Barry Clifford: It’s All About The Craic

I was asked recently what was the meaning of life and I simply answered: “It’s all about the craic.” My friend thought that was too simplistic and I answered that it was people that made it all too complicated. And so we talked some more to explore what is the meaning of life and my belief that it is indeed only and ever about the craic.

My opinion is based on an incredible factual history as to how just one of us got here, or two, in the first place: There was the sea, the crawling onto land, the attempt to stand and the ability to run with the wind as predator shadows terrified us and bit at our heels. Still, we survived that far but trillions did not. Then there were the territorial disputes before religion was found after the corralling of food of plenty that made us bored and given to too many questions about our brief lives. Still, we survived that far but trillions did not. We demanded more: we wanted everlasting life. It was promised though never delivered, and so we lived in permanent high expectation of its deliverance. Still, we wanted more again and thought we were better than that as well.

Then I thought that all life was local and thought of a local man that is everywhere: He came home to his wife one night. There was a choice to be made based on the condition of his mind and hers. He could make love to her and there was a chance you or I could have been born. She may have been on a contraceptive which would ensure that neither of us would make it at all. Then there is the normal fertile imagination of other sexual scenarios that night that would ensure again the latter result. Still, we survived that far but trillions did not.  Life appeared to be and really is a random continuity of chance where life and death makes no choices or judgments or is given to pity, empathy or rational.

So, my simple conclusion of basic mathematics is this: There was trillions and trillions more chances that I would not make it to being born or indeed you; and If that does not convince us that it is really all about the craic, then you and I are one of the millions of sleepwalkers that will never wake up before we go to sleep permanently.

That it is really the ability to laugh at it all, even at life’s tragedies and randomness, which is the first step to having, and understanding, that it is, truly is, all about the craic.

By Barry Clifford