In 1973 an average house in Adelaide would cost you $16,250 – and the average wage was $111.80 a week ($5800 a year) – average rents were $10 a week – a new Holden Kingswood was $2730.00.

In 2014 the average house in Adelaide would cost about $450,000 – and the average wage was 1453.90 ($75,000 a year) per week – average rent are about $400.00 – a new
Holden Commodore was $35,000.

To put it simply, the price of houses have gone up 600%, rent about .25 % and cars about 40% in comparison to the money we were earning in 1973 and are now earning.

I have been thinking about this post for some time; not being an economist, accountant or financial advisor (as they are bullshit jobs!), I reckon, I’m pretty qualified to say, that something is really not quite right here.

Is it just that the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer and most of us are all just sitting in the middle struggling…?

At this point, I should point out that all of this doesn’t matter.  I have lamented in other posts about the futility of chasing wealth and power as ultimately, we firstly all end up sitting in a chair, pissing our pants, watching days of our lives and waiting for our relatives to visit who never come….. and, then we die, and take nothing with us (remember, you never see a trailer on a hearse!).

In truth the rent, the house, the car are all useless articles that cost a lot, but perhaps have no real value in our lives.  It is no use knowing the price of everything, if you don’t know the value of anything.

And considering that in recent years more and more people are filling their time doing bullshit jobs (see earlier post this week – click here) I ask myself constantly “Self, – Is there such a thing as an Aussie Battler anymore?”

I think the world changed for the Aussie Battler after a couple of wars, a few where we called the returned soldiers Heroes, and then a few smaller wars, or where they Police Actions, where we called the returned soldiers baby killers! (bearing in mind we now all celebrate the ‘heroes’ in all our wars, and Police actions, yet fail to live the values we celebrate in them – I had a spit about this last ANZAC Day and put a video up on my YouTube channel if you’d like to have a look – click here).

Then we had a sexual revolution and a stock market boom (and multiple crashes), the housing boom, there was a baby boom in there somewhere (I think around the time of the sexual revolution or one of the wars – it doesn’t matter, I think the baby boomers are actually the cause of everything!), and now a technological revolution (still going on – is it a boom, or just a series of small startup booms, which become bust – unless you sell porn or are Facebook) and then a global financial crisis (which had a cool, catchy and overused acronym – GFC!) and then….

What?  What are we now.  Are we Aussie Battlers, pulling ourselves up by our boot-straps, working hours in the hot sun, digging a hole somewhere, lifting some heavy stuff, to return home on dusk, having lamb and three veg for tea (not dinner) and watching the ABC News… do we see the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended…  I don’t think so!

Are we still the land of real opportunity, or are we a people governed by those who talk a lot about jobs, struggling Aussie families, ‘moving forward’ (fuck, I hate that phrase, almost as much as the hypocrisy of the person who said it with the ultimate lie of never having a carbon tax in a government that I…. you know the rest of that bullshit – if not just switch on the News now and listen to any politician from any party in THIS election!) … are we now not governed by an elite group of people who themselves couldn’t even define (not that I can?) an Aussie Battler let alone find one.

What really is in the future for these entitled, self obsessed, iphone, ipad, internet, snapchat addicted no hopers, we call a variety of labeled generations, who still live in OUR houses (that we worked bloody hard for as real Aussie Battlers!) and expect everything to be given to them…..

This younger, ungrateful generation who live in a world…… yeah, in a world that……. yeah, in a world that… oh, yeah, in a world that WE created for them!  Oh fuck, I think it’s our fault.  I know the good old days are gone, but is today just their good old days yet to be realised – sometimes I think not.  there are just a few things I know, and we all know if we look, that are real different from then and now:

• I know I got my free education (even Uni if you went – which wasn’t encouraged or expected) – and now to go to Uni means to have a HECS debt (the equivalent of my first house deposit) that may cripple you for a decade and beyond.
• I know I could walk the streets pretty safe at night – and now we have more Police and more laws and now about 90% of parents drop their kids off and pick them up from school through fear.
• I know it was a fair dream to own a home and a car and now the opening stats in this post say, perhaps this is not a dream, but a pipe dream.
• I know that if I really wanted a job I just had to go out and look for it – there were enough to go around and now even with a degree, and a HECS debt crippling any wage I earn, I may not get a job, ever.
• I knew if I had a career it would probably be for life and now a career is until the next Government reshuffle (or election where promises of jobs never materialise, but cut backs and redundancies do!), business insolvency or stock market crash. Bearing in mind always that the CEO get his payout and lives to start another company or better still get a Government advisory or consultancy role.
• I know that if I put a little bit away in superannuation I would be set up pretty good when I retire and now (even today) the retirement age is increasing and I can’t put enough away, even if I have a job, didn’t have to pay my HECS debt and found a secure investment that didn’t go bust or involve massive corporate corruption – if all these things did or didn’t happen I will still struggle to secure any future in retirement.
• I knew the local cop, the local bank manager, the local councillor, the local butcher the local milkman (he came to my house?) – and now I do my banking and shopping on line (if I do speak so someone it is in Mumbi!), the banks don’t want to know me except to take my money in fees and give me crippling credit debt – there is no local ‘friend’ or respected member of the community we all look up to and most of all trust.

I don’t think the Aussie Battler is a myth, but, I also don’t think it is our future.

The Merchants of Misery (the media) rule our lives, drive public opinion, topple governments (who needs the CIA when you have CNN), make us buy, buy, buy and most of all ensure that our lives never seem good enough and then provide us with a moral compass that worships possessions, destroys diversity through fear of … what is it now, political correctness gone mad, or racism, or sexism, or basically the fear of standing up like the real Aussie Battler to fight for values that nobody knows what they are…. we are a society of Aussie Battlers with nothing to battle for except our next outrage to Tweet about and our next must have possession (as directed by the Media).

I refuse.  I outright, and down right, fucking refuse to be a puppet, to be on mindless media autopilot!

My Dad was a real Aussie Battler, and each day I wonder what he would think, what he would do? (bearing in mind at the end of each day he was to buggered to do more than eat his tea, watch the news and fall into bed to do it all again the next day – and he died at 64 on the dole as he wasn’t old enough for the pension!)

I haven’t mentioned this in the last couple of posts, even though it is the point of my blog and my YouTube channel, and that is being a better man.  Maybe it is because, sometimes, just sometimes, to be a better man, you have to understand that not all those around you have the same aspirations – they are still on autopilot, living a life dictated by the Media and the only way to wake them up is to give them a good hard slap (figuratively of course!)  Plus, there are those who will tear you down for even getting up any speaking what everyone else is thinking – even though when you speak up and say ‘fuck’ it becomes about saying fuck and not about the subject – always remembering, outrage is the modern equivalent of hard work.

I haven’t also mentioned, the being a better man words, because, well, I felt my blog, with an average of 60 reads per post and my YouTube Channel with a similar average, was just to small, I was too small, I just wasn’t important enough.

Then I thought, fuck it, that’s what everyone thinks – that’s what we are supposed to think, or go shopping to stop thinking at all!

So, standing up, speaking up, even if no-one is listening, is the point of being a better man.

As I have quoted before, as Gandhi said:

First they ignore you,

then they laugh at you,

then they fight you,

then you win.

I was reading the news the today and realised that there were a lot of new articles and exclusives, even a few revelations…. but I realised that there didn’t appear to be anything original being written.

I also read the other day the media being referred to as the “Merchants of Misery.”

So when you have a group of people who are only providing misery and not even doing it originally you perhaps are receiving your information either from a group of liars or fools.  Either way, the information you are receiving is not a reflection of who you are as a person let alone who we are as a group called society.

I wrote a post called Better than 10% which was another one of my completely unsubstantiated opinions on the world which said that only about 10 percent of everything on the internet was truly original (which incidentally is my true belief therefore it must be true – I wrote another post about this but can’t be stuffed looking it up….).
The best part about the Merchants of Misery is that they are able to tell us on a daily, hourly, minute by minute schedule how we can be truly, truly original and unique.  We just have to buy everything they tell us to, want everything they want us to and most of all, be who they want us to be.  We can even be different and just be the same as the rest, because the Merchants of Misery have told us that we are different….

…… just in passing I love the originality of the Hipster who initially emerged as a unique lifestyle choice and has now been developed by the Merchants of Misery to be cloned beards on yellow jeans wearing, sockless socialites in trendy over priced coffee shops…..

But, each time we strive for originality and uniqueness we are sucked into the Merchants of Misery void of not fitting in – which is contradictory to the original thought of being original.

The scary part of the ‘new original’ is that it is in fact looking for originality in the accumulation of self interest pursuits and power.  The ‘new original’ also requires that the old non original has-beens provided us with all the opportunity to be original that we are obviously entitled to!

I need to think that the ‘new original’ will wake up one morning, unfortunately most probably after retirement, when they realise that there is no legacy only damage, no monuments only devastation, no heroes only broken lives and unemployed youth (of course this is only applicable to the first generation and all following generations don’t have to actually do this as they are born entitled!)

I also need to know that the ‘new original’ will not only leave new catch phrases to segway into their next life but may also enlighten another generation to the futility of the accumulation of power and wealth – all of which we leave behind when we die.

I have decided that the ‘new original’ is in fact the historical dictator in the
sheeps clothing of a corporate leader on a $13 million salary (For fuck sake what could you spend $13 million on a year other than being a fucking selfish, heartless, uncharitable, sightless prick (you obviously can’t see humanity or probably have lost yours) who in actual fact demonstrates no attributes of leadership.

The fact (remember I have said it with no research or qualifications on the subject whatsoever, so it must be a fact!) is that there is really nothing original in what the
Merchants of Misery are selling us; there is no originality in building a corporate empire of power and wealth, there is no uniqueness in going to your grave with a full bank balance and an empty heart.

As I sit here and write this I am thinking about the uniqueness that we all strive for and for some reason often think that we believe it is the differences that lead to our detriment and our eventual success in fitting in that will lead to our success.

Neither are true.  It is just one fact that we have to realise to make a success of ourselves and our lives.

We are an original.

There is only one.

All the copies will only ever be copies – that is, usually the ones we are trying to copy to overcome our complete original existence.

Our originality stares us in the face every day we look in the mirror; yet so often we fail to see it.  What we actually see is the fail.  We forget that we are original, the next second is new and original, the next thing we do has never been done before, our next move is an original move in our original life that will never come by again – just for information the childhood thought that somewhere in the world at any given time there is someone thinking the same thing or doing the same exact thing as you, at exactly the same time, is a statistical impossibility and quite honestly, a unless thought (I worked it our on my Atari 2000 so it must be true!)

I think tomorrow I wont look to the Merchants of Misery to tell me how to be original, to have that original thought, to lead that original life.  Instead I might just stand for a couple of extra minutes in front of the mirror and see the originality of me, as I am now, here, in that moment.

Okay, I know I am on what appears another never ending holiday in Bali, but it gives me time to think…..

The word dialectic is pretty complicated in itself – it means basically a logical argument process where two things can exist at the same time which eventually leads to a conclusion…  at the time that the two initial positions are held (the thesis and the anti-thesis!) both can be correct.  The analysis and problem solving (and perhaps even a bit of appreciative enquiry), lead to the a synthesis, which itself then becomes a thesis or anti-thesis….. and so the process goes on.

I think Australians in Bali are a thesis and Australians in Adelaide are an anti-thesis, but the media (fuck I hate the media! – Hate, strong word, hurts my soul more than their sales – so, I will rephrase that…. I think the media influences us to much and we let them…) make us believe that there are not two separate things – two separate Australians who both think they are right, both existing at the same time, in the same person.

So lets play a game.  Bali Day and Adelaide Day!

Bali Day
“Good Morning” (I cant understand this local language) “Salamet.. what the fuck!”  Why don’t they speak english.
Adelaide Day
(Any migrant trying to do anything/any tourist trying to do anything)
“Excuse me (use of some other language)
“What the fuck mate if you’re coming her learn to speak Australian”

 

Bali Day
“Fuck this food is shit and too fucking hot – where can I get a Parmey for fuck sake”
Adelaide Day
“This Halal food is fucking bullshit – where can I get a Parmey for fuck sake”

 

Bali Day
“Please put on a Sari to go into the temple and be modest in public….” “Yeah, right, get fucked I’m on holidays, skull, skull, skull – show us your tits!!!!”
Adelaide Day
“Ban the Burka you fucking terrorist!”

 

Bali Day
“In Bali we respect our elders, our President and each other.  If you offend my friend, my President, my family, you offend me, please apologise”.
Adelaide Day
“Our Prime Minister should go to Jakarta and teach the Indonesian President Bloke a few fucking manners….. How dare they offend us by upholding their laws in their own country, they better not come here and tell us what to do…. yeah….. fuck ’em”

 

Bali Day
“How can I help you”
Adelaide Day
“Are you right?”  (Just pay attention the next time someone serves you)

 

Bali Day
“I will put out my offerings in the morning praying for a good day, health and happiness, for my country, my family and me (in that order)”
Adelaide Day
“I will read the Newspaper, Surf the Internet, Check Facebook, watch the 6 0’clock news and be told what I will be outraged about today – and, I might have a Parmey.”

My last post was about the death penalty and some food for thought.  I don’t think I actually was strong enough about my thoughts on the Indonesian executions.  So, here I go:

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME!!

Stop being outraged against this lawful act by another country, in their own country.  I need you to also read the following:

I DO NOT SUPPORT THE DEATH PENALTY!

Is this ‘dialectic’ thinking: well perhaps?  But, in the end I will not be outraged because the media tell me to.  I will not be outraged because my Government is doing what the media tells it to.  I will not support offending another nation when we would not tolerate such offence (PS:  I can’t member Indonesia tapping Abbotts’ phone!)

I can not condone the withdrawal of our Ambassador from Indonesia when there are so many Australia’s here that may need the help of our own Goverment – in all honesty, “What the….”  I can not condone outrage today for something that there was no outrage for yesterday and none today and there will be none tomorrow.

Read my last post and think about “perspective”.

Bali Day
I love my country
Adelaide Day
I love my country

Today two of the ‘Bali 9’ were executed in Indonesia.

Is the current outrage about the death penalty, only about the death penalty for Australian’s – or all citizens, of all countries, in all countries, for all crimes.

Also, and as important, what other two citizens of Australia have done the wrong thing to find the support of the Australian Government (withdrawing our Ambassador?) – two citizens affecting the lives, international relationships, travel safety, trade, the economy of 22 million?

Perspective:
In 2013 – 2400 executions in China (figures are approx as statistic are ‘state secrets’).
In Saudi Arabia, death penalty for adultery, homosexuality.
1153 – number of Australian Citizens killed in road crashes in 2014.
41 Australian soldiers have died in Iraq (42 in Afghanistan) – I stand for mercy (should we bring these boys home?)

Perspective:
Four days ago was Anzac Day and tens of thousands of Australians went out to show their respects – it was all over the media, for weeks/months before, souvenirs were everywhere including On The Run which had bears (?) in Anzac Uniforms – in the last four days in the morning, or at the going down of the sun, have you remembered them – I stand in remembrance.

Perspective:
EVERY week, on average, one Australian woman is killed by a current or former partner – I stand for mercy.

Stop having the media dictate your beliefs, opinions and causes.

• Donate some money to any Nepal earthquake relief fund.
• Volunteer at a Nursing Home or to help kids.
• Pick up rubbish in the street.
• Drive courteously.
• Sell all of your TV’s and computers except one of each – donate the money to charity (you still have more that most people in the world).
• Being overweight is from eating to much.
• Walk around the supermarket and feel privileged (and a little disgusted) at all the wonderful food we have so easily.
• Go and visit you Mum/Dad instead of rushing to…… whatever (ask them about when they were young!)

Stop talking about yesterday, learn from it and move on, plan for tomorrow.

If you want to stop the death penalty, do something about it – outrage is not enough – watching the new today and My Kitchen Rules tomorrow, wont really make a difference – where the fuck did I put that Anzac Day Bear?

I do stand for mercy, in all of my life, in all things.