'Writ Large': a blog about the big stuff

26/01/2010

It’s national navel-gazing day – what does being ‘Australian’ mean to you?

Filed under: Aussie society, Social interaction — Fiona Marsden @ 9:23 am

Aaaah, Australia Day … a great excuse for another holiday just days after most of us came back to work, and supposedly a celebration (or lamentation?) of the day a boatload of British sailors and convicts set foot upon the shores of this wide, brown land.

As on every other Australia Day in my recent memory, the print, broadcast and online media have been hard at work analysing why we have a national day of celebration and what it means to be ‘Australian’. And, being a dinky-di, ridgey-didge, patriotic Aussie—whatever that means!—I figured I’d add my 10 cents’ worth to the debate.

Most of the media coverage I’ve seen seems to revolve around two symbols of our nationhood: the flag, and the national anthem. I’m quite fond of our flag, but as someone who thinks Australia has long outgrown the need for a monarch (one who lives on the other side of the world, no less) I hope to see a new flag sometime in the next decade. Maybe one that retains the Southern Cross but replaces the Union Jack with a simple, nationally recognised symbol. A  gum leaf, perhaps? (Hmm, don’t know about the design aesthetics but I’ll leave that to others to sort out.)

Despite hoping for a different flag, I’m old-fashioned enough to think that our national anthem should stay exactly as it is. I tear up when I hear ‘Advance Australia Fair’ played at Olympic ceremonies & major national days. I like the stirring tune and the daggy, old-fashioned lines like ‘girt by sea’. I can’t give much credence to the arguments of people who say we should ditch AAF because the language is a bit outdated. Are we really so lazy or dull-witted that we can’t figure out a few old-fashioned phrases?

A lot of people reckon ‘Waltzing Matilda’ should become our national anthem, but I think it’d be a poor substitute. Do we want our nation’s hopes and ambitions to be summed up by a ditty about a sheep stealer who takes his own life? Surely we can do better than that?! Of the other oft-quoted alternatives, I have a soft spot for ‘I Still Call Australia Home’ and ‘I am Australian’ but I think they lack the slightly grandiose, anthemic quality that a fully fledged national song should possess. (Personally, I’d favour Gangajang’s ‘This is Australia’ because it’s so evocative of our long, sticky summers—but I can’t really imagine our athletes singing it on the Olympic dais, can you?!)

In saying all this, there’s not much point in talking about Australia Day without a bit of navel-gazing about whether we should be celebrating what it means to be ‘Australian’. For me, it goes beyond the well-worn clichés of BBQs, prawns and sunburned noses.

For me, it’s about living in a land where most of us are lucky enough to have food in our bellies and a roof over our heads, income to meet our needs (if not our wants) and friends & family who care about us. It’s about helping other Aussies who aren’t as lucky, and welcoming people from around the world who want to work hard and share in our good fortune too. It’s about being able to speak openly and fearlessly about contentious topics like politics, religion and whether Brangelina really have split up … sorry, wandered off-topic for a minute there … without acting as though we’re the only country in the world that enjoys these freedoms.

Well-travelled Aussies generally come back and say that we really are one of the best places on earth to live. I’m inclined to believe them :-)

P.S. I know I haven’t covered the issue of whether we should even be celebrating our nationhood on the anniversary of white settlement … but that’s another blog entirely!

10/01/2010

How to take a holiday without leaving home

Filed under: Body-mind connection, The ridiculous pace of life — Fiona Marsden @ 9:12 pm

It’s deep summer here in Melbourne, Australia — and, for the first time in many months, I’ve just taken three weeks off work. At this time of year, most Melburnians like to get out of town for a while and head for the beach a couple of hours away, or maybe interstate. Others head to the northern hemisphere to have a white Christmas (and this year, there’s more white than ever to go round!)

As for moi, I’ve had to be content with a holiday at home. For various reasons, it wasn’t practical to travel, so I set myself the task of winding down and switching the brain cells into low gear, without leaving town. And when you work at home, there’s an extra challenge, because you can’t get more than a metre or so away from the office.

I’m pleased to say, however, that taking a holiday at home proved easier than I thought. By the time I finished up before Christmas, I was quite literally bone-tired; every fibre of my being ached at the culmination of a very trying year. Ignoring well-meaning enquiries from friends and associates about whether and where I was travelling for my holidays, I reminded myself that what I needed more than anything was to SLOW DOWN — and if that meant staying put in Melbourne this time around, it was a small price to pay.

I started my break by going across town to visit my grandmother. She’s an amazing lady; still living independently at 95 years of age, and taking an active interest in the lives of family and friends. Then, I hoed into a box set of S_x and the City (SATC) borrowed from my friend Sue, relishing in the chance to revisit the quirky comedy that still rings true on so many levels. (Though I have to say, I will never figure out how Carrie Bradshaw maintained such an expensive lifestyle by writing one newspaper column per week!) Apart from providing plentiful male eye-candy, my SATC-fest fuelled a minor flirtation with the idea of visiting New York, even though that particular whim looks set to remain unfulfilled for the foreseeable future. P’raps I need to find myself a ‘Mr Big’, lol …

I made a point of spending time with good friends and catching up on each others’ lives. In our ridiculously fast-paced life, it’s all-too-easy to text people instead of ringing them, or (heaven forbid!) see them in person. Call me old fashioned, but I still think that face-to-face contact is important in maintaining and strengthening friendships — no matter how many Facebook friends or Twitter followers we may accrue.

I also allowed myself the luxury of spending several afternoons (yes, entire afternoons) dozing on the couch. I even managed to finish a few magazines, though, as I’d suspected, the pile of unread books didn’t get so much as a look-in. For an English lit graduate and professional writer, I make a pretty lousy reader!

Even my daily yoga practice took on an added appeal, as I revelled in the knowledge that I didn’t have to undo all the good work by spending hours at the computer afterwards.

On the eve of my return to work, I can look back at the last three weeks with satisfaction. It may not have been the most exciting holiday anyone ever took, but it certainly did the trick.

31/12/2009

New Year’s resolutions … are they really worth making?

Filed under: Inner self — Fiona Marsden @ 7:36 am

2010 is knocking on our door—and, as always at this time of year, the thoughts of many a flawed human turn to New Year’s resolutions.

According to this article in The Age newspaper, the tradition of making New Year’s resolutions dates back to Roman times. The word January derives from the Roman god Janus, the god of beginnings and endings. Janus had two faces; one looking forwards and one backwards. On 1 January we look back at the past year and forward to the new one. (The article didn’t mention that during most of January, the Sun is in the zodiac sign of Capricorn. Astrologers often say that people born under this sign tend to have a tendency to be ‘two-faced’. But I digress … )

Personally, I reckon that the kind of thinking that spawned the New Year’s resolution tradition is the same kind that created Santa, the tooth fairy and the 40-hour working week. How many resolutions have you made at this time of year that lasted more than a week or two? Not many, I’ll bet. So why is it that people persist in making them, year after year?

Is the ‘birth’ of a new calendar year really a chance to wipe the slate clean and start again? Are our lives so neatly packaged that we can make a few resolutions on 31 December and BINGO! all our human frailties and transgressions magically melt away the very next day? If we’re not too happy with the way things stand on 31 December, what makes us think that 1 January will be any different? Yes, human lives can be transformed in an instant, but it’s doubtful that something as arbitrary as a single point on a man-made calendar has anything to do with it.

Next, think about the kind of resolutions people often make. Lose weight, go after the dream job, save money, be nicer to the person they can’t stand, etc etc. If these things are so important, wouldn’t we already be doing them? Why procrastinate till 1 January?

For what it’s worth, my key New Year’s resolutions for 2010 are:

  • to beat myself up less about work
  • figure out how to reconcile hours hunched over the keyboard with my body’s need to stretch, breathe and let go
  • eat less at each meal; not to lose weight, but to give my overworked digestive system a much-needed break.

Will I achieve any of these goals? Probably not. But I’ll give them a red hot go … for a couple of weeks, at least!

23/12/2009

God without religion

Filed under: Aussie society, Spirituality — Fiona Marsden @ 10:15 am

With Christmas almost upon us, a recent survey about the religious practices and beliefs of Australians got me back on a favourite high horse: the issue of God vs religion.

The December 2009 survey found that 68 per cent of those surveyed believe in God or a universal spirit, 24 per cent of Aussies don’t believe, and seven per cent say they’re not sure. Of the ‘believers’, 88 per cent say they are absolutely or fairly certain of their beliefs. Breaking this down, 56 per cent of women say they believe in God and 13 per cent in a universal spirit. Amongst men, the figures are 43 per cent and 11 per cent respectively.

This survey comes up trumps in my book; not because of its findings per se, but because it recognises something that so much public commentary fails ignores—the idea that believing in some kind of higher intelligence doesn’t have to be confined to following an organised religion. I get quite frustrated listening to simplistic discussions that equate ‘belief’ with adherence to organised religion, and then presume that anyone who’s not religious also lacks belief in something beyond the material world.

My thoughts about God/higher intelligence have changed a lot over the years, and will doubtless change again in future. For some time, however, I’ve felt that there are so many cycles and so-called coincidences in this world, and in the wider Universe, that it’s pretty unlikely they all came about randomly. I think there is some kind of higher intelligence at work; not something that’s separate from or superior to us, but something that is present within all of us, every day—if only we’d stop our babbling/moneymaking/war-mongering long enough to tune into it.

I also think it’s perfectly possible to believe there’s some kind of divine order, and to recognise oneself as a microcosm of that order, without subscribing to a particular text, worshipping in a designated building or following a narrow set of moral precepts. This kind of approach gives a bit of extra meaning to daily life, whilst allowing for your beliefs to evolve and change over the years.

Who knows how I’ll feel about the issue in 10, 20 or 30 years’ time? Maybe I’ll get to my death-bed and realise I’ve had it all wrong. But that’s okay, too. Right now, the idea of a benign higher intelligence that sets up the conditions for existence (including the capacity for humans to exert free will) is far more appealing and logical to me than the humanised, interventionist, judgemental and easily offended ‘God’ who seems to characterise so much of organised religion. It works for me, anyhow!



The ‘real’ meaning of Christmas?

Filed under: Spirituality — Fiona Marsden @ 9:15 am

For people brought up in the Anglo/Christian tradition (even those who were never particularly religious in practice) December 25 occupies a conspicuous place on the calendar. For some people, it means celebrating the birth of Christ, whom they believe to be a real historical figure and the Son of God. For others, it’s a chance to get together with family and friends. For the littlies, it’s an annual opportunity to place their hopes and wishes in the wonderfully comforting fantasy figure known as Father Christmas or Santa.

Whatever your beliefs, it seems that the way Christmas is celebrated these days has little to do with its origins. In pre-Christian times, paganism was the religion of choice for many people. Without the distractions of TV, internet, movies, mobile phones, Twitter etc etc, and free of glaring city lights, they had a much clearer view of the heavens, and more time to contemplate them.

They knew about the phases of the Moon, the change of seasons and the Earth’s distance from the Sun. They knew that on or around what we know as 22 December in the Roman calendar, the northern hemisphere was at its most distant from the Sun. This is the Winter Solstice. (Presumably the Australian Aborigines knew that the reverse applied here Down Under, though this isn’t as well documented.)

Earlier this year I posted about a fascinating TV program that proposed a very different meaning behind the Jesus/Christmas story. ‘Tis the season, so I thought the post was worth revisiting. Let me know what you think!

07/12/2009

Beating the end-of-year energy bust

Filed under: Body-mind connection, The ridiculous pace of life — Fiona Marsden @ 10:40 am

I don’t know about you, but for the last few weeks I’ve run into an energetic brick wall. It happened every year when I was an employee, and it’s happening now that I’m a freelancer.

You’d think that as the southern hemisphere heads towards the summer solstice, my energy levels would be rising. Yet, like clockwork, from mid-to-late November each year, I hit the wall and my body begins pleading with me to “JUST STOP!”

This year (wouldn’t you know it) my energy crunch happened just as I received a new batch of commissioned articles. Researching, interviewing and writing takes a lot of mental and physical energy; a considerable investment of ‘the self’.

I’m using yoga and myotherapy to help keep me going until the articles are complete, but past experience tells me that the body is an unforgiving beast. If you don’t pay attention to its early signals of tiredness/exhaustion, it will scream louder and longer down the track. The body doesn’t care if you have deadlines, need to follow up new leads or chase up invoices. All it knows is that it’s reached its limit, and it wants the mind to pay attention.

Despite knowing this from past experience, I’m asking my body (yet again) to give me another couple of weeks before it conks out. Meanwhile, I’ll do what I can to help it go the distance.

How about you? What do you do when your body calls time out? How are you dealing with the end-of-year energy bust?

Is behaviour really ‘all in our genes?’

Filed under: Interconnectedness — Fiona Marsden @ 10:28 am

I heard a fascinating interview this morning on Radio National with Dr Spencer Wells, head of a five-year study called the Genographic Project. The study aims to chart the ancestry of people around the world – not just the last few generations, but way back into the past … 60,000 years!

According to Dr Wells, the project has confirmed that all humans share a common origin in Africa. What’s more, 99.99% of our DNA is identical. This means that differences between so-called ‘races’ are, biologically speaking, miniscule.

Makes sense to me … but if  humans are virtually identical at the most fundamental level, why do we spend so much time and energy focusing on our differences? I’m not a scientist, let alone a geneticist, but I’d love to see someone come up with a scientifically rigorous explanation of this bizarre human phenomenon.

I’d like to know what human behaviours are governed by that 0.01 percent — perhaps the ability to exercise free will and exacerbate our differences until they seem much larger than they need to be?

29/11/2009

What keeps you sane?

Filed under: Body-mind connection, Inner self, The ridiculous pace of life — Fiona Marsden @ 12:27 pm

How has 2009 been for you? If it’s been anything like as turbulent as the events playing out on the world stage, you’re probably feeling a bit seasick! It’s almost as if the increasing craziness of our climate is being reflected in the lives of human beings (or vice versa?)

In wealthy countries, our pace of life grows ever-more frantic, and we surround ourselves with more technical gizmos than ever before. Travel on public transport, and it’s a fair bet you’ll notice that the majority of people (myself included) have some kind of gizmo seemingly welded to their hands or ears. We’re in our own little worlds, where an exchange of smiles or a chance conversation with a fellow passenger seem to be increasingly rare events.

At the same time, Australians are working longer sand harder than ever before. Many defer much-needed leave because they’re ‘married to the job’ or worried that if they relax their vigilance, they may not have a job to go back to. It seems we commit less and less time to devote to the people and pursuits we purport to value.

We seem to be running faster than ever before, but I often wonder what exactly it is that we’re running towards. I don’t think humans were meant to operate at this pace, and I wonder how long we can sustain it. From what I can see, nature seems to thrive on balance, and will do whatever is necessary to restore it when things get too far out of whack.

In this kind of situation, I feel it’s more important that ever to have some kind of safety valve; something or someone to act as an anchor and an oasis of relative calm amidst all the craziness. For me, one big anchor is yoga. Throughout my nine years of practice, I have found yoga a source of physical, mental and emotional strength and stability; a reminder that it is possible to attain some sense of inner balance, perspective and peace, even if only for an hour or so each day. For me, the fact that this sense of wellbeing is fleeting, only reinforces how important it is that I make a daily effort to return to it.

My family and friends are also major anchors in my life. It’s so easy to get caught up in my own thoughts and feelings, and to believe that what I think reflects what’s actually going on. (Most of the time, it doesn’t!) Spending time with people I value reminds me that everyone has their own ’stuff’ to deal with, and that many of my own cares and concerns aren’t as serious as I like to believe.

How has 2009 been for you? What anchors do you use to try and stay reasonably sane and stable amongst all the nuttiness?

20/11/2009

When the going gets tough

Filed under: Inner self — Fiona Marsden @ 4:22 pm

Natalie Christie, blogger at The Tiny Soprano, recently penned a thought-provoking piece about being true to yourself. We often bandy the phrase around, but what does it really mean in practice? Is it all roses and sunshine?

Here’s my response — would love to hear yours.

14/11/2009

Intuition or reason – which is ‘best’?

Filed under: Body-mind connection, Uncategorized — Fiona Marsden @ 1:46 pm

In recent years I’ve found myself questioning the popular idea, often espoused by scientists and academics, that reason is a better tool than intuition for making decisions about our lives.

According to this theory, cooly deliberating over an issue or dilemma and listing its pros/cons before making a decision is likely to lead to a favourable outcome. By contrast, listening to your intuition (or ‘going with your gut’, as it’s often called) takes a split second, and is said to lead to poor decisions.

I beg to differ. There’s no doubt that, in my own life, using the power of reason to deliberate pros and cons sometimes helps me make better decisions. It certainly clears away the mists of emotion and psychological self-torture that often accompany my personal and professional dilemmas! But in other cases, my intuition wins the day – with great results. In fact, when I think about it, the biggest decisions I’ve made in my life have come very quickly, through intuition. (It’s the small stuff that’s taken ages to sort out, because I relied solely on reason!) When I tried to evaluate my gut-level decision about big issues with a rational list of pros and cons, it didn’t change my point of view.

And reason is a double-edged sword, which makes it a dangerous weapon. You can reason yourself into — or out of — anything! Just because you use reason, doesn’t mean you’ll automatically make a better decision. How many times have you said or done something you knew instinctively was wrong — reasoning that it would help you achieve a certain goal — only to say later on, “I knew I shouldn’t have done that!”?

I’m not suggesting everyone should just go out and do or say the first thing that comes into their head, the moment it occurs to them. That wouldn’t be intuitive; it would just be reckless and dumb. And the world is full of examples of people who followed their gut, only to come undone because they didn’t use reason to implement their decision properly.

But there’s a fine line between reason and fear. If you constantly bow to the voice of reason, are you second-guessing what your instinct already knows to be true? Are you losing out on the chance to experience some pretty amazing things in life — when your intuition would have said, “go for it”?

I guess some problems are best solved primarily through reason, others through intuition, and others through a combination of both. But what to do when your reason says one thing and your intuition another? Don’t ask me … I’m still working that one out!

Next Page »

Blog at WordPress.com.