I had opted to serve the malignancy. I know that doesn’t sound too great  – when you put it like that – but it had seemed like a good idea at the time. I presume that it had anyway. I can’t think why else I would have done it if it hadn’t seemed like a good idea. To make the decision to serve the malignancy, that it is. Admittedly it doesn’t seem like too good an idea now but that’s how it goes. You live and learn, right? Anybody can be a smartass with hindsight but things aren’t so bloody clear at the time I can tell you. No sir they aren’t. They aren’t so clear at all…

It’s all a learning curve, that’s what I always say. We learn from our mistakes and what I’ve learned here – in this particular situation – is that it isn’t necessarily such a great idea to opt to serve the malignancy. It could actually be said to be rather a bad idea. A terrible idea, even. Quite possibly it was the worst decision that I have ever made! I would say that it’s up there with the Ten Worst Decisions that anyone could ever make under any circumstance. So I’ve learned something, you see. It wasn’t a total waste of time. It wasn’t a complete waste of time – not entirely anyway. It’s all a learning curve when it comes down to it. There’s no point in wishing that things could have been different, no point in wishing that I hadn’t made the decision to serve the malignancy. Regrets can’t help anyone.

The thing about serving the malignancy is that you lose your grasp on the question of what is right and what is wrong, what is fair and what is foul, what is good-hearted and what is down-right malevolent. Everything gets pretty twisted pretty quickly. I suppose you could say that one loses one’s moral compass. Or perhaps you could also say that gains a new moral compass – a moral compass in which all the values are reversed. You see when you start serving the malignancy (as I did) you don’t actually say it like that. You don’t actually say that you are serving the malignancy – no one says that. You say something that sounds good, something that sounds positive. I don’t know. You might say that you are a Senator and that you are serving your country. The country that you are so very proud to be a citizen of. Because its such a wonderful country. You’d say something flowery like that. That’s just one example. It’s the first one to come into my head. That’s a bit of extreme example I suppose. You get my meaning.

It doesn’t have to be so high profile. There are lots of ways of serving the malignancy. More humble ways – you don’t have to be a Government Minister or a Top  Executive or a County Councillor or a President or a High Court Judge or a Bishop or a Top Businessman or a TV Personality or anything like that. We can serve in little ways. Most of us serve in little ways, needless to say. I myself am a minor functionary in the HSE…