Endangered

So, I haven’t slept all night.  And in my flick through of news,  I see that some guy named Sam “The Punisher” Abdul Rahim aka Melbourne’s most marked man (so the news has taken pains to tell us) has been shot dead in a carpark in Preston in front of his girlfriend.  And they’re acting like it’s some kind of tragedy.

Do I care about this specimen that chose to live his life being a low life thug?  No.  Do I care he was gunned down in front of his girlfriend?  As far as I’m concerned, she knew his lifestyle and his criminal conduct which ensured others of his kind marked him for death.  She chose to stay and be part of his life.  Choices come with consequences.  

What doe concern me is that this happened barely a 10-minute drive from my front door; and that’s a nice, sedate, 50kph 10-minute drive.  Go to Google maps for Melbourne and search Quest Apartments Preston, then scroll a bit north to find Edwardes Lake.  That’s how far we are apart.

I wonder how many times I stood next to this man at the supermarket, or in sat near him in the food court at Northland while I enjoyed an iced donut with a cup of coffee.  When did my local neighborhood become a slum of underworld thugs?

When I grew up, this sort of thing happened elsewhere.  Far off elsewhere.  It wasn’t right around the corner.  We were safe.

I could (and did – daily) go off on my bike by myself for hours on end, riding all over the neighbourhood on both sides of Canterbury Road despite the expressed limit of my freedom was 5 houses in either direction, according to my mother.  However, nobody ever took me to task over my lengthy outings and absence in the street where there was nowhere to hide.

Nobody ever offered me sweets or stalked me in a car.  Nobody ever tried to strike up conversation unless they were worried about a me for some reason or they were doing their garden and I’d stopped by because their garden was pretty.  I was safe, and I absolutely felt it.

Had I fallen or hurt myself, I felt secure going to any door and asking for help..  I never felt dark clouds of threat hanging over me.  I would have received help from anyone I went to, and they would have called my parents to come and get me had I needed it and cared for me until they arrived.  I had no need to be scared.  The world I saw was a safe place and I was safe within it.

Of course, we knew about stranger danger.  We knew about the Neighborhood Watch program and how to identify houses where sanctuary could be found by their Neighbourhood Watch badge on the letterbox (or someone else just as visible) which pointed an unmistakable path to sanctuaries which would always take in a kid who needed help no matter the day, time or reason.   

Now, here I am, decades later and far more infirm than I ever was back then, and those days of safe havens seem very far away and utterly lost to me.

I only WISH places like that were still available to me when I feel unstable on my feet, or overly breathless and in need of a chance to sit down and drink some water, or even just because I’m feeling uncertain and certainly unsafe about the people around me.  I know that in my current condition, I’m a prime target for thugs of any age who are on the prowl looking for a target to amuse themselves with.

The sad truth is that even in my own doors, I’m not safe no matter how much I try convince myself that I am.  I don’t know if there’s anywhere on the planet that could genuinely be labelled “safe”.  Not in this day and age.

A few years ago, a woman was gunned down right up the road from my home. In fact, I could have walked there in just minutes it was that close.  Literally, streets away.

More recently, I was here enjoying a coffee and watching a show on the tele when there was a massive boom and my entire house shook.  A car had ignited in the next street.  Only a single row of houses separated that street from me.  It turns out the car was stolen and dumped there before being set alight. 

And what about that guy who was in a car running from police and which drove into our car pen.  They mowed down two fences, managed to do a U-turn to evade the cops and some took off running.  One hid under the tree outside my bedroom window.  It was around 2am.

I spoke to him, asking who he was, and that got the attention of the police who were examine the damage and discussing the matter.  When they pulled him out from under to tree to question him and pat him down, he had THREE knives son him.  That took place on the other side of the driveway directly across from me.

They let him go after taking his details but he came back a few days later.  Under the cover of dark, he smashed one of my living room windows, utterly destroying it.  Of course, I had been up, it was mid-evening.  By the time I could have gotten to the front door, he would have been long gone, so there was no point trying.  It was clearly payback for my having exposed his presence to the cops that night.  And it’s not the first time we’ve had a police chase end in our car pen. 

Then there’s the couple that lived on the other side of the fence to the next street who were selling drugs and we had their clientele coming and going at literally all hours of the day and night. 

And what about that woman who lives literally right around the comer (a 2-minute walk away) who likes to play up her “mental disability” so she doesn’t have to work and can play on her phone all day.  She’s nowhere near as ‘disabled’ as she likes to make out, but if she keeps the act up, she never has to work, can get away with most things, and gets free money from the Government to fund her grossly lazy lifestyle.

One of her favourite pastimes is to discuss sex around the local kids and does so with wanton abandon.  She has no adult friends (unless you count the men who come by) so she seeks out the children, even venturing into their back yards to engage with them regardless that it’s trespassing. 

Her sex talk is explicit and her sole topic of conversation.  She doesn’t care how inappropriate it is and she doesn’t care if their parents find out  She will rave on about her many  boyfriends telling anyone who will listen how long their dicks are and what they do with them.  If the kids try to move away, she follows them to continue.  All of them are under 13 and the youngest is 5. 

She also has men in the neighbourhood who drive around this street specifically hoping to run into her.  She calls them her boyfriends.  I beg to differ.  A boyfriend doesn’t mine being seen in public with you and will take you out places to share time with you and I proud to have you on his arm.  In this case, she gives them sex any time they snap their fingers.  If that means having sex in the back of a car while the neighbourhood kids ae barely 4 feet away, so be it.

If I thought I could be anywhere safer, I’d move.  I don’t think any such place exists though.  I’m no safer here than I would be if I moved to another suburb.  The rot has sunk in all over.  The days of safe areas are long gone.

We never used to be a violent city.  Now, when I most need to feel safe, and am a prime target to this scum, there is no place to run.  I don’t know the words to convey how distressing that is. 

If you want to file a police report, you’d better be sure the scum don’t know your name or where you live because they can and will come back to make you pay for ever daring to open your mouth.  See my window for proof of that.  That puts all the power squarely with the scum and makes helpless victims of those who do the right thing.

While we don’t have the crime level of the USA, what we do have is horrific.  I don’t know how Americans ever manage to stay sane.  What we do have is bad enough.

What about the guy who held up the Lindt Café in Sydney and took anyone in there as hostage?  

Or the creep who had been released on bail and drove his car though the Bourke Street Mall gleefully mowing down pedestrians left and right?

For the most part, they come armed with machetes and knives instead of guns and feel like superheroes when they prey upon the innocent. 

I don’t know what kind of world we live in, but what seems abundantly clear is that there is no sanctuary, no way to stop them and absolutely everywhere. 

The biggest question is, when did this world become so sick and twisted that we have increasingly lost our ability to be truly shocked by it anymore. 

We have a banquet of vile events endlessly fed to us via the tv, on the internet, in video games, and the news reports.  Then, suddenly, it’s no longer at arm’s length or happening to someone else far away.  It’s on your doorstep and there is no place to hide. 

It’s a view of the world I am learning to despise and find myself with no choice to embrace.  To put on rose coloured glasses and ignore what is unfolding around me is sheer suicide. 

I just can’t help finding this world view to be depressing, vile and utterly anxiety inducing.  Where are the bolt holes when you need them?  How I long for the golden days that I never appreciated enough while I lived them? 

There’s a statistic somewhere that says that in our whole history, we have only been free of major conflict for just 288 days.  They stress major conflict.  In my humble opinion, who needs major conflict when the violence has come home and is around us every second of every day? 

Maybe we should hang out a warning to any alien visitor.  Earth: No place to hide.  No way to avoid it.  No end in sight.  Visit at your own risk.

Just how did we become such a vile species? 

One Second

It was a day that will live in the memory of everyone who saw it.  If you weren’t there, I doubt you could ever imagine the impact or the scope of how badly it hurt nor how vastly it changed so many in a heartbeat. 

A lift off that took with it the hopes and dreams of every nothing and nobody on the planet who grew up on a diet of science fiction and dreams of one day going to the stars.

72 seconds of all our dreams flying against a clear blue sky, the perfect backdrop to visions we had spent our lives cherishing and longing to grasp.

One more second that arrived and shocked the world into stunned silence, prevented us from breathing and launched us all into sheer disbelief until the shattered voice uttered the words that the shuttle had exploded. 

Then the screams.  And it began.

The pictures of the ship flying apart and falling to earth piecemeal.

The images of Christa’s parents and sister, gazing up at the wreckage, screaming and wracked with horror. 

Faces of the mission control crew who were clearly destroyed with grief but still had a job to do, each trying to hold it together as best they could, some not succeeding so well.  Each wondering what they should have seen that could have prevented this and riddled with perhaps undeserved guilt.

And those of us who grew up dreaming of the stars that would always be denied us, feeling our dreams dying just as surely as the lives of the crew falling in ashes within the wreckage still plummeting to the sea before our eyes.

People died.  Dreams died.  Hopes died.  And the shuttle program shut down for years.

We grew up with hopes and lauded each success.  We digested a diet of books and TV shows that fed us the stars. 

With every mission, a part of us went with each astronaut and we felt we, too, had touched a place beyond our little insignificant, worthless worlds. 

In some place, in a way we could never define, we were out there.  We were somebody.  We stood before a universe we didn’t know and told them all we were here.  We mattered.  We were seen if only in our imaginations.  And then we were cut to ribbons and our feeling of success crushed.

If you never grew up in a world where such hopes flew so high, I wonder how it can ever be understood how much was lost and how painfully it was torn from our eager fingers that fought to hold on and cling to the final seconds before reality set in. 

We were not yet linked to the rest of the planet by internet.  We had no mobile phones or tablets.  We were simple, disconnected people who read newspapers and watched the TV to find out what was happening in the world.  We watched the broadcast of this launch that day, and for many of us, our eyes enviously devoured the 7 astronauts as they boarded the waiting shuttle, hungrily wishing that we could be one of them.  They HAD been us.  One of them more than the rest.

We all grieved.  We couldn’t be human and not.  We sat in stunned silence before the tears began to roll down faces now pale with shock.  We had no words.  Nobody had any words.  There was nothing to say.  Everyone across the planet sat and tried to process, some less successfully than others.

Then the news media arrived.  The photos.  The interviews.  The incessant rehashing of the footage until they had wrung every piece of sensationalism from it.  And still they kept looking for new angles, to keep the story alive.  With skillful cunning they flensed every greedy morsel from the events for the delectation of the viewing public.  It was like watching vultures descend, with insatiable hunger desperate to feast upon the whole scene before them, and almost drooling with glee as they set upon the corpse of the disaster.

What they didn’t know was that they also feasted up on us.  The nothings.  The nobody’s.  The sci-fi nerds who’d grown up dreaming, hoping, knowing they would always be denied but daring to look up and imagine anyway. 

They never knew how close we came in our sleep or our daydreams. 

They never knew how desperately we yearned for those dreams to come true for us, not just the privileged few 

A part of us was eaten alive just as surely as if the vultures had fed on us incarnate.  And it hurt in ways none of us could express.  Watching it unfold, I recall wondering how anyone could be so heartless and continue calling themselves human. 

Of course, like so many, I had never been so deeply touched by any event before.  I didn’t follow the news.  I lived in a world of my dream and fantasies.  This kind of coldness was simply unknown to me.  But oh, how fast I learned and how desperately I wished I didn’t have to. 

Even though the images of that day were burned in our hearts and souls, we dared to dream anew.  We dared to hope.  We dared to continue imaging.  And for many of us, we dared to write.

We no longer just gathered in groups and fan clubs of various sci-fi shows.  We no longer read books of stories set in someone else’s space scape.  We dared to dream our own.

We began by writing our own stories based on some else’s show and preconceived ideas.  Then a few began to write their own and share their own dreams with the world.

It took time.  It took courage.  It took working through the pain of such a shattering collision with reality to soften and for us to realize that the dreams we held before could still live again if we nourished them and allowed our hearts to fly again.

So, we did.  And in our little nothing and nobody lives, we set off in shuttles of our own making to explore the world of space just as the crew did on that day.  We did it differently of course, but we did it.

We flew for ourselves, each other for every crew that ever boarded a craft bound for the heavens who never came back.  We mourned them, many from the 60s which some of us were far too young to remember.  This was the disaster of our modern age.  The one that wasn’t just a lesson in a history class.  This was the one of our reality. 

But we kept our dreams alive, because when we give up our dreams, we give up our reason to be.  And all that is required to fly, is to dare to imagine.

And we knew, we all knew, that all that is required to inspire others to dare to dream, is to find our voices.  And that might be the most wonderful gift that 7 hopeful people gave us on that day. 

A chance for the nothings and nobody’s to give something to the world that others would find to be of value.  A chance for those of us who always felt unworthy to be someone that mattered in however small a fashion.

And we thank them for it.  And we continue their dream, and our own, because when we capitulate to the grief and relinquish what dreams may have been, we surrender the hope and spirit that sustains us.

For those who find life too terrible or too fast or too heartless and feel their hope slipping away as we hurtle towards a world that seems cold and devoid of humanity, encountering those who still look up and dream can be all it takes for those struggling to rekindle their hope in the world around them.

Perhaps that was the lesson that came from that day which simply took a while to unfold and become any form of apparent.   The dreamers who always felt themselves to be without worth are perhaps the most valuable among us.

And it became that way for me in just 73 seconds on what was, for me, a summer day against a beautiful blue sky when all the possibilities of the world danced and floated on soft currents. 

And when, years later I found my voice and my words began to water the world around me, I realized the value of dreams and the weight of the truth that one who saves one man, saves the world entire.

Dreams aren’t nothing.  They’re everything.  Dare to reach.  Dare to dream.  And dare to share those thoughts with the world.  Without those hopes, new dreams cannot be nourished.

It is a gift all of us have and all of us can give if we just take a moment from our busy, hi tech lives and dare to look up, reach a hand, and wonder. .

Going Dark

When people openly express going into ‘mourning’ after Tik Tok goes dark, you kind of have to wonder how incredibly dependent we’ve become on our electronics, apps and social media.

If not being able to catch up via an app is tantamount to the end of one’s world as they know it, then we’ve gone way too far over to the dark side and desperately need to claw our way back before we entirely forget how to interact with each other organically as we were meant to do.

Apps are supposed to be an outlet, a form of entertainment.  They are NOT meant to be almost all of our interaction with the world and for far too many this is the case.

Is it any wonder that so many people feel isolated and depressed?  Humanity it hotwired to exist as a group with social and emotional connections.  Apps put a firm boundary between others and ourselves quite literally diminishing our ability to feel connection to others and killing off our ability to empathize with others.

Not one single positive thing can ever come from that.  We need other people in order to survive all the trials life throws at us.  Without that present and strong support, we sink.  Nobody can do it alone.  Nobody should have to. 

People who live on apps may well find themselves struggling to know who to turn to when life suddenly gets real or even how to ask for help.  A like or a thumbs up is not practical help.  It’s no genuine support.  It’s not the equivalent of reaching out and checking in on one.  It is a cheap, half second throwaway that allows people to feel they did their due diligence.

Friends show up.  Friends help.  Friends check in on you and notice when aren’t your usual self.  Friends are people you can sit and talk to when you have a problem and they don’t respond with cheap platitudes about how “it’ll be alright”.  They ask how they can help, what they can do, what does one need (even if it changes over time).  They care.  They keep checking in on one to see how things are progressing and what else they can do. How do you get that from an app?

Friends would NOT rather be sitting and surfing on their phone while you talk and they certainly don’t look for the easiest way to escape and move onto something happier.

Apps are so prevalent that it seems they have become our lives.  People are our lives.  Apps merely desensitize us and like any muscle not used, those people skills atrophy.  In that respect, Tik Tok currently going dark for so many is a blessing rather than a curse.

Maybe people should start looking at it that way and see what else is out there in the real world.  It’s a perfect opportunity to do so and they might discover something really wonderful out there that fills a gap they have long held but could never fill.  It’s worth considering at any rate.

Full Plate

I want to be in bed resting but I’m in too much pain and my nerves are too irritated to be able to get any genuine rest, so I’m up again.

I am SO out of sorts today.  I have done a full service audit and sent out to the guys the urgent ones to get done.  I ended up with about 19 services I can close but I didn’t get to them today.  They’ll have to wait until Monday.

I needed help with the internals because I was snowed under with the services but as I was told, it HAD to be done TODAY.  So, I got it done.  What a battle though. 

Between callouts, phone calls, spot fires to put out and all the other general flotsam, it was like pushing a lead weight up a nearly vertical hill.  I was glad when the day was over.

I came home to find that one of my lovely neighbors has parked his car in the street, partially blocking the driveway to the pen.  I was able to get in but I’d never be able to back out.  And if he chooses to leave it there all weekend, I’ll be grounded.  Mind you, if that happens, I’ll be calling the police to attend.  It’s illegal to park blocking a driveway and since it’s communal, it must be accessible at all times.

This is just more of the harassment I cop here since they demanded I move my car so U5’s son could park there.  He doesn’t even LIVE here ffs.  That hasn’t stopped him dumping two wrecked cars on us for years at a time.  Seriously, he’s just a total prick.

Although I could easily retaliate for letting the air down in one of my tires and putting me at risk when I’m driving, I have chosen not to.  Instead, I have documented.  I write about what occurred and where applicable, take photos.  When it goes too far, I can then provide irrefutable evidence of time, date and precisely what occurred.

I also know that if I respond, they’ll ramp up even worse and make it all my fault because ‘she started it’.  Well, no, she didn’t, and frankly, she’s actually enjoying them pull this kind of shit because it must be frustrating the living hell out of them that I’ve done nothing in return as most people would. 

Knowing they’re sitting in there going into a slow burn is the perfect revenge – and I don’t have to lift a finger.  Whatever they experience is entirely of their own making which feels like a very decent amount of karma being visited upon them.  Besides, we get back what we put out into the world and I strongly feel that their own angst is just the tip of a very unpleasant karmic tsunami heading in their direction.  So be it.  I’m not responsible for THAT, either.

One thing I will say about today, is that I got a clear display of how the Service Manager and I work together and that after more than 2 years, I may finally have won some respect.

Of all the services that are still open from December and which I need to get closed, I had a handful which had been assigned to a technician who left us late last year.  Thus, I can’t give them to anyone in particular to say, this is a service allocated to you, would you please get these services done.

So I put the handful in a table and sent to the SM who was working from home, as he does on Fridays.  I outlined that I’d given outstanding services to pretty much everyone else but we had one tech who was new (started just after the other guy left) and he hasn’t been allocated any services for his workload yet.  I proposed that we give this handful to him.

The SM emailed back and agreed.  Mind you, every time I sent out a list of outstanding jobs to the chaps, I cc’d both the SM and Superstar in on the email.  This way, they had confirmation that I was indeed addressing the services outstanding and what I’d sent and to whom.  It might be helpful for them to know this stuff when I’m away next Thursday and Friday for surgery.

However, I made several decisions today, and indeed, I’ve been far more assertive in my role since Xmas.  That’s really helping, I think. Until now, I’ve had the strong impression that the SM has wanted to be in charge of the whole show because he didn’t trust me.  I think he’s figured out that I have a handle on it now and know when to just do, and when to ask for his guidance.  Today was a reflection of that.

I have been making a fair few mistakes this last week but as Guru said, I have a lot on my mind.  And I do.  It’s all been happening and it’s actually a little overwhelming at times.  Then when the pain kicks in on top of that (the way it did yesterday), well, I don’t stand a chance.  But, I’m doing my best under the circumstances and I’m not sitting there whining incessantly which I feel would be shameful in the extreme.  Being in pain is bad enough without performing a very public of my victimhood.

This weekend, I’m going to be busy.  I have to get some housework done so the place is reasonably tidy when I’m in hospital.  I’d hate coming home and having to do housework in that situation.

I need to do some laundry and start checking things off my go bag list so I’m prepared on Thursday.  It’ll be only one night so I can afford to do a pared down bag but I still need the essentials.  I’ll get everything out and lay it all on the bed so I can double check it all, then pack it back in the bag.  It’s a lot of work but it’ll be worth it come Thursday and Friday when I can relax knowing I haven’t forgotten anything.

I have long life milk although I can order a little more fresh milk to be delivered on Wednesday evening so I’m properly covered.  I have bread in the freezer so that’s taken care of.  I have soups and sandwich meat so I’m not going to starve.  And I have plenty of wet and dry food for the girls.  I’m doing okay, thus far.

While I’m recovering next weekend, I have plenty of shows and movies that I’ve recorded to keep me occupied if being on the laptop is too hard.  I have this COVERED.

Most people have this surgery and go straight home after.  I won’t be doing that.  I will be I overnight because, firstly, there is nobody at home here to monitor me throughout the day and night in case I react to the drugs, and secondly, I will be under a general anesthetic rather than just a local.  That increases the risk of abreaction until it’s out of my system.  It’s a necessary evil.  I went through the same thing when they cauterized the bleeding in my eyes under a general, and that took two admissions too complete.  I’m used to it.

The unexpected benefit of all this stuff to think of, is that it’s keeping my mind off the pain and is a really good distraction when I’m maxed out on pain meds and can’t take any more for hours.  There always has to be a silver lining in there somewhere, huh?  Finding it is merely a question of changing perspective and seeing how else it might look.

It’s certainly doing a good job of keeping my mind off it at the moment, ,at least until the meds kick in.  

I’m not the only one who’s unwell at work either.  Bossman had a simply god awful cough before Xmas.  It went on for weeks and he couldn’t shake it.  I used to sound the same when I was a kid and repeatedly came down with bronchial asthma.  My cough was an absolute bark and I was so tired all the time that I couldn’t even roll over.  He sounded (and looked) just like that.

Last week, I found out that he had been admitted to hospital.  He’s on a respirator and has been diagnosed with double pneumonia – both lungs instead of just one.  He’s almost due to be released and will be back with us next week although only for half days initially which I suspect will be more than ample to wipe him out completely.  He’s going to need to take it easy and rest, however much he doesn’t want to.  We’re all going to be on tip toe next week when he returns trying not to give him problems to deal with.

We also have a new technician stating on Monday.  I saw him briefly on Wednesday as I was going to lunch.  He was just entering the building with the SM for his interview.  He was done and gone by the time I finished my break but I’ll have plenty of time to get to know him now that he’s joining us as part of the Install team that go out and do major project works for things like commercial offices, etc.

Of course, it would have been nice if he were joining the Service team with us, but he may get to join us now and again.  We’ll see. It’s something to look forward to anyway.

As for the rest of my life, it’s unfolding as usual.  I was woken this morning to find that Ariya had spent the night curled up on the bed with me in her favorite spot down the end of the bed.  When she saw I was awake, she came up and did lots of head bumps and kneading while she serenaded me with her exceedingly happy purr.

Poppet and Jewel had been fixtures of the bed all night.  They always are.  Jewel curls up to the right of me and Poppet wheedles her way into my arms and settles in for the duration.  Having grown up with 3 cats and a dog, I’m well used to sleeping amongst pets.  I’d forgotten how nice it is though to wake up in the night and feel a soft, furry companion start purring the moment you touch her.  It’s one of the few things about being a kid at home that I actually cherished.  Everything else was just a nightmare.  Trust cats to save the day!

Even though I was in pain yesterday and today, I am much improved on where I was back I August.  I simply need to take baby steps and do what I can, when I can.  Most things I want to do this weekend are possible with care, common sense and a bit of planning.  It’s just about constantly checking in with myself and noting where I’m at, then acting to accommodate any needs that have arisen.  I can do that.

Hollow

That moment when something triggers a memory that you had an argument about with your Dad decades ago, and you find yourself mentally marshalling your thoughts to continue the heated discussion only to recall that he died decades ago and isn’t there to argue with anymore.

I expected to miss all the good times and I was somewhat prepared for that when as I watched Dad fade away.  Later, I wished I’d missed ONLY the good times.  Even the bad stuff was precious in its own way and can be missed just as much.

It’s constant too.  Like instinctively reaching for the phone every time I have great news to share only to recall that Dad is long since gone and the number was disconnected over 20 years ago.  It halts the heart in ways few things can.

I have accepted his death.  I no longer shed tears over his passing.  It’s just every now and again I forget and then the memory comes crashing back home and is just as painful as it was the moment I first heard the news.

Grief is a weird thing.  It’s never quite over with and sometimes, not quite bearable.  It’s in the long distant past and 20 seconds ago.

Sometimes I wish I could go back and finish those arguments a little differently or if I can’t alter the event, perhaps just enjoy it for the connection it was, at least just one last time.

And that’s the really painful part.  There are no more chances.  No more do overs.  No more opportunities to do things differently.  The book is closed.  No sequels.  No future.  All the words there will ever be, written.

No matter how much I might wish for a second chance, there are no fairy godmothers to wave a wand and make it possible.  All the things we would do if we could and the most important of them come from places of regret and lost opportunities.

The grief is 34 years old and by now, hollow.  But the echoes of what could have been still haunt, as I’m sure they always will.

Price Of Values

I have been doing some historical research on a number of things but the story that always sticks with me the most is that of the Eureka Stockade which became the first stirrings of true democracy in Australia and the first voice of the people in Government.  It’s such a powerful story and I always find myself wiping damp eyes when I review it.

It’s not that I love the story.  It’s not a tale to be enjoyed as such.  It’s a story to be respected and revered.  When you realize what those men were facing and how low their chances were of any kind of success, their courage to persevere is absolutely awe inspiring.

I wish more young people knew and understood about it instead of viewing it as a tourist attraction in Ballarat and treating the way they would Disneyland.

I can’t help wondering what kind of a choice the youth of today would make if they were faced with the same circumstances.  I strongly suspect they’d be more interested in saving their own skins and if they can profit along the way, well, why not?

Values are just not the same anymore and humanity is so much worse for that being the case.  We might have gained in technology and bank balances, but it seems to me that the cost of all that was our souls.  It’s so disheartening.

Old Is Gold

You know, as much as I’m a diehard fan of the old school and really don’t like how high tech everything has become, I’m also rather fond of being able to jump online at 4am and be able to order my groceries for the week which will be delivered in about 5 hours’ time.

On a day when it’s going to top 40c,That’s a laziness I can really get behind with reckless abandon.  I’ll be here sitting in the cool when they arrive and worst I’ll suffer is the heat while I’m bring them in.  I’m totally willing to make this the exception to my otherwise hard and fast rule.

I remember when I lived in Hawthorn back in 92, when I had no car and had to walk up a steep hill with my shopping jeep to the supermarket.  I could only bring home what would fit it in and although I excelled at packing that thing to the max, it was still a drag if I had to the trip in stinking heat or freezing wind/rain.

In later years, of course, I would drive to the supermarket but I still had to get the groceries from the shop to the car and then into the house.  While I could buy more, it was still a drag to have to haul the bags which could be heavy.

Now, I order online and only have to haul things from the doorstep to the kitchen.  Given my current circumstances, I’m very lucky to have that option.  I’m also lucky that I can order at any time which beats hell out of waiting until stores are open, as we had to back in the 70s and 80s. 

Shopping must have been a nightmare to navigate back in those days for those with disability or some other infirmity.  I can only imagine how they coped.

I guess these days we are virtually spoiled rotten when it comes to these sorts of things and although I have a total dislike of using new technology just because it’s new, I’ll admit that in some cases, it genuinely is helpful and a benefit. 

That still doesn’t mean I’m going to spend over $100 on a whizz bang kettle just because it’s new, made by some expensive brand, and has a feature to boil my water to different temperatures so I have the perfect cup or tea or coffee.

I still recall spending good money for a forehead digital thermometer and finding that not only was it not accurate, it broke entirely within months.  I got better results from a small digital one you put under your tongue.

Or the kettle I bought that broke within a week of purchase!  What a waste of money THAT was.

There was a time in my life when I didn’t care about such things.  Those days are long gone.  The older I’ve become, the more I see the value of that old chestnut, “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it”.  I manage just fine with tried and true methods.  I refuse to fork out for something just because it’s new.

I remember when I left home, I bought a little folding two step ladder at the Reject Shop for $11.  I thought it would come in handy if I needed to get up into high shelves.  Well, it was good for that and a million other things.  I still have it.  It still works just fine.  It’s just not as flashy and pretty as ones currently sold these days.  That doesn’t mean I’m going to fork out anywhere between $30 – $50 for a new one just for the aesthetics. 

I really don’t get why people always feel that the latest is greatest.  Whatever happened to old is gold?

While I cannot stop progress, and in some regards have zero choice about embracing it, I will only be dragged part way down that road before I dig my heels in.  I like my tried and true unless we’re talking about a 40c day and the thought of having to fag out to a supermarket.  Then I’m ALL about the technology and bless for it’s existance in my life.