Well, it’s done. Cases finished, closing speeches delivered, verdict reached and given. My jury duty is over, my little experience as a small cog in the large machine of the British justice system is at an end, and not a moment too soon. I did my job, I did what I was instructed to do and I acted to the best of my ability as my conscience and the facts demanded, but it’s something I hope I never do again. There are some nasty things in the world, and the last few days have served as an unwelcome reminder of that for me.
I promise things will get cheerier from now on, but for now I find I am looking at things in a much darker light than I usually do. I’m pessimistic by nature, but seeing a little glimpse of the nastiness that the world can contain has put me beyond my usual Eeyore-like state of being into an entirely darker mood altogether. Churchill called it his black dog. At the moment I am spending a bit more time with my better half, just enjoying seeing her smile, hearing her laugh and indulging in the simple pleasure of spending some time with her. I’ve said before that I get too tied up in work and I do, but seeing what I have seen over the past few days has reminded me that there is more to life to enjoy, and plenty of nastiness happening, so I should enjoy myself a little more. And guess what? I’m going to try.
One thing that has made me smile though – in looking up a page for the Churchill link above, I happened upon this page, detailing some of the peculiarities of past Prime Ministers. For anyone who wants to further enhance in their own minds the British stereotype for general eccentricity, this is an essential read.
August 30th, 2005 at 3:50 pm
Well, what was the case? Did you go guilty or not-guilty? Will there be a novelization? A made-for-TV movie?
August 30th, 2005 at 4:22 pm
Look on the bright side…less than four months until the Doctor Who Christmas Special!
August 30th, 2005 at 5:32 pm
I can’t claim to know you in any detail, but it seems to me that you’re not really a full-on pessimist, you’re more like a discouraged optimist. That is, to my way of thinking, a pessimist is a person who not only expects the worst at any given time, but feels a sense of almost dark satisfaction when things *do* go wrong (“I knew this would happen”). There’s a strong element of cynicism involved. I say this as someone who tends that way myself.
Discouraged optimists, though, really deeply *want* things to go right, and secretly have strong hopes that things will go right, and are consequently dashed every time something goes wrong. After enough dashings they become discouraged and start to look at the world quite bleakly, but they still carry the hope that things will go right, somehow.
I tend to be a cynical and anxious pessimist myself, but over the past couple of years I realized that it really wasn’t helping me deal with anything. Assuming the worst never seemed to make dealing with the worst any easier, it just caused me grief for a longer period of time. I’m making a conscious effort to change my outlook now, but a lifetime of mental habits are not easily overcome.