Hamlet, Really? Yes!

“To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles…” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56965/speech-to-be-or-not-to-be-that-is-the-question .

Most recently I wrote a message to my beautiful daughter, she provides administrative services online and can work virtually anywhere in the world. I am not sure if I regret the message or not. How deeply does one communicate with ones children? How much of struggle and uncertainty should one share? Why share with her when she is half a world away? Well one of those answers is that she was on my mind and I decided to message here and what came out was typical of my neurally diverse mind, stream of consciousness barely filtered writing.

I can see the thought trains running, what has this got to do with Hamlet? Well recently I enrolled to complete a teacher refresher course so that I can go back into the classroom. Let me clear being a teacher is not a career for those who are of a more delicate constitution, the filth, the verbal and physical attacks and the general chaos of our education system is bruising and challenging (if you care). However, I am recovering from the head injury that has kept me from the classroom. I will be 61 years old soon and I have reached a place in my life where some crossroads are imminent. The question is if not teach then what? Write? If I write how will I earn? The second crossroad is health. My health is somewhat indifferent with ongoing health issues which are frustrating and limiting. So..

Into the study I go, it doesn’t seem to be too much of a challenge, I am no stranger to the world of academia. The second is health. We know that our health system is overrun, overworked underfunded and generally more messy than a truckload of offal overturned on a main road. We live in a time where the number one concern is paying too much tax, closely followed by the usage of Maaori in official names and communications and the moral peril of Co-governance. To think that those issues decide the outcome of an election is an obscenity and reflects on Aotearoa as being a greedy, racist country where money buys political influence. Any country whose Government attacks efforts to lower smoking rates to fund tax cuts is an odious stain on those who voted for the shower of detestable scat. FDair pay agreements gone, so the payment to women (mainly) for their work is according to Ms Willis (Minister of Finance) merely a function of the market. If companies make more money that will pay their workers more, what kind of horse shit is that!

Now don’t think that I believe Labour is without blame in this, they wasted an overwhelming electoral mandate by allowing internecine conflict to continue within the party and put its efforts into trying to convince the unconvinceable of the merits of co-governance, they should have just done it and got one with building homes, rebuilding hospitals and investing in our health care and education systems. They may still have lost the election however at least it would have been a principled loss rather than a capitulation through a lack of vision and action.

Now after all that I am tired and I feel that perhaps I haven’t said anything at all, therein lies my question. To be or not to be?

Paul