01/02/19 – Friday, 13:40 – Burwood Station, Sydney

“Jesus loves you!” the old man proclaims to two finely dressed women. He’s been sitting at the station waiting for a train for the last 5 minutes and if it wasn’t for the consistent stream of conversation he upheld with himself, and anyone within earshot, you’d think he was like any other labourer making their way home after an early finish. His baggy denim shorts, steel toe capped boots and plain t-shirt doesn’t set him apart on this sunny afternoon in Sydney, however when someone sat by themselves is exclaiming the dangers of Satan, the end of the world and the immigrants’ role in all this, everyone does their best to avoid eye contact. Yet I can’t help but have the urge to want to speak to this fellow; to understand his view of the world. Surely, there’s something of interest to be found in a perspective unburdened by the rules of social conformity as the rest of us are, regardless of whether it’s a conscious separation he chooses or whether it’s just the result of psychological instability…

“There’s 3 or 4 Westfields across Sydney” Will, our liaison officer for the tournament, tells me and as I stroll round this particular Westfield I can’t help but revisit previous thoughts on the commercial similarity of the places I’ve visited in the world so far. Even though there may be the occasional brand I haven’t seen before, everything feels much the same, as if I were in London. But what did I really expect? Malls are convenient – everything you need in one space – why would you go to a high street where your options are reduced and you might not get what you came for. Society trends towards convenience. Will there be a point where convenience reaches a peak? Will tastes demand inconvenience and novelty at this stage? Or will we continue along a path to a human race completely incapable of doing anything for themselves so that they have de-evolved from a bodily perspective and evolution of the mind is all that continues? But even the evolution of the mind must be under threat with so little genuine novel stimulation these days, at least outwardly – in the environment that surrounds us. However, from the screens that face us an ever increasing amount, we all seem to require constant stimulation; slaves to dopamine inflicting signals from loosely associated ‘friends’ and acquaintances. An affluenza that has infected most of modern society. A life lived superficially – no time to delve into details. No time… Was it ever any different? Is it a minority of society who crave deeper stimulation or do we all really need this? My experience of people suggests that most people need deeper stimulation at some level, but the effort to explore in order to find it is certainly less prevalent.

He’s not wrong, our old friend from the train station – Satan is amongst us and superficiality is maybe his greatest ally; the divergence of attention, that allows evil to scourge the earth. The lack of lessons learned from recent history is astounding but even as I write this I’m aware I’m as guilty as the next in turning another cheek to the horrors currently happening all around the world, is it too much for our consciousness to take on, to comprehend how we could possibly make a difference? Historically it has taken the darkest of human monstrosities to awaken society to the active daily duty required to work against the prevailing of such situations. As I read in Camus’ ‘The Plague’ today:

“The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding.”

Understanding…

How can we achieve understanding if rushing from stimulant to stimulant? My train ride took me to Circular Quay, the station where you get off for the Sydney Opera House. As I came out of the station I noticed the Sydney Contemporary Art Gallery so thought I’d take a look to see if Contemporary Art at least differed from Western nation to Western nation. Largely, it did – with a heavy focus on aboriginal art/culture and a variety of exhibitions bringing awareness to the treatment of aboriginal people since white people began to inhabit Australia, all the way up to modern day conditions. This of course taints the view for the rest of the days sight-seeing, now with the increased awareness of the moral cost of these modern marvels of architecture and the city surrounding them, something I’ve actually long been aware of when walking through London. And thank goodness such exhibitions still exist in a society that seems to increasingly lean towards silence with an increasingly apathetic public. If art did not bring light to these truths what would? Politics? Media? The National Curriculum? They seem to be once again reaching ‘1984’ levels of truth avoidance. We can’t hold the general person in contempt for their busy lives. We must understand the economic demands and narrative which drive our superficial public; people are much easier to govern when they’re saddled with debt and distracted by media soundbites on war, terrorists & economic crises, along with advertising constantly comparing them with their neighbour. Significant effort is required to break from these burdens of the mind and explore the world outside of them. The individual must let these manufactured pressures float away, allowing space for inquiry into truth – both on a metaphysical and social level. Space to notice that their peace is often a product of power – of conquest, and that their civilised society is the outcome of the most uncivilised, barbaric acts towards the people now referenced as ‘uncivilised’ and who remain strategically weakened by limiting the resources available to them, most notably education. Power understands power. Specifically, that education leads to the ability to strategise and the powerful fear that they would, as a result of an educated native population, be unseated from the thrones they so violently claimed, so do everything they can to keep this from happening, all the while claiming to be helping. But this is education within the confines of what the powerful determine education to be – one focused on reason. Real education may involve reason, but it also involves love – which grows from understanding, true understanding, and true understanding doesn’t involve reason. In fact, it’s what our ‘reason’ driven Western nations lack most and which superficiality has no time for. 

What is the difference between our sensationalist media and the old fellow at the station? The only difference is that we’re exposed to the media so much that they’re able to repeat messages daily, so we come to accept them as true, but in essence these messages aren’t unlike those of the old man – stories of good and evil, of apocalyptic visions and the blaming of all our woes on someone else. So as we stared at our old friend, considering him the Outsider amongst us, believing him to be loopy with all the ‘nonsense’ he was sprouting, our superficial minds missed that his words were really a close representation of society’s collective voice, one that we’re all complicit in cultivating. “Life is about what you’re willing to accept and not accept” as my old wrestling coach used to say… As we avert our vision and avoid eye contact with this chap, we avoid contact with the darkest, most important parts of ourselves, of each other.

But don’t worry…

Jesus loves us and we’ll all be forgiven…

TF