Some Barry Varkel year-end 2019 personal anecdotes

Dear readers – I do hope you have enjoyed my material over the past year.
I want to thank Malcolm for giving me this regular gig on his Tech4Law website and you all for the support. (Malcolm: You are most welcome, your content has been a wonderful breath of fresh air to our often mundane news and information.)

So let’s have a few tidbits to close off 2019, and I do wish you all a very relaxing and safe Xmas and NYE, and all the very best of health, happiness and success for 2020.  And just remember – if you happen to mess it all up, you will get a second chance during the Jewish new year (Rosh Hashanah) on 18 September 2020, to have another massive stab at it all.

So, what’s humour all about if you can’t take the piss out of yourself?

It’s really quite hard to be self-deprecating and being the butt of the joke. The Brits however do it perfectly.  It took me quite some time not to take myself too seriously:

On my alleged personality defect:

My wife – she says to me I’m a narcissist. Can you believe it?
She actually accuses me – me of being a narcissist.  But I always say to her:
“There’s a difference between narcissism and self-confidence. Narcissism is only when I knock one out while standing in front of the mirror”.

On my previous unemployment status after trying to return to the world of law:

‘I’m unemployed right now and I’ve been looking for a job.
And being white and Jewish doesn’t really help these days.
So I’ve been applying for mainstream law-firm jobs, but I haven’t been very successful.
My father recently gave me a clipping from the newspaper and it was for a job being offered as a legal advisor in a Government department.
So I applied for the job and the last thing I heard, was when the envelope hit the bottom of the application box’.

About my late dad:

Talking about politics, I was talking to my father the other day,
And we were having this political discussion. So I said to him:
“You know dad, you’re such a f***ing racist. I can’t believe it.  In this day and age in South Africa”.
So he says:
“There you go again, son. Talking your nonsense. I’m not a racist. As a matter of fact, some of my best slaves happen to be black.”’

The benefits of positive thinking:

In our era of poverty, disease and sadness, it takes a great thinker, a sage and leader in positive thought to lift your spirits, so you can just carpe diem.

My father he’s just so awkward about his feelings.
He can never express what he wants to.
He just is so uncomfortable saying anything loving.
I’ll give you an example:
Say for example, this man over here, his name is ‘Stan’ and Stan is in hospital and he’s dying of terminal cancer.
Now if my dad were to go visit Stan in the hospital, he’d say something like this:
– “Hey Stan. You know Stan, at your stage of the disease, there’s about a one percent chance you’re going to survive”.
But hey, that wouldn’t be enough for my old man, he’d still go on and say:
– “Hey Stan, you know, my brother Benny, when he was at the terminal stage of cancer you’re at right now, the doctors came up to him and said:
We’re really sorry Benny, but we give you 6 weeks max, at best.
But you know what, Stan – my brother Benny did not even last out a week.’
~
Actually right now, my father is busy working on one of those self-help books, you know those motivational guides, and it’s called:
“Mastering Suicide. Getting it right the first time.”

‘When I was born, the doctor came out to the waiting room and said to my father, “I’m really so very sorry. We did absolutely everything we could. But he managed to pull through.”’

Contributed by:
Barry Varkel, an attorney of the High Court of South Africa and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales.
Author of Nigiri Law and Goy Vey