Understanding how much is enough and imagining the solution

Robert and Edward
 Skidlesky's book.

Considerations about what is and what isn’t the good life are as common as opinions: everyone has one.

However growth ideologues have, in contemporary times, hijacked and distorted the human sense of what is worthy and marketed their contorted interpretation of the good life.

The modern rich, developed world is populated by people who equate the good life with accumulation of all it produces, along with the imagined enjoyment of the pleasures that stash of “stuff” brings.

Others have quite a different view and so liken the good life to one of privation and for some the higher life, or good life, only arrives after an ascetic life.

The debate about what is the good life and how you access it is as old as man, but rather than closing in on the answer, it is becoming more remote.

Many equate the good life and happiness with growth and wealth, but extensive and world-wide research point to weaknesses in that argument illustrating that once fundamental needs are answered, the good life and happiness rests on other immeasurable “goods”.

Writing in their 2012 book “How much is enough?: Money andthe Good Life” Robert and Edward Skidlesky said: “The basic goods are qualities, not quantities, objects of discernment, not measurement”.

Those “goods”, according to the Skileskys are health, security, respect, personality, harmony with nature, friendship and leisure.

Personality is about one being able to frame and execute a plan of life that reflects their tastes, temperament and conception of the good, while leisure must be accompanied by the term “purposeful”.

Interestingly, most men live much longer than they ever did, but that cannot be attributed to growth and nor can growth claim those other basic “goods” mentioned earlier.

The United Kingdom has doubled its per capita income since 1974, but residents have not tightened their grip on those basic goods, and in some respects they now have fewer of them.

“We have chased after superfluities and neglected necessities,” the Skidleskys wrote.

The good not mentioned by the Skidleskys is “imagination”, probably the most powerful, and underused, attribute of the human repertoire.

People of all stripes are obedient to the growth mandate and through a lack of imagination seem unable to conceive of a world in which they could easily and regularly access those basic goods through the abandonment ego boosting consumption.

That consumption, clearly indicated by a host of respected reports, has the world on a perilous path and so until we can imagine the good life without the need to exploit finite resources we will stumble blindly toward the abyss.

The good life waits, but our inability to forego present delights and embrace that new actuality is what darkens its dawn.

Our sustainable future depends on us differentiating between idleness and leisure

An artist's impression of
the late Betrand Russell.

Most are unable to understand how, can or why we need to work fewer hours, just as most are equally unable to differentiate between idleness and leisure.

Idleness is just that; the human psyche is sleeping, it is in neutral going neither forward or backwards, just maintaining the status quo, which when examined critically is about deterioration.

Leisure, coloured by many connotations, is contrastingly active both physically and, critically, intellectually.

Working fewer hours is not about ensuring easy access to idleness rather, it allows people more time to engage in leisure, enhancing their well-being.

It was in the 1930s the economist John Maynard Keynes came to the conclusion that the work of the capitalist system would largely be done when human wants and needs (terms he wrongly interchanged) were satiated.

Keynes thought that by now those of us in developed nations would have enough to satisfy all our needs without having to work more than three hours a day.

He was both right and wrong: we have more than satisfied our needs, at least in the wealthy developed nations, but he underestimated the skill and talent of the capitalistic demigods that have unlocked humans’ wants, submerging the leisure and pleasure that arises from working fewer hours.

British philosopher, the late Betrand Russell, said, just a few years after Keynes observations about working fewer hours that while leisure is undoubtedly pleasant, “men would not know how to fill out their days if they had only four hours of work out of the twenty-four”.

“In so far as this is true in the modern world, it is a condemnation of our civilization; it would not have been true in any earlier period,” he said.

Russell said there had once been a capacity among people for light-heartedness and play, which had been extinguished by the cult of efficiency.

“The pleasures of urban populations,” he said “have become mainly passive: seeing cinemas, watching football matches, listening to the radio, and so on.

“This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an active part,” he said.

Writing in the 19^th Century, philosopher, political economist and civil servant John Stuart Mill, said he was not “charmed with the ideal of life held out by those who think that the normal state of human beings is that of struggling to get on; that the trampling, crushing, elbowing, and treading on each other’s heels, which form the existing type of social life, are the most desirable lot of human life, or anything but the disagreeable symptoms of one of the phases  of industrial progress”.

That was then, this is now and everything, but nothing has changed.

Unfolding dilemmas are greater than our vocabulary

Our vocabulary is inadequate to help us understand and address dilemmas presently facing humanity.

What is evolving, what faces us, what must be addressed and so resolved are changes to our lifestyle so different from our experience, understanding and knowledge that they are beyond language; they have a complexities that largely exceed quantitative and qualitative description.

Lester R. Brown.

Standing between us and the resolution of those difficulties is, oddly, democracy and, understandably, the egotism, individualism and the natural human hunger for what is better that drives the concept that is capitalism.

Democracy has been society’s friend for centuries, but the resolution of the world’s climate difficulties, dealing with the exhaustion of our finite resources and managing the intricacies of the world’s imploding economy needs an authoritarian-like government: or maybe a kindly dictator.

The long-term survival of society and its maturity to something in which people are put before profit will force the abandonment of what is understood to be capitalism; finally we will grasp that the blatant antagonism of capitalism is foreign to the broad wellbeing of society.

One of Europe’s leading experts in sustainability strategies and corporate responsibilities, French woman, Elisabeth Laville, has argued that the rich of the world (that’s you and I) should be focussed on increasing their wellbeing, while decreasing material possessions.

Laville’s ideas can only be implemented if maturity brings with it a comprehension of the terms, the ideas, the concepts and the vocabulary that allowed the construct of an unbalanced world; a world that favours the rich both in terms of possessions and around that, rights.

Our vocabulary is our identity and although one is no better than any other, in our capitalistic world those “who have the gold, make the rules”.

Those “rules” are obviously not working, but the vocabulary which supports and authenticates them is embedded in our language and the survival (literally) of our society hinges on us truly understanding the implications of what it is we are saying.

Writing in the preface to “How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse” Lester R. Brown said it was not easy to talk about the prospect of social collapse, because it is difficult to imagine something we have never experienced.

 “No generation has faced a challenge with the complexity, scale, and urgency of the one that we face,” he said.

Discussing the collapse of civilizations Brown quoted former Rockefeller Foundation president, Peter Goldmark, who said: “The death of our civilization is no longer a theory or an academic possibility; it is the road we’re on”.

Signposts urging us to change direction abound, but we need to understand and comprehend the vocabulary in which they are written or we will continue on this troublesome road.

Years of hard work realised as Community Garden is officially opened

Years of hard work was realised on Saturday, June 23, when the Buddina Community Garden was officially opened.

Elise Barry, 33, had the idea about three years ago, found others were equally excited about what she imagined and with them formed a committee that has created what some have said is Australia’s best community garden.

This hand operated pump
 connected to bore
 water is a highlight
at the Buddina
Comunity Garden.

There were times, Elise said, when the whole project somewhat overwhelmed her, but the broad excitement in the community for the concept always renewed and refreshed her energy.

She continued as the committee’s president right through to recent opening and will continue in that role, although stepping back a little for day-to-day activities as she is confident the committee is now well equipped to further build on what exists.

That excitement was subtle, but obvious, at the opening, which was really little more than a celebration of job well done; well done with limited funds and resources, but boundless amounts of enthusiasm and of course enable though the exercising of friendships and contacts, something that is only possible on a true community project.

The Sunshine Coast Regional Council, represented at the opening by the Deputy Mayor, Cr Chris Thompson, provided the land – an area at the back of a the Kevin Asmus Park next to the Kawana Library in Nanyima St – and played a key role early in the project with grant money and the provision of various materials.

Buddina Community Garden
co-ordinator, Elise Barry, at
the June 23 opening.

Mr Asmus, who is a member of the garden’s committee and was at the opening ceremony, and who is also known as the “Mayor of Kawana”, received from Cr Thompson, along with others on the committee and various local businesses the supported the project, certificates of acknowledgement.

About 75 people listened as the Member for Kawana, Mr Jarrod Bleijie, talked about the creation of the gardens, something he had physically worked on, congratulated all those involved and then cut a ribbon stretching across the door way of a purpose built shed that serves the garden.

The gardens, which are publically accessible, have a series of plots that local people can hire, for a small fee, and grow whatever vegetables they choose or prefer.

One committee member has used his plot to grow flowers.

Making the gardens as sustainable as possible, two water sources are used, rain water stored in tanks and bore water that is easily accessed through a centrally located hand pump. Of course there is a third source, naturally occuring rain.

The gardens are complemented by the establishment of a chook pen and beyond being a wonderful place to dispose of kitchen scraps, the chooks are proving to be hugely popular, both children and adults.

More information about the Buddina Community Garden can be found on its website.

Social capital - our most valuable resource

Social capital is, unquestionably, of more value to Australia and those who live here than any other resource.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse -
they have now been joined by a fifth.

The goodwill we demonstrate toward others, regardless of who they might be, will benefit people of this island nation, and by implication Shepparton, more than anything we might care to point to.

Social capital, being such an intangible part of society and a concept that escapes traditional forms of measurement, is considered by pragmatists to be simply pointless philosophical meanderings.

However, should the life of an individual, a community or even a whole nation be facing tremulous times, then people instinctively turn to the well of social capital to sate their thirst; or need, for the warmth, support, encouragement that only another can give.

Although a nebulous and so ill-defined thing, social capital has meanings as numerous as those who have attempted to define it.

One definition of social capital declares it is about the value of social networks that bond similar people and build bridges between diverse people, with norms of mutuality.

Social capital is also about sharing information, having trust in others and living a life of reciprocity, which in colloquial terms means you return a favour, and often the help given is often simply humane or philanthropic and so not ignited by any previous actions that warrant re-payment.

The Goulburn Valley was once as xenophobic as most places in the world, but that intolerance was first softened when Chinese people arrived in the area about the time of Victoria’s 19^th century gold rush, followed by an surge in the arrival of southern Europeans after the Second World War and continues with the flood of settlers from Middle Eastern countries and many from parts of Africa.

The arrival of new people enriches a community’s social capital and the diversity of Greater Shepparton is such that it is becoming one of Australia’s richest resources.

Social capital’s arrival in the Goulburn Valley, and Shepparton and Mooroopna in particular, has been partly organic, becoming a growth that is orchestrated by a few, but in general is a response by new arrivals to the tolerance, generosity and support given by those already living here – that is social capital at work.

The strength and social validity of the community has become known and so, simply, more people want to live here.

We have generous dollop of social capital, but not for a second should we assume plain sailing for loitering on the horizon are the “Five” Horsemen of the Apocalypse – energy scarcity, burgeoning populations, human-induced climate difficulties, the militarization and fracturing of the world’s economy, and a strange and inexplicable reluctance of most to consider their behaviour.

Social capital is the only thing that will help us confront, and move those horsemen on.

Chane and circumstance opened the door

Chance and circumstance, rather desire and design, opened the door to journalism.

Confucius - "Find a job you
 love and you will never work
another day in you life."

Traditional academic endeavours had personally reached their pinnacle in Year 11 as they seemed irrelevant, but beyond, that and probably even more importantly, family finances wouldn’t have permitted anything beyond what was then matriculation.

In what was one of life’s random serendipitous moments, Echuca’s Riverine Herald newspaper advertised for a cadet journalist; I applied and won the job.

Journalism was, to me, and absolutely unknown beast, I had no particular interest in writing, reading had been foreign to me, but it seems I had the one vital ingredient for what makes for a journalist: an insatiable curiosity.

Despite a few sojourns into other industries, journalism has been at the core of my attention for more than 35 years.

Many people have, throughout those years and in a hierarchical sense, been superior to me and so afflicted some authority, but never have I had a boss, not at least as it is understood in contemporary terms.

My “boss” has always been personal, despite the fancies of those supposedly in charge. Control has been leveled at me by privately-held values, morals and intent along with sensitivity to the greater good of whatever community it was in which journalism was the focus.

That all sounds somewhat high-minded, but journalists who get the job done, need to stay in touch with the passions and interests of those they are writing about and for, rather than the somewhat brutal growth driven wants of the modern corporate world.

The idea of actually working for those you serve, your customers (readers in journalistic terms), rather than any individual superiors or a company, can be a difficult paradigm with which to align yourself, and even more troubling for those in a top-down authoritarian structured organization.

With the world becoming more economically fragile the truly liberal (note small “l”) organization is becoming rarer and many growth-based structures are despotic or totalitarian in outlook.

Many workplaces are pock-marked with strikingly difficult internal politics; an insistence on growth that might offend sensibilities both within and beyond the company, and to further enrich the drama, there is the criticality of abiding by company philosophies to ensure the security of income, in other words avoiding the sack.

Divided loyalties induce stress and personal wellbeing hinges on reaching an individual intellectual position in which individual wants and needs are in accord with the broad ambitions of your employer. That, of course, is easier said than done.

Work is not about your boss or your company; rather it is about you, social interaction, your community and your customers, and if we take the advice of Confucius:  “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work another day in your life”.

From around the world to MARS

Nathalia's Bill Kelly and the
owner/Director of the Melbourne
 Art Rooms (MARS) in Bay St,
Port Melbourne, Andy Dinan,
 standing before one of the nearly
 40 artworks by Bill that will
be exhibited at the gallery
until July 1.

Bill Kelly's artwork has been exhibited around the world and now they are "on MARS".

In what is something of a rarity for the Nathalia artist, an exhibition at a commercial gallery was officially opened on July7 at the Melbourne Art Rooms (MARS) in Port Melbourne.

More than 150 people were at the gallery to hear the host of Radio National's "Creative Instinct", Michael Shirrefs, formally opened "The Heart of Matter" exhibition.

Victorian Premier, Ted Baillieu.

Bill, known and recognised around the world for his concerns about peace and the broader human condition is not known for showing at commercial galleries, but having had a long association with MARS and upon learning that Andy Dinan collected coats in the winter and handed out to the poor, he agreed to the MARS exhibit.

Bill and his wife Veronica, who was at last night's opening, are the energy behind Nathalia's Blake St G.R.A.I.N. Store, the town's art-space that only recently hosted the annual meeting Regional Arts Victoria at which Victoria's Premier, Mr Ted Baillieu, was among the guests.