Bernard O'Shea: Finance, gut health... here are four things I only pretend to understand

I've reached an age where admitting I haven't a clue is easier than pretending I do

'As I write this, I’m not even sure where my gut is, and how healthy it should be.'

I thought being an adult would be similar to what it was like for my parents.

Looking back, they had hardships to endure, but (and it’s a big but) they had a much simpler life, with less information being thrown at them.

My mother always defends her generation by saying: “We didn’t have the internet back then”, and they didn’t, but I think they were better off. Still, they always seemed to know the basics, and that seemed enough.

Fast forward 30 years, and as a parent and an adult I feel like I should understand everything. But in the last few years, I’ve just given up on some things. 

My embarrassment has been replaced by an acknowledgement that I’m never going to understand certain things, and I’m shamefully fine with that.

1. Financial products

No matter how much my wife tries to explain the difference between PCP and a fixed-rate loan, I’ll never get it. I nod like a dozy labrador and just think about where I’m going on my next walk.

I mostly remember the ad where a disillusioned bus passenger declares, “I don’t know what a tracker mortgage is”. That ad is me personified.

I’ve been in offices where decent, well-meaning financial experts have looked me straight in the eye and asked: “Do you understand, Bernard?” And I’ll stare straight back at them and reply: “Yes, thank you”. Meanwhile, all I’m actually understanding is that no matter how much they explain it, I’ll never understand.

So in the last few years, I’ve adopted a strategy. I pass it off to my wife and ask if it’s a good or bad idea, adding a caveat: “Just yes or no as an answer, please”, because she knows all the numbers in my brain turn to jelly. She then throws a stick out the window, and I run happily for it.

2. Gut health

Every day I walk past the yoghurt section in the supermarket and see those little bottles with ‘gut health’ written on them. For years I bought them and drank them but never asked myself why.

It’s almost like gut health was something everyone else was completely aware of and had been pummeling themselves with good bacteria for years; meanwhile, my gut was deteriorating and lying in a dingy back alley, slowly dying.

Then kombucha arrived, and I thought I’d better get on that gut-gravy train. But then I actually googled ‘gut health’ and saw a battlefield of ideas screaming at me, defending what I should or shouldn’t be doing.

So I’ve decided I’ll wait until a doctor tells me, “Bernard, you need to do this for your gut health”. As I write this, I’m not even sure where my gut is, how healthy it should be, or what the best-before date on those little bottles of yoghurt in the fridge is.

3. New sporting models

I long for the days when the GAA was simpler. You’d play a county in your province, and if you lost, you were out; if you won, you played again.

Now the terms ‘round robin’ and ‘seedings’ have me completely confused. I’m embarrassed to admit I never really understood the Super 8s format, and last year I was at sea about how your divisional position mattered and where you were put in groups. 

My head was playing the Beautiful Minds sequence, with counties and maths formulas flying around. Then came the Champions League’s new format. 

Only last week, sports journalists were calling the big games ‘empty calories’. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have taken time out of my busy YouTube-scrolling day to watch them.

Even the World Cup confused me. I still don’t know why or how Sweden qualified. As for the Nations League and how teams qualify for the Euros, I nod and pretend when people who do know what they’re talking about start on about it.

4. Algorithms

Turns out nobody really understands the feared, invasive algorithms.

As a child, I remember learning that rhododendrons were literally taking over the country, and we were going to be ruled by them if something wasn’t done. Eventually, we got it under control, but the same isn’t true of its digital cousin. 

But do we really know how they work? I used to pretend I did because I read a Time article about them years ago while waiting in a doctor’s surgery.

All I do know is that when we say: “Do you know what they are doing now?” I’m pretty sure that “they” are us. Phrases like “Sure, that’s the algorithm” have entered our everyday speech, as normal as “Sure, look” and “You know yourself”.

Of all the complicated things I’ve given up on understanding, my spidy sense tells me I probably shouldn’t give up on this one.

Remember when we were told to teach our children to be polite, brush their teeth, and cross the road properly? I think we might have to replace the birds-and-bees chat that starts, “When two people love each other very much...” with “When you search for something on a phone...”