It is not a stroke of luck to be born where you were born. Everybody knows that. Think about it.
Let me introduce you to Mike. Solid Mike. Michael doesn’t like to make a fuss. He doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. Mike’s favourite phrase, a phrase he stands by, his phrase for life is:
“It is what it is.”
Mike is determined that being honest is the only way. Honest and respectable. What else did anybody want? A straight arrow. A man of his word. A decent, everyday person. Leave him alone and he’ll leave you alone. Get up to what you want to. Within reason. Within what is acceptable.
Mike knows his business and he minds it. Your business is your business unless it interferes with other people. Watch yourself. Pull your neck in. Behave. Be good. Go careful. Don’t make a fuss.
Leave things be. Stop fiddling. Stopping making a fuss. Just get on with things.
Family. Home. God. Country. It is what it is.
Michael knows a thing or two about getting things done. All his life he’s just got on with it. Well, most of his life. We’ve all had our times though, when we were young. But you learn from that. You buckle down and get on.
Mike’s a worker not a shirker.
Mike can wire a house and he understands a clutch. He can grow more than weeds. He can shoot a clay pigeon and he knows one end of a scrum from another. Michael can cook a good, honest, simple plate of food and he can appreciate a gourmet night out when he has to. He can train a dog and a child. Mike’s good with money but he’s not flash. Not slick, not cosmopolitan. His mates know he’s up for a pint and a chat, game of pool, chuck of the darts, a day out at the horses, a turn around the Go-Kart track. Michael’s never taken charity from man nor State.
Mike likes limited travel but he loves home. Home is straight-up, normal. Home is made from bricks of common sense, mortar of the usual. He helped build Home. He’s part of Home. Home’s in him. Nowhere else is. It is not a stroke of luck to be born where you were born. Everybody knows that. Think about it. Millions and millions of years of human evolution, survival of the fittest, got your genes to where they are. Your parents are the fittest. Their parents, all the way back to the start of history. All that time and fighting, fighting, fighting for life isn’t luck. Home isn’t luck.
Science tells Michael this. You don’t have to be an intellectual to get this. It’s factual. It’s cold, hard science. Cold hard science is common sense. Science is about facts and you can’t change the facts. That’s obvious.
No one is born in this land by luck.
“But you’re damned lucky to be born here.”
Facts. Home. Family. Unchangeable. Eternal. Beautiful. Rock solid. But you’ve got to fight to keep hold of them otherwise you’ll lose them. They can slip away. If you’re lazy or take your eyes off, you can lose the precious lot no matter what anybody tells you.
As is the case with The Markets, Mike craves certainty because uncertainty means time wasting. Make up your mind and get on with it. Speak it. In Mike’s mind there is no point in having a mind if it’s not made up. And there’s no point in having a made-up mind if you then don’t speak it.
No need to be clever-clever. Get things done. Shit or get off the pot. No need to make a fuss. Not unless you have to. Then make a big, certain one.
“It is what it is.”
It is, and that’s common sense. Some people don’t see Common Sense at all. Some people overthink things. They make a fuss, they make a nonsense of simple stuff. Time-wasters. Know-it-alls. Clever-clogs. Talk-down-to-you condescending cunts.
When it comes down to it, in point of fact, laziness and knowing-it-all are often the same clowns just wearing different make-up. Things have to get done. Common sense dictates it.
Things have got to get done.
Mike hates know-it-alls because you have to go with what’s right. If you don’t, then you didn’t go anywhere, you just sat around navel gazing. Laziness is deplorable. You can’t stand still. You have to move forward. History tells us this. History shows Michael what straightforward backbone, honest work, and doing what’s right can achieve.
Stand up to bullies. Don’t give a fuck what they think. Show them how many fuck’s you don’t give. Show them an empty fuck bank. Bullies, know-alls, clever clogs, smart alecs, so-called intellectuals, do gooders and snobs. Stand up to all of them.
“Be the best you you can be because you’re the only one you can be.”
This is obvious to Michael. He saw it written down once and it stuck with him. “Be you, give no fuck’s for anybody else’s opinion”. Being you is the easiest thing in the world. You’re the only one who can be you. You’re the only one who knows you. You’re the only one who can know you. No one else can. Maybe your mum and dad. Maybe your mates. Of course you give a fuck about them but even they can’t be you. And even they’re wrong sometimes. But being the best you, that’s the simple trick to the best life. Find that out and all the rest falls into place.
Michael knows himself from top to bottom. He knows what he likes and what he doesn’t. He knows before he even tries things whether he’s going to get on or not. That’s experience. That’s history. One thing comes after another in good order. You learn from it. Simple.
“Keep it simple stupid.”
That’s what history tells us. Someone once said that if you can’t explain it in one sentence, then it’s too complicated and if you don’t understand it how the bloody hell is anybody else supposed to. Probably Churchill or someone like Churchill.
Not that there is anybody like Churchill, that’s the problem. Today’s politicians are the problem, the Political Class someone’s called them. The Political Class is right. But they lack any real class at all. Today’s politicians are all out for themselves and their mates. Today’s politicians don’t give a fuck about what anybody thinks about what they’re up to. If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal. But things have got to change. Things need shaking up. Things can’t stay the way they are. It’s time the People are heard.
Michael’s of The People. He’s proud of that. No matter where life and its ups and downs have taken him, he’s of The People and he will always be of The People. Mike doesn’t care what colour or creed or religion or ethnicity or sex or gender or team or county or town or team or street or house you are as long as you’re with The People and of The People and do not make a fuss and do not make a song and dance or a who-ha or ask trick questions or look for votes or speak out of line or deliberately put words in his mouth or deliberately misunderstand or twist meanings.
“It is what it is.”
The People have a Will and a Voice and The People speak as they find it, and the Political Class and the Unelected Bureaucrats and the rest of them need to listen to it because things have got to change.
So, that’s Michael. He is what he is.
