T&T: Trinis existential angst

THERE IS a fear consuming the nation, a force that grips every hot blooded Trinbagonian by the throat, filling them with terror, pounding them with paranoia, molesting their mental stability. This fear is greater than the fear of hurricanes, floods, cancer, crime, two-tonne cranes crashing into your house, credit card bills, pitbulls, or even losing your ticket to the next One-Day Test Match. This fear is none other than the deep dark fear of being horned. The fear of being horned plays upon our deepest insecurities, our darkest jealousies, our most hidden vulnerabilities, and it has led many a man or woman to the very brink of society, betrayed by the person in whom they have placed their trust, the person who has humiliated their soul. Getting horned is considered the worst thing that could happen in your relationship, and once it happens to you one finds it hard to shake off the feeling that it will happen again, to the point where one can become permanently suspicious, pessimistic and cynical.
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Even in Olde England, Shakespeare often wrote about our fascination and fear of being a “cuckold” — a Latin term used to describe a man who has an unfaithful wife. The phrase was coined after the cuckoo bird who lays its eggs in another bird’s nest, leaving the eggs to be cared for by the resident nesters. Time old legend has it that in many European villages, if it was discovered a man was in fact not the father of his child, the hapless husband was forced to wear an animal’s horns or antlers on his head as a symbol of his wife’s infidelity, which is perhaps where we get the term “horning” Centuries later the term “cuckold” has died out, but one only needs to turn on Jerry Springer to see men and women quarrelling violently about who is the “baby’s daddy.” Trinis, I believe, may be obsessed with horning because we are “bacchanalics” — addicted to bacchanal, gossip, juicy stories, action, ruction, and just downright mischief. Maybe it comes from too many years of watching The Young and the Restless when all that we had was TTT.

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