Time, Love and Talking about Sandy Hook

Jem and Brydie have chosen kittens and puppies wearing Santa hats for the Christmas cards they’re giving to all their friends at school.

“Yappy Holidays!”  barks one.

“Have yourself a furry little Christmas,” mews another.

“Please can we ditch the Santa hat, it’s demeaning...” says a third, deadpan.  

Well.  It doesn’t, but it wants to.

Brydie is despatching greetings with military precision. 

“Can you do some Mum? My arm’s getting a bit sore,” she says, flicking me another envelope to write a name on.

“I think it’s kinda nice if it’s got your writing on it,” I tell her.

“But it’s getting boring,” Brydie says frankly.  Fair enough.  She’s done about 16 already.

“Maybe if you think hard about the person you’re sending it to and pack some good wishes for a very happy Christmas into the card, that’ll help?”

“Not everyone’s going to have a Happy Christmas though, are they?” says Brydie matter-of-factly, still showering flamboyant ticks across her list.

Jem looks up from her card-writing thoughtfully.  “That’s very true, Bry.  Not everyone has a happy Christmas.”

“Hmmm,” says Brydie.  “What sort of things are going to make them sad, d’you think?”

We name a few things.  Not being with the people you love.  Not having enough money for presents.  Having to be photographed for next year’s Christmas cards wearing a red Santa hat that cuts off the circulation to your ears.  And conversation turns to Sandy Hook Elementary School. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and grandparents who will have a sad Christmas for all eternity, remembering the day a little person didn’t come home from school.

We haven’t spoken about it much over the last few days.  But now sitting at the table, each of us with a pile of cards, it all comes out.  We talk about what could possibly make a person so sad and angry they’d kill their own mum and a whole lot of six year olds they don’t even know.  We talk about guns and why it’s so easy to get them in America and why gun control is different in Australia.  We talk about the death penalty and whether it’s merciful to have your life ended if you face guilt, bitterness, life in prison- or whether a person’s life is always worth saving.   We talk about how hard it is to know what’s going on in another person’s life when they’re quiet at school or mucking up and where their sadness and anger could lead.   We wonder what it might feel like to be the quiet, withdrawn kid who nobody really knows and how it feels now to be his father and his brother.  And we give Adam Lanza his name along with the name of Victoria Soto, the teacher who protected her class and was killed.   Because names are important.

Now it’s midnight and I’ve just snuck out of their bedrooms where the pair of them lie in the half-light, curled in the familiar positions I know and love.  I’ve knelt by their beds to watch them, kiss them, stay longer than I need to re-arrange a bear with an adventurous spirit.  They are six and eleven and they are here with me, turning days to memories in the blink of an eye, but with me.  Just every now and then the gift of the two of them leaves me with a tight chest; a choking fear that it's all going too fast and at any moment this could all end.  And I wonder if I’ll have loved it enough? 

Brydie tells us she’s going to live with us forever.  I remember Jem saying the same thing when she was six- she’s recently graduated to living nearby with quite a few cats and possibly a handsome character from a Jane Austen novel.  There are days you want to just freeze time, before forever becomes now.

Time isn’t the enemy.  But the only way to make it a friend is to remember, I guess, that nothing lasts forever- not great happiness, not great sorrow.  All I can think right now is that love is stronger than death and that we have love to give: to the ones we hold in the quiet dark, to the ones who are stretching their wings, growing and changing, and especially to the quiet ones we barely know and the ones we may never meet.

Time.

Love.  

Give.      

The Bonkathon we have to have: in praise of thinking ahead

365 consecutive days of sex:  “The Bonkathon”.

It was the most commented-on article last weekend in the Sydney Morning Herald and explored the effects of a decision made by a US couple to do it every day, rain, hail or shine. 

So how does that strike you as a way to spend a year?  Sex, I was told quite a long time ago, is like oxygen: really no big deal unless you’re not getting any (?)  Possibly the reverse is also true.  Rain, hail or shine?  Absolutely every day for a year?  The SMH article detailed two couples, actually- one that went after it for 101 days, the other the full year.  Both talked about the benefits:  increased intimacy, less pressure to perform, confidence that they were taking the time they needed for one another.  No muscle strains or complaints from neighbours were mentioned.   I reckon the interviewer was too polite to ask.

Aside from those of you who are blissful newly-weds or happily-putting-it-out-there-singles (stop smirking, you know who you are) at some point in every developed relationship the issue of sex rears its ugly head (gosh… no pun intended there.)   And at various points of the life journey- small people arriving, career taking off, mother-in-law in the bedroom next door- sex is one of those things, like vacuuming your cornices, that sometimes just doesn’t get done.   Lack of interest?  Lack of love?  Lack of physical prowess?  Maybe…

It wouldn’t be out of the realms of possibility to suggest that around the same time as the sex thing comes up you might also hear complaints about a lack of spontaneity in other areas: no time to go out for dinner together, you never tell me I look hot in that dress, not enough flowers coming home along with the empty lunchbox...

Thoughtfulness is under attack.

Call me unromantic, but is it possible there’s a case to be made for planned ‘thoughtfulness’?  In a busy world, if it’s not planned, it tends not to get done.  Maybe there are a few geniuses out there who can juggle life and have enough left over to genuinely, on the spur of the moment, think of a card of appreciation for a stressed spouse; a little gift for a child who’s done well; the right ingredients for a surprise romantic Tuesday night dinner after the children are in bed… Well hats off to us!  OUR FAMILIES AND FRIENDS ARE THE LUCKIEST IN THE WORLD!

For the rest of you, there’s iCalendar! 

(Yeah all right... most of the time I’m not in the category above, I’m in this one and I’m not very good at that either.)  Why do people assume that planning things in advance makes them somehow less valuable?  Is there anything less genuine about asking yourself at the start of the month: where are the opportunities to spend time with my children, my significant other, my friends or people who might need a bit of a cheering-up moment?  Is there really anything less genuine about planning four times a year, at random moments, to ‘spontaneously’ bring your spouse home a bottle of wine or a bunch of flowers and sticking a reminder in your iphone so you don’t forget? 

And is it possible to plan your intimate moments as well?  Maybe not going so far as marking SEX in red texta on your fridge calendar next to the kids soccer game, or even sticking it into your (possibly shared with work mates via The Cloud) iCalendar, but at least monitoring and planning the situation a bit more rigorously?  Does the fact that it’s ‘less spontaneous’ make it less genuine and therefore less worthy?

Well, not according to our once a day Bonk-Meisters.  “Routine” actually made the whole process more intimate and pleasurable, according to the sexperts.  Kind of makes sense, if you think about it. 

a)    Planning for something makes sure it gets done, and call me crazy, but in a relationship it seems like there are lots of good reasons to ‘get sex done’ on a fairly regular basis.  Leave it up to chance, leave it up to feelings and good will, leave it up to all the stars being aligned… little risky long term, don’t you think? 

b)   Our habits are what form our characters.  Assuming that both people actually do enjoy a sexual relationship in the first place, it’s reasonable to imagine they’d want the character of that sexual relationship to grow and mature and develop with time.  In fact, the reverse often seems to happen.  Sure, it sounds boring to say that sex is ‘a habit’. But like making a habit of only speaking well of people- something that soon becomes part of your character- making a habit of prioritising and planning for intimacy probably also becomes a natural part of the character of a relationship too. 

c)    Feelings often follow actions.  How many times have you forced yourself to go for a run and felt better afterwards?  Been nice to a random stranger in spite of not feeling particularly cheerful and felt yourself uplifted by the experience?  It’s probably not that helpful only to act when we feel emotions compelling us to do so.  Emotions can be a bit unreliable.  Starting down the path often opens up the view to us halfway.   (Of course there are provisos on all that along the lines of 'don’t be deceptive', but hopefully we’re all big enough to figure that stuff out as well.)

Nothing new here really- stressed out couples with small children gallantly isolate “Date Night” every couple of months and round up the babysitter, for example.  It doesn’t have to be as grand as a whole night out though and it probably doesn’t even have to be mutually agreed upon.  A little bit of “Secret Planned Spontaneous Thoughtfulness” of any kind is hopefully always going to be appreciated, even if it doesn’t always end quite the way you’ve imagined…  It’s the journey, not the destination that matters, right?  Even just putting it on the radar is probably going to be useful!  Our habits become our characters and to habitually plan for thoughtfulness in every area of our relationships?  Can’t go wrong, I reckon.

Right, well, that’s my thought for the weekend.  And because this is such a dodgy topic to blog on, and now you’re all wondering about my sex life, My Significant Other would like you to know that this is a scholarly article, based entirely on professional focus groups and not only does he ALWAYS bring great gifts, he’s also… okay, I think we’ll leave it there.  And if you find his iphone can you return it immediately. 

 

The glam nails I'm hanging onto

I had my nails painted for only the second time in my life while I was in India.

The first time was for our wedding- clear varnish, short nails.  This time, in a concrete school room by the night-time glow of a TV surrounded by children of all ages, I was offered a choice of violent pea green or pearl pink.  Hmmm….

“Nice hands, Miss!” the girls enthused as they expertly applied two pink coats and then a follow-up layer of glitter.  

Beautiful liars.  My nails are comprehensively nibbled, three fingers broken playing sport.  I showed them a couple of scars- a dog food can, a pen knife and a wine glass.  They could hardly get enough of the stories.

We sat together for an hour and watched “Indian Idol- India vs Pakistan.”  Now there’s a competition… We segued into the girls’ favourite soap opera in Hindi and they pointed out the hot ‘hero boy’.  I’d already spotted him, actually.  They giggled a lot.  I could’ve been anywhere.

 The following morning, Jem and Brydie were gobsmacked by my transformation.

“But you NEVER let us paint your nails!”

Sheepish, I put my hands back into my pockets and suggested they have theirs done that afternoon.

These are the moments that sit in my memory alongside kilometre after kilometre of absolutely bewildering human need.  Forehead pressed to the window of our bus, a world of deprivation slides by:  children and skeletal dogs, men rocking on their haunches by the side of the road, pitiful dwellings held together with string and bags and mud and branches. Everywhere, the discarded bits and pieces of peoples lives left behind after every last item has been picked over for something that can be re-used or sold for scrap.  In many places the streets bleed garbage and we breathe thick smog.

The sheer scope and scale of need in this country is mind numbing.  The reality here is that millions of men, women and children will be born into poverty and die the same way.  They will expect nothing more.  And they will get it.

When I think about our paltry efforts to assist- a school here, a medical clinic there, emergency relief somewhere else- the enormity of the need beside the tininess of our giving seems laughable.    The magnitude of this need appears to dwarf every giving program, every Government intervention and every NGO on the planet.  I am sick with the despair of it.

And yet to come away dwarfed and defeated by the need is to come away with the memory of my unexpectedly transformed nails relegated to  memory’s garbage along with so much else in India.  Because the children in Durgapur who so carefully painted those nails will have a different future from their parents.   Once considered ‘Untouchable’, unable to access even the most basic of schooling or employment, these children are attending school alongside their higher caste neighbours.  The girls are likely to marry later in life and will be healthier and less likely to die early from pregnancy-related complications- the leading cause of death among girls aged 15-24 in the developing world.  Some will go on to university.  Many will find basic jobs and work their way into homes with electricity, water, an indoor toilet.  Some will go far further. 

On the huge tide of human need, these little life rafts are well worth celebrating.

Every piece of research we have on giving indicates that people will give to things they believe they can change.  “Overcoming poverty in India”, whole-scale, is not one of those things.  But connecting with one life- one community- and providing education or health care that can make the difference between grinding poverty and actually getting by- well, that’s a different story.

It’s one of the main reasons people sponsor children. Child Sponsorship provides people with a tangible sense that they have broken the overwhelming problem of poverty down to a manageable size.  On the one hand it’s an illusion- on the other, how else can we respond other than to concentrate on the personal?  Every ocean is made up of a million drops.  Every person matters. 

But there’s a major problem with traditional Child Sponsorship programs. When only individual children are singled out to receive funding, others in the community are left behind.  We met children in the Hostel in Durgapur- not part of the UnitingWorld programs we were visiting- who are the recipients of Child Sponsorship from Churches in the US; they receive extra tuition, uniforms and all the benefits of on-site living.  Their friends and relatives remain stuck in slum communities just down the road.  There’s no widespread benefit from the Sponsorship and as a result, life only changes for the randomly privileged few. 

I didn’t ask directly how the children felt about this.  But when we arrived they had just returned from a brief holiday with their families and it was clear that leaving their homes- and for some, leaving close friends- to return to the Hostel was a bittersweet experience. 

Not all Sponsorship programs work this way.  Child Centered Community Development, funded by Child Sponsorship, is a different kettle of fish altogether.  This model retains the value of personalised relationships between the donor and the children because Child Ambassadors are chosen from each community and matched with donors, who keep photographs and profiles of the child and community to which they belong.  But all Sponsorship money is used to further child centered development in the entire community, for all children.  The child ambassadors maintain relationships with donors, writing letters to update them on progress being made for children in the whole community.  It’s a much fairer way to do Child Sponsorship and it’s probably the best of both worlds because it keeps the personal connection while maintaining good development principles in the communities themselves. 

My nail glam was all but gone within 48 hours- scraped and scratched off by the rigours of travel.  But even now, almost two weeks later, whenever I bite my nails I can taste the bitter chemical tang of the polish.  And that’s not all.  Whenever my mind begins to flash through the vast landscape of need we wandered in our short stay in India, as it’s prone to do whenever my heart sinks and my mind darkens, I gently pull myself back to those moments:  the concentration of my beauty therapists, Jem and Brydie dancing with the children, Doug playing cricket, Arjun patiently teaching me his name and throwing his arm around Raoul for yet another photo, Lata quietly beckoning me to follow her through the crowded lane to the very end of the slum where she showed me, proudly, her one room home. 

Individual moments.  Individual people.

Life changes because of moments like these.  I can’t change the world.  But I’m sure as hell not going to turn away from it because the need is so great that I simply can’t face it.   Driving through Agra I listened to my favourite Jimmy Little album “Resonate” and once again these words lodge in my chest:

“We cannot do great things, only small things with great love.”

Here’s some small things to consider:

1.     If you’re part of a family of 4 earning a total family income of $80,000 after tax, you’re in the top 4.8% of income earners in the world, earning 18 times more than the average person.  If you gave away 10% of that income, you’d still be earning 16 times more than the average person.  Is there any chance you can give regularly, or increase your giving, to a program that will change the living conditions of someone else?  Check out http://www.givingwhatwecan.org/why-give/how-rich-you-are for more stats on giving.

2.     To find out about the program we just visited and to consider giving to it, check it out here. http://www.unitingworld.org.au/programs/relief-and-development/right-to-learn/

3.     If you sponsor a child, PLEASE make sure it’s through an Agency that does Child Centered Community Development and benefits whole communities not just individual children.  I can recommend this  https://www.baptistworldaid.org.au/what-we-do/child-sponsorship/

In love with LED

Kolkata takes words and leaves them trembling, colourless.  It seems pointless to try.  And yet…

In the dark from the airport, bikes swoop and stutter and our driver keeps his finger in a frantic staccato on the high beam- a stabbing language of light that seems both aggressive and somehow regal.  Our progress from airport to city is marked in bursts of light and sound.

In the bleak industrial wasteland of new construction and old dreams that mark both sides of the road, everything is garlanded in neon.  Everything is held together, it appears, with sticks and hope and fairy lights.  Above what must surely be vast slum entrances, tiny globes flicker in strings of orange and blue and red; huge arches lit with light and the faces of gods rear up from alleys and lead nowhere; dogs and children scrabble beneath strings of flashing jewels. 

Kolkata is in love with LED.

The contrast leaves you reeling because the city, at first glance, is falling apart.  Everything is patched together and the skeletons show plain: buildings, dogs and even, you imagine, people themselves.  Through the streets, relatively quiet at midnight, bikes rush with men and women three astride; rickshaws both pedal- powered and motorised; trucks monolithic and colourful; children and dogs and chickens.  From the pavement rises the steam of cooking pots; the lights from hundreds of tiny roadside shacks selling soft drink and electrical goods.  Leering from the darkness- half finished buildings in hulking concrete; tiny dwellings in cloth and stick and god knows what.  Skeletons.

I take it all in from the backseat of the four wheel drive, holding Brydie close and a sick bag even closer.  Earlier, half way through the four hour flight from Singapore, deep in 3am sleep, she sits up shuddering, eye lids jerking.  The vice-like grip of nausea only relents ten minutes after we land at Kolkata Airport when she vomits into the specially-packed sick bags with foolproof lock away top.  Heaps better than the clip- lock bags we pioneered in Bangkok. It’s a new personal best.  Ten minutes in the country and she’s thrown up already.  As in Cambodia and Fiji, the upside is that her near-comatose state gets us through Customs in a big hurry.  Five minutes from our hotel, Brydie throws up again and immediately feels better.

Our hotel is in an alley where people are crouching around a low stove cooking something, accompanied by dogs.  The air is full of the sounds of car horns, even at this hour.  We follow Bron and Akino into the lobby- register carvings, wooden stairwells, cool marble floors.  We stumble into single beds in two rooms across the hall from one another on the third floor.  Brydie sleeps fully clothed.  There are threadbare blankets, bottom sheets, one towel.  A TV and a fridge.  It’s after 6am Sydney time when sleep claims us to the frantic whirr of a fan.

It’s birdsong that wakes me, 6am local time.  Birdsong, and I can hardly believe it.  White light reaches a finger in under the curtain above my head.  Jem sleeps.  I put my feet onto cold tiles, investigate the view from the bathroom window through an elegant and rusted curled grille.  Galvanised iron roof tops, garbage, the smell of heat and car fumes and something cooking. Washing hangs from windows.

Early morning unfolds:  cold shower in stuttering spray; choosing clothes that are  modest but don’t give away too much to the promise of a heat that already hangs heavy on the skin; hard boiled eggs and toast with jam and bright orange juice sniffed suspiciously.  Jem is waning already, Brydie bright with relief from the night before.  We stick our heads out into the alley- bikes and trucks in a growing cacophony of noise, a ‘sidewalk café’ ladling something out to passersby, the fast-walk of colourfully dressed locals and men in long trousers and sandals. Optimistic dogs that Brydie eyes with friendly compassion. 

“I like India!” she announces gamely, taking my hand in her own as we head back down the alley to the hotel in search of breakfast, and I could just about scoop her up and cover her with kisses.   

Cradling water bottles, we load into two vehicles; a mini bus and a jeep and head into the funk and fume that is 9am Kolkata traffic.  Brydie and Mum are in the jeep- the rest of us in the bus.  The noise and spectacle of the city fills me with that same utterly bewildering sensation of conflict and energy and exhilaration and despair I sensed in Phnom Penh.  It leaves me all colours and reeling.  I leave the photography to Dad.

It sprawls, it leans, it crowds, it smells, it shoots gap toothed smiles and weaves crazily in and out,  pressing in against the windows.  There are green spaces and white domed palaces in the distances; bridges and buses spilling people from roof tops; a child holding a baby in his arms threading his ways between rickshaws; bikes swaying elegantly through traffic with casual passengers at crazy angles; billboards and roadside shanties and everything held together with the frailest, boldest of hopes.   Every single face, flashing by the window upturned, downcast, meeting your eyes for just a moment- every single face a story you’d hardly dare to read, even if you knew the language.  In the background, above all else there are horns.  Honk if you love Jesus.  Honk if you don’t.  Just honk.  Just honk.

Tonight we are curled beneath an orange double mosquito net with bright red roses on it, like being inside our own special hot house.  Jem thinks it’s elegant.  A fan stirs the air above us.  We’re in two rooms at either end of a corridor upstairs in the school house, with a school room in between.  A mural of Madagascar and some Disney Princesses grace one of the walls. 

“Disney/Pixar,”  says Doug.  “Bringing the world together.”

Durgapur feels rural, although we’ve not seen much of it yet.  St Michel’s Compound, where we’re staying, is tucked away on a back street, a ‘campus’ of sorts minus its children because they’re on school holidays.  It caters for children from the nearby slums; it boards students and has a multi-faith and peace centre.  We’ve eaten with the staff- two meals which for Brydie consisted entirely of rice.  Could be a long week for the little one. A bright green gecko, whom Jem has named Gerrard, watches me from the wall above the bed. 

Tomorrow, a two and a half hour trip to Sarenga, a tribal area north of here.  My little troopers are game and exhausted, grinning stoically in the heat and the humidity and the uncertainty of strangers and the utter chaos of the landscape.  Tomorrow they’ll come face to face with people for the first time.  Tomorrow ‘the other’ comes close.  

India... Well that'll be an experience!

“India!  Well that’ll be an experience!”

It’s the most common reaction we get whenever we tell people where we’re headed.  With a few exceptions, as far as I can tell it seems to be pretty much code for “Are you OUT OF YOUR MIND?”

People who’ve already travelled to amazing India often tell us we’ll love it- the people and the place will get into our bloodstream and we’ll be back, they reckon.  Some of those who haven’t been there- probably conjuring up the familiar and stereotypical image of chaos and poverty and corruption and insanely passionate cricketers- fumble for words and come up with ‘an experience.’  I guess it's just safe to say the reaction is mixed.  But either way- people go for the word 'experience'.

And I kinda like the fact that they’re choosing to concentrate their efforts in this realm.

It makes me wonder what ‘an experience’ is and how we have one.  The fact is, there are thirteen of us embarking on this adventure together and while we’re all following the same itinerary-checking into a hotel in Kolkata overnight, loading up a mini bus to travel two hours north to an industrial city, Durgapur, where we’ll stay with the local church and visit education and health projects, then heading back to mosey around in Kolkata and Delhi- we’ll all be having totally different experiences. 

It’s not just the material things that’ll be different for us- who enjoys the food, who ends up sitting next to Brydie and her 9 stuffed animals on the bus.  It’s how we interpret the raw material we’re faced with.  And it’s the interpretation I’m interested in.  After all, some people travel the world and are changed forever.  Others come home and buy a new flatscreen.

Why is that?  Seems to me that our own personal filters determine what kind of picture of the world we come away with.  Think of Instagram- that fabulous little photo app I’ve become so fond of.  Take a raw picture- you can think of that as the ‘way things actually are’ or the experience we’re all having together.  Already, of course, in taking the picture we’ve made a number of decisions about where to focus, what to crop in and out, how much to zoom.  It’s exactly the same in life depending on what parts of our experiences we choose to dwell on.   Do we focus on the comedy or the tragedy?  The boredom or the chaos?  The creativity or the frustration?

On top of that apply a filter- more light, less light, different tones.  Add a frame.  What we come away with is the same picture, but cast differently depending on the choices and mood of the person doing the creating.

In real life, our filters are our backgrounds, past experiences, temperaments, values and expectations.  All these things mean that we’re already changing the picture even as we’re walking into it to be part of it.  Jem and Brydie, embarking on this great adventure, already have some pre-conceived ideas about things like poverty, the ideal way to react to vomit, ‘helping’ and India itself.  But they hardly know they hold these ideas- they're born of experiences and conversations they’ve had with family and friends since they were old enough to talk.  Their different personalities pre-dispose them to either warm to this experience or to shy away from it.  And their different personalities pre-dispose them to deal with their feelings in different ways. 

I’m reminded of that quote from the Torah:  “We don’t see the world as it is.  We see the world as we are.”  Any experience we have is a combination of our personality, our expectations, our values- our own special, hardly-noticed spin.

Just recently I realised that I literally wear ‘rose coloured’ glasses.  A pair of migraine busting super-polarised dark brown tinted Ray-bans, they seldom leave my face and give the world a very pleasant rosy hue.  Sunsets look amazing through their lens.  (Poles in the underground Station at St James, on the other hand, look like nothing much, which is how you can get painfully up-close-and-personal with them if you’re running for a train.) 

My literal lenses pretty much mirror my philosophical lens, which is a nice little coincidence: optimist with realist leanings.  How did I get that way?  Who knows.  Genes.  Early life experiences.  Decisions that have reinforced my way of seeing the world…  What’s your lens?

Anyway, we’re on the flight to Singapore, and I’ve got on the glasses because my head has been pole-axing all morning.  I’m a little tanked up on painkillers, Coke and some very tasty roasted peanuts, courtesy of Singapore Airlines.  We’re on the top deck of the 787 or whatever combination of numbers it is that flies the double-decker.  Beside me, Jem, Brydie and Doug are glued to screens and giggling quietly every now and then.  Across the aisle, mum and dad are also engrossed.

To tell the truth, I’ve felt a little anxious at times about dragging my entire family into the unknown, beset as we are at every turn with people raising their eyebrows and dangling the sceptre of Deli belly and humidity and heat and electricity cuts and poverty and and and…  I understand the concerns.  I also think about the opportunities and resent some of the stereotypes.  But for me, the experience isn’t just about ‘teaching my children how lucky they are’ or ‘seeing how the other half live’ or 'being inspired' or anything else that’s entirely about us. 

It’s more about making a connection, as feeble and shortlived as that will inevitably be.  And hoping that somehow that’s a connection that will continue to unwind in ways I haven’t yet figured out, for all of us, at both ends, beyond the couple of short days we’ll be together.  Connections are complicated; maybe they take years to bear fruit; maybe they’re in the mind and the heart as well as in the physical realm…  And they’re not always comfortable.  They change us.  They change others.  

Okay, to be honest I don’t know exactly what kind of experience I’m hoping for.  But it's something along those lines. Does that sound a bit rose coloured? Given we’re all coming at this from different places, it probably is.

Guess we’ll wait and see. 

Misogyny killed my speechwriting career

Okay so by now we all know that if you look up the definition of misogynist, you’ll find that strictly speaking it’s a person who hates women.  Sure, I’m not usually a stickler for the dictionary definition, but in this case it might be a bit important?  It seems to me that a misogynist is more than a person who has outdated, sexist or at times offensive views about women, or who has doubts about a woman’s capacity to lead.  It’s a person who actually hates women.  For that reason, I’m one of those people who’s not all that comfortable with the label being applied to Tony Abbott.  I think he probably has a right to roll his eyes when he’s accused of holding this attitude ‘every day, in every way.’  I mean, seriously? 

Not that I feel any sympathy for him.  In choosing to relentlessly accuse Prime Minister Gillard of being a liar, and standing by signs like ‘bitch’ and ‘witch’ he and his Government have also chosen to use language in a way that strips it of much of its meaning.  When you hype language to this extent, labelling people with terms that hold so much emotional baggage and neatly assassinate entire characters in one fell swoop, something happens not only to the person, but to language itself. 

You’re left with nothing to use in situations where language really could communicate something serious.

And that bothers me.

Take places around the world where people actually are the victims of serious hatred, arguably gender based.   Or where people genuinely can’t be trusted, about anything.   In Afghanistan a fourteen year old school girl is shot because she wants to pursue education for herself and other girls.  The Taliban opposes this, arguably motivated by the desire to hold women and girls captive in poverty and ignorance, which may or may not amount to sheer hatred of women but which certainly manifests itself in very evil behaviour toward them.  If Malala recovers, and continues her quest to liberate her sisters, the Taliban say they’ll target her again. 

Is this an example of misogyny?  How does it compare to Abbott’s behaviour?  What language are we left with to describe the Taliban if we’re throwing around the term misogyny to describe Mr Abbott?

For mine, Tony Abbott and others like him say things that are offensive, sexist and sometimes just plain stupid.  Abbott’s ideas about the roles of women and men seem outdated to me, although they’re certainly shared by many people who are deeply respectful of women in other ways.  But a hater of women, every day and in every way?  In my opinion, that’s just not realistic.

I’m glad that Julia Gillard spoke out against the fact that she’s been maligned by people who should be using language in ways that are more fitting of intelligent debate.  The ongoing comments about her as a woman and recent statements about her father are off-the-scale offensive. But I’m not sure that protesting against the use of inaccurate and offensive language by returning it was a good tactic, understandable as it might have been at the time.

Can we not just take a deep breath here?  To me, it’s depressing that our desire to make a point pushes us to use more and more hyperbole.  Hyperbole just strips language of its power.  It makes us two-dimensional cut out characters who don’t stop to consider all the reasons why people say and do the things they do.  Politics makes people play games with power, but we don’t all need to get in on the act.  We seem all too willing to write people off with a simple label, no matter what side of the bench we sit.  (And sure, I’m as guilty as anyone.  It’s often really quite fun.)

I guess I can’t help but think there’s a lot of genuine evil in this world.  If we absolutely must distil people down to one word adjectives, why don’t we save words packed with invective like ‘hatred’ for where they’re really needed?  At least then they’d retain some of their power. 

Tony Abbott doesn’t inherently hate women.  And Julia Gillard isn’t inherently a liar.  They’re actually probably both reasonably decent people who in their variously human and flawed ways probably have a lot more in common than they realise.  

Damn.  I’d make such a boring political speechwriter. 

The secret to unhappiness

A couple of weeks ago I read an article that suggested that the source of human unhappiness was comparison.  When we compare our bodies, our spouses, our incomes, our jobs, our(insert your own subject) with others, we almost always find them wanting and then we feel unhappy.  On the other hand, if we refrain from setting people and events in a wider context, but just take them on their own merits, we’re more likely to be happy with what we have.

Fair enough, I thought at the time.  Better not to make comparisons.   *Must remember to avoid that in the future.

Recently I had an experience that brought this idea home with horrible clarity.  For about six weeks, it appeared that some benevolent hand had turned off the pain switch in my brain.  No reason.  Utterly bewildering.  In more than 25 years, it’s never happened before to the same extent.  And it was as terrifying as it was exhilarating.

Life was unbelievably easy.  I got up in the morning without pain, and I went to bed at night without pain.  My painkiller count went from 4-6 a day to virtually nothing, I worked and played and slept in a bit of a euphoric daze.  And I told only a few people because it was a wildcard that couldn’t possibly last.  Could it…?

It didn’t.  The pain is back. 

The comparison between life with constant pain and life without it is shocking.  And since returning to status quo, I have felt unhappy.  Deeply unhappy.  Sad not only to be in pain, but also because I now know what it’s like to be without it.

Yes, comparison is a cause of deep unhappiness.  Point proved.

So keeping one’s head down and looking straight ahead is the way to go, then?  Is ignorance bliss?  For millions of people living in poverty- better for them that they never know what they’re missing out on?

Naturally, no sooner had I decided from experience that yes, comparison is the source of all human misery and it should be avoided at all costs than I felt compelled to analyse it a bit further. 

Because of course it’s not possible to lead lives where we can avoid comparison.  We’re surrounded by it.  When you’re single, you’re bound to be seated next to a necking couple on the train.  When your own career is going down the toilet, it’s inevitable that your best friend will get the $50K bonus, and if you’re feeling like a beached whale the only person you’ll ever be seated next to at your School Reunion is the Back To School Class of ’89 ShowGirl.

So it's unrealistic to think we can avoid making comparisons. Yet comparisons so often make us unhappy. What’s the solution?

Comparisons show up two things- difference and deficiency.  One is genuinely a problem- the other not so much.  Confusing the two is probably where a lot of the unhappiness lies. When you live or work with someone, it’s easy to compare your own communication styles and decide that your partner or colleague is deeply deficient in some area when perhaps it’s just a different way of communicating.  When you travel overseas it’s easy enough to compare cultures and decide that certain features are deficiencies when again, they may just be differences.  When your child becomes a teenager and their character appears to change beyond all recognition, again it’s probably tempting to decide that they’ve become deficient- but again, perhaps it’s just a difference that can be adjusted to. 

Deficient, or just different?

Of course there are comparisons that highlight genuine deficiencies.  Compare the percentage of girls who attend high school in Australia (99%) to the number of girls who attend school in Pakistan (29%) and you come up with a deficiency.  A white middle class man growing up on the North Shore of Sydney is likely to live almost 30 years longer than an Aboriginal man growing up in a remote area of Australia.  And there are times when relationships and characters and careers are clearly deficient too.  Probably not as often as we think, but when the deficiencies are genuine and we can see a better model at work, we should be motivated to work toward change.  In some cases if we don’t make the comparisons, we don’t see the extent of the need.   And change never takes place.

But what about those things that fall into the category of deficiencies that we may be powerless to change?  These are the disappointments.  At times, of course, there’s just going to be a huge gulf between what we want and what we get, a gulf that endless comparison can only make more painful.  I’m single and I want to be married with children. I’m strapped for cash and I’d prefer to be heading on a Caribbean cruise.  I’m married with children, strapped for cash and I’d prefer to be single and heading on a Caribbean cruise…   I have pain and it sucks. 

Well, what can I say?  Life is disappointing.  We don’t get what we want.  But that’s not what defines us.  The secret to being unhappy is dwelling on what we don’t have rather than on what we do.   The secret to being unhappy is feeling as though we got ripped off in the great game of life and we deserved better and everybody else won the hand.  Actually, they probably didn’t.  Surprisingly enough, a lot of people probably feel a bit the same quite a lot of the time.  And we all just get on with it, and concentrate on what we’ve got, and what we love, and hope for the best, and hang on. 

We change what we can and live with what we can’t.

Making comparisons is inevitable.  It’s what we do with the information that determines how happy we are.