Living life, vicariously

R eporters mostly live life vicariously. They watch, record and write about what went on, but usually as a spectator, looking on from outside the arena. Thinking of this, the words of the late U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt ring loud: Theodore Roosevelt. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” Quietism, with its philosophical overtones, in some ways describes those who stand outside the arena for they neither challenge nor support anything and in Australia’s prosperous decades of the 50s, 60s and 70s it was a profitable stance. The decade of the eighties changed all that, it continued apace in the 90s and now in the second decade of the 21st Century, it is critical that people, including spectators and reporters, not just watch and report, but join the conversation. Shepparton presently, and urgently, needs all hands on deck, everyone needs to step into the arena, join the affray, take a chance on victory and risk defeat. The city, and it is not alone, needs ideas that will equip it to live with weather quite unlike anything it, and the greater Goulburn Valley have ever experienced. Climate scientists use evidence to illustrate changes in our weather and so they are in the arena using both their skills and knowledge to help us see what is happening and explain why we should join them. Having mostly lived vicariously as a journalist, insisting on objectivity, fairness and balance, my life has largely been that of the spectator, but that all changed about a decade or so ago when it became obvious that because of our behaviour the earth was warming and so the Goldilocks-like climate that has allowed humans to prosper was changing. Climbing the fence and stepping into the arena was the easy part, but struggling with the “dust and sweat and blood” arising from blatant indifference, apathy and the grossly misplaced confidence that technology and man’s inventiveness can resolve all, makes the vicariousness and inculcated quietism of my other life mighty attractive.