Category Archives: Awareness

Barry O’Farrell resigns as NSW premier

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So there we have it.

After 7 years as leader of the opposition waiting for his tilt at the top job, Barry O’Farrell lasted three years as premier. Forced to resign for misleading the Independent Commission Against Corruption because he obviously did receive a $3,000 bottle of wine as a ‘gift’ after all.

This is not what usually happens. In politics there are no lies, there is just being economical with the truth. Politicians usually spout so much waffle and fluff their comments can be cut down to one word without loss of meaning. Consequently a host of dodgy doings and ‘mistakes’ can be erased, buried or simply forgotten.

So why did he resign? Many a politician of every hue has survived much worse.

Clearly it is not about the wine. Or even that he claimed not to have received it. It is about a system that is the epitome of not what but who you know.

We all walk around blinkered thinking that the world is meritorious. We believe that the best athletes play professional sport for our team, the best singers are the ones we download, the best minds are employed to engineer better lifestyles for us, and that the best organisers run our commerce.

We also believe that we elect the best politicians to sit in parliament and make the laws that we live by — yes, believe it or not, politicians are elected to make the laws that we are expected to live by. Not only that, but we believe they do the right thing in selecting the help they need to run things.

Well they don’t.

Barry resigned because he stuffed up. And presumably because he is an honest sort of bloke, felt that the stuff up was irretrievable. Except that by resigning he also took the spotlight off the truth of the matter. The political system is about who and not what you know. People get the job and companies get the tender because they are known. And sometimes to get known you need to send out expensive bottles of wine. It is the way of things. It is not necessarily corrupt but it always comes close.

The premier resigned because he nearly exposed the system for what it is and always has been… dodgy.

Goanna

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goanna

I can’t get this image out of my head.

A road in the outback and a young aboriginal kid in western clothes bashes the long grass on the verge with a big stick. He is trying, along with his mates, to flush a goanna all under the watchful eye of an elder. The hunted creature remains hidden and may or may not have avoided the blows.

The elder has his own stick, a baseball bat in metallic blue. After a fruitless search he calls time and the hunting party climb back into a late model land cruiser station wagon.

The sound bite captured by the media crew before the elder drives away is that this country is sacred to his people and should not be exploited for shale gas.

I know it is unholy to drawn attention to the truth of this scene. An ancient culture lost but still pretending to exist whilst embracing with both arms the trappings of a new one. I am afraid that even with a few baseball batted visits to the bush those youngsters will not have a feel for country. They will know mobile phones, internet porn, Call of Duty and soggy chips.

This is sad. The generations of indigenous kids that went before had a wholesome life that was connected to the earth. The kids that climbed into the air-conditioned land cruiser will live longer than their ancestors but maybe not with the same wellbeing.

It’s just that whilst fracking probably will contaminate groundwater, clutter the landscape with drilling rigs and mess up all the local roads with traffic, resource use is a requirement for a western lifestyle. We cannot fly, drive and cavort around with technology trappings by chasing goannas. We have to exploit natural capital and subsidize our own energies from external sources. And that is a truth.

Of course it would be nice to do this with the least externalities and with care to restore any damage that is done. But let us at least acknowledge the truth that we cannot make mobile phones with a goanna.

Nor can everyone who owns a car go out and hit one with a stick.

Ask Alloporus

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt has been a quiet spell on the Alloporus blog but you’ll be pleased to know it is not for want of healthy thinking. Although I sometimes wonder if thinking isn’t quite what it’s cracked up to be. A day or two without it would be glorious.

In blatant ignorance of all blogging rules here are my excuses for a lack of posts.

First there is the day job that every now and again gets out of hand — lately it has been more out of hand than in.

Then there were two lots of house renovations — enough said already.

My climate change wisdom website hit a search engine wall and demanded some resuscitation only for the wall to be [temporarily] insurmountable — plus I discovered that all you need to fix any climate issues is to change the government. No websites are necessary [but don’t get me started on the most bizarre myCFI.gov.au].

And so to the main excuse. My new website Ask Alloporus  — not satisfied with a SEO website on climate I have created another on environmental issues.

The idea is to talk about the environment without all the spin. It is similar to climate-change-wisdom but with a less restrictive topic [and maybe a few more winnable search terms]

So far there are 70 odd pages grouped around

 

 

Please pop across to Ask Alloporus and have a gander and let me know what you think. All feedback would be gratefully received.

There is also an Ask Alloporus a question page if you want to create some content.

If you like the site, a link to Ask Alloporus from your site would be fantastic.

Happy thinking.

Natural capital

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Okavango delta Botswana.jpgSuppose you are given $100,000 as an inheritance and told to live off it for a year. You are also told not to worry too much because there would be more money from the estate coming your way in the future.

It would be a pretty safe bet that most of us would happily spend at least some of this $100,000 bonus — perhaps a new car, maybe a nice holiday or two.

The cautious amongst us might put most of the money aside for a rainy day knowing that in the real world such windfalls are rare and we would be right not to be taken in by promises of it being windy again next year.

Now suppose that the $100,000 was definitely a one-off with no unexplained windfalls to follow. Receive the capital as a one off and a few more of us might decide to invest it and only spend the interest — invested wisely $100,000 would yield enough return on investment for a nice vacation each year for years to come.

Now suppose that the relative who left the money to you was not quite so well off or maybe there were a few other relatives to share the legacy and the sum bequeathed was $1,000.

It is unlikely that this amount would be spent on shares, bonds or bullion.

More likely it would be absorbed into the current account of everyday life and barely touch the sides.

Now consider an admittedly rare and unlikely situation where the relative was Buffet-like wealthy and left you a more serious $10,000,000.

You could spend all of this in a year but you would be getting quite a lot of ebay deliveries. Even with the attentions of the taxman, most normal folk would have trouble spending the annual interest on this sum.

If the money didn’t go to your head the interest on investment would see you and your family live like kings indefinitely.

All this makes sense. It has been explained many times over and the subtleties consume the days and nights of many a financier.

So here is a question. Why do we ignore all these fundamentals when it comes to natural capital?

We treat natural capital — the fundamentals of nature that supply useful goods and services — as though it were in the $10 million bracket: infinite, and inexhaustible with endless yield.

Admittedly there is some justification for this. Agriculture has leveraged natural capital most efficiently. We know this because there are now 7 billion of us. The mines and drilling rigs still bring minerals and fossil fuels to help us create goods and power with apparently no end on sight… yet.

Only it is just like the $10 million. It sounds like a huge sum for most people. And yet just like the majority of lottery winners, even big sums can be spent given enough profligacy

It is time that we both learn and accept that natural capital is finite and that we should pay the same attention to nurturing its yields as the investment bankers do attending to their profits.

Tatenda Tuku

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OliverMtukudziMangwanani, mararasei?

Excuse the apparent jibberish but I am still in the joyous grip of a surreal experience for last Friday I was transported to Zimbabwe the country of my son’s birth without leaving Australia.

How was this possible to be an ocean away not just in my imagination but actually there really and truly, feeling the pulse of that great and troubled nation?

Well it was quite a surprise.

All I had to do was follow my instinct and purchase online tickets from an unheard of website to a gig by the African guitar legend and true poet Oliver ‘Tuku’ Mutukudzi.

It sounded too good to be true scheduled as it was for an obscure venue in downtown Parramatta, the Roxy.

I had hesitated of course as one does when the internet throws up such a rare gem of uncertain truth.  It took me a few days to commit my credit card digits to the ether except that Mutserendende, one of the great mans songs, is the ring tone on my mobile — how could I not trust to fate?

Satisfied by a phone call to the venue that confirmed that ‘yes, Tuku would be playing on Friday’ the bargain was accepted.

Now when overseas artists play in Sydney that for all of them is very far away from home they will have their hard-core fans who flock to fill the mosh pit or at worst pay the big bucks for front row seats. Elsewhere the auditorium will be sprinkled with all kinds of folk: the young ones who only just discovered Tori Amos, the middle aged who are just amazed that Sade is just as stunning today as she was in 1980, a few old folk who have always known good music when they hear it, and the ‘be seen’ folk who needed somewhere to go that night. In short, an eclectic mix.

Not so Tuku.

In the surreal surroundings of an ancient cinema with its high ornate ceiling, overused seats, and flaking paint the audience was almost entirely Shona. It was as if all the Zimbabweans from that most populous tribe who were living within travel distance had come together for a party.

And what a pleasure it was — for if there is one thing that Africa does it is party. Smiles everywhere big enough to save the world, warmth to melt the coldest heart and, of course, everyone dances.

It is one of life’s true experiences to be in an African nightclub when the latest popular number is spun. A cheer greets the first chord and by the second the room is heaving. There is no need for a dance floor because everyone is on their feet where they are, instantly transported by the rhythm and moves to a very happy place

Now I had been telling my wife about this phenomenon of nature for years and had promised it would be high on the itinerary of our long planned Africa trip for she had not witnessed it for herself — until last Friday.

In that cinema now comfortably full with well dressed Africans showing off their unique style the DJ was warming the room for the support act and chose a track popular all over southern Africa in the 1990’s that brought back a memory rush of balmy nights in the silky dust of the Kalahari.

And there it was, instant recognition, a cheer, and joyous movement.

I looked at Milena and she felt it too for there is great power in such collective spontaneity. And that energy grew through the unknown yet lively support act and then with fervor for the legend himself

Despite only having his voice, guitar a bass player, drummer and percussionist, Tuku worked through, with genius that only few have, two hours of his layered songs selected seemingly at random from his vast catalogue.

The people danced, laughed, sang, chatted and most of all smiled.

They adored the performer without any thought for the performance or sound that the critic would have panned for its lack of second guitar, keyboard and female chorus for these give so much depth to his studio tracks.

It was a party you see.

And it was a chance to be back in Zimbabwe without paying the prohibitive airfare and everyone was grateful for it, me especially.

You see I lived in Harare for two years from 1987 in a country still basking in the glow of independence if wary of its future. Career blinkers meant that I did not see all that I should have back then, but Africa is too infectious not to seep into your pores for even in adversity the people smile. And they dance whenever the music moves them with an optimism that is infectious. You carry that joy away with you, hidden perhaps and clouded by the travails of the west, but it is always there somewhere deep within, an unconcerned syncopation that can catch you unawares.

So you can see why I have Oliver Mutukudzi as my ringtone, play his playlists often, and have wept at his lyrics that speak of suffering, courage and humanity even though I cannot translate the words.

And now I also have the privileged memory of dancing with his countrymen for two sacred hours far away from Africa, in the Roxy, Parramatta.

One million people

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Runners in City to SurfConsider a city of roughly 1 million people, Adelaide, Australia for example [Calgary, Canada; Bonn, Germany; Tuscon Arizona; or Bristol in the UK would do equally well]

Adelaide has two Australian Football League teams, a pro soccer team, two professional basketball teams, three Universities, a cathedral, numerous hospitals, many shopping malls, around 440 schools, an International airport, and a zoo.

There are over 400 suburbs arranged around a CBD that has high-rise office blocks that provide a common destination for a metropolitan public transport system includes a fleet of over 1,000 buses.

There are doctors, dentists, lawyers, Artisans and actors; and enough skilled tradesmen to build or engineer almost anything.

In short, Adelaide is a self-contained community surrounded by enough farmland to feed everyone.

Put all the people who live in Adelaide in one place and it would be quite a spectacle. It is hard to imagine what it would look like.

There would people as far as the eye could see. Lay them down head to toe and the line would stretch 1,800 km — 400 km further than a road trip from Adelaide to Sydney.

Stand these people in single file and the line would be 30 km long, similar to the queue at the post office.

Now having conjured the image of so many people in your mind’s eye put them all onto commercial aircraft.

Because 1 million is roughly the number of human beings who are, at any one time, airborne in commercial airliners making vapor trails around the globe.

And we wonder why we have environmental issues?

The feature wall

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feature-wall.jpg

Apologies to regular readers for the lack of posts on Alloporus in the past few weeks.

As confused Confucius might say “take on renovations only when you are prepared to put the rest of your life on hold”

Good news is that the painting is done, the cleaners are booked in and all that will be left is to wait three months before I get around to that second coat on the patch of cornice that I missed.

Hours with a roller trying to perform the miracle of turning a dark blue feature wall white, is contemplative stuff. It makes for a wandering of the mind into surprisingly reflective places.

I wait variously from the precarious nature of human existence, to the even more perilous prospect of achieving Pincha Mayurasana [Feathered Peacock Pose], pause briefly at the staggering amount of road construction in China, and then to blissful focus on even application of white on blue.

“It is what it is” became more meaningful than ever in those moments.

The recalcitrance of individuals and the crippling inertia of organizations faded away as they should. Not even the necessity of returning to the day job that is full of such frustration was a worry.

So if anyone needs help to return a feature wall to normality, you know who to call.

Contemplation

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Venice, ItalyI woke early this morning. It was still dark and the neighbourhood was quiet. At first I thought that blocked sinuses had snagged me awake at an unearthly hour until a kookaburra shattered the silence with a raucous laugh.

It always seems to be the loudest bird that begins the chorus. In Africa its fish eagles that squawk you awake if you camp anywhere near water. In my sleepy Sydney suburb it is kookaburras.

Being an early bird myself, I knew sleep was done, so I propped myself up a little to ease the sinuses and contemplated.

There is nothing wrong with contemplation. As the mind rambles, brushes on the existential, or just chatters along, all that goes on in the brain is made well by even a moment of observation by our true self — the quiet observer all things.

It is a shame that this silent observer is so often drowned out by all our noise that we forget it is there.

In my own early morning quiet I began to imagine the lives of everyone — the almost countless numbers of people that during the day ahead would go about their business.

Those in my street and suburb were easy enough. Almost all of them would be sleeping and coming to the end of another night’s rest in home comfort. My mind’s eye wandered toward the city of Sydney, stretched out on the plain below us as dots of light at this hour. I tried to imagine over 4 million souls, most of them sleeping too. Suburb after suburb of houses, each with one, two or a few folk resting with the doors locked.

Randomly my mind jumped to Haiti, a country on the other side of the world that I have never visited. Why Haiti I did not know for the contemplating mind has a will of its own. There were more people of course, and it would be towards the end of their day, many would be eating and evening meal. I could only guess at the menu other than to let my conditioned imagination suggests there were few banquets.

As you do when contemplating, I asked myself if these people really existed. I have never seen them and can only assume that they were there eating supper. Haiti is labeled on any map of the world and the country will be on Wikipedia lists, so logic says it exists, and by extension, so do the people. And, sure enough, Wikipedia says that today there are 10.1 million people in Haiti, double the number that lived there in 1974.

In the quiet that followed the kookaburra alarm call as my thoughts settled on my imagined Haitian village, I felt the magnitude of us all  — the ever so very many people on earth.

And it was a surprisingly neutral feeling. I was neither scared nor fearful. I did not feel worried, nor was I sad or frightened. Equally I was not jumping with joy at our numerical success. After all, it is what it is.

Many people, living many lives that make more people.

By now the rest of the dawn chorus had joined in as the growing light confirmed the reliability of the kookaburra’s internal clock. The moment passed and it was okay to be worried again, to let my mind chase every petrified thought of lack, and to settle onto a persistent fear for the future.

Career choices

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career-choiceEver wondered why you do what you do?

Maybe back in your youth you thought carefully, analyzed the options, took stock and then embarked on a career path clearly chosen. Later you were probably equally thoughtful about if and when to veer off the path. Such conscious thought may even extend to immediate issues of when to push for promotion [or not] and when to change jobs [or not].

Equally likely is that the career chose you. There was no need for any fancy analysis or second-guessing, your vocation beckoned and you responded like a moth to a light.

Today I was struck by an observation that suggests that whether we think of ourselves as pragmatic or instinctual, more subtle forces may be at play to explain what we do.

Complex systems are more than the sum of their parts. In all systems there are properties that emerge simply because of complexity.  Add flour, salt, yeast, water and some energy in the right sequence and a loaf of bread emerges. This much is intuitive and we easily relate to the idea that there really is “more than the sum of the parts”.

In human systems that are crazily complex, there is a school of thought that the most important emergent property is an inertia that resists innovation and change. Put people together in an organization and very soon there is resistance to new ideas that you would not see if you just talked to people one on one. The collective personality shuns change and protects the conventional wisdom far more than individuals do.

This emergent property has far reaching implications for human society as our numbers grow, resources deplete and organizations get bigger and more complex.  It also means something to why we do what we do. I suspect that many a career is chosen through our degree of attraction or aversion to this inertia. It explains why so many professions are populated by people who fit the stereotype for that career — no need to be smarmy here with examples of lawyers, accountants, bureaucrats and the like for you know what I mean.

What is interesting is the relatively small proportion of career options for those with an aversion to this inertia. It is strong in entrepreneurs, the self-employed and maybe some branches of the arts.

The majority of us are at work in an organization. We even join organizations in our spare time to play, worship and give back. There is clearly something about that inertia that is soothing and makes us feel safe. At some level we recognize the emergent property and quite like it.

And maybe our grumpy gripes about these organizations that we spend all our time involved, together with our chirping about those that govern the societies in which we live, are actually our aversion response. Unable to cope with the relative insecurity of risky careers we go to work for an organization then satisfy our concerns that inertia might have a downside by complaining much of the time.

At the heart of this is that we instinctively know that the growing complexity and the inertia that goes with it will back us into a corner. We will loose the nimble problem solving abilities that made us so successful as a species as resistance to change erodes our ability to adapt.

Facing our growing pile of environmental issues without this skill will be far more troublesome that how to select a career.

Present moment awareness

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confused confucius questionsAll the new age gurus that have managed to score a publishing deal tell us that most of our emotional troubles come from the twin fears of anxiety over the future and holding on to the past.

Somewhat surprisingly they are all pretty consistent in this message. This could be because they all borrowed it from the same old sage who sat and mused for a while under a fig tree, or it could be because there is truth in it.

They are also pretty consistent in their suggestions for solutions. Live in the present, the now, for that is all there is. Cultivate present moment awareness and all will be well. You will still feel all the same fears only they will have their place and so cause far less emotional pain, and, ultimately, should enlightenment come, no pain at all.

The books that now clutter the self-help shelves are mostly about the myriad tactics to achieve this awareness. They include  the tried and tested yoga, meditation and four agreements, to any number of whacky options with products peddled via websites in Kazakhstan.

So here is a question. If all we need to do is live in the now. Indeed, if all that is possible is the now, aren’t we already in it?

If so, and contrary to the observations you can make on any commuter train carriage, we are all walking around in a state of enlightenment with no need for a broom in a mountain monastery.

This is the kind of renaissance logic you might expect from Alloporus, all scientific and rational without even a piquant of metaphysics. Except it might be worth a thought.

We all walk around in the now — we have to for there is nothing else. And yet we also perambulate in blissful ignorance of most things that will actually influence the future we fear.

The conundrum that faces us is the requirement to leave the now so as to consider and prepare ourselves for the future. How else would be able to arrest the current erosion of natural capital, avert conflict over scarce resources, and, more fundamentally, even become aware that such risks assail us?

Leave the now so as to be in the now when it arrives in the future.

It is all mind bending trickery that explains why the packed shelves of guru wisdom have nothing much to say about the environment.

A guru of our own

By the way, Alloporus has searched far and wide under many a fig tree to find a guru worth sharing with its loyal readers. After many miles, many false alarms, pretenders and brushes with dodgy acolytes, finally we have a guru worth quoting.

Confused Confucius is its gender-neutral name.

This wise one has yet to sell out to the publishing world proudly posting regular pearls of wisdom from and to the universe for free on Confused Confucius.

Whilst this acceptance of social media is surprising in a sage, more so is that ConCon is not afraid to leave the now and speculate on our environmental future.

Check it out | Confused Confucius