Public Address - Club Politique (Home)

Easy Rider | Mar 15, 2005 18:49

I found an interesting article at The Age website on Monday that made be think 'bloody good on ya luv'. If you haven't got the time or interest to read it, basically it's by Edwina Cameron, a young woman who having recently finished a degree decided to pack in her good job and take off for a big jaunt up the East coast of Australia.

Of course, personally I was a little jealous she'd landed a plum post somewhere, but I compared her reasoning to my own at the same age and thought, 'what the hell, I wish I'd done much the same back then'. Essentially, at 22 I was also convinced that the world required me to get a good job and a mortgage, and to turn myself into a model citizen. This was of course filtered through the haze of a rock and roll lifestyle, but hey, no ones perfect. Least of all moi.

By 27 I'd pretty much completely deflated this myth and woken up to the fact that my choice to settle down, abortive as it was, really seemed something I absorbed through some kind of insipid socially-forced osmosis. In the immortal if not slightly dodgy words of George Thoroughgood, 'Get a haircut and get a real job' had been the order of the day. Consequently and conscientiously, I had endeavoured to go on to a Masters degree and socially climb from there to a good job in the cushy elite of the public service.

This small dream was however quashed by my irrational need to ask the interviewers from Treasury whether the job would actually allow me to think for myself, at work. They politely replied that I would. The fact that I didn't hear from them again politely implied I would not.

I'd like to think that the older, if not wiser, me would have sacrificed a cheap shot like that for an opportunity to do exciting things like having a job and getting paid. Of course, I would be lying to myself.

What shits me about the 'get a house, get a job, get a family' mentality, isn't that it's banal, that viewpoint was well canvassed in Trainspotting. But excluding success in sport, more than it's all too often seen as the only measure of success in both Australia and New Zealand. Writing poetry makes you a flake for example. Painting or sculpture means you're probably a bit potty.

Ignoring that some poets are flakes and some artists mad as march hares, it's still annoying that buying a house seems to be the only game in town. Look what it does to poor people trying to find a place to live, Australia is a current testament to that.

No, I think I admire Edwina because she also didn't sell out to the need to conform to the nesting mentality we're all told we have to subscribe to. I know that our generation is all too often not doing the nesting thing till later in life, but it's still telling that it remains an important part of social status, and more importantly, respectability. Sure, Edwina will no doubt return from her trip more worldly and apply this knowledge to her vocation and half-paid-off mortgage, but the fact that we're living countries that allow us to do this is, to me, fascinating.

A lot of people go to uni with the intention of it leading somewhere. Lets face it though, unless you're a boring conservative, uni is all about fun. If you're stupid enough to be doing a BA for example, you'd better not consider it a means to get ahead in life. Engineering? Medicine? Law? Yes, maybe. But Arts? No.

I advise most young adults these days to do what I did. Use the Arts degree to get access to the library, and read as much as you can without compromising your studies. Breeze through with low Bs or high Cs, and spend the rest of the time building knowledge. You can always slog your guts out on a Masters.

The fact of the matter is, Western countries have become so affluent these days, and commodities so cheap, you can always knuckle down and become boring later in life, such as your thirties. Moreover, if I was an employer, and was presented with two people in the mid to late twenties and only one of who had dropped out and travelled, the homebody would get the heave-ho.

So good on ya Edwina, go muck around on the coast, go fire a rocket launcher at a mountain in Cambodia ($US200! A bargain), smoke grass with hippies on the Annapurna Trail, or live in a dingy apartment in London making a pittance. We all know Australia will be doing exactly the same thing when you get back.

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My Own Remembering | Mar 11, 2005 14:10

The dream ends tomorrow when I head back to the miserable weather in Melbourne. I've heard that it's been raining off and on for a week now. For just this minute though it's 8am and I'm lying on the beach after a hacking cough acquired in Cairns forced me out of bed. To compensate, I've just had a wee therapeutic swim and am lying on the sands of the Gold Coast.

A couple of cousins live here at Palm Beach, and I'm basking with a view of Surfers Paradise in the distance, and listening to some German tourist giggle like schoolgirls as they wade in the waves. Let me halt any fantasies by stating that they're in their sixties. But laughter is good to hear any day of the week.

I'd love to be able to take a snap of the coast to let you know what it's like (wrinklies aside), but I'd adapted a strange personal philosophy that has confounded backpackers in Cairns, the snap-happy campers they are. I swear, I have rarely seen anyone so shocked as my dive group when I told them I don't bring cameras travelling.

I'll admit to taking snaps at things like weddings, or events that involve people, but there's something about scenery and experiences that an amateur like me simply can not capture. This isn't to say I haven't tried in the past, somewhere in storage I have a slowly mouldering stack of snaps a mile high from past trips that are and loosing all relevance to me as the years go by.

And that's the point.

A professor at Auckland Uni once said to us (at the pub) that there's two theories on memory. One, that your mind is a bucket, once it fills anything new will displace something else, which becomes forgotten. The second is that you remember anything that interests you. Personally, and probably characteristically, I prefer a middle of the road answer between the two.

To me, photos are simply triggers that allow you to recall memories on some stuff, and to foist false memories on some people. You know, Uncle Gavin's pesky slideshow of their holiday to Club Med. My argument out on the boat was that any photo I take of the Barrier Reef would be a joke compared to a good coffee table book. Sure, my photos would be of the exact fish/clam I saw, but what difference would that make to the person seeing the photo?

Look, I'm already forgetting the faces of some people on that boat, and I spent almost four days non-stop with them. The cold fact of the matter is, I may never see any of them ever again, because we didn't get close enough to want to stay in contact. And looking at photos would probably just re-impress memories that are taking up valuable real estate in this aging brain. But, the way I felt about them, and what I thought of them, is still very clear. And obviously that's something you can't capture in a photo.

The same goes for landscapes. A postcard of Cairns or Brisbane can't convey the humidity, the heat, the smell of the flora, or the 'vibe' of being there, whether it's the exact picture of what I saw personally or not. I could run you a twelve-day, full surround sound digital vision of the trip, and you'd still impress your own interpretation of what it was like for me.

For instance, you'd get bored at some of the landscapes or city-scapes and might spend your time waiting for people to look at, or wishing I'd spent more time looking at what interested you. i.e. spend more time looking at that bikini brother...

Finally, a photo is only made real with a good story to accompany it, or if you've already seen the subject (and in the latter case, why would need the photo?). I could show you a coffee table book and tell the same story about a 'nemo' fish as if it was the exact one I'd seen. It's the experience that triggers your interest, that picture just supplements.

So as a consequence I never take photos, and instead just try and hitch-hike on other peoples cameras. Sometime, yes, I will take snaps. But it has to be of something I absolutely do not want to forget. Family, close friends, a place I need to lock in time. But lampposts, 'weird' plants, streets, a Starbucks, blah blah blah? Nope.

PS. This was written partially on the beach two days ago, and partially at a train station in Melbourne. I got back yesterday. Yay. At least the weather fined for me. I'm thinking of heading back! Maybe, just maybe.

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