Idea festival exposes a parallel universe

Much of a recent week was lived in a parallel universe.

It was a world of ideas, hope, imagination, dreams, the impossible, concepts beyond the status quo and although exciting in the extreme, it was tiring.

The latter, of course, was not unexpected for once we step beyond what is familiar and embrace the new, we find ourselves entangled with fresh intellectual rigour and through just being different, it induces both physical and mental weariness.

Contemporary society does not encourage us to abandon the familiar rather; the market system prefers us to have a somewhat narrow view of value, worth and the causes of contentment to ensure the mental poverty of most enriches the elite.

Spending much of the week and the University of Melbourne’s biennial Festival of Ideas is an indulgence; gastronomy for the mind, a reminder of how little we understand, how remote we are from wisdom, knowledge and intelligence and how distant we are from having any real grasp of how, what, where and when.

Some would argue such pursuits irrelevant to their lives for they know who won the footy finals, what’s filling the movie theatres, what’s on the television tonight and what they need to do to ensure the pay checks keep rolling in.

But life is more than that, it is more than bread and circuses for human flourishing is about engaging with an idea that is bigger than you, an idea that both expands and demands more of your thinking and it is an idea that at first seems without rationale, but then becomes the solution.

Many things now are humanity’s staples were once ideas resident on the fringes of society or only thought about in moments of lucid madness.

We need more such festivals and maybe that is a project for the new Committee of Shepparton – Shepparton’s own Festival of ideas.

Ideas, no matter how vague, poorly articulated or inadequately thought through were not, according to the founder of Minds at Work, Jason Clarke, to be discounted or allowed to wither for all should be considered and welcomed to the conversation.

Victor Hugo.

Shepparton is in urgent need of a new idea as the 20^th century inspirational drivers of several decades are dying and maybe a universe in which fresh ideas are abundant will be found at our own ideas skirmish.

Melbourne has its Festival of ideas, Sydney its Festival of Dangerous Ideas and we should have our own agora, that ancient Greece marketplace-like concept where people met talked, considered and determined for their community, the best way ahead.

It was Frenchman, Victor Hugo who said: “One can resist the invasion of armies; one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.”

Let’s initiate that “invasion” and find a new idea for Shepparton.

Ideas are not only life's oxygen, but also its currency

Ideas may well be the oxygen of life, but they are also its currency.
Communities rich in ideas are vibrant and exciting places to live and as ideas grow so does the wellbeing of those who call it home.

Art by Veronica Kelly
 at Nathalia's 
G.R.A.I.N. Store.

An idea that had been in gestation for a life-time drew its first breath in Nathalia.
Australian/American artist, humanist and human-rights advocate, Bill Kelly, who received his artistic training at the Philadelphia University of the Arts and the National Gallery School in Melbourne, finally settled with his family in the small community.
The Fulbright Fellow and former Dean of the Victorian College of the Arts, had, buried in his mental luggage, an idea to enrich the community and within that expand and extend the reach of art – the not-for-profit G.R.A.I.N. Store   opened late last year.
Kelly’s idea is about strengthening community (it does), but beyond that, life has generally stalled as there is a paucity of implemented ideas that take people beyond what the rather strictures allowed by the commercial/military/industrial complex.
What exists is essentially focussed on growth that takes little note of the cost, be it in the plundering of the earth’s finite resources or equally in the physical or psychological damage to people.
Most of us claim to have open minds and consequently see ourselves as flexible and able to accommodate changes to our way of life, but immediately that new idea, although possibly ancient, unsettles what may be even unconscious conceptions of right and wrong, a sense of fairness and an understanding of what is seen as the good life, then we begin to harden and our resilience vanishes.
The evolved lifestyle we live today, given a cursory glance, is neither right nor wrong, but it will not stand close examination as it survives only because we are spending the capital earth has accumulated over billions of years.
The Goldilocks years – not too hot, not too cold – have allowed us to benefit from earth’s largesse, but that era’s idea, the idea built around growth and the suppression of the other, is exhausted and we urgently need new ideas.
Fresh and workable concepts, such as transition towns and steady-state economies exist, but their introduction and application require us to embrace new ideas, something that historically is not common.
However, from the perspective of a troubled world threatened by uninhibited growth that has little regard for ecological concerns or the finitude of the earth’s resources, we need to step back from the madness of the Western democracies growth ideologies.
The idea that has sustained us for the past two centuries is dead, or has been shown to be counterfeit, and so the new idea, or the new currency, needs to be about people, rather than things.

Breathe deep on ideas - the oxygen of life

Ideas are the oxygen of life.

Thomas Keneally - the author's
 keynote lecture at the
 University of Melbourne's
Festival of ideas will be streamed
 live into Shepparton.

Cleaning your teeth or putting a man on the moon where both, at first, little more than ideas.

That thought, or idea, expands, becomes intent and then, with effort, reality.

Leaning on that interpretation, ideas are integral to the human infrastructure and as such are the cornerstone of what it is that ignites and sustains love and, by contrast, they are also the starting point of all evil that has troubled humankind for millennia.

Ideas in our contemporary world are considered to be the province of the corporate world and academia, but in reality they are not exclusive to any group or individual, rather the property of all, especially in the disorder of democracy.

It is human nature to think and from those thoughts, random or otherwise, come ideas, but without the courage implementation demands they are little more than notions, like a sail without wind.

Ideas have seen the world crammed with people, ideas have created consumerism exhausting the world’s finite resources, ideas have led mankind down the self-destructive path of violence, it is ideas that have worsened our atmosphere and yet, it is ideas that will see us find a way around this impasse.

Shepparton people will have the opportunity to think about the importance of ideas when two keynote lectures from the University of Melbourne’s second Festivalof Ideas are streamed-live into the city in June.

Contemporary life is structured in a way the empties individuals of the courage it takes to pursue ideas, but learning that others think like you, or are at least adventurous in their thinking, is both fortifying and encouraging.

Like all other communities, the Greater Goulburn Valley has an urgent need for ideas.
Whatever your opinion about the refurbishment of the Murray Goulburn Irrigation system, it was an idea that brought millions of dollars to the area and inveigled a commercial brightness for an industry that had been struggling with a decade long drought.
However, to be successful an idea doesn’t need commercial worth and be lauded for its monetary value for just as easily, and probably more importantly to society’s wellbeing, it could be a purely social idea that improves the lot of all.
Contemporary life sees us locked into consuming daily doings that are rooted in economics and so permits little or no time for the reflection that allows for the conception of new ideas and along with that, space in our lives for the gestation, birth and nourishment of new ideas.
I urge you to allow yourself two hours later this month during which you can invigorate your thinking by listening to, and watching, two of Australia’s most powerful thinkers during Shepparton’s part in the University of Melbourne’s Festival of Ideas.