Fidelity to values, ideals, beliefs, passions critical for wellbeing

Fidelity to your values, ideals, beliefs and passions is critical for wellbeing.

Sadly, I have been somewhat unfaithful to mine of late and that lack of loyalty is annoying, personally  hurtful, and it brings on an intellectual dissonance.

Yes, we owe to ourselves, family, friends and others, to be, and say, what we believe in.

Reflecting on my life, it was at its richest when surrounded by a warm sense of community, when it felt as if we were all in this together, when the aim was understood, when altruism prevailed and we were remote from the root values of the market-driven world.

However, seduced by the baubles and trinkets of the consumerist world, I forgot for some time the naturally attractive lessons found in the early 70’s book “Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered” by E. F. Schumacher.

Primed by Schumacher and his ilk, I fell into learning about climate change more than a decade ago and it was reaffirmed, after listening to and reading many books by the world’s sharpest thinkers, that small really is beautiful and, unless something hitherto unknown happens within a year or two, then a “small” and restrained way of living is that is open to us.

So let’s talk briefly about values, ideals, beliefs and passions, well, mine at least.

Our addiction to 20th Century development ideals, along with our dependence on what is a broken economic system that favours a few and disenfranchises most, while tearing at Earth’s essence leaves me intellectually struggling to understand why we can’t see the senselessness of our behaviour.

We have known, unequivocally, for nearly four decades that using fossil fuels as an energy source was wrong and yet even today, those able to make the necessary changes to renewable energy still procrastinate, equivocate and lack the requisite courage to kick open the door to give humanity just the slightest chance of finding its way out of this mess.

Plans to build a new Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) costing nearly $40 million are controversial, but it seems mostly about the cost and not with regard its environmentally offensive nature. 

Rather than an entirely new building, the City of Greater Shepparton should have turned to existing futuristic-like communications technology to allow the placement of administrative staff at existing buildings throughout the city, freeing up most of its headquarters building in Welsford St, Eastbank, for use as the new SAM.

Our legal processes are similar and so rather than forcing everyone to travel into Shepparton to see and feel the law at work, we should be taking the law to the people, that is we should have a virtual courthouse in every village throughout the district.

The energy we presently rely on for transport will become prohibitively expensive, and beyond that significantly disrupts Earth’s climate systems, human movement will revert to what it once was and local communities will be forced to become more self-sufficient.

Recently it fell to me to defend the idea of a super secondary school for Shepparton and although the consolidation of educational resources has clear benefits, it is an idea that offends beliefs that small is beautiful, a concept that we are going to have get much closer to and better understand as a disrupted climate system forces us to all live in a more localised way.

The new SAM at Shepparton's Victoria Park Lake.

Privately owned vehicles for personal transport, cars electric or otherwise, are problematic, as is air transport; profit at the expense of another’s wellbeing falls into the same purview; privatisation is about private gain at public expense; our taxation system is fundamentally unfair favouring the few and heaping the heaviest costs upon those least able to afford it and unable to pay for legal and financial advice to avoid their moral responsibility of paying tax; our electoral system is flawed favouring a homogenised class of people in our so-called classless society - sortition (choosing names out of hat) will resolve that; yes, work is important, but not so that we have little time for anything else meaning we need to accept artificial intelligence freeing us and enabling us the time to fulfil the promise that flickered during the Renaissance, that is the embrace the arts, literature, science and learning.

We are too rich and wealth equates with an energy use and a lifestyle beyond the Earth’s resources.

Climate change, that is human-induced changes to Earth’s climate system, makes all other concerns redundant and a certain personal calmness, and wellbeing comes from learning about what is happening and why, and then being a part of a positive response.

Democracy and decency demand recognition

Democracy and decency demand that we recognise those who lived in this country before the Englanders arrived in 1788.

Many here believe they enjoy the privileges of a democracy, and some do, but it is slanted to favour just a few, those who by birth and so social class fall in with the machinations of the moneyed minority.

Democracy in its truest sense will not exist in Australia until we have, initially at least, recognized in our constitution that other people lived in this country before Europeans set up camp in Botany Bay.

Australians are inherently easy going and tolerant to a fault, and so have stood back in quietist fashion allowing the more aggressive to supplant democracy with other processes that favour a minority and disenfranchise most.

We now live in a militarized plutocracy; we have been duped into endorsing governance processes that protect the affairs of the elite, while we are rewarded with crumbs from the main table and garrulous distracting entertainments.

The progeny of those who have lived here for 40 000 years mostly make-up the disenfranchised; democracy has failed them; racism has railed against them; and forever seeking refuge in claims of innocence, our ignorance has reigned over two centuries of missed opportunities, brought about by our arrogance and our failure to acknowledge that through our ways we were unable to accommodate the needs of others.

Suggestions that we wait until 2017 to even vote upon the idea of recognizing those original inhabitants is an indefensible delay; the white man’s ways have disrupted and in many cases destroyed the lives of indigenous people and all they seek now is recognition.

Humans, irrespective of where they are from or their affiliations and what their interests might be, need to be recognised.

Recognition is a fundamental human need and right with research clearly illustrating that people emotionally prosper when they are embraced and welcomed into the group or community.

Anarchy - is misunderstood,
 but has an
 inherent decency about it.

Democracy is about recognizing your fellows and with that allowing them to be an integral and so useful part of our community.

Indigenous people traditionally enjoyed a powerful tribal culture in which the expectations of individuals were defined and adherence to those values was demanded, but within and around that was a freedom that most today would consider anarchy.

The perverse tolerance and liberty introduced by the invading Englanders, along with their foreign ways, destroyed existing inherent tribal culture and through the application of a militaristic and authoritarian colonialism built around those who had survived here successfully for 40 000 years a way of life they didn’t understand, and mostly still don’t.

Democracy in its truest sense, as opposed to the present plutocracy, is what all Australians need, or maybe even the genuine exploration and understanding of anarchy.

Card tables and raptuous applause, not paddlocks and memory sticks

Never seen before security and other restrictive arrangements around Brisbane’s recent G20 forum where the reverse of how it should have been.

Where the G20 Summit should have been
held - card tables and rapturous applause.

Rose petals and red carpets should have been thrown down before the leaders of the world’s 20 richest economies, rather than barricades and bomb searches.

Money has always perverted human values and ideals, that’s a generalization, but accurate and timely, and so rather than meeting in secretive and secluded places those same leaders should have gathered around a few card tables at the city’s King George Square.

An appreciative audience should have looked on, cheering as the leaders agreed to liberalize the world economy, making certain that the less than one percent that control most of it, agree to share their spoils with the rest of the world.

The cheering and applause would not have slowed when those G20 “men in suits” voted unanimously to instigate sweeping changes around the world to ensure everyone would not only have something to eat, but that their homes would be secure and the political intrigue with which the world is riddled, would vanish to be replaced by hitherto unseen transparency, friendship, compassion and collaboration.

Amid the continuing rapturous applause, the delegates would commit as one, vowing to act in unison with neighbouring and distant countries as they worked to build a world community in which contemporary Western lifestyles would be softened to allow less developed countries to prosper and edge ahead.

With the world fed, housed and thirsts quenched, and the economy broken to become a servant of man, rather than the reverse, the G20 leaders would have packed up their papers, folded their tables, acknowledged the crowd and taken an economy flight home.

Utopian flights of fancy always stumble and fall when reality intervenes, especially when it is the hard-edged, brutal and unforgiving economic convictions to which the contemporary world has willingly surrendered its kindness, fairness and decency.

Collusion and conspiracy breeds behind closed doors and the transparency allowed by the bright light of day is quickly obscured by darkened windows, cloistered and secreted away in brief cases and on memory sticks, hidden from public gaze by locks and impenetrable codes.

Endless arguments justify the G20 retreat from public gaze, but surely if what is discussed and decided upon is in the broad and best interests of ordinary folk, from the bloke baking your bread to the woman in charge of this newspaper, then why can’t it be laid out for all to see, and consider?

It can’t, not because of the aforementioned arguments, rather because it is simply not fair and despite the swagger and fist-pumping of G20 leaders it is about further entrenching an economic inequality that favours a few and disadvantages most.

Idea goes up in smoke, leader announced by smoke

The young boy fantasized about having his own club, somewhere he could gather with like-minded souls, talk about things he now knows are social justice, equality, fairness, peace and altruism, but the idea vanished like smoke.



Charles Mackay
discusses madness
and delusions. 

Even then, in his naïve and youthful way, he could see there was no place for such an alliance as the world, it seemed, was driven by division and littered by other clubs that proffered similar values, but rarely, if ever, practiced them.

The club, he imagined, would have its own quarters remote from the influence of what he saw was a troubled and divided society, and its supporters would be clearly recognizable because of a distinct garment they wore.

Its totem, his youthful mind had decided, would be tangible, something he could physically experience; something palpable from the existing world and not an imaginary thing whose force rested upon faith that defied reason and drew its strength from illusion.

His idea dissolved as maturity advanced and in listening with intent to the “responsible men”, he became, throughout his teenage years embedded in the status quo to march in lockstep with the very people whom he instinctively suspected, but who, at the time, appeared to have a clear view of the future.

As it turns out, no one, not even the responsible men, could see or imagine what was going to happen and so their efforts combined with the peculiar and eccentric behaviour of the bizarre “clubs” that proliferated like weeds, did little but distort life.

Strangely, one of those, which has more than 1.2 billion club members from all corners of the earth, meets in a club-house remote from society, wears distinctive and in today’s world inappropriate clothing, conveys its message through chants, sustains itself though addiction to a litany of myths, recently announced the arrival of a new leader by pumping white smoke from the club-house chimney.

The young boy understood the importance of his idea, but the fearing people would laugh at his immature utopianism, abandoned his dream only to be seduced by the magic promised by the responsible men.

Youth, they say, is wasted on the young, but once imbedded the ideals remain and although mislaid for a time and confused by modern life, those foundational values of justice, equality, fairness, peace and altruism have recovered.

The white smoke from the club-house chimney might have signalled a new leader, but it was also a timely reminder that the ideals of youth; ideals about tangible public goods, have more value than is to be realized through adherence to a myth.

Nineteenth century author, Charles Mackay, wrote about Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and watching that rising smoke confirmed, for me, the Scotsman’s views.

Letting go of 'what is', is tougher than adopting a new idea

Letting go of understood values, beliefs and work practices is decidedly more difficult than embracing a new idea; a new way of doing things.

Instinctively, it seems, we cling to what it is we know and what is a practiced part of our lives, while the new idea is treated with suspicion and subsequently approached with caution.

Charles
Darwin.

That is not surprising as that personal caveat of caution arises from our ancient reptilian brain that for millennia has been conditioned to consider with distrust anything beyond instinct.

Progress can then be attributed to those rare souls who dare walk down a singular and unfamiliar path buoyed by the hard reality of scientific evidence that the route reason has chosen has the capacity to re-direct and re-shape lives.

Evidence abounds in history illustrating that is was those willing to challenge existing presumptions who changed the course of humanity.

However, frequently whole societies were seduced by charlatans who employed a strange and distorting alchemy to derail the good intentions of many only to see humanity herded into something of a blind canyon.

Today all seven billion of us huddle in a metaphorical cul-de-sac, looking nervously about and expectantly hoping that “business as usual” will show as the way out or magically make more room and yet we wonder whether salvation rests with us embracing a new idea; a new way of living, one unencumbered by exhausted ideas.

History is alive with examples of people restless with the status quo, daringly sailing past the horizon to prove the world wasn’t flat; those who looked to the skies and in risked heresy declaring it was us who were moving and not the sun; and then it was Darwin who bravely helped us understand that it was evolution that shaped us and not some super-natural being using so-called intelligent design.

In each case, and many more, we have had to abandon ideas that were understood, accepted and claimed to be correct and bravely chance identifying with a new paradigm.

The history of humanity is animated with moments when good sense prevailed and we switched our allegiance to a reason based process as opposed one that idolized a faith-based argument.

Humanity, in geological terms, is little more than a baby and the journey to maturity teems with both distractions and distortions; difficulties that will demand an intensive intellectual effort if we are to be equal the emerging dilemmas.

To advance the human experiment we have to step beyond the status quo for its sustenance brings costs beyond our ability to pay and consider a new way of living and so trade existing habits and addictions for a kindness and friendliness that eclipses the brutal efficiency of modern conventions.

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.