In this episode Dara is thinking about challenging moments and situations and the places we put them to help us cope better. After a very unpleasant accident that sent him to hospital, Dara laughs at the way men can fail to offer care, depending on their assessment of the urgency involved – everything can be laughed at until it can’t.
He draws a connection between his eye emergency and a prison visit to his brother last weekend. One a situation that demanded an immediate response, the other a slow-burn unfolding of personal pain and missteps over a prolonged period of time. They are each sources of anguish and concern, but they are dealt with in very different ways, and stored in very different places.
Dara argues that while this ranking of uncomfortable things is central to how we negotiate getting through life with our sanity intact, it is really important that we don’t relegate things that are central to our sense of personal wellbeing and emotional and psychological health. And just as he warns against minimising important things, he rolls his eyes at those who indulge in maximising every little thing that bounces across their field of vision.
Also, impressive doctors, stalwart brothers, faces from the past, and pre-match nerves.