Our understanding of growth and a fresh approach to the dynamic will enable us to navigate our future

An adage of uncertain origin is front of mind for many today.

Tim Jackson has written
about "Prosperity
without Growth".

America is shivering and the world, including many Australians, is afraid it will sneeze.
The axiom, attributed by some to a newspaper editorial says that when American sneezes, the world catches a cold.

Today some in the world watch on breathlessly as American politicians attempt to negotiate the country into a position from which it can avoid falling off what is colloquially known as the “fiscal cliff”.

Australia is geographically remote from America, but considered financially we live in its hip pocket and some are arguing that if the U.S. trips and falls over the imagined “cliff”, the impact will be felt tomorrow in Australia’s financial markets.

The “cliff” is about budgetary matters and the legislative need for that country’s politicians to inject some imagined stability into its finances, which could be significantly worsened if existing laws remain unchanged.

America has the world’s biggest economy and when the U.S. falls into recession, which is possible if laws remain unchanged, the resultant domino-like slowdown effect on other economies, including ours, sweeps around the world.

To restore some balance to its troubled economy (its national debt presently exceeds $US16 trillion), the U.S. had legislated laws the come in effect from tomorrow to introduce possible tax increases and spending cuts and to reduce its budget deficit or; the country’s leaders could act to repeal the several laws to resolve the immediate difficulty, or simply postpone an inevitable confrontation with reality.

Any attempt to argue “this” or “that” would resolve the U.S. difficulties and so ease the domino-like trouble Australia can expect would be hollow and pointless, but what we can do personally is consider our attachment to an economic way of living that has clearly overwhelmed the human beauty of life and eroded social equality and our natural sociability.

Life has evolved to become intricately entwined with the economy and today the quality of life is wrongly judged by an accounting process called “gross domestic product” (GDP), which includes as “good” even costs associated with efforts to counter and repair such damage as that caused by floods in north-eastern Victoria, including Numurkah, Nathalia and Rochester.

Economists sensitive to what is happening in the world argue for a more enlightened approach to growth; oxygen the present and dominant ideology urgently needs for sustenance.British ecological economist, Tim Jackson, wrote about a fresh approach in his book “Prosperity without Growth”.

In the final analysis, whether America goes over the “fiscal cliff” or not, and whether we follow, is substantially irrelevant, for what really matters is being able to look beyond this impending forest of troubles, to see and understand that the ultimate solution is in ideas like those of Tim Jackson.

Turing broke the Enigma Machine and was himself an enigma

Alan Turing.

This was the year of Alan Turing.

“Ho hum, so what?” I hear you ask.

Well, despite your lack of curiosity, this is a moment in history that warrants interest as Turing’s skills shortened World War Two saving hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of lives and today the outcome of his efforts is implicated in most of what we do.

Turing was born a century ago last June and along with breaking the German Enigma Code of the Second World War he is credited with being the founder of computer science.

Many of the thoughts that once flooded through Turing’s mind are now embedded in your computer or the intricate workings of your smart phone.

Much of the credit for the life we enjoy is attributable to Turing for as he helped cut short a damnably destructive war and was instrumental in developing the God-like technologies on which the modern world depends.

Turing was a different and sometimes difficult man who epitomized the popular idea of “nerd” and being something of a loner enjoyed the solitary world of marathon running and it was that predilection that resulted in him working pretty much alone on the German cryptography used in the Enigma machine that transmitted messages to and from that country’s World War Two submarines.

That “loner” is credited with breaking the code used on those German machines changing the fortunes of the allies in the Second World War.

Turing, iconoclastic in behaviour and attitude, paid dearly for his pragmatic approach to life that manifested itself in a logic and honesty that, at the time, exceeded the intellectual capacity of society.

Homosexuality was a crime in the early decades of last century and Turing, who had never hidden his preferences found himself, because of those desires, entangled in a potential blackmail situation, and naively went to the police only to be subsequently charged for his behaviour.

Turing, who had been a “behind the scenes” hero of Great Britain during the war was found guilty for his sexual preferences and rather than go to goal, accepted chemical castration, but then in 1954, just before his 42^nd birthday, he died of poisoning, something many considered suicide, but believed accidental by his mother and others.

However, in 2009 following a public push, the then British PM, Gordon Brown, officially apologized on behalf of his government for the “appalling way Turing was treated”.

Listening to a recent discussion about Turing, one queried whether or not the remarkably thinker, had he lived, would have continued to add to the sum of human knowledge?

Leading the discussion, Monash University associate professor, Graham Farr, said such a question was unanswerable, but he liked to imagine Turing would have remained at the forefront of knowledge.

Twenty-six die in something 'beyond normal'

Actions beyond what most consider normal resulted recently in the deaths of 26 people.

The mass shooting at the Newtown primary school in Connecticut, USA, unleashed a wave of emotion as the news broke that 20 of those killed were kids between the ages of five and 10.

The young man responsible, who first shot his mother at home before focussing on the school, ended this sorry episode when he shot himself.

However, for a moment, let’s consider what happened at the Newtown Sandy Hook Primary School is in fact becoming the norm for it was the outcome of living in a society drenched with the idea that whatever is troubling you can be resolved through violence.

The educative and humanising processes of society are swamped by this idea to become a nation-wide characteristic that sees the United States embroiled in a hegemonic rampage around the world.

Blame rests unequivocally with the young man, but it seems diametrically unfair that he should shoulder the culpability alone when the broader society of which he is a product sees violence as an attractive solution with guns as the preferred method of dispute resolution?.

The portrayed bravado of America’s wild-west from late in the 19^th Century has transmogrified to a grotesque and bizarre sense of normal today in which many Americans, and some Australians it must be noted, feel a sense of vulnerability without a firearm in the house.

The young man was unquestionably troubled, but is it just to heap all the responsibility upon him and walk away comforted by the thought that there was nothing you could do when the young man and his behaviour is clearly a product of the society we helped create?

Many shocked by events at the school see themselves as pacifists, but stand with a government that commits similar, or worse, atrocities in other countries.

Unable to explain it any better I quote Guardian columnist, George Monbiot, who said:

"Like Bush’s government in Iraq, Barack Obama’s administration neither documents nor acknowledges the civilian casualties of the CIA’s drone strikes in north-west Pakistan.

 

But a report by the law schools at Stanford and New York universities suggests that during the first three years of his time in office, the 259 strikes for which he is ultimately responsible killed between 297 and 569 civilians, of whom 64 were children.”

“Yet”, Monbiot writes, “there are no presidential speeches or presidential tears for them; no pictures on the front pages of the world’s newspapers; no interviews with grieving relatives; no minute analysis of what happened and why.”

That prompts the question: Are some children automatically more valuable than others in our eyes?

 

Was what happened at Sandy Hook Primary School normal? Considered from the perspective of what is the statistically most violent culture on earth it has to be ”yes”, but the vast bulk of Australians would say “no”.

 

What began as frivolity is now an entrenched part of life

The atheist and a pastor talked over coffee . . . . .

Coffee can be a wonderful
sustenance for conversation.

That sounds a little like the opening line of a joke, however it is not, rather a story of friendship; a friendship that was the manifestation of a personal project initiated a couple of years earlier.

About two years ago it seemed that much was to be learned in talking with a stranger each day and what was once little more than a frivolous past-time is now entrenched in my life.

At first it takes effort, but as time passes that connection with another person fulfils what is an innate human social need appears natural, and as easy, as the next breath.

I set out with a few personal rules – one, shop assistants don’t count as they are paid to talk with you and, two, nor does the casual exchange of pleasantries with strangers you pass on the street.

The killer app, so to speak, was that the conversation was to be meaningful; meaning that when it ended, both you and the stranger had learned something about each other.

Talking with a friend about the idea, he said he talks with people all day, but they are people he inevitably knows, a reality, I suggest, that afflicts most people.

Most of us stay within clearly delineated comfort zones; emotionally understandable places from which we don’t stray as any move beyond those boundaries demands a cognitive effort that can be disruptive, disturbing an imagined inner-harmony.

Despite the concerns of the new, the unknown and plunging headfirst into a relationship without apparent reason, there are rich rewards and benefits that cannot be measured in the usual economic way.

Whatever you might say, believe or whatever your experience, we are social creatures and our health, physical, mental and otherwise, needs us to connect with others.

Occasionally I have had to specifically seek out a stranger, but once you are conscious of them and understand why we should talk with them, they are in fact everywhere and nearly always eager to have a chat.

Most every significant struggle in life is replete with comments about how strangers “pulled together” to ensure their community was equal to the difficulty – you get a small taste of what it is that bonds those unfamiliar when you talk with a stranger.

People, it seems, might love family and friends, and enjoy a workmate’s company, but most enjoy talking with a stranger for while it can be a little risqué in that it provokes your thought patterns, breaking them wide open, it illustrates that everything is not exactly as you thought.

The pastor and the atheist: I’m the atheist and the pastor, once a stranger, but now a friend.

Australia's politicians are on a break; a break we need more than they

Whew! Australia’s federal politicians are on a break; a break the public probably needs more than they.

Winston Churchill.

The modern 24-hour news cycle might pile hitherto unseen pressures upon our Canberra conquistadors, but those demands pale compared to the confusion their verbal cut and thrust brings to the body politic.

Watching, and listening, is tougher than being actually in the game, particularly when the discussion and decisions are impacting on you, your life and that of your family, community and nation, and, in a practical sense about which you can do nought, you are forced to sit impotently by and simply wonder.

Looking on from any vantage point beyond the immediacy of Canberra’s Parliament House there is some doubt as to whether or not our elected federal representatives are conscious of how Australia, and the world, is evolving or they are they simply responding to populist ideologues and the values they tenaciously cling to?

Whatever, the image portrayed through our media is less than encouraging and leads inevitably to thoughts of “Nero fiddling while Rome burns”, but any view about that is suggestive and reflective of personal wants and needs.

Some would argue that Rome is not burning and so the behaviour seen in Canberra is as it should be, for they profit as our legislators “fiddle”.

Many others, seeing it through a different prism,  are simply distressed with those reputedly administering our country seemingly obsessed with finding a weakness in their political opponent’s veneer and appearing do little actual “governing”.

Our politicians appear to be sadly distracted by what is colloquially known as “muck-racking”, most of which is absolutely unrelated to national concerns.

Much to the delight, and profit, of a few, democracy in Australia is wobbling toward a distinct difficultly – the façade appears wonderful, but behind this comforting façade is a moneyed clique edging us toward inverted totalitarianism.

Writing in “Democracy Incorporated”, Sheldon S. Wolin explains how sweeping corporate power masquerading as democracy has convinced us that contentment is to be found in consumerism and entertainment and together they see many of us bow willingly before values that are alien to the democratic intent. Democracy is presently being sold to the highest bidder.

Democracy is noisy, meant to allow room for the contrarian thinker, those who challenge the status quo and those who want to disagree, but it is not about the pointless squabbles that until now have preoccupied our nation’s best.

“Democracy” according to the former British PM, the late Winston Churchill, “is the worst of all forms of government, except for all the others that have been tried”; an idea that Australia’s politicians appear intent on testing, until now at least, as they, and we, have a break.

Offensive, but understandably charming

Shepparton’s weekend-long “Spring Car Nationals” were decidedly offensive to the sensibilities of some, but for thoroughly understandable reasons, they charmed many.

A scene typical of the "action" at the
weekend-long Spring Car Nationals
 in Shepparton.

Thousands rushed to the city for a celebratory orgy of the energy of oil manifested in the bucking, sliding, roaring cars primped and preened to brilliantly exhibit their conversion of oil into power, noise and smoke.

An idea few understand or, if they did, acknowledge.

Humans, men in particular, have long been fascinated by power and to control it just for a moment, even if it is little more than on bucking, sliding and roaring car, gives admission to a select group, as distorted as that may be.

A 15-year-old boy I once knew (me) would have stood with that group and throughout the weekend, would have been would have been breathlessly watching, almost high on the exhaust fumes and the testosterone cloud, and gleefully joining in the strange bonding that such hedonism brings.

In view of the world’s evolving difficulties, such blatant pleasure seeking events are an aberration when the resources that make it possible are in serious depletion and with our atmosphere absorbing the true cost.

Of course what happens at Shepparton’s Spring Car Nationals is insignificant compared to the world’s Grand Prix events, America’s National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) and Australia’s V8 Supercars.

Together they promote a paradigm that is the antithesis of how we should live; a paradigm we cannot escape until we understand, or least learn that conquest is not about brute force, rather collaboration.

It is about understanding and learning to live with nature, rather than compete with and subdue it; the world is a finite place and rather than align ourselves with the misplaced desire of growth and progress, a code word for exploitation, we have to learn about conservation and care.

The second law of thermodynamics discusses the fact that disorder in the universe always increases and that surging disarray brought on by the transformation of energy into less usable forms was been forestalled first by coal and now oil, the principle portable energy used by for humans for more than two centuries.

Bruce Springsteen.

The power of that portable energy was demonstrated for all to see, and hear, at the city’s showgrounds over the weekend.

Listening to the wail of what sounded like dying dinosaurs, which they are, I thought about the words that rock poet, Bruce Springsteen, who wrote in his song “Something in the Night” in which has sang about driving in his car:

“….I take her to the floor,

Looking for a moment when the world seems right ……”.

Maybe participants pursued that “moment”, but any legitimizing argument of incidental economic boost to the city quickly evaporates when the full costs are considered.

 

Fewer than expected farewell Peter on a halcyon day

Peter Ross-Edwards
 in his prime.

Peter Ross-Edwards was recently farewelled by fewer than expected people on what might be described as a “halcyon” day.

That seemed appropriate for the former leader of the Victorian National Party and Member for Shepparton was in the rush of public life during what might be described as the halcyon decades of the late 20^th Century.

Mr Ross-Edwards’ October funeral, a State recognized event at Shepparton’s St Augustine’s Anglican Church, saw provision of nearly 1000 seats, but less than 300 were occupied.

The surprisingly low turnout for a fellow who had broad and deep respect within his community was not an indictment, rather the realisation that he had been effectively out of the public gaze for two decades, at least in his home city.

This fellow, known for the brevity of his conversations, appeared to have the ear of the state’s decision makers and was able it seemed, to make the impossible, possible.

He had stepped down from his very public role as the Member for Shepparton in 1991 and while he may have slipped from that public gaze, Mr Ross Edwards was still waist-deep in public life.

He chaired the Goulburn-Murray Rural Water Authority from 1994 through to 2001 and in what was an almost invisible role Mr Ross-Edwards was the chief commissioner for the City of Greater Bendigo for two years in the mid-1990s.

Mr Ross-Edwards had been in the air force for four years, he had been an integral part of the Shepparton based legal firm, P.V. Feltham and Co, and had been the president or vice president several major organizations in Shepparton.

The near empty hall at
St Augustine's Church
 in Shepparton.

To say he was in the ruck of public life in the halcyon days of the 20^th Century is in some sense unfair, but in others a comment without quarrel.

Being a decision maker is never easy, no matter what the environment, but undoubtedly the 24-hour news cycle and the emergence of its digital counterparts of the internet, Twitter and Facebook in the late 90s, have combined to make the life of public personality complex in the extreme.

Add to that the collision of “peak everything” from population through to oil along with the added complication of a human-induced changing climate bringing with it shortages of those things which allow humanity to thrive, water and food.

Those were matters simply not on the agenda for the MLA for Shepparton in his 24 years in parliament.

That however, does not lessen the importance of the task was in any way, just makes it different as the wants and needs of the electorate were both equally intense and important at the time.

Peter Ross-Edwards might have been a man of his time, but the impact of time was evident on that halcyon day in October.

Opportunity and reason lead to the Shrine of Remembrance

Opportunity, and reason, was cause to visit Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance last week.

The St Kilda Rd sign
pointing to the exhibit.

Entering from the nearby St Kilda Rd a sign alerted me to the reason for my visit, a temporary exhibition entitled “Peace”.

The overall energy of the exhibition warranted curiosity, but particular interest arose from that fact and that included in the display was the print, “Journeys and Destinations” by Melbourne’s Benjamin McKeon and Nathalia’s Bill Kelly.

Bill and Ben’s collaborative print represented Australia at the 50^th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights International Print Portfolio.

This print was inspired by the human right: “Everyone has the right to the liberty and security of person” and one of the limited edition prints sits in the collection of the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) library, Switzerland.

Being at the height of the remembrance “season”, the shrine was alive with people from guides and advisors through to a seemingly ceaseless steam of school groups and others obviously eager to see the shrine and experience the sense the wonderment it invoked.

Interestingly, while the “war” section of the shrine captured the interest of most, while the “Peace” exhibit languished almost unnoticed in one corner of the main entrance area.

The drama of conflict appeals to, and seems to ignite, human emotions, while peace, the reason for the shrine appears to escape the understanding and interest of most, and so the idea that today we can live peaceably appears well down the hierarchy of importance.

Remembrance is obviously a key reason for the shrine, emphasized by its exquisite placement on high ground just south of the city making it obvious and ensuring the reality of conflicts to which Australia has been a party are constantly considered.

“Journeys and Destinations” by Melbourne’s
 Benjamin McKeon and Nathalia’s Bill Kelly.

The idea that we acknowledge those who died or suffered to preserve the life we presently enjoy warrants applause, but as we do that, it is important we escape the violent and quarrelsome paradigm promoted by the military/industrial complex.

Just last week a climatologist told an Echuca conference considering an indigenous response to climate change that a world-wide effort to mitigate that unfolding difficulty would cost some $30-40 billion a year, which is considered by most to be too costly.

However, confusingly and in what was a stark contrast, he pointed out, that the world spends about $780 billion each year of military machinations, not including the death or injury to thousands of people, the damage to property or the accumulating injury to the earth’s atmosphere.

Peace was one of the four “pillars” on which the shrine was founded, but it is something that will forever elude us unless we expand our thinking, challenge and change our adversarial behaviour, understand mutuality and be cautious with our use of language.

Adulation brings intellectual paralysis

Continued adulation of battlefield exploits point to intellectual paralysis.

It seems our thought processes have stalled, leaving us locked in an era when conquest of the other, and nature, signified elevated status.

Humans have always sought status resorting frequently to conflict and defeat of the other to cement their superiority with the ruins they have wrought being evidence of their success.

Celebration of that perverse success and, equally, the repeated remembrance of events past, even if that moment in history can be shown to be the antithesis of human betterment, draws on powerful human emotions making the event almost transcendental.

Most see participants in the conflict, survivors or otherwise, as sublime, attributing to them god-like ideals and values, adorning them in garments of splendour, awarding them medals and recognition for doing something that was simply a waste of human capacity and the manifestation of mob-madness.

An example of this recently dominated our popular media when a young man acted out the doctrines of our militant thinking; thinking that sees solutions in only physical confrontation.

Our intellectual stasis sees us trapped in a paradigm in which past events become a pattern for the future, negating adventurous and expansive thinking that allows us to understand that decency and discussion are better tools than bludgeoning another.

Decency and discussion is simply that and doesn’t need to be clothed in gaudy colours, adorned with medals or given to rapturous celebration, rather just thoughtful talk and kindly consideration of the other, embracing the realization that others, whatever their beliefs or passions, cry, bleed and feel just like us.

Life may appear linear – destiny that takes us from A to B without change – but it is not for with courage and commitment, and deep thought, it is unquestionably possible to change human behaviour and make what was common, a rarity.

Our ongoing adulation of battlefield exploits needs to stop for if we allow ourselves truly expansive thinking and consider 10 000 years hence what happened at, say Gallipoli, will be irrelevant and lost in the mists of time.

Rather than looking back and devoting time and energy to what was, we should, conscious of our errors, use our vigour to build our life around realities of the moment, rather than though an addiction with imagined glories of fruitless events.

Long has the wisdom of crowds been an article of faith, but such belief is slipping away, compounded, locally, by recent city council elections and in a broader sense, the apparent inability of many to accept that human behaviour is changing our climate and, in this instance, the absence of reason about disagreements that manifest violence and how recognition means reinforcement of failed ideas leading, inalienably, to more anguish.

The wisdom of crowds is sometimes absent

Crowds have a rather special wisdom.

Surowiecki's book.

In fact the idea that crowds do have a cumulative knowledge that exceeds the individual prompted a staff writer at The New Yorker, James Surowiecki, to write a book about that very topic.

Writing in “The Wisdom of Crowds” Surowiecki explored how and why it is that many seem to instinctively know more than one.

In considering why it is the crowd is wise, he investigated many things and stripped the idea of its finery by reminding readers that on a busy footpath when hundreds are walking toward each other, collisions are almost unseen.

The crowd moving to a fro on the footpath, according to Surowiecki, instinctively avoid each other without uttering a word or making any sign.

That, he argues, is the wisdom of crowds at its most basic.

Democracy is the epitome of that wisdom to which will all unknowingly contribute, but despite the richness of that knowledge we do sometimes get it wrong.

An example of the demos failing to understand its fallibility can be seen in the outcome of the recent City of Greater Shepparton Council elections – 26 people offered themselves for one of seven positions and from that rich bounty we had the chance to assemble a group with the skills and vision to guide the city, but we didn’t.

The Goulburn Valley revolves around Greater Shepparton and so the city needs innovative leaders able to identify our strength and weaknesses, able to escape from the rigidity of repetitive behaviour and ease our communities into a new way of living; a process that will see us prosper primarily socially to give our communities an ecological and subsequently an economic advantage.

We live in world burdened by the idea that economic success is the key to social and environment matters when it is in fact a palatable life arises from exactly the opposite, for once we bring order to social and environmental matters, the economy falls into lockstep.

For too long economic concerns have driven council and although that maybe how it needs to be given the over-riding attitude of society, there comes a time when communities such as ours need to step back from the commercial rush of life and turn our attention to the broader wellbeing of people who live here.

A common, but ultimately destructive, business adage of “what gets measured, gets done” reflects the relatively simple activity of measuring monetary activity, when what we need is a council prepared to address the complex and difficult understand concepts of wellbeing, contentment and happiness.

The contemporary adversarial role of councilors needs to be collaborative, positive and friendly establishing a benchmark from which all other groups and individuals throughout the city would gauge and so adjust their contribution.

 

Stirring 'wins' in the drug-tainted Tour de France

Watching Lance Armstrong successively “win” the Tour de France was stirring.

Lance Armstrong - he
cheated his way to seven
'wins' in the Tour de France.

The intrigue of recent times has blunted somewhat the celebratory mood; intrigue arising from a deception of dimensions never before seen in elite sport.

There is, however, within that an inspiration that reaches beyond human artefact.

Millions around the world drew strength and courage, not to mention commitment and hope, from Armstrong’s well-chronicled confrontation with and survival from testicular cancer.

Armstrong cheated at cycling, but such trickery was not an option as he wrestled with the reality of cancer.

Locked in a life and death wrestle with cancer, the man who was to become a hero to many, never blinked and the steely determination that enabled his survival, morphed, it seemed, into a purpose-driven cycling career in which the desire to win overrode decency and good sense.

Confronted with such an implacable adversary that is cancer, Armstrong employed whatever he could find in the medicinal armoury to win and it seems the “take no prisoners” attitude such a confrontation demanded worked, for years, without apparent fault in elite cycling.

What Armstrong did was unquestionably wrong, but without apologising for his behaviour, it is important to judge him in context of the time, his life and in losing our salvos of criticism, remember the Bible quote in which it is argued that he, who is without sin, should cast the first stone.

The doings of Armstrong were quite clearly wrong, offending the values most hold decent, filtering through cycling and leaking into other sports.

In the broad sweep of world events, the corruption of the sort inculcated by Armstrong is inconsequential compared to other happenings in which hundreds, if not millions of people, young and old, innocent and willing participants, died from hunger or political malfeasance.

Arguments of difference immediately enter the conversation, but at base the drivers are identical – the desire to succeed at the expense of others, whatever the cost.

Armstrong’s influence on cycling was majestical and being a cancer survivor with an intense force of personality, he had a magical hold over cycling and drove both counterparts and competitors to do distasteful things, just as a despot contrives to offend a population.

Many have stood beyond the present controversy arguing that it was Armstrong’s inspiration that saw them survive the trials of cancer. Armstrong was, a still is, for many the beacon that lead them through difficult times.

Watching Armstrong guide his team through the Tour de France and other similar events, was inspirational for despite his indiscretions, he demanded discipline and dedication; needed traits if humanity is to endure the difficulties ahead as civilisation wrestles with a burgeoning population and the depletion of finite resources and a changing climate.

Cherish your friends, for they may leave without notice

Sometimes a friend leaves unexpectedly.

The Stutz Bearcat -
 looking at it, I was
in 'communion'
with my friend.

That sudden and unexpected exit leaves those of us still sitting at the table with a strange hollowness and a legion of answered questions; our friend took with him much of the knowledge that enriched our breadth and depth.

Sometimes such a sudden departure drives a re-examination of personal values and beliefs manifesting thoughts about what importance we put on a scheduled, but relaxed and casual lunch.

To approach such a lunch with the distinct sense of fatalism would in fact probably be fatal for the friendship that initiated the gathering.

Lunch with a friend is, in most instances, not a pessimistic affair, rather quite the reverse and so how do you celebrate the friendship, enjoy the company and yet do it joyously knowing full well that the randomness of life could intervene removing you or another, anytime, from the list of dinners.

Any antidote to such a dilemma is as different as those involved, but curiousity can help dislodge it from the shadows; curiousity spiced with humour, compassion, care, consideration and interest in what it is that ignites a friend’s passions.

Such values are not personality specific, but their application hinges on the root of friendship, trust, and so the advancement of any friendship, fleeting or enduring, hinges on the richness of that trust.

My friend, who left without warning, practiced a trade in which trust was the driver and strangely while trained in skills about caring for the frailties of the human body, privately he was passionately interested in the hard-edge mechanics of motor cars, in fact anything with wheels.

Trusting my friend’s judgement I visited the newly established Shepparton Motor Museum, in which he had been deeply involved and was in fact delivering his latest purchase (a rather old French moped) when he took his leave.

Walking in the door my eyes fell upon a beautifully restored Stutz Bearcat from early last century. It was not his type of car, I suspect, as he was taken by beautiful and different European cars from later in the century, but as it oozed the perfection, the attention to detail and the mechanical sophistication of its era, I was, for a few minutes, in communion with my friend.

That sense of closeness remained as I wandered about admiring the wonderful collection of cars, motorcycles and bicycles – the museum wasn’t built for that purpose, but for me it was like a memorial to my friend.

Death is the only certainty in life and the embrace of friendship can enrich what is an uncertain journey and should that chair at the dinner table be left unexpectedly empty, recall that the randomness of life is non-negotiable pressing the belief that every moment matters.

Refurbished lake enriches city's personality

Shepparton’s refurbished Victoria Park Lake enriches the city’s personality.

A sign at Shepparton's Victoria
Park Lake outlining all that
is proposed.

The city, established on a depressingly flat topography and which has turned its back on its richest asset, the river, needed something to lift it above the banal and so what was pretty much as swamp became a lake.

The lake, however, is more than that for it is a truly visible and tangible link with water and as humans have an intrinsic need for water – without it we die – what is pictorially pleasant, is also comforting and quietly reassuring.

Early manifestations of the lake arrived after significant community effort, including many tireless working bees.

What we see now however, and enjoy was not so easily, or cheaply, achieved.

Works to lift the lake from its somewhat dated state to its present level of sophistication, including an active water quality maintenance system; the creation of a space that allows for passive water sports; improved safety; the establishment of intriguing walker paths; extensive plantings that attract wildlife, help with water quality; and the sweeping beautification of the area cost more than $5 million.

Those unable to appreciate the aesthetic value and benefits of such an undertaking looked on with wonderment as “their” money was being spent on something with no apparent commercial relevance to the city.

Although noisy in their criticism, the critics were obviously wrong as the lake is more than what it is in that it contributes substantially to the broader health of our community.

Life today is rather hurried and 30 minutes strolling around the lake or sitting on the lawns or one of the many nearby seats, becomes a peaceful oasis in a life that appears more interested in what happens next rather than focussing on the moment.

It took courage and vision by those who sat on the City of Greater Shepparton Council to advocate such an idea and publically embrace the millennia old values of the Athenians and strive to create a place which celebrates grace and beauty.

The utilitarians among us who see only advantage in that which is both practical and functional and whose success they measure only in direct financial profit have little sympathy for such things as Victoria Park Lake

The cultural achievements of Athens, democracy’s nursery, and Athenians themselves, held in high esteem the discipline, skill, and taste that are required to produce enduring art.

The imagination, discipline and behaviour so prized by the Athenians echoes in what we now see at Shepparton’s Victoria Park Lake, a spectacular piece of different and practical public art.

All of us own that “piece of art” and so in concert with the thinking that drove its creation we need to enjoy and respect it, taking just pictures, and leaving only footprints.

Democracy is alive and well in Shepparton

Democracy, it appears, is alive and well in the City of Greater Shepparton.

A diverse group of 26 people have nominated for the October 27 municipal election, but just seven will take their place at the council table.

The record field of candidates suggests the vibrancy of democracy, but the caveat of “it appears” shifts the responsibility to you and me, the voters.

Should we care about the future and welfare of our city, we will diligently sift through what is an impressive array of people; consider their positions and then vote for those you believe are best equipped to manifest a city that equates with your values.

However, democracy is not that easy and it doesn’t end at the ballot box or in this case with your postal vote.

Simply voting for this or that person is not playing your role in democracy rather, it is just the beginning.

Success in business is about relationships and a similar template is needed if democracy is to operate in full flower.

Democracy is noisy, discordant and rarely without its contrarian thinkers; is disruptive and frequently contradictory in its essence, but oddly that sometimes jarring behaviour is in fact its strength.

Although councillors may not publically agree about much, there needs to be an underlying sympathy for a similar goal and the Rule of Law – councillors need to step beyond the pungent influence of individuality and although passions and desires maybe diverse, and robust, they need to be sacrificed to concerns for the long-term viability of the City of Greater Shepparton.

Our relationship with those we elect extends way past simply putting a cross on a ballot paper for without input from us, our councillors operate in a perverse knowledge vacuum.

Although elected to administer our city, it is not something they can do effectively unless they hear regularly from us about how we would like our city to evolve.

Our councillors don’t need criticism; they need encouragement.

Obviously things don’t always happen in a way we hope or imagine, but rather than bleat among friends about our city’s shortcomings and failure to take opportunities, we need to take our views to the council and individual councillors in a formal manner.

Whatever we might say or think, the 60 000 strong City of Greater Shepparton is the modern manifestation of a tribe and history is loaded with examples of the success found by tight-knit and empathetic tribes.

Democracy is adversarial in intent, but if treated with care and respect; the care and respect on which genuine relationships are founded it can serve our city well.

Vote for who you believe will guide Shepparton in the direction you prefer and then engage with them and make democracy work.

 

Beauty, death and the inexpicable

Beauty is everywhere, just as is death.

The rose is for many a
 symbol of beauty, but equally
linked to death.

Interestingly, and paradoxically, I’m midway through reading a book about beauty and a rash of deaths have impacted on my life.

Death has a perverse beauty, but that is conditional, the caveat being that the exit must be timely; death should be the culmination of a life well-lived, or at least on that allowed for the realization of the person’s hopes and dreams.

Anything sooner than that leaves us with a hollowness, an uncertainty and the nagging question of why?

Of course the technicalities of why can easily be answered, but there are grander implications that arouse confusion and mystery when the death appears untimely.

Humanity broadly understands, and so generally accepts, that death awaits us all, rather patiently, at the end of a well-lived life.

We become confused and the mystery of why only deepens when the imagined scythe-wielding reaper appears early in someone’s life, gives a somewhat sickly smile as our friends depart with a rush we are unable to understand.

This recent rash of deaths began with the expected, but early, death of friend in her 60s – expected as it was, she had time to hand paint her own coffin.

Next it was Jill Meagher, someone I obviously didn’t know, but like many others, the television images of her final moments were etched in my mind making the connection with that young woman strangely real.

Recently, the “reaper” swooped by, much closer.

Lunch with a friend a few weeks back on a Friday was followed the next morning by a relatively innocuous accident that was to take his life a few days later.

He wasn’t ready to go as he had much to do and it was only at that Friday lunch he had talked about statistically having another twenty healthy years to live. He was alive with enthusiasm.

Even more difficult to understand was the death last week of a 28-year-old workmate who had undergone an operation to further repair damage to a leg injured in a road accident nearly two decades ago.

She was young, married and along with her husband was building a life together, but on Friday all the hopes and dreams fell into ruin.

This seemingly nonsensical conclusion to well-lived lives causes us to again wonder why bad things happen to good people.

Searching for answers, I quizzed a Christian friend, whose beliefs are the antithesis of mine, but he provided little comfort, adding only that it was an age-old question.

Struggling with the vacuum that is death we can do little, it seems, but fill the bizarre and confusing nothingness with reassuring and comforting images and memories of that person’s innate beauty, the warmth of their engaging smile and their generousity.

 

Socially complex, sad and unreasonable and illogical

The abduction, rape and murder of Jill Meagher was, and is, as socially complex as it is sad.

Steven Pinker's book
in which he uses
 statistics to illustrate
 the decline of
violence.

Reports of the event sent a decided sense of fear ricocheting throughout communities, particularly in Victoria.

As desperately sad as the circumstance is, when considered objectively, it was as rare as it is distasteful.

Whatever we might say or think, or communities are less violent now than they once were, a fact made abundantly clear by author Steven Pinker in his latest book, "Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined" .

Pinker relies on the brutality of statistics to help his readers understand that in this modern era such happenings in which Meagher became sadly entangled are a rarity, while only a century ago they were significantly more frequent.

People now are, Pinker eloquently points out, far less inclined to prosecute their desires and feelings through violence than was the case.

An event such as that involving Jill Meagher is launched into the public eye through the efficiency of main-stream media and it then comes under the unblinking public gaze through the seemingly ceaseless and masturbatory-like effect of social media, all along ignoring the infrequency of such things.

The public focus on that one relatively rare event raises the spectre of violence in our communities, a menace that is unquestionably real, but one that is lessened as education increases.

The more learned people become, the more they abandon the sword and take up the word – education ameliorates aggression.

Many have marched in memory of Meagher and that deserves applause, but their energy should not simply dissipate on the streets, rather be the beginnings of push to enhance the broader decency of our communities.

In taking Meagher’s life, the perpetrator stole not only her future, but along with that a sense of trust among people, even those geographically remote from the Sydney Rd incident.

Some women have already talked about the insecurity they now sense in certain situations and others have said that there are some parts of Shepparton they once avoided if possible, but now they most certainly will.

That I understand, but accepting the realities of life and being prepared to consent to statistics illustrated by Pinker, their concern is unfounded.

The expression of one fellow’s fantasies impacted not only those immediately involved, but filtered throughout the community to damage everyone, regardless of gender.

Women are nervous and men, whoever they are, carry the guilt, even though that is both unreasonable and illogical.

The manifestation of what happened on Brunswick’s Sydney Rd early on that September Saturday morning is many faceted, but among the legacies is an increase in the distrust between men and women.

A simple event, an irrevocable change

A friend often talks about how the simplest of events can irrevocably change our lives. 

Flowers gather on the
Sydney Rd footpath
where Jill Meagher
was last seen by CCTV
cameras.

Should we pause for a few moments, he argues, to say “hello” to a friend we have actively, but not consciously, re-shaped our lives.

That brief stop for what was a seemingly innocuous chat shifted our lives from one paradigm onto a wholly new footing with new horizons opening and some hopes and dreams closing down.

That is, granted, somewhat dramatic, but when considered analytically, it is true.

Life, no matter how hard you might try to control it or comply with your hope and dreams, or respond to other yearnings, there is a rogue randomness about our lives.

A few seconds spent talking with a friend folds almost invisibly into our lives and beyond the relative importance of the exchange, it is not seen, mostly, as having any significant relevance to how our lives are evolving.

Examples of life’s randomness abound with the most recent being the abduction, rape and murder of Melbourne ABC reporter, Jill Meagher, on Saturday morning.

Jill Meagher - witty
and intelligent.

That random event began seemingly innocuously and ended in a rather grisly way – desperately sad for Jill Meagher, her family, friends and workmates, and in what must have been a fleeting opportunistic decision, the perpetrator’s life changed forever.

Considering such moments in life, we can all torture ourselves with a million “what ifs”, but that will not do any good for as a friend told me years ago what is “is” and cannot be changed regardless of hope, prayers or actions.

The randomness of life is non-negotiable.

Interestingly it is something we cannot avoid, we can twist, turn, manipulate, take this or that stand, but never can we divorce randomness from our lives, but importantly, and strangely, it is that randomness that brings life fully alive.

Blandness awaits those who attempt to remove randomness from their daily affairs and sidestep its impact and even worse it can bring on a noticeable neurosis that can manifest itself in ways that play out in moments such as those on Brunswick’s Sydney Road on Saturday morning.

Of course the mysterious randomness of life does not always necessarily lead to grim or bad moments for equal to those who can point to difficulties; tragedy and disaster are those who can illustrate happenings that were happy, enlightening and rewarding.

Random and unplanned moments have led to wonderful life-long relationships, business successes, and serendipitous discoveries for which no-one can take responsibility short of saying that “they were in the right place at the right time.”

Of course, there is the opposite and what apparently began as a simple event for Jill Meagher changed her life irrevocably.