During this last week of January many Scots people go out of their way to remember Rabbie Burns, the 18th century Ayrshire poet, writes Bert Cargill of St Monans Gospel Hall. His life and his old Scots poems are remembered fondly on his birthday, withBurns’ competitions in schools and Burns’ Suppers in the evenings giving him and his poems publicity once again. There are hundreds of them - my favourite is “The Cottar’s Saturday Night”, and from “To a Mouse” I often quote “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley”.
Other famous writers from previous centuries are of course worth reading and remembering, such as William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Sir Walter Scott for example. Some contemporary authors are also widely read, according to people’s choice. But what you read and how it affects you is important, whether fiction or history, poetry or prose.
It's also important to remember that authors write for many different reasons. Some write to entertain and amuse, others to educate, inform and inspire, while others may write to deceive, mislead and spoil. So it is wise to choose your reading carefully!
When I read the newspapers, watch the news, or just generally observe the behaviour and reactions of people in society, I become aware, very quickly, that the world is an angry place. I am not saying that this is unjustified, I am just noting what I see.
Beneath the surface in many lives is an irritation, an annoyance at what life is delivering.
There are a whole host of things that aggravate people:
We live in a world where there are so many reasons to be agitated and angry.
I am sure that psychologically and physically, anger does not have a good outcome in people's lives. There may be some good side effects, such as increased adrenaline empowering you to protect yourself or giving you the motivation to do better and improve your situation, but the side effects of constant agitation and anger have got to negatively affect our health.
