A Pyrrhic victory …

From an academic perspective, the hardest thing I have ever done was prepare for the M.Phil. exam in economics at Oxford. These exams came after two years of coursework and served as the qualifying assessment for entry into the D.Phil. Back in 1983 the rubric for the degree was simple,  to wit, candidates should spend the first year reading everything economists have written and the second year thinking about it. It was all a bit intimidating. Driven by the fear of failure, I worked for about 15 hours a day for close on six months and hardly saw the change of the seasons from winter to spring to summer. 

The stress of that time has stayed with me all my life. It is now 35 years since I sat the exam and it is no exaggeration to say that quite consistently over this entire period I have had a recurring nightmare about failing. The frequency of the nightmare is about once a month and the text of the dream is always the same – the exams are too close for proper preparation and I desperately cast around for ways of getting through on minimal study. 

When reflecting on these exams, the phrase Pyrrhic victory springs to mind immediately, a term attributed to Pyrrhus’s victory over the Romans at the battle of Heraclea in 279 BC. The legend is that the losses sustained by the victor negated any true sense of achievement. If ever there was a Pyrrhic victory, then passing those exams is a prime example.

Since setting out on this current adventure, however, the recurring nightmare seems to have abated. True we have only been here about 2 months, but in this time there has been no repeat of the dream. There are only two explanations. I am either so stressed out by the rich menu of way to screw up on the farm that the exam business is lost in the chatter. Or, alternatively, I am just constantly exhausted so that my brain can’t really be bothered about wasting energy on nightmares.   

Which brings me back to the title of the post. About three weeks ago I embarked on the project of building a stone wall adjacent to the shed where a steep bank was eroding very badly. The first photo gives a general impression of the state of the embankment; a few desultory rocks placed at ground level by the previous owners and a massive erosion of the bank above. Over the last three weeks I have built a rock retaining wall using only a hand drawn cart to help with transportation. 

Today I finished the section of the wall behind the shed. On the plus side the job has been responsible for taking in two notches of my belt. On the negative side my arms and back are wrecked, some of my clothes are shredded, I am completely and utterly knackered and I never want to see another rock in my life.  So here I was happily wallowing in the self-congratulatory misery of yet another Pyrrhic victory, when I discovered to my complete dismay that some scholars doubt the veracity of this legend. They claim that the story was entirely invented by the Romans to sooth their national pride. I now feel completely cheated as I cannot allow myself to flounder in the agony of the devastating toll of victory. In fact, I can feel another recurring nightmare coming on …