If liberal democracy is in a kind of crisis, and this is very debatable, then it's demise has been foretold many times in the past. One of the differences today is that we have a unique intesection of conditions that make democracy more difficult. Like any human system, democratic institutions need repair and maintenance. Anyone who has watched Question Time in the Australian Parliament can see how frameworks for debate can be abused, largely for the scoring of those odious and infantile political points.

While a certain virtue in our leaders is not the only ingredient for a healthy polity, it is nevertheless a yardstick for measuring the health of that class. Confucious noted on many occasions that the demeanour of leaders, their moral compass and virtue, was a fundamental element of a stable political and social system. Surely it helps if those in positions of power seem honest and emboldened by a desire for the good of the commonwealth, and that this is seen to be the case in both word and deed. There is always a case for top-down exemplars - even autocrats can appreciate the utility of being above corruption.

Populism will grow if people become sufficiently disillusioned or even disgusted with their elected representatives and leaders. I am not a Confucian but can appreciate another of his ideas, that ritual is important and needs to be paid attention to. In the modern case, I would say that decorum and mutual respect between political adversaries is of the essence. You can disagree without being bombastic and you can debate by presenting issues clearly and without the need for ad hominems.

nowhere to hide
birds flit from twig to branch-
wintering tree

the ocean's in the trees today
wind-howl through bird and bush and sky
eye-blinding madly

Australia is about to commence its fourth football World Cup campaign in a row. This is something which could not have been countenanced thirty years ago, in the so called wilderness years. The single inaugural appearance in West Germany in 1974 (itself, a remarkable feat) might have been the last given the long run of misses, including a famous one against Iran in 1997.

But here we are again, with a new coach and a team of determined, workmanlike players. It is probably unfair to make comparisons with the team of 2006 though people will do so. There is a dearth of individual stars playing with big clubs, but there is a solid mix of youth and experience. We can only hope than Van Marwyk has the developed a team organisation and game plan sufficient to take the challenge up to the French, Danes and Peruvians.

It is a huge ask but still within the realm of possibility. Otherwise, who could dream the big dreams?

A flashback to the historic Socceroo team of 1974:

We live in strange and interesting times. Seeing Trump and Kim yesterday - shaking hands, smiling and backslapping - is not something that anyone would have expected even 12 months ago. I had always hoped for dialogue between the rogue regime and the US, in spite of the clear evidence that North Korea has consistently failed to keep its promises in the past.

But since the alternative would likely be war, and potentially nuclear war, then even a Chamberlain peace-in-our-time moment would suffice in the interim, whilst some other solution is cobbled together. Trump is the oddest of democratic leaders I can imagine, though they seem to be proliferating. Western Democracies are in need of renewal if populists are to be kept at bay.

The Chinese have a proverb, "Better to be a dog in a peaceful time, than to be a human in a chaotic (warring) period." Hegel put the same idea less lyrically when he noted that, "World history is not the ground of happiness. The periods of happiness are empty pages in her."

Unfortunately we do not live in those empty pages so we must, perforce, envy the dog. I wish it were otherwise.

Listening to one of the Munk Debates on the topic of political correctness today, I was reminded of what a complex and fraught area this is for someone who wants to be even-handed and reasonable. It is hard to be against something whose apparent aims are generous, kind and good, whose objectives are to right past wrongs and create a more just and equitable society. People who believe in good causes are generally nice folks who want the best for others, especially those who have been historically oppressed.

The problem seems to occur when governments and institutions (and even business) take up these issues and try to create policies that will reform, or ameliorate the problems raised. With these policies often comes a raft of language impositions and omissions, new ways of speaking about a problem or matter and ways of not speaking about it. These don't have to be enforced by fiat - they might be recommendations or suggestions, but that is beside the point. Their enforcement happens without the need for policing.

One of the debaters in the Munk debate was Stephen Fry. Apart from his sheer erudition and wit, Fry puts his finger upon the central problem of political correctness, as it applies to language. It is the group that enforces the rule. One does not want to say something that might be seen as being outside the way the group thinks about and issue, for fear of being outed or labelled as racist, or misogynistic, or something similarly odious. The only option is silence or compliant language.

I know this to be true because I have been in such company and bitten my tongue when a more courageous approach would have been to say plainly what I think. My somewhat left-field sense of humour has often got me into trouble for not dissimilar reasons, for there is something about the conformity and passivity of group think that lights that little contrarian flame in me.

The debate can be found here. It features also the controversial Dr Jordan Peterson, whose views you may may find compelling, or irritating.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNjYSns0op0

or you can google it.

The self-help industry is big and getting bigger, with any old Jill having the potential to be a guru. I can't remember that many books of this ilke being available when I was a kid, if one discounts all the tabloid cook books and their funky seventies recipes. The Readers Digest had articles now and then along the lines of the self-help formula and Dale Carnegie's famous tome, How To Win Friends and Influence People, was likely in its 30th edition. The latter is credited with ushering in the whole industry, a precursor to all that followed.

Looking online or in a bricks and mortar shop today, it is astonishing just how many volumes are grouped under the self-help title. Many of them seem fixated on numbers - The Seven Secrets of Successful Bicycling, Twelve Rules for Lying Straight In Bed, The Nine Lives of the Cat and What It Means For You, and so forth. Numbers do seem to have a kind of magical property. There were 12 Apostles, you may remember, and a flood that lasted 40 days and 40 nights, Four Noble Truths, Ten Commandments, a Noble Eightfold Way and so on. This is not even scratching the surface. With self-help books, numbers are a guide to how much you might have to remember - somewhere between 7 and 12 seems optimal. Let's face it, if you only have one or two ways to achieve a certain overarching goal, then you may not have the material for a whole book. So maybe just a pamphlet!

It has been said that there is a self-help book in all of us. All you have to do is successfully achieve some sort of large project, then work out the winning formula a posteriori. There is the book. It kind of writes itself, with each chapter ticking off one of the ways you did it. If you're short on material just add personal anecdotes and testimonies, diagrams and cartoons. Most of these books have lots of waffling filler anyway so don't be afraid to digress, pop down rabbit holes or insert famous or wise quotations. The latter don't even need to be on topic, but will add an air of authority to your work. Then all you have to do is sit back and wait for it to hit the remainder bin.

Speaking of which, I was looking over the discount table in Dymocks George Street a week or two ago. There were a lot of very fine books heavily discounted, and not a few of the self-help genre too. Most of these were titles that were begging to be forgotten - Ten Paths To A Successful Dinner Party, Twelve Tips For Online Dating, The Seven Days Of Abs. There you go, those numbers 7, 10 and 12 recurring! I suspect the Abs man ran out of things things to write, for number 7 was to repeat the first six steps. His number 1 was a thank-you-for-buying the book chapter. So really there were only five steps but five is a very unlikely sell. Somehow he had to get to seven.

I am not going to write one of these books, nor any book, in all probability. This blog is as close to self-help as I want to get. In any event, there are simply too many entries to win over readers, if six hundred and something is anything to go by. And my advice is free, anyway.

I have had a fight with anxiety for most of my life. It manifests itself almost daily and can have a corrosive effect on my capacity, if I let it. From time to time I become a kind of captive to my anxiety, its dark invisibility, yet omnipresence, a debilitating factor. Most people don't understand this condition, only those who have experienced it in its most nightmarish form.

Anxiety is a well-designed feature for an earlier time when humans faced existential threats day and night. Would there be enough food in the morning to stave off hunger pangs? If I venture further will I be attacked by a wild animal? Anxiety prepared you for fighting or fleeing. Today, we don't have such threats - there is surplus food and all the wild things are in retreat - so our anxiety has nowhere useful to go. It emerges in the body as a series of often frightening symptoms, and the mind, if not well-trained and advised, is likely to be an unwitting ally. A cycle is perpetuated and if not healed early on, can destroy a life.

So it is that I have to return, time and time again, to the book that saved my life thirty years ago. I have to relearn all the lessons that I had already learned, but which the persistence of memory, overwhelms. The fearful nature of the anxiety state is such that it leaves a seemingly indelible scar on the mind, one which can be almost instantaneously retrieved. It is much harder to recall the lessons learnt and pathways taken, so sometimes the memory recreates the past in the present. I think that there is no cure for this but there are certainly ways to manage anxiety and to deal with serious recurrences. It's a case of, well, here I go again!

The book, you ask? I have often talked about it. Self-Help For Your Nerves by Dr Claire Weekes. From my point of view, it is the most important book ever written, since it kept me on the planet for a few more decades. If you are an anxiety sufferer, then this is a book worth reading, again and again and again.