KEY POINTS:
Time passes. The world moves on. Things change. And so do jobs.
They come and they go (some, alas, not quickly enough). There are no thatchers any more, nor fletchers neither. The glovers have gone and the wainwrights too. There's little call for mummers boys now - or
mummery either - though the work of the mammary enhancers is everywhere apparent.
As are the shingles of those new cozeners who seek, by means of therapeutic counsel, to raise or inflate our more intangible aspects whenever vicissitude leaves them sagging or deflated.
Which appears to be happening very often since this babblesome gaggle of advisers grows ever larger, adding to its esoteric ranks such titles as life coach, anger management therapist and, God help us, sports psychologist.
In place to lift weights (and lighten wallets) sports psychologists have become quite the thing of late. All the best teams have one, including the All Blacks who additionally possess the rare distinction of being guided by a sports psychologist who isn't a sports psychologist.
Mr Gilbert Enoka - which happens to be an anagram for "one big talker" - prefers the title "mental skills coach" - this evidently being reserved for those who have the custom but not the certificate.
Happily, this minor academic deficit hasn't prevented Mr Enoka - like the great doctors - from dispensing sound advice.
At least it sounds like sound advice. The proof of its efficacy will only be found in the smiling faces of "our men" as they "work through" the devastating aftermath of the World Cup; which they surely will if they heed Mr Enoka's grief counsel.
"We have always had a 'support plan' ready," Mr Enoka told The Herald on Sunday. "Assisting our men with the transition back to 'life as we know it' was a key responsibility that needed to be embraced proactively."
How we might embrace "unproactively" is something Mr Enoka does not canvas, presumably because his mind was elsewhere. For instance, in "the nest" or "major sanctuary" offered "our men" by family and friends.
Should you, at this point, be wondering "Why didn't I think of that?" then take heart. Console yourself with the thought that you are not a "mental skills coach" and therefore couldn't possibly quarry such therapeutic gems.
Or advise "our men" to openly share "how you are feeling with someone you trust - let the emotion run freely". All individuals will experience "waves of emotion" as the reality of the experience sinks in. Riding these waves becomes a big part of the "coping mechanism".
At no point does our angel of compassion say "if you idiots had played better I wouldn't need to be giving you this advice". Instead, Mr Enoka unrelentingly accentuates the positive, recommending that "our men take control of their days to avoid being sucked into an emotional downward spiral". We can only assume the athletic mind accepts such shopworn truisms as solemn truths and, moreover, that it never occurs to forwards or backs that the very fact they are in receipt of such advice does rather undermine the credibility of their adviser.
If, after all, his earlier affirmations had been of any benefit, if they had enhanced or reinforced the mental skills of his charges, then there would have been no need to tell "our men" to feel the power of family and share "how you are feeling".
Still and all, cliched as it seems, perhaps we should not "fall too hard" upon good Gilbert. Threadbare as it may seem, his counsel may be a case of the singer not the song. It may prove that the old potency of the witch doctor has been replaced by the new authority of the wish doctor. Mr Enoka is, after all, but one of a veritable army of counsellors and therapists who swarm - like flies to a midden - wherever trauma lurks.
But only because we invite them. To the extent there is such an army, it is entirely of our own making.
As was another army - doing another job - exactly 65 years ago. This was an army created not to counsel but to conquer. And conquer they did, at a place called El Alamein. It was Hitler's first defeat and many New Zealanders (including the Desert Air Force commander, "Maori" Conningham) fought in that great battle which began on October 23, 1942.
Though much has been made of New Zealand's "greatest military disaster", the "devastation" of Passchendaele, there has been no commemoration this week of El Alamein's 65th anniversary. Perhaps, hard battles won by hard men don't sit well with our softer psyches. Perversely, we appear to find more solace in defeat and grief.
But maybe our new army would not be so large or so busy if more tribute was paid to the deeds of its predecessor and more attention given to victory than defeat - although that is probably a matter best left to those who most properly qualified. Like our very energetic and undoubtedly efficacious mental skills coaches.
