Doping in sport only a distraction from what really matters

Machiavellian ideas in which the end justifies the means seem to have invaded Australian sport.

The subsequent uproar about this assault on what for many is the personification of life here has flooded the media with detail about what has happened, what is happening and opinion of all stripes.

Live crosses on television to impromptu meetings involving top executives from most sporting codes, Federal Government ministers, senior police officers and various expert commentators suggest that life here is under threat.

Interestingly life in Australia is under threat and although sport is not solely responsible, it contributes in distracting us from the unfolding difficulties.

The Machiavellian concept that puts achievement and success ahead of all else, irrespective of human cost, is at work in other areas and living in thrall of profit we have long ignored externalities.

Now, however, the accounts, stamped with “Final warning” are tumbling in and a life in which the win at any cost, of which the drugs in sport is just a small example, is unravelling.

The prevailing market mentality has been beneficial, but now rather than engage in that somewhat confrontational sphere we need to create a market of ideas about creating community resilience and within that building avenues that lead to a different way of living; different from what exists, but not necessarily worse.

A collision of circumstances producing an outcome that makes the sports doping dynamic almost irrelevant is of such sweeping importance that Australia, and the entire world, should be on a war-like footing as it prepares for humanity’s most significant challenge.

Beyond occasional mention on opinion pages, a few general stories and feature pieces examining the unfolding dilemmas, rarely do we acknowledge the complexity, seriousness and urgency of responding to what is happening.

The idea that the broader community needs to be actively involved in working through these dilemmas – our changing climate, energy shortages and a burgeoning population – appears largely ignored and is restricted, mostly, to academic circles.

If ever we needed to embark on that Machiavellian path, it is now.

“The end” is, however, diametrically different from what exists and so demands remarkably different “means”.

Our adversary is implacable and its contempt for our arrogance and willingness to ignore the blatant indicators of decline and disruption sees humanity effectively cornered and seeking solace in unproven and yet to be developed things such as geo-engineering, or the drawing of resources from, or escape to another planet.

Technology, the very thing that has brought us to where we are, will play a role in alleviating what troubles us, but it needs to be intimate, intricate and of a human scale.

Quite different, however, from the dilemma presently bothering sport, effectively an unimportant distraction from what truly matters.

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.

Excitement needs to be moderated by reason

Excitement about the discovery of huge quantities of shale oil in South Australia needs to be moderated by reason.

Shale Oil is unconventional
 and best left in the ground.

World-wide research suggests that humanity would benefit most if that oil remained where it is – in the ground.

The oil itself is not inherently or necessarily a bad thing, rather it is the lifestyle it encourages and allows.

The sums about "Energy Returned on Energy Invested" (EROEI) are endless and mean little until we finally understand that is people who really matter and not an equation that is more about economics than wellbeing.

Discoveries of shale oil, an unconventional source, in South Australia’s Arckaringa Basin near Cobber Pedy sees many overwhelmed by excitement as optimistic pundits predict 233 billion barrels of oil worth $20 billion; sufficient to make Australia self-sufficient in oil, an exporter and wealthy.

Oil, little more than the historical wealth of the planet quarantined in earthen chambers to ensure its destructive potential remained locked away, has been liberated and so taken humanity on a wonderful journey.

However, the party is over.

Living with the carelessness of irresponsible rich kids we have spent an inheritance that took billions of years to assemble in less than 300 and the resultant chaos impatiently stalks our home.

Most everything you can see and touch, irrespective of where you are, is there because of oil.

Whether or not the oil-madness that has gripped humanity is good or bad is largely ideological, as is the conversation about the implications of burning fossil fuels.

Any attempt to understand whether or not we exploit the oil beneath the Arckaringa Basin hinges, equally, on our understanding of the unfolding damage we have done to our atmosphere.

Most every qualified thinker on earth, including the world’s best climatologists, will point to the burning of fossil fuels as the reason for climate change and all would heartily agree that the best place for the Arckaringa oil is in the ground.

The facts are frightening, but until we know, understand and accept them, our response to our changing climate will be absolutely inadequate.

With the 2013 Federal Election campaign is still in the crib, the contenders are already promising economic growth and such short-term thinking is the antithesis of what is needed to endure the complexities of climate variances.

We need a government that has the will to ignore the $20 billion under the Arckaringa Basin sands and beyond that the political will to create conditions that lead to a diversified and decentralized Australia in which small is beautiful and resilience is a prized attribute.

There is little we can do as individuals to mitigate climate change, but we can advocate for a change in attitude at our workplaces, and in both our communities and governments.

Many seek comfort in 'My Country' as climate change tightens its grip

Many retreat to the emotional comfort of “My Country” when forced to confront the reality of Australia’s changing weather patterns.

The legacy of Cyclone Oswald charges down Australia’s east coast bringing with it record rainfalls and subsequent flooding to many coastal areas and brutal winds that have ripped apart those same communities.

Dorothera Mackellar.

Tornadoes erupt without warning from this decidedly different combination of winds and heat over the oceans and land producing circumstances described as “never seen before” by a meteorologist.

Storms and rains of that never seen before intensity in the north of Australia, brutal bushfires in Victoria, heat of such intensity in central Australia that the Bureau of Meteorology had to use new colours on its maps to depict the event and still we argue and procrastinate about the realities of climate change.

It is unquestionably a reality and the longer we drag our feet, and continue with “business as usual”, the worse these so called “weather events” become.

However, the more dramatic and damaging the apparently disparate “weather events” become the more many people turn to the writing of Dorothea Mackellar for comfort.

Writing early last century, while in England, in a time absolutely unrelated to what is happening early this century, Mackellar attempted to assuage her loneliness by writing her memorable poem, “My Country”.

The second verse is the most quoted:

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

Those eight lines of poetry written remote in time and distance from what is happening today in Australia are still alive in the minds of those unable to accept the reality that humans, a plague on the planet according to some, have changed the world’s climate systems.

You and I alone cannot have any measurable impact on the world’s weather systems, but we can change our attitudes and work together to build a more resilient community; a community that might be in a position to endure the unfolding changes to our weather patterns.

Writing on Saturday, social researcher, Hugh Mackay, discussed that in recognizing the early signs of climate change, some countries had embarked on clean and renewable energy sources, but there appeared no sense of urgency in Australia.

Writing an imaginary retrospective view for Australia day, Mackay said: “Even if it was too late to avert disaster for much of the world’s population, surely people realised a clean planet would be better than a dirty one for the survivors.”

Yes, Mackellar lived in a different time and wrote for a different time and although that Australia still exists, it demands a different response.

Walking about your city can make you 'happy, hopeful and healthy'

Walking is a favoured method of getting about the city.

Cycling is next and when time or distance precludes those options, driving is the next choice.

Tony Taylor's,
"Fishing the
River of Life".

Public transport, buses, need to be in the mix, but sadly it seems to be too infrequent and always appears to be not where I am or going where it is I want to go.

Research illustrates that for public transport to be truly effective, read useful; it needs to be effectively going “past your door” every seven minutes.

Our future will be decidedly different from what we know today and those three transport methods – walking, cycling and public transport – will become elementary.

They are, it has been said, society’s “silver bullet” as walking and cycling are both inevitably about exercise rescuing us from host of health difficulties and public transport, just like walking and cycling, will be our fundamental method of movement as the world really begins to scrabble for energy.

After 200 000 years of evolution, walking is still fundamental to our lives and our reactions have evolved in accord with that pace to ensure that a collision between walkers is a rare as snow in the Goulburn Valley.

Beyond ensuring that we can walk collision free, evolution has shaped our mental capabilities to coherently absorb what is happening around us we walk, or even at a steady cycling pace.

Driving determines that your attention be on the task at hand, or it should, and so the intricate and intimate realities of your community become a blur as you speed by; at least speed in terms of your cognitive ability to take note of what is in your field of vision, as limited as it is.

So, if you care about your community walk, explore the streets to which you have never been, look at the buildings, check out the signs, be curious, wonder why certain things are or are not happening, pick up some rubbish, encounter a stranger and talk with them, spend a few minutes talking with a friend and embed yourself in your community.

Coincidently as these thoughts were taking shape a friend lent me a book written by a 80-year-old allegedly about fishing, which it obliquely was, but in reality it was mediation about life and in which the author, Tony Taylor, thought about the five things he could pass onto his eight-year-old grandson; things that a person could do every day to make to make them healthy, hopeful and happy.

Taylor said people should develop friendships; be physically active; foster curiosity about the world; continue education throughout their life and finally, do not think about money all the time, rather offer help and services to all.

“These five things”, he wrote, “maintain good mental health”.
 

Getting it together or pulling it apart - both demand effort and intent

Pulling your life together, and keeping it that way, necessitates intent, planning and effort.

Oddly, pulling it apart, and sustaining that, requires equal intent, planning and effort.

Deciding on which side
of the line we stand.

Disequilibrium demands an exertion of certain mental or physical energy in order to achieve a purpose, just as does achieving its opposite, equilibrium.

Walking home recently as the temperature charged toward 40 degrees, three people walking the other way, with equal intent, shared the responsibility of carrying a slab a beer.

The nearest liquor outlet was nearly two kilometers away and so it was quite a journey to secure the 10kg package; a package that promised passing pleasure, but which would leave a permanent legacy of difficulties.

Those “lager luggers” obviously had a plan, had employed it with some intent and were demonstrably prepared to put in the effort to see their design through to fruition.

Any conversation questioning another’s conduct is fraught with danger as it is loaded with vagaries, opinion and seemingly insoluble differences about what is and isn’t right – maybe those struggling home with the slab of beer were doing the right thing and perhaps any judgment about their behaviour is what really warrants questioning.

Who is right and who is wrong about anything is a remarkably difficult delineation to make and probably the term “wrong” can only be applied to a few consensually agreed to and broadly understood evils.

Culture and tradition invades our lives circumscribing many things for whatever society in which we live decides for us what falls either side of the line that separates the good from bad.

Most alarming however, is the disengagement of many who appear to have abandoned the mutuality that is the energy of communities and rather than commit themselves to the greater good they appear to have capitalized the “I” in individual.

Such a development not only appeals to the corporate world, but is one that is actively encouraged for its bank balances are enhanced as people become more remote from, and less engaged with the with the forces that drive our world.

Existing processes have patently favoured an elite few, but it would be unfair not to attribute many societal advances to the present dynamic.

Rather than simply criticize and judge our fellows - that is far too simplistic and destructive - we need to engage with the vigor that shapes our communities, collaborating with those forces to guide them to an end that benefits people more so than profit.

That in itself is simplistic as any change so sweeping and intricate draws its reason from ideas as yet misunderstood by many and so to have people engage with their community they have to be able to see a benefit.

Education reveals that benefit.

Libertarian beliefs, bushfires and ideologies - what a conflagration!

A friend recently described himself as a 19^th century libertarian.

Such an observation demanded some research for this fellow is a sociable, likeable, community minded, not at all individualistic as success in the modern seems to demand and so does not equate at all with the popular conception of someone who has such beliefs.

Tasmania's fires.

As an incredibly reasonable, thoughtful and generous man, who always exhibits fairness and concern for the social equality of his fellows, my friend’s values appeared at odds with the popular understanding of a libertarian.

However, and interestingly, the traits he exhibits sit comfortably with those who align themselves with libertarianism, at least libertarianism of the classic variety.

Libertarians of all stripes are somewhat uncomfortable with government intervention and yet, strangely, they see something of a limited role for such an authority provided it does not impinge upon the liberty of individuals, either intentionally or through an unintended consequence.

Those who claim the title of “libertarian” are as different in content as they are in action, but broadly they are “classic libertarians” (such as my friend), “hard” and “neo-libertarians”.

They are suspicious of governments and yet they are equally wary of the behaviour or market, and yet they argue for a truly free market, one that is not influenced or favoured by governmental decisions.

Interestingly, some libertarians find a certain comfort in several anarchical ideals for while anarchy has a fearfully bad reputation it really means, historically, “without government” an idea that meshes with many endorsed by libertarians.

Critics of libertarians might argue that philosophies they pursue and endorse concern only the “big-end of town”, but for someone truly aligned to the libertarian cause would deny that and argue for equality and fairness, both in social and hierarchical terms, and in economic dealings.

However, the troubles of life are frequently beyond tightly held political and religious beliefs as exampled by the recent bushfires that engulfed parts of Tasmania.

As many eyeballed tragedy with homes, property, and their lives, in the path of the advancing blaze, it is unlikely anyone questioned their political or religious beliefs as they negotiated themselves around that difficulty.

Some may have found comfort in religious beliefs later, but it seems improbable they would have been would have been front of mind at the height of the fires, when the needs of sheer survival would have clearly supplanted those interests, just as political fancies would have been equally remote.

Unfolding dilemmas facing the earth; the collision of burgeoning population, energy scarcity and a worsening climate, demand we re-consider the status of personal ideologies.

The politics of tomorrow just simply has to be different from what exists for what we have is more about answering wants, rather than peoples’ true needs.