You gotta think… of the Roman Empire?

One of the great tragedies of human existence is that we can never really know what anybody else is thinking or feeling.

And I mean really know.

Sure, we can try to get close with honest conversation – by speaking truthfully and listening carefully – but the best we can ever hope for is a glimpse, a peak or an impression.

To use an analogy, think of the difference between somebody telling you about how succulent, charred and tender their steak is, and actually giving you a piece to taste.

Well, when it comes to understanding what it is like to walk in somebody else’s shoes – or live in somebody else’s mind – we never get a taste: The best we ever get is a second-hand description of dinner.

For some people, this is more than they can bear.

The author David Foster Wallace believed art was the nearest two people could come to a pure, undistorted union of experience: That sharing of ideas and emotions that happens between author and reader, musician and listener or painter and… uhm, looker.

Anyway, as you can tell by the brick wall I just hit, I am neither a philosopher of art nor a student of the mind. I am a writer of whimsical columns.

So, with that in mind, let us not allow this read to degenerate into a depressing – and potentially embarrassing – lament of the prison of personhood, and, instead, breath a sigh of relief, as I use all this talk of man’s inescapable isolation, as an incredibly shaky springboard to segue into the world of TikTok.

Bet ye did not see that one coming…

There is a trend going around on TikTok at the minute (so I am told) where people secretly record the men in their lives, as they ask them how often they think of the Roman Empire.

(I hope you have spied the tenuous what-people-are-thinking-about link which I have attempted to establish between this column’s Serious Part A and Much-Less-Serious Part B.)

Generally, it is women and girls who are doing the asking and clandestine recording in these short videos, and, also generally, the men being questioned turn out to think about the Roman Empire way more than the women and girls recording them had anticipated.

I was shown one the other day where an Irish father was asked by his daughter, “Dad, how often do you think of the Roman Empire?”, at which point he looks at his daughter, pauses, does that lip-vibrating-thing people do when they’re about to have a big think, looks back at his daughter and, with the face of a man who is being conservative in his estimate, says, “Every two days.”

I found this pretty funny and a not-altogether-terrible demonstration of the lack of understanding we have of what goes on in one another’s minds.

Anyway, here comes the amusing anecdote part.

Seeking relief from an aggressive hangover on Sunday, I sent my ma out – to the kitchen – to ask my da the Roman Empire question.

(For context, when asked the question myself, I said about once every two months.)

Pausing the TV and straining to hear, I listened as, without a second of hesitation, my da replied, “Never”.

Returning with the deflating news, I complained that his favourite film was Gladiator and he watches it about once every two months, therefore his answer was either ill-considered or else downright lies.

A few minutes later he landed into the living room. I decided to jar him about what I perceived as his robbery of what could have been a few seconds of much-needed hangover relief.

“What’re ye on about ye never think of the Roman Empire? Sure ye watch Gladiator about once every two months?”

He looked at me for a second, and, with the big serious head on him, said: “I know I do, aye. But I don’t be thinking of the Roman Empire.”