I was working today on a press release about our merger of GaelCom into Caoilte and went looking for an image to explain who Caoilte was.
in 1994 when my Dad and I first set up Caoilte in GA and Ireland, we chose the name based upon the Ronan ancestor of 2,000 years ago. Dad invested some of his hard earned money as a statement of belief in me and as the initial Chairman of the company, he was my go-to person for solid advice.
Of course, outside of the company he was also my rock and so it was no real surprise that he would play this same role in this business venture.
Some people when starting a company opt for the family name and our variant was an attempt to go deeper than that. Caoilte was a heroic figure from the days of the Fianna in Ireland … a true reminder of perhaps Ireland’s most heroic past.
This was long before the perpetual battle with the auld enemy (England) and is written in folklore as the final pagan years before the arrival of christianity to the island.
While based in historical facts, many of the stories became embellished in their retelling and heroes assumed almost mythical qualities and achieved miraculous victories over monstrous and evil enemies.
But beneath the stories and their wonderful imagery, was the underlying value system of ancient Ireland. Simple values of honor, integrity, and truth that either became the justification for marvelous victories or the tears of sorrowful defeats.
Over a thousand years before England’s Magna Carta sought to establish basic legal rights for its citizens, Ireland was already in possession of the oldest codified laws in Europe … a legal system based largely on civil relationships and trading heavily on honor, truth, and integrity. These laws, known as the Brehon Laws, were gradually destroyed by a christian revolution over the following centuries and more hierarchical laws favoring kings, wealth, and power became the law of the land.
It is strange to think that the world wasn’t always run within a framework that favored the rich and powerful. We are taught to think that what we now have in terms of rights and laws are an improvement over a barbaric past.
But as I paused today and imagined the world that my ancestor existed in, I couldn’t help but think that he would be woefully disappointed about the world we have manufactured for ourselves.
In so many ways, or living is better. Health and comforts are dramatically improved and few of us would really wish to exist in a time when reaching 40 was a somewhat miraculous achievement.
But I wonder why our core values also had to change. Why is truth no longer a gauge with which to measure a man? Why do men or women of honor rarely succeed in this world while charlatans, liars, and cheats make it to the most powerful positions in our societies?
When France overthrew its aristocracy in the great revolution, it showed the power of the people to effect change. So when people choose inaction and allow tyrants to rule and commit atrocities, then the people themselves are complicit. We become passive enablers of our own demise.
I think what I ended up with in answer is that mankind has become essentially a lazy collaborator that empowers the liars and cheats as long as they line our pockets and keep us fed. We are little more than sheep in the field that dutifully follow the leader without question, as long as there is grass to chew on. Even if we are being led to the slaughter.
How did we stray so far from our origins? At what stage did we sell our souls and at what stage will we recognize what we have done.
When a 16 year old Swedish girl stands up and screams that we need to correct these wrongs, we allow some dotard to bully her with unrestrained twitter feeds that give more grass to his base.
When we allow these idiots to tell us that black is really white and that anyone who says otherwise is guilty of fake news, we step even further away from our origins and devalue any truth and honor still remaining.
There is an old adage that I believe in that essentially says that in order to really know where you are going, you must first understand where you have come from.
For my part, I look back a couple thousand years and remind myself that their initial value system of truth, honor, and integrity must form the foundation stones of anything I try to achieve in life.
Is there any reason it shouldn’t form a foundation for you?