Pyrrhic Victories

Pyrrhic victories ©

By Michael Casey

As ever I didn’t know what to talk about, but I just read an email and that gave me an idea, so thanks to the sender who did not sort out the problem but gave me the idea for tonight’s talk. Who knows perhaps the sender stumbles over this and smiles, and boasts that they inspired one of my 2000 stories. A small victory for them perhaps?

Now I had heard of Pyrrhic Victory before, maybe in 1970 in 1^st year Grammar school Latin lessons, in passing by Mr Hanney my Latin teacher. So what is a Pyrrhic victory? It is a victory where you lose so many men that it amounts to a loss, rather like winning a nuclear war and the entire planet is polluted.

We each have our own Pyrrhic victories, some may say me writing my first book was a Pyrrhic victory. Because I forever bored people about it, and they all head for the gents rather than share a pint in the bar. No, I was never like that, now I only write short pieces because I might not live long enough to finish another full length novel. It’s a year of your life after all, I’d rather spend an hour and write yet another short story. Though if ever I meet a speed typist I could rattle off Tears for a Butcher in 3 months. I did in fact discover my next door neighbour is fast typist, but she is moving away, and the other person I know with a typewriter must be 80 years old.

There are many Pyrrhic victories in life, you meet a professional model but decide you prefer the charm of the old fashioned girl. And yes that kind of happened to me more than 20 years ago. But then you finally have to admit the old fashioned girl does not want you either. So everybody laughs at you.

But God is good, so you look at the picture of your dead mother as you stand by the fridge with tears in your eyes and make a heartfelt prayer. I give up you take over, as you pray to Padre Pio. You have lost all the battles, Pyrrhic and otherwise. But soon you meet the future wife, who everybody says is 10 times prettier than the professional model. And then you are called a dirty bastard, nobody believes you fell for her because she made you laugh, she is just so much younger than you.

But you’ve heard my true life story before if you’ve been reading some of my 2000 stories. Ambition can be a Pyrrhic victory at times too. You work so hard to get that job, to study for all those exams to get you that place at university. But does it make you happy? A guy I went to grammar school with ended up as an accountant, he hated it. He really wanted to change and become a History teacher instead.

Near where I live there is a cramming school, but do they realise 5000 apply for grammar school but there are only 500 places. My wife forced my big daughter to cram to get a grammar school place.  I told her not to bother as the local girls school used to be a grammar school anyway and was still so very good, top 1% in the entire country perhaps. So my girls went there, though my big daughter did become a maths wiz due to the Chinese cramming for the grammar school place. But grannie was accountant for Shanghai bus company, so it could have been in the blood anyway.

They say that students from the 3^rd world work so very hard to achieve, but are not accepted in the 1^st world and when they return home they are no longer accepted back home either. So that’s a Pyrrhic victory I suppose. Life is like that, you finally get the girl but then discover you wish you had not bothered. Or  all she did was give you the clap. We can all chase after dreams that are no good for us in the end, they are all Pyrrhic victories.

You would not believe how hard I worked and saved for this house, yes really. It was after I reached my ambition that I stumbled into the writing, and is that a Pyrrhic victory because it consumes me so  much? I’d say no, but others have said yes in the past. These words are my way of saying, Death where is your victory? Because they are my legacy to my girls, if ever they read them all. Writing can be so very very tiring especially in the beginning, now it’s very easy, getting Rupert Murdoch and his gang to publish and  pay, now that is impossible. So why does anybody do it?

You write because it’s your thing, if I was a hunk I’d have a string of Oriental girls, if I were a painter I ‘d be painting walls, just like Banksy, if I liked cars I’d tinker with cars. We all have our  thing, whether it is morally good or bad for us and society. What matters is that it makes us feel 100% I imagine that’s the excuse druggies use. I have never used those things because I have an IMAGINATION, and I don’t want to destroy it with any substance.

You could say my physical pains make me take refuge more in my imagination, but you’d be wrong. My imagination is my greatest toy and joy, the past 5 years of zigzag of pain have been a pain, in all senses of the word. However I hope pain inspires me to try and leave as much behind as I can, before my heart stops or a stroke gets me. I’m being realistic not morbid. In theory you get 20 years after a bypass, I’ve had 3.5years, but statistically 50% live 10 years, so you do the maths yourself.

There  is a silver lining of course, if you have been following me for years, insert joke of your own choice, in theory your suffering will end when mine does. No more stories from the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham, the one in England. Before you all cheer, you are all so cruel, I’m going to tell Julian and Sandy about you. The thing is I am very determined, very determined indeed, I am from Kerry Ireland stock. So I may just decide to live till I am 100, as I used to proclaim as a child. Now whose Pyrrhic victory would that be?