fact that if I was as smart as women, I would have realised women were smarter years earlier.

Back in those days, it was as if men weren’t big and strong unless they were smarter than women. There was a good bit of “I don’t give a damn” going on, but mostly the big and strong men wanted to keep women in their place.

I’ll be going to Martin Luther King’s civil-rights museum in Memphis, Tennessee, in a few weeks’ time, but I was lucky to have had my own dream at 50.

Maybe we should have a civil-rights museum for Irish women who still haven’t succeeded in reaching the promised land of equality.

The fact is that men become empowered when we realise what makes us stronger is making an ally out of women. It shouldn’t really be us versus them.

So, from 50 on, and occasionally before that, I realised there was ego-free women’s expertise available.

You can do nothing without help, and women, generally speaking, are better at problemsolving and are especially good at following through. The following through means no more than finishing what we started in a nice, quiet, fuss-free way.

So I wonder about all these men who think for themselves – and no one else. Is it a good thing? Probably in some ways.

We don’t need a nation of yes-men, but what we do need are men who contribute to the raising of their families and cherish people in general.

I sense a transition towards “I don’t give a damn” in recent times.

There’s less tenderness in some men and a type of toxic independence.

Better, then, to listen to the women and take guidance from those who have most to lose.

As for the man who didn’t give a damn, he had to rush off. There was no declaration of independence. It seems he promised herself a hand putting up a few bookshelves.

‘The somnambulist is a sleepwalker. I learned the word from a man who accidentally, he claimed, sleepwalked into his girlfriend’s room and was caught out by the mother. She must have been naive as she believed him’