on finding the strength to bear the truth

Irish painter, Guggi, on the state of the Irish economy. October 2009.

This was the subtext to a lot of conversations I had with Irish people last summer when I was there: that their affluence in the early years of this century was not only an anomaly, but a distortion. An aberration.

As a North American, this is a logic that is completely foreign. To us, any kind of financial limitation seems like a distortion. Endless and unlimited growth seems like our right, and our "normal." The natural way of the world.

May we find the strength to bear the truth.