Friends discuss Shepparton's future

S

hepparton’s future was recently discussed among a group of friends.



Shepparton at play.

Most came to the conversation with substantially different values and ideas about how the place should proceed, but all, with some caveats, were guardedly optimistic about the city’s future.

Naturally, all saw the city’s potential, or otherwise, through personal prisms, be that adherence to an ideology that favours growth, in all its forms; a steady “as she goes” view that is about consolidation of existing strengths; or what might be considered a Luddite view, being something of a retreat from modernity to a more localized community that builds its resilience.

One fellow said the Goulburn Valley, and Shepparton in particular, had benefitted from the “accident of birth”, saying it had long been fortunate in that many with an entrepreneurial spirit had been born here.

“We need more of them,” he said.

True, but the “entrepreneurial spirit” of last century, as appropriate as it was then, is no longer what is needed and although that same endeavour is still essential the circumstances in the world suggest a redirection – a new “spirit”.

The neo-liberals of the world see growth as the solution to every human dilemma, while many others, however, see our insistence on bigger, better and faster as the root of our troubles.

Personally, pessimism prevails as I peer into the darkness of the future through the neo-liberal blinkers of our present governments, State or Federal.

One in the group placed his faith in technology, mentioning the unexpected arrival of the motor car and how it rid London’s streets of near knee-deep horse manure.

That, he argued, was a wonderful example of how technology leap-frogged a problem and opened the world to new vistas.

The Shepparton of yesteryear.

Technophiles face not just an issue of too much horse manure, but a spiralling world population pressing relentlessly for more stuff, creating a world in which resources of all kinds are becoming fewer, rarer and so increasingly expensive.

And so what does this mean for Shepparton?

Many obvious needs arise, but primary among these is leadership.

We can lament the performance of State and Federal Governments, but that which can have the biggest immediate impact on our lives is what happens at municipal level.

Shepparton needs to be directed and built to survive what is evolving in the 21^st Century and not what was happening several decades ago.

Present leadership in the City of Greater Shepparton appears to be in disarray with divisiveness instead of the critically needed collaboration, cohesion and cooperation.

Shepparton needs, rather than the present vacuum, leaders who are acutely aware that we face serious energy and resource constraints and so those same people need to act with a bold plan to build a city that will endure.

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.