Hello, Blog

you're still here. ....

I keep meaning to drop in and write something intelligent, but I think my brain is fried. Between family, work, music, and domestic kerfuffle, there isn't much time left in the day for intelligent thought. Just lately I've been reading a very interesting book called "Sham" about the 'Self Help and Actualization Movement' (Steve Salerno). In short he dishes a well-researched serve at the various Self Help gurus and how they foster various social problems, such as self-perpetuating mental disorders (by labeling everything as an incurable illness) and damage relationships by encouraging self-centeredness and a constant 'grass is always greener' mentality that pervades every area of our lives.

I've also been trying and failing to read the bookclub books, though I'm struggling to settle into the sustained, quiet attention that a literary novel requires.

And we're househunting. We've decided to settle for a little while in our large country town, work permitting. We're here for at least two or three years. I've chosen two areas that I'd like to live - one, a small suburb very close to town and a good public highschool. The other is a suburb further out of town - I've yet to investigate its highschool, but I've heard it's okay. A house on the hill there might have a nice view.

But I'd prefer the more central option - being able to bike into town for a coffee or the library. But we're struggling to find a big enough house there - the land is postage-stamp sized, the houses mostly old and showing their age. A well-renovated house starts to quickly get out of our pricerange, and many of the streets are quite busy, thoroughfares to the outer areas.

So maybe the outer 'burb with the hill is the way to go. I told the agents that I'd rather die than live in the sea-of-colourbond-fence, treeless new suburbs - even a daggy shag-piled seventies house would be preferable to the blandness of those. I was tempted - they're shiny, new and clean-looking - very low maintenance - and my FIL commented that 'they're good solid homes'. He couldn't understand why anyone would want to live in the tiny tucked-away, treed street that my favorite house is on. Would everyone feel that way too? Would I find it impossible to sell a few years down the track?

Currently I'm looking at a large 'clad' (weatherboard or fibro?) house - open plan, airy - wondering if it would be too expensive to heat, whether it would get hot or catch the breeze. Another house is a small old brick house with nice extensions, but it's in a bit of an odd street. I'm not sure if one small loungeroom would become a bit claustrophobic with two 'chalk and cheese' teenagers. Or should I go for the older outer suburb and a sprawling 70s house? Will I end up using the car too much?

What I want for my children

I was thinking about someone I'd heard complaining about their children's life choices. I -think- I've never really foisted my unfulfilled ambitions on my children. I've encouraged them to play music, because I think music is fun and sociable. Is there any life choices I'd disapprove of? Well, dropping out of education and not having some sort of paid employment (I don't think the world owes anyone a living), but beyond that, I don't think so. I'd probably have some problems dealing with religious conversion, especially for my daughter, as most religions are so demeaning to women. Being a gardener, or a lawyer, no problem. Gay, no problem. Transvestite - difficult but I'd deal.

So what do I really want for my children: to be happy. To be healthy. To work hard enough to be satisfied and fulfil their ambitions, in whatever they do, so that they needn't worry about meeting their basic needs, and can enjoy life's pleasures. To be compassionate in their treatment of fellow human beings. To love and be loved.

I can't think of much more than that. What do you think, does that about cover it?

Fear of Strangers

According to recent 'happiness theory', generated by numerous experts and appearing in newspaper editorials around the globe, our level of happiness is determined by the quality of our relationships.

I must admit that there's a certain "d'oh!" factor here - I mean, really. Talk about state the bleeding obvious. But given that we've all absorbed for years the media messages that happiness=money=stuff (etc, etc.....) it's worth taking seriously.

Readexpress has an interview with Eric Weiner in which he discusses his book, "The Geography of Happiness." He observes that happiness doesn't require beaches and palm trees. Of Moldova, the world's least happy nation, he notes:

There's an endemic lack of trust. Not only lack of trust of people close to you, like families and neighbors, but strangers. There's so much corruption and back-stabbing, and a huge amount of envy, it's toxic.

But distrust of strangers isn't anything unusual. Jaan Valsiner's Handbook of Developmental Psychology notes that babies begin to show a fear of strangers at around 9 months (the age they become more mobile, and are more likely to encounter strangers). It's hardwired into us. In 'Of Badges, Bonds and Boundaries', (a fascinating article, I highly recommend it)

Johan M.G. van der Dennen quotes Shaw & Wong:

fear and anxiety need not be causal antecedent conditions. Rather, they can be anticipated events which might or might not happen.

“A genetically coded aversion toward strangers would have enabled individuals to avoid attack more readily or immediately than would learning alone, and by avoiding injury and death, survival would be enhanced, leaving more offspring from these individuals. Over time, those with the genetically coded aversion toward strangers would come to prevail in the population”

And goes on to talk about the 'us and them' schema that is effectively hardwired into the brain. It can be as simple as one writer - (sorry, I've lost the reference) put it - that the people we are talking with are 'us' and the people we are talking about are 'them'. 'Us' are friends, and 'them' are enemy. Which very simply explains the gossiping and bitching among the wives that I've never quite understood.

In modern cities, most people spend a lot of their time supressing that ancient fear, as they ride public transport or do their shopping, or even out socializing. So how is it that in some places, we are able to put aside that fear, while in others, it escalates?

Personally, I don't like cities. I find it unsettling, the way people look past you instead of at you. I like to see familiar faces. I wonder if people who live in a city for a period of time develop a kind of mini-village within their city - the familiar checkout assistants, bus drivers, clerks, the people who catch the same train, the sports coach and gym-goers. They filter out the other strangers, but develop a sense of community. And positive experiences with each other's overlapping communities gives a sense of well-being and safety.

I wonder too about the role of government in this. If a history of oppression, where people have been used against each other, breaks those fragile bonds and encourages distrust. How many unhappy communities are living out the legacy of internal conflict and civil war, where the enemy has come from within? And how do people repair those relationships?

I've still got to do a bit more thinking about this, but I've put up the post as I've entered it in the lifehack.org 'Spread the Love' competition. (Lucky it's luck, not quality!) One of the prizes is 'Zen to Done', Leo Babauta's productivity ebook. Leo's 'Zen Habits' is one of my favorite blogs - he has a warm and personal style and speaks a lot of common sense.

Australia Day

I decided that I wanted to give the kids some secular holidays. A lot of people aren't too keen on national days, but personally, I'm damned grateful that I live in Australia, and I think it's worth celebrating. So we went down town to check out the little street fair - little being the operative word - but the kids had a small treat and enjoyed themselves. Groups of people who'd taken citizenship that morning were milling around in their Sunday best. My parents were immigrants, too. I only saw one Aboriginal person; I wondered how he felt about it all. Many Aborigines observe Australia Day as a day of mourning.

Then we headed to a local community barbeque, with yabbie races, a visiting firetruck, burnt sausages and country music. We painted our faces with red-white-and-blue and green-and-gold and got slightly sunburnt.

Photo (c) Ninnjas at stock.xchng

Baby Steps

Almost the end of the holidays. We've had visits, been on outings, ate too much, all that good stuff.

One of the things I've learned this holiday is that I do need to plan ahead. My preferred spur-of-the-moment approach to life is fine when you are a youngster with no responsibilities (or people willing to save your butt when you fail to deal with them) - but as a parent, and someone attempting to tread lightly on the earth, forethought is required. Planning. Preparation. Organization. All that good stuff that normally has me ducking for cover.

Given that I've been a parent for more than ten years, you'd reckon I'd have this figured out by now. Well kinda. But I still avoid it like the plague. I tried REALLY HARD to be well organized for the family Christmas visit, but there was still a lot of last-minute going on - and because I wasn't calm and collected, things didn't always go to plan, and I often created extra work for myself. There were shopping lists with things missing, meals missing important ingredients, last-minute gift wrapping.

Part of the problem is that because I tend to be overcommitted, I've lacked the time to prepare ahead of time - things are always put off till 'later'. Of course, you don't have any extra time later, either.

Because I hadn't done any extra day-job work ahead of time, I've been trying to write articles while the kids are at home, rather than getting the chores out of the way. With work and chores, there's less time for play than I would like.....

I can't decide that I want to garden because the weather is nice. Seeds need to be sown at the correct time. Not just spring. The compost won't be ready tomorrow. It takes weeks and weeks. This is a good thing, for me. Beginning to live with some connection to the rhythms of nature.

See that tiny speck of green in the middle of the dirt? That's my first radish. Woohoo!

Change our priorities, or die.

I woke up thismorning to the radio telling me that our beautiful Great Barrier Reef would die within 30 years, if we don't do something to stop the change in ocean chemistry.

Can you imagine? Can you imagine what it means, for the great reefs of the world to actually die?

But with Christmas looming, a wander through the shops makes it very clear that nobody is making a change. Despite the rock concerts, the blogging day, the chunk falling off the Eiger and the polar bears drowning, we are still hurtling over the environmental cliff-edge like a bunch of lemmings on speed. Some of us will be clutching our CFL lightbulbs on the way over, some flying over in our hybrid cars, and some freshly washed in our water-saving shower jets. But we're still going over. Because nothing is really changing.

Until we all make real and radical changes, it isn't going to get better. We need to start living like the radical greenies who've been sounding the alarm bells for the last twenty years while the rest of us have had our hands over our ears. All of us. And I'm pointing my finger at myself as I write, don't you worry about that.

I walked through the department store yesterday, and it was the same-old same-old: the huge gift boxes made from non-recycled cardboard, of perfumes and powders and makeup, of ugly mugs and imported chocolates, all wrapped in miles of plastic, ready to be wrapped in miles of printed paper. Like the seeming thousands of people who drove circuits of the parking lot in search of a space, I'd driven there, of course - too far to walk - in search of a book, shipped from China, that I will send by airmail to England. On the way home, too tired to cook, I bought Macdonald's, and the kids had the 'Happy Meals', in their dinky cardboard boxes with ugly, plastic, useless toys.

It is no longer enough to comfort ourselves that we are 'doing our bit' by buying recycled toilet paper and turning off the light as we leave the room. We need to wage war on climate change like the Brits waged war on the Nazis. Every single thing we purchase - power, fuel, food, clothing, objects - should be assigned an eco-value, and we are all on rations. The shiny new V8 is not an object to be envied, but a symbol of environmental disregard: of disregard, in fact, for the future of our children. The latest fashions do not mark you out as a woman of style, but rather an abuser of precious resources.

“You did then what you knew how to do. When you knew better, you did better.” -Maya Angelou

I could hardly breathe, as I lay there listening to the radio and thinking about the poor choices I've made in recent months: the foreign-made clothes, the present suggestions that didn't include a Greenpeace donation, the new tree ornaments, and maybe worst of all, Chinese-made furniture. There's been times when I've made good choices: thrifted glassware rather than new, an Australian-made quilt. A compost bin.

But the reasons for poor choices - finding it hard to buy local, or meeting the expectations of others, or simple laziness, or desire for the bright and shiny - are no longer valid. I've used up my share of the planet years ago. I know better, and now, I must do better.

Overwhelmed.

What do you do, when the job is so enormous, and there is no-one to do it but you? How do you bring yourself to even tackle that 'just one thing', knowing there are a hundred more 'just ones' to follow? And knowing too, that they will all have to be done again, tomorrow.....

Image: courtesy Farid, at sxc.hu