Whose streets are they anyway?

Today got fairly difficult filled with anger and despair. Only now at 11pm have I been able breath out and find some peace and mental quiet... quiet.

Life will always present us with adversity... but how do we fight a society that would seek our demoralization?

I have to confess I occasionally struggle with the obvious futility and meaninglessness of many things in this life. I know I am prone to seeing the darker side of things but most of the time I manage to keep it fairly real and just get on with things... Actually I'm not a depressive kind of person, I just don't like to kid myself too much about what's going on. Honestly I try to get a great deal of pleasure out of this world, but today I got a glimpse of the dark side and have struggled not to be overcome by it.

(Side note)

I recently received word that a man who has been on hunger strike for the past two months may soon succumb to severe malnutrition and all the unpleasant consequences that go along with it! I am not writing this to invoke an argument or stir any kind of reaction. I include this piece of information only to suggest that there is cause for despair! If a person has gone to these lengths to defy the callous nature of his imprisonment and the dehumanizing system that would treat him and other asylum seekers the way the Australian Government continues to do, then any human being with a heart must ask themselves is this justice? To loose all hope for a future and be driven to take such action must surely be the response to an absolutely intolerable situation. My heart goes out to this man and his family. I believe it is too late to rectify the harm starvation has done to his body and he may only have days to live.

"When I was your age...."

Yep I think it and I say it all the time and I know that every generation seems to struggle to relate to the one before it or after but!

The tipping point for me today came when this happened!

When I got home from work the kids and wife appeared having just ridden their bikes back from the local park. It's not far and they only had to ride on 'quiet' suburban streets. Sadly there is no such thing as a 'quiet suburban street'!

In just a few hundred meters ride my boy was nearly hit by a car and apparently soon after another car passed my family, and in a completely unrelated incident some dickhead yelled at them to get off the road and ride on the footpath! (Not on a major road but a suburban street with a speed limit of 50km per hour and 40 during school days!) This scared the crap out of my children and caused my wife to feel vulnerable and intimidated! 

The kids got home and were in tears, they vowed never to go out on their bikes again! We talked through what had happened and the kids were reassured to know they'd done nothing wrong but this did nothing to restore their faith in their fellow humans or their entitlement to be outside at all! I could not lie and tell them that on the whole people are OK. As a cyclist on Australian roads generally we have to assume that our countrymen and women are NOT OK! They act with such a sense of entitlement on the roads and an almost narcissistic disregard for human life that they need to be regarded as extremely dangerous.

Recently in an eight week period Darwin has had 5 hit and run incidents.

This incident coupled with the knowledge of the condition of a man who'd rather starve himself to death than entrust his future to the care of the Australian people has left me once again wondering if humanity is only a romantic myth.

Things were different when I was a kid! And the differences cannot be ignored!
When I was my kids age, I was free to play outside without any great fear of being killed by my neighbors. We all played in the street. Cars slowed down when they saw people on the road and it was expected that we would share the road! Without that kind of liberty how long will it take for our children to reach the same level of despair experienced by our friend who is now lying in his death bed? If we allow the bullies to determine the culture and don't actively start caring for each other pretty soon we may lose the capacity to care for ourselves!

Peace.

How's the weather?

Some people make a profession of reading, interpreting, understanding and then predicting weather patterns, others study the weather for practical reasons like when to plant their crops or whether or not it is wise to go to sea... and others listen intently to weather forcasts so they will have something boring to talk about at picnics and dinner parties... Personally I am none of these and tend to just enjoy what the weather dishes up to me when I step out the door each day.
Even as a postie I was only ever mildly interested in weather forecasts... Don't get me wrong I am not disinterested in weather; I just don't see the point in studying up on it as though I can have some influence on the outcome! OK if someone tells me it's going to rain I'll dress accordingly... But don't try to start a conversation with me about how the weather is going to be over the next 12 months because I've had one too many of them... (After a few years of living in Darwin you will understand why conversations about extreme weather events can become a bit droll!)

Apparently we are currently experiencing a La nina weather phenomenon. That is pretty interesting actually. Most of Australia has received so much rain that it has caused major flooding in areas that have been dry for more than a decade! Dams are full to overflowing and people are now beginning to wish they hadn't wished so hard for rain.

Here in Darwin we've had exceptionally high rainfall for this time of year and have also been blessed with regular thunderstorms. It's quite wonderful to experience the Tropical thunderstorms we get here, but there is always an element of danger. There are some things a person should avoid doing. Things that might increase the chances of being struck by lightning... Things like playing golf, riding your bike or talking on a conventional telephone (you know the ones that still use a wire).

So after a storm had just passed I was reading my boy a children's story about the rain thinking it would be kind of fun and keeping in theme with the current weather.. I was kind of shocked to find that apparently for the sake of staying true to a rhyme the book gave some very dangerous advice!

(...Umbrellas up and all get under?) - Click on image for clearer text

What is wrong with this picture?

Are they CRAZY?

Youth.... a future

Is there a future? What about the kids?
Toward the end of the film Napoleon Dynamite (which we watched last night on a VHS tape I got for $0.50!) there is a scene at a disco where they're playing the song Forever Young by Alphaville. I recall hearing it years and years ago; It was released back in 1984.

Not really being much into pop music I don't think I really bothered to listen to the lyrics back then. What a mistake that was!
While watching Napoleon Dynamite a sense of nostalgia for 1980s pop music created a portal of awareness that allowed the lyrics to sink through. Wham! The song hit that spot where the great ones live. Having realized I'd missed a real gem of a song I searched for it on Youtube today and found this cover by Youth Group which was release back in 2005. Being somewhat out of touch with fashion, popular music and culture I've only just re-discovered this song. It's obviously no secret to the rest of the world Youtube views are already touching on 5,000,000!

Forever Young - Youth Group (cover of a song by Alphaville)

Please watch on full screen Youtube! You will witness the magic and pure beauty of youth! "Like diamonds in the Sun!"

The lyrics are a haunting reminder of growing up during the Cold War and the music is even more pertinent to a time of youth and innocence as I listen to it now in 2010. In a post Iraq war, 9/11, abu ghraib and all the rest of the shit we've brought down on each other and the world since then, the 80s 'pop culture' was, in retrospect, a time of comparative innocence!

Growing up in suburban Melbourne during the 70s and 80s I think the video attached to this song by Youth Group is an absolute masterpiece! I wish I could describe how it made me feel to watch it!
Long hair, flannelet shirts, grazed knees and elbows! That was my youth! (I never actually had a skateboard but took turns on my mate's) The fresh faces of those kids reminded me so much of how life was back then... We played outside! Kids had resilience and were active.
(When I turned about 12 I remember the streets soon became deserted, video games and VCRS had arrived... it seemed like overnight the tanned healthy kids I used to play with became housebound and grey!

That's the raw, wild freedom of youth you're watching roll down that hill. Skateboards, a little bit of danger, some adrenalin and a whole bunch of FUN! They look so alive! All the hope and excitement of youth set to the abstractly optimistic modern tempo of 80s pop and the disturbing lyrics of a song that questions the possibility of there even being a future to look forward to!

The most haunting thing about the video is the fact that I have kids and watching it brought home to me just how much life for kids has changed! Already despite the plethora of new gadgets, games, toys and Plasma Screen TVs available for them to play with, the world of children seems so diminished from the days when I grew up.

It has been diminished, there is little reason to believe there is cause for optimism about the future. But who knows? Maybe even in this world of rapidly depleting wonders and beauty, it is in their youth where, wonder and beauty truly live?

Suppose the only thing that really exists is this very moment.