Melbourne, you beauty

01/Apr/2023 | Melbourne 

One of the things that irks me a lot during a discussion, that usually devolves into an argument, is when the other person refuses to consider other approaches/ justifications that are being put forward. It seems to be tunnel vision that prevents them from imagining, even allowing, other possibilities. Neither am I the first person to notice this¹ nor am I myself immune to this phenomenon- as it becomes apparent to me at the end of many passionate conversations with Payal anna. While the stubbornness is somewhat understandable, they are after all our opinions and we've thought and talked about them long enough to both shape ourselves and find good rhetorical tools, I nonetheless find that attitute really troubling for the sake of society.

1. All of us stand on arbitrary ground. Unless you are a genius or enlightened (I'm not sure if there are other categories), the most fundamental, seemingly unthinking, self-evident, axiomatic truths² of our life, are held by a sagging, messy fabric of practices and behaviours that allow you to build the inhabitations of life. We almost never have the time, knowledge nor the inclination to investigate and hit a deeper bedrock, to stand on firmer foundations³. 

2. Parallelly, without that strong foundation, we feel ill-equipped to work towards building towards anything of value. It's like trying to create a business in a volatile political environment; we are reluctant because the chance of what you've built to be snatched away or crumbling down are higher. That creates hedonist infantilism⁴ where our excuse to not spend our lives bringing any change is either because the world's too big or because any change is short-lived anyway.

05/Apr/2023 | Sydney

I had to interrupt the piece at the above point because it was time to go to the circuit and now I don't know where I'd have taken it to. Summarily speaking, I think I was riffing on the impossibility on having to live in a world where I don't have all information and where my actions don't create large-scale changes anyway. Which interestingly was triggered by something else when I wanted to write about how much I loved Melbourne this time around. Yeah, the weather's a bit erratic but the thriving CBD, the layout of parks and buildings, the crowds and the buzz was pretty incredible. 

In other news, I realised earlier that my fickleness⁵ and constantly changing interests have less to do with wanting to understand the world than it is with seeking to replicate the sense of mastery a person who knows his shit exudes⁶.

¹There is a sub-genre of books elaborating on our tribalism in the age of social media

²"..everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence"- David Foster Wallace

³The flipside of standing on shoulders of giants is that we're too far from the ground

⁴"the hippie’s characteristic sloppiness, 'ill-fitting clothes, unkempt appearance and Fuzzed-out psychedelic fascist drug talk, displayed a disdain for sensuality'" - Mark Fisher

⁵"Cam doesn’t change the sheets as much as he changes his personality" - Modern Family

⁶"I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size" - Susan Orlean