Life in Australia

Life in Australia

One word: Durian

 

Robert – a self-styled “foreigner” to our shores – is most upset to have been hoaxed by the false promise and dashed hopes of life in Australia. A few days ago Robert commented on an ancient post here at Values Australia and his comment was upsetting.

Sir Roger cannot bear the thought of another’s pain and Robert surely is in pain.

So is Sir Roger. He had no idea how unhappy he himself must be, given Robert’s assessment of the Oz he had until then thought so wonderful.

 

 

So following is Sir Roger’s response to Robert. 


Sir Roger has asked his manservant esteemed assistant to pen a response to Robert. He would have liked to have been able to respond personally but is unable as he is packing his belongings in preparation to leave this dreadful hell of a country.

He is astonished that he had been so blind in his comforts, his pleasures, his friendships, his safety and his freedoms not to realise how utterly miserable he must obviously be. And indeed he is at this very moment beset by a grotesque problem. That is, where he should move away to and how should he get there? By plane? Or by boat?

The United States may seem a much better option except for the constant shootings, the fundamentalist christians and the Tea Party.

The UK? Very civilised, at least on the surface, and the world’s funniest comedians, but, oh, the endlessly whining whingers! And the weather!

Somewhere in Africa, perhaps? Central African Republic? Chad, Nigeria, South Sudan? There are plenty of spaces becoming available there since so many of them are choosing to come to Australia. But the job opportunities are not so good and someone like Sir Roger is sure to be kidnapped. And he questions why, if it is so wonderful there, so many of them are choosing to leave, that so many could even find Australia preferable. Big question mark on that one.

Asia? He fears the death penalty for minor crimes in China. He values his internal organs (and his external ones for that matter) and doesn’t want them shared with a transplant tourist before his time.

Japan fails to offer the wide open spaces that he craves.

Malaysia? He just doesn’t like their appalling racism. You know? Of course as a white man he could live behind a tall fence in a white compound with fierce dogs but where is the interest in a bunch of self-absorbed, arrogantly superior, self-congratulatory, western businessmen and their bored wives and nasty children?

Thailand? One word. Durian.

Indonesia beckons…but trips at all the hurdles of entrenched – and world famous – political, judicial, law-enforcement and corporate corruption, not to mention brutality to animals, religious intolerance, terrorism, death by firing squad and plain ignorance. Pretty country, though, and lovely people if you get to know the ones who aren’t trying to rip you off.

India? Well, you know, of course it’s worth a visit but … Sir Roger doesn’t consider rape a worthwhile or even enjoyable pastime. One of his friends is moving to Bhutan. Would he have to convert to Buddhism, though? He’s not all that religious. AT ALL.

And South America is the most dangerous continent on earth.

There’s always western Europe, of course, and Sir Roger does love to spend large amounts of time there, especially in their restaurants and in the cheese and wine aisles of their supermarkets, but they can be cold to strangers who don’t speak their languages perfectly, don’t you think? And it’s all so old and the skies are so murky. There’s very little that’s fresh blue.

As for Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Syria … hmmm … you know, Sir Roger’s not much of a one for car bombs, Talibans, shooting young girl students, hatred, bigotry, religious intolerance, violence, bloodshed of any kind, actually – not even Rugby League – or cranky old narrow-minded farts in funny turbans and beards a pelican could nest in, doling out fatwahs like Easter eggs at Christmas.

So Sir Roger is struggling to find a country either

a) that would accept him or
b) that he would accept.

Perhaps after all he will have to remain for a little longer amongst the awfulness of:

  • religious tolerance (despite the fact Sir Roger is a little intolerant of religious beliefs in general),
  • freedom of speech
  • a more or less free press
  • freedom to congregate
  • personal safety
  • world standard education, free to secondary level
  • a social safety net
  • free medical treatment
  • stable democracy (with no shootings at election time)
  • astoundingly pleasant weather
  • mostly generous people
  • a thriving triple-A economy (no matter what they say)
  • a rich cultural life (very well, yes, much of it imported)
  • comparatively high incomes
  • comparatively low unemployment
  • electronic access to the fascinating rest of the world (while keeping it at a safe physical distance)

and many other such depressing qualities.

Perhaps therefore he will stay for a bit longer.

He has just phoned your writer now to explain that he is beginning to understand that when a person comes to another country of course they will come to that country with preconceptions.

Those preconceptions, when they come in hope, will often be that the new country will be just like the country they escaped but somehow better — their home country but without the bits they don’t like. And this will not work.

For example, Australia is Australia. It is not Sri Lanka, or Britain, or India, or Germany or wherever, with bells on.

It is Australia.

That is it.

Anyone who comes here will find strangeness and things that confuse and they don’t understand; social conventions they are not used to, and that grate with how things used to be in the old country.

When they come here their task is not to compare it to the world they know and the expectations they had. That leads inevitably to disappointment.

Their task is to discover Australia for what it is and to interact with that. And love that. Or leave.

If they don’t want to be here we have no wish to force them to love it or to stay. They have the choice.

In Australia we allow people to come and go as they please. Unlike North Korea or China or so very many other countries.

At least that is what Sir Roger told your writer to say.

Just a note or two to ‘Robert’ from Sir Roger’s own Montblanc:

“  This is Australia, Robert. And this blog is Sir Roger’s home. Here you do not have to be mealy-mouthed or pretend to be genteel, or try to swear without swearing.

If you write “fkcng” you are intending that people will think “fucking” and so you are swearing anyway. So writing “fkcng” is, you see, slimy. You said “fuck” and pretended not to. And it’s true that many Australians don’t like this sort of deceitfulness in anyone, not just what you call “foreigners”. You can write “fuck” here. And “fucking”.

And even ‘FUCK YOU, CUNT’

Also, Australia is not a “convict island”, at least not for 150 years. We are a big grown-up country now. We have cars and houses and the internet and everything, just like a proper country.

The only social-cultural vestiges of those origins are the remains of a belief in equality and fairness, and a healthy disrespect for authority, both sadly on the wane.

And when you talk about ‘the way foreigners see Australia’ this is blatant intellectual dishonesty. Certainly some foreigners don’t like Australia. Of course some don’t. It would be a miracle beyond all miracles if it were otherwise. So, a few “foreigners”, then? The ones who agree with you and are as stirred up about their disappointment as you are?

Robert, we are not required to create the country you wanted in your dreams in order to satisfy you, although we would very much like you to enjoy this country – very much. But we simply cannot create that country just for you.

So the use of the “convict” epithet and the lumping of all foreigners into your basket of betrayed hopes reveals both emotional desperation and intellectual dishonesty.

I really feel your pain that caused this outburst. I went to Sumatra once, hoping to experience a tropical paradise with generous, friendly people, only to discover it (Medan, anyway) was the absolute arsehole of the earth, even worse than Tehran, although the Batak people of Samosir Island were indeed very lovely.

But when I want my own arguments to be taken seriously I personally find it is best to refrain from corny, shouted insults and sloppy arguments.

 

 

Welcome to Australia, Robert!

 

 

Migently Mountain Manifesto: 4

Migently Mountain Manifesto: 4

 

16.

Nobody knows what the fuck is “really” going on.

Anyone who claims to know is either deluded, a liar, or a charlatan who is after your money, or your body, or naked power.

The people who are most likely to claim they do are priests, fools and politicians (tautologically).

 

17.

It turns out there actually are two kinds of people in the world.

TYPE 1: There are those whose default position is that any new person they encounter has friendly intentions.
Until proven otherwise. these people are almost always right.

TYPE 2: And there are those whose default position is to assume that any new person they encounter has hostile intentions until proven otherwise.
These people are almost always wrong. However,some people have learnt to be Type 2 for good reason, when abusers have been the majority of people in their lives. 

People who are Type 1 , either naturally, or through experience or environment, enjoy a far superior quality of life because their experience is that they are always surrounded by friendly, helpful people.
Their own friendliness generates reciprocal friendliness in others.
So they generate increased niceness in the world in general.

Type 2 people do the reverse and live a life of fear, foreboding and loneliness.

Most people probably think (when they think at all) that the type they are is “just the way I am”.

But no, it is a choice a person can make.

 

18.

Most people are fairly good natured.

Very few people wish you any harm.

Most of them want to help you.

Very few people want to hurt you.

Some do.

Some just want to use you.

 

19.

Most people don’t have their homes burgled.

Very few people are mugged.

Most people will be in at least a minor car smash of some kind at least once in their lives.
Very few of them will have to go to hospital.

You would not think this if you relied on commercial television news or some newspapers, or politicians.

It is in their financial or political interests to terrify the masses.

 

20.

If you live long enough, you will experience joy, love, courage, triumph, fear, loss, sadness and a broken heart.

That is called Life.

Get as much of it as you can.

Embrace it all with everything you’ve got because it’s all you’ve got.

Migently Mountain Manifesto: 3

Migently Mountain Manifesto: 3

11.

 

Science is not a set of facts.

Science is a process.

The process is to —

a) observe,

b) speculate,

c) propose an explanation (or “theory”),

d) devise an experiment which

i) can be repeated (“replicable”) and

ii) can prove the theory false (“falsifiable”)

e) run the experiment, and then

f) assess whether the results have falsified the proposition.

g) If the proposition (the theory) is not falsified it survives until it is falsified or modified.

Science is, therefore,

“that body of conjecture which has not yet been disproved.”

This means that all we know for certain, more and more, is what is not true, and science is how we narrow the possibilities of what may be true.

No true scientist will claim that “a fact has been proved”.

However, some propositions such as evolution, relativity, quantum theory and global warming are so robust and have survived so much rigorous and repetitive testing that the probability of them being “facts” is so high as to render them what in everyday discourse would be considered facts.

In a criminal trial the test is “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

In a civil trial the burden of proof is the “balance of probabilities”.

All of those scientific theories listed above pass both tests easily.

Religion passes neither.

That is why scientists still refer to evolution as a ‘theory’; not because they’re a bit uncertain but because in science nothing can an absolute fact.

Religious “facts”, in contrast, are worse than theories and are far from scientific.
The data are not replicable, nor are they falsifiable since non-falsifiability is specifically built into the theory and you are not permitted to question the dogma.

Religion is based on faith, which is in essence a desperate hope against hope.
As if believing something with zero evidence is a virtue.

Often people confuse science with technology. 

Science is the process described above.
Technology is putting the findings of science to practical use – usually by building things (although it is true that sometimes technology comes first – building something and then finding out why it works.  

And then we build more advanced things, based on what we learnt.

Like gyro compasses and SatNavs and smart phones. 

12.

 

Evolution is not a force.

It does not have intention.
It’s simply a description and explanation of what happens.

Evolution is a fact as much as anything is a fact (see above).

Evolution is not design and there is no designer.

No living thing (except possibly humans) ever thought

“I think I’ll grow me some wings – that would be an excellent adaptation!”

Creatures do not choose to evolve to fit a niche.

Environments change.

All individual creatures are born with mutations, whether through DNA transcription errors, or genes being modified by chemicals, or gamma radiation, or whatever.

Many of those mutations will debilitate the creature and it will die before procreating.

Most will make no difference at all.

Some will from time to time make the creature better suited to the changing environment.

It will thrive (unless hit by a rock or killed by a serpent) and have offspring and the offspring will inherit the new genetic code.

The likelihood that a potentially advantageous mutation will survive in the right place at the right time is incredibly unlikely. So evolution is not so much the survival of the fittest as the Survival of the Luckiest.

Once again, evolution is simply the description of what happens, how and why.

So stop talking as if evolution is going anywhere, or has a plan, or, worst of all, an intention.

13.

 

The universe does not have any agenda.

Specifically the universe does not have any agenda for you.

It does not have intentions about you or about anything, including itself.

The universe is utterly pointless.

There is no reason for it to exist besides the fact that it does.

The universe is also unbelievably, incomprehensibly improbable.

So are you.

What there is to do about this is to marvel at the amazingness, the practically infinite improbability that not only is the universe here but also you are here and able to observe it.

Anyone who really appreciated the extent of the astonishing extraordinariness of the utter improbability of these two things not only existing but being on the one hand so immensely huge and wondrous and complex and unfathomable, and on the other hand so unimaginably small and wondrous and complex,  well . . .

the brain of anyone who really got this would explode (see Total Perspective Vortex).

14.

You can stop looking for “The Meaning of Life”.

There isn’t one, except for the meaning you choose to create for your own life.

 

15.

 

Immunisation works.

Your child is far more likely to die from not having an injection than to become ill from having one.

The whole immunisation and autism thing, and the conspiracy theory that has built up around it, was a scam from the beginning, bad science, and wacko-the-diddle-o, frankly.

Also, if you do not immunise your children you are not just failing to protect them, you are endangering everyone else’s kids.

As a result of this nonsense dangerous, debilitating diseases are on the rise, and not only among the children of those gullible, stupid people who have been sucked in by the anti-immunisation hoax.

Global warming is real.

UFOs are not.

Men really did walk on the moon.

If you believe any of these things is a conspiracy remember to keep taking the medication and see your therapist regularly.

“The Secret” is complete Bullshit. *

So is “The Law of Attraction”. *

*Mistrust anyone who tells you their product is based on science.


Scientology
is a whacko scam and a dangerous one at that.

Mormonism is just transparently ridiculous.

Both are clearly ludicrous and rely on the gullibility of the first responders and then on the familial influence of parents on their children (like all religions).

They are both only slightly more ludicrous than most other religions.

 

People, by the way are not “born a catholic” or “born a muslim”.
That is disgusting language and child abuse.
Their parents feed them bullshit, that they have to believe X or they’ll go to “hell”. 

That’s when they discover fear and hang onto their parents’ religious beliefs to avoid the horror of eternal torture.
Which isn’t real. 

Children are simply born, wide-eyed and wondering.

(unscheduled interruption)

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A Rare and Precious Thing

We interrupt this pre-recorded segment to bring you an impromptu message from our sponsor.

 

Sir Roger has been touched by the loyalty of one of his longterm readers and a fellow-blogger to muse on the importance of friends.

What is a friend?

A friend is someone who cares, fosters, encourages and shares; someone who is almost as excited as you are about your successes and supports you in your failures or sadnesses.

Many people believe a friend is someone who overlooks your crap in return for you overlooking theirs. This is bullshit.

A friend is someone who will always call you on your shit – in the most empathetic way, of course – and relies on you to do likewise about theirs, because only then can you make corrections and perhaps grow and achieve what you are capable of.

A real friend is a rare and precious thing.

A real friend is someone you feel comfortable with, that you can talk to easily at any time, whose company you can enjoy in silence. Real friends are the embodiment of loyalty.

Real friendships last through time and separation.

Sir Roger recently spent two weeks in a villa on the Continong with friends made over forty years earlier; and although they had led separate lives in different cities, towns and countries, concentrating on building careers and families, and flourishing in diverse areas, when they gathered together again their friendship was as fresh and real as it had been all those years ago. And the conversation picked up, as it were, just where it had left off as if the intervening years were transparent.

So friends and friendships need to be nourished and enjoyed and cherished.

And the only way to have real friends is to be one.

None of this is to be confused with mateship.

As Sir Roger has written elsewhere:

“ What is mateship? Mateship is pretending to be friends with someone who doesn’t want your job. A mate is someone who won’t sleep with your wife/girlfiriend without asking you first.

A “great mate” is a rugby league footballer who enjoys a gang bang with the other members of his team.

A mate is what men have who are incapable of attracting actual friends (see Tony Abbott, John Howard) or of forming any kind of vaguely intimate relationships (ibid) .

 

So mateship is how Australian men pretend to have friends.

 

 

Migently Mountain Manifesto: 2

Migently Mountain Manifesto: 2

 

6.

When we swear to something, that is kind of a proper commitment.

The word “swear” comes from an ancient word that means “to speak”; to say words.

In one of the most savagely beautiful and exceptional works of fiction, the Book of John begins:

“ In the beginning was the word…”

Sir Roger prefers his own variation:

“ In the Word is the beginning.”

Speaking your word — “swearing” — makes possible the real-isation of your intention or your desire.

When you “give your word”, do you mean it as a commitment, a guarantee?
Or is your word just something you said?

If you say you will be somewhere at 1 o’clock, can people know that you will be there at 1 o’clock?
Or do they make allowances for you?
Do they tell you lunch is at 12.30  because you’re always half an hour late?
How does it make you feel to be a person that people make allowances for, that other people “manage”?

How do you relate to your word?

When you make a promise is it just “aspirational”, or is your word who you are?

When what you say is guaranteed — when you are your word, when what you say becomes what you do — then you have enormous power, because what you say unquestionably comes to pass.

People will want to hear what you speak, so that they know what is going to happen in the world and make their plans.

7.

 

I don’t believe in capital punishment and I am not a murderer.
Nor am I remotely murderously inclined. 

But, like you, I know that if someone threatens or touches my child I am capable of killing them without compunction.

This might give you pause next time you bray (from a safe distance) for some poor bastard’s blood.
One day they could be braying for yours.
And in the circumstances you may suddenly not agree so enthusiastically that your own execution would be such a good thing.

Or that judicial murder in general is a good thing.

 

8.

 

Either you control your emotions or they control you.

You have your emotions or you’re at their mercy.

It’s up to you.

This thought gives you a place to stand outside your emotions.
There you can consider them from some distance if you need to.
It doesn’t mean you don’t have emotions — you always will — or that they’re bad (they’re good), or that you shouldn’t enjoy them (you should).

It just gives you choice if you need it.

And it puts you in charge of them when you need to be.

 

9.

 

Either you run your life, or plenty of other people are happy to fill the gap and run it for you.

To get what they want.

At your expense.

It’s your call.

10.

 

Thank the universe for hot showers.

Migently Mountain Manifesto: 1

Migently Mountain Manifesto: 1

 

S ir Roger is returned from the Mountain with the Migently Mountain Manifesto.
Here are Tablets One to Five: 

 

1. 

Do what is right.  

 

2. 

 You are safe.

Now, at this instant, you are safe.
You are safe, right here, right now.

This might allow you to calm down and get a grip to deal with stuff.

Nothing is promised for the next instant, however.

But right now at this instant you are safe.  

  

3. 

Most people are about as honest and ethical as they can afford to be.

Yes, some people are less honest than they could be.
Some struggle to be honest at all.
Some are frankly more honest than is necessary or comfortable.

The value of honesty is relative.
People will steal a loaf of bread if they really have to.
They may not want to but if that’s what they must do to feed their children then they will do what they need to.

Some things are more important and more pressing — in the moment in real life — than esoteric debates about morality.

It’s true that some people exhort you to be honest.
Other people want you to be honest. 
They don’t want you to be honest for your benefit. 
They want you to be honest for their benefit, so that they can make informed decisions based on reliable reports.

In reality, though, most people don’t make decisions based on facts anyway.

On the other hand, being honest places less stress on the memory.
And it (sometimes) makes you feel better.

Telling the truth is a different matter.

There is no such as THE Truth.
There’s my truth and your truth, for a start. 
What most people mean by ‘the truth’ is merely opinion and interpretation based on life experience, emotion, limited information, conjecture, flawed logic, magical thinking, and vague probabilities.

There’s the “whole” truth. 

No, just joking. If there is a “whole truth”, it’s impossible to know because — for just one thing — you would have to describe the velocity and position of every fundamental particle in the Universe from the beginning of time.
You
can’t tell both the position and velocity in any case, and if you could even get the information in a whole lifetime you wouldn’t get past describing the first billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second of the Universe. Let alone interpreting the data. 

The best you can do is describe the best interpretation of the motley collection of tiny random scraps of perception you can grasp as they rush by.

Then there’s the “ABSOLUTE” Truth.

There isn’t one.

So stop killing people because you mistakenly think you have it.  

 

4. 

A Job is trading time for money.

But your time — your life itself — is of immeasurable, incalculable value.

Your Job is something you do because you have to, to survive financially, pay the bills, feed the kids, pay the rent or the mortgage. 

Your Work is something you want to do, something you must do — so it is also something you do because in that sense you have to do. 

It’s something you “have” to do because it’s an expression of who you are.
It’s your contribution to the world. It’s the difference you make because you are you and because you can.

For example, a teacher has two basic jobs:

1) spend time in a room with people and

2) do paperwork.

Being in a classroom is how we know you are doing your job. The paperwork is how we know you did your Job.

A teacher’s Work on the other hand is growing people, inspiring them, helping them learn to learn, to love learning, to appreciate life, to contribute to the world, to experience the most of the world that they can, as richly as they can.

The “Dignity of Labour” is a myth.
It is born of a conspiracy cooked up by capital and colluded with by labour, probably beginning during the Industrial Revolution, if not even earlier in the feudal era.

Capital needed — and still needs — workers to be as close to compliant slaves as possible.
Long hours, dirty work, few rights and low wages stopped people getting notions too far above themselves, or amassing the savings to escape.
It kept them needing the employer and the job.
Labour needed a social mythology to justify its powerless dependency — and the degradation of selling its soul to make others rich.

The solution was to frame labour as bestowing “dignity”. 

And eventually it became a fact instead of a pretence.
And it didn’t hurt to have the (obscenely rich) Church bestowing God’s blessing on the charade.

Blessed are the poor, the meek, the hungry, for they shall eventually get all the good stuff.
Just not in this life. 

As a result “early to bed and early to rise” assumed a moral character to the point where anyone who gets out of bed after 6am or goes to bed later than 10pm is committing a “sin”.

This is all bullshit. Any job in which you give over your labour and your time and your life to make someone else rich is shameful, degrading and humiliating and not dignified at all. It would be a sin if there were such a thing.  

If there were such a thing it would be a sin not to do Your Work, the Work you must do, the Work you love.

Be the person you are who makes a difference in the world.  

 

5. 

Great leaders (and managers) don’t manage people (or boss them).

Leaders manage outcomes.
They do this by facilitating people in doing what they know how to do — which, after all, is why they were employed in the first place — and in developing skills to do it better.

Leaders share a vision which inspires and engages.
They provide meaningful goals and engage their colleagues in the value of the work they do.

People who work for coercive managers do the least they can in order to keep their jobs.
They have low job satisfaction and low productivity because they don’t own the work they do.

People who work for inspiring managers do the most they can because they want to and they want to because they own their work and they know why it matters.

That is why they have such great work satisfaction. And that is why they stay.

 

Most people want to do a good job.

A good manager doesn’t have to force people to do their best.

A good manager knows to get out of the way of people doing their best.

 

Almost everyone wants to do the best work they can.