Occasionally I read or hear something that I almost completely agree with. Sometimes the views are so well put that I have to take my hat off - I could never have written so well or succinctly. Yesterday I read a piece by an American psychologist, Erica Komisar, which surveys the rise in psychological disorders in young people.

She posits that a combination of factors have produced a dangerous narcissism - an obsession with self - that have as their inevitable outworking consequences beyond what we might have imagined. She sets this within an historical framework - the feminist movement, materialism and consumerism and the appearance of social media as a substitute for family and a successful launch into the world.

This kind of thinking likely upsets a lot of people. I don't need to say who they are. Any revolution will have unintended consequences. It is not clear to me that we can predict what they might be at, say, the beginning of whatever huge change is being ushered in, nor whether that would make any difference at all.

But freedom, you know, is everything, even if it isn't freedom at all.

 It's funny how memories flip out of nowhere. Well, not exactly nowhere, but often through links likely established long ago in the brain. My son wanted a Mountain Dew flavouring for  the Soda Stream and this set me off to thinking about a cold drink machine outside a small set of shops at the top end of Old South Head Rd in Vaucluse. This was a drop off point for the school bus when I was attending Rose Bay Public.

Said bus, a old double-decker, would wheeze up the hill from Rose Bay before depositing its cargo at this spot, actually the intersection of New and Old South Head Roads. Walking home meant passing these shops and the drink machine was a source of fascination. Apart from the usual brands were the relatively new Mountain Dew and a beer-substitute, ASA Horehound. It was rare that we ever were able to spend the few cents in our pockets on these delights, but we did have enough to buy some sweets at the shop directly behind.

An elderly man, wearing a white shop apron and supporting himself with a walking stick (for he walked with a limp), was the proprietor. His name might have been Joffe or something similar, for he had a strong accent (I guess German or Eastern European), one which I can still hear to this day. He had no patience for children and would sometimes chase us from his shop, his cane waggling defiantly like a giant exclamation mark. I don't know why - its possible that he was taunted - or he might just have been ill-tempered.

I wonder today, where he got the limp. He was old enough to be a WW1 veteran - he could also have served in WW2, but he might also have been a Holocaust survivor. I have no way of finding out, though I wish I could.

Today, the door of his shop remains exactly where it was, though it is now a part of a larger establishment. But ajar, as if to welcome him back.

I have been in the garden this morning 'deadheading' the agapanthus. The latter is the rabbit of the plant kingdom, multiplying as if by magic from season to season. They will take over if not attended to, for their rhizomic root system and prolific seed production give them advantages over the natives, except perhaps in a bushfire.

Today was more autumnal than can be imagined, this being only the middle of February, and a cool breeze, reminding me of April, is blowing from the south. Ann and I will shortly go out for a belated Valentines lunch somewhere down the mountain. In this case, it pays to be late.

We have had some hot days recently and we have had big storm days too, when the thunder claps like a bomb above the the peak of the house. But we are still heading into autumn, my favourite time, with an inevitability that cannot be gainsaid.

A poet writes that the 'late summer sun speaks softly.....whispering into the speed of summer's slipping'(Carolyn Riker) which is a lovely way of putting the transition. Yes, it does slip, especially here in the Mountains, and before you know it, autumn is here in full livery.

I think we are on the cusp of a few trees beginning to turn. Then the rush, the rush to the earth.

When I was in my teens we had many distractions from the main game of living. There were radios and stereo players, television and the land-line phone. Actually that is about it, and even those distractions weren't all that serious. Listening to a whole album through, for example, and having to flip sides at the midway point, could be a highly reflective activity.

But we lived in a kind of balance, for these diversions, such as they were, were more than supplemented and likely overtaken by physical activity - sport of all stripes - cricket, soccer, rugby, forcings back - together with the riding of bikes, walking to and from friend's houses, the list does go on. We even used to hike down through the bush to Middle Harbour for no particularly good reason at all.

It strikes me also, though this could partly be poor memory, that young people were far more alert and actually paid attention, even if somewhat laconically, to what was being said or even what was going on.

I don't think the same can be said today. So extreme are the distractions and so omnipresent and easily accessed, that many teens appear to look straight through you when in conversation. Conversation, as such, is not even the right word, because only one of the parties is actually engaged fully.

Now there are good and wonderful things about technology. There are bad and unhelpful things too. Once upon a time we used to guide kids through the minefield of early life challenges, the latter of which were identifiable and comprehensible. But that is changing and the adult world has abrogated its nurturing duty in the face of relentless change. Any fool knows that it can't end well.

 Yesterday I watched a couple of documentaries about South Korea. The first examined the disappearance of five kids, the 'Frog Boys', who went out to play one evening in 1991 and were never seen alive again. Their bodies turned up in a shallow grave on a nearby mountainside ten years later. The murderer is yet to be found and likely will not be, given the poor performance of the police to date.

The second was about the sinking of the ferry MV Sewol in 2014, which unaccountably capsized on calm seas with the loss of 300 souls, mostly high school students. The repercussions of this event are still being felt today.

One common factor in both of these cases was the incomprehensibly inept conduct of officials, police, politicians and people in authority, such as the ship's captain. It was hard to work out what was sheer cowardice, or laziness, corrupt conduct or plain hopelessness. No one needed to die but somehow hundreds did.

I won't go into the details because folks on YT have done that for me already and very competently too. I am sure South Korea is now the better for the scandals that ensued and the heads that rolled. But what a cost in human life and the suffering of loved-ones! That cannot be measured and is unlikely to be forgotten.

When I lived in Japan in the 2000's, I saw an NHK English language program on the phenomenon know as 'hikikomori', social situations where young people withdraw from society - their schools, jobs and so forth, and hide in their parent's homes. Their isolation can go on for months and even years and can have a disastrous impact on the family.

It is a cause of deep shame for Japanese families and often as not, they simply don't talk about it. The young person stays in their house or bedroom and never goes outside, so the secret can be kept, or be seen to be kept. Case in point was my next door neighbour, whose teenage daughter I never knew about - never knew existed- until one day shortly before leaving Japan, he told me about her. 

On another occasion that I think I have related before, I had some dental work done in exchange for an English class. But that was actually a ruse on the part of the dentist who really wanted us to meet her son, yet another hikikomori. We did and I hope that he was the better for it. He was a personable young man.

Today I watched a CNA program on 'johatsu' - literally 'evaporated' people, those who choose to disappear completely, often with the help of professional 'movers', or even on their own using manuals such as (I kid you not) 'The Complete Manual of Disappearance'. The program was sad, especially for those left behind, who get no warning. A loved-one leaves for work or some routine activity one day and never returns. 

People have lots of reasons to disappear I guess. Women in terrible domestic abuse marriages, men who feel that they are trapped in the wrong place and the wrong job, doubtless folks with debts or facing legal troubles, so many ways one might feel so desperate that they have to get out.

Just imagine someone you love walking out without warning, without a hint that anything was wrong. Imagine.

Yesterday, 80 years ago, the extermination camp, Auschwitz, was liberated by the Red Army. The horrors that attended this awful site, perhaps amongst the worst in all of human history, gradually unfolded to a shocked world, then just emerging from the Second World War. While some in the West suspected that Jewish people were being interned and possibly murdered, very few could have guessed at the stupendous industrial scale of it.

I learnt about the death camps in the 1960's. It was something that had permeated the consciousness of all institutions in the West and while some did not fully realise the extent of the killing (how does one process the idea of 4 million planned murders?), everybody knew it was evil and that it was real. Hitler and Nazism became bi-words for the most wicked degradations that humans can descend to.

So it comes as a surprise to me and doubtless a shock to others that antisemitism, the seed that lead to the poisonous plant cultivated by National Socialism, is alive and well and on the march. I understand that many young people are upset at the war in Gaza and the policies of the Netanyahu Government, some of which I find unpalatable too.

But these are separate issues - one can criticize a government for its short-sightedness or plain bad policy and still be vigilant against antisemitism. You don't have to conflate the two. The antidote to such muddled thinking is a day spent reading about and reflecting on Auschwitz. One cannot but emerge a wiser, if sadder, person.

 As a postscript to my previous comment, I would urge vandals to stop attacking statues of James Cook. A brilliant seaman and commander, Cook cannot be held accountable for how things transpired in the decades that followed. He was dead even before the First Fleet was conceived of. 

Apart from the Endeavour's central stated mission of observing the transit of Venus in the Pacific, Cook had secret orders from the British Government to look for a south land, which he duly did, bumping into New Zealand before his fateful rendezvous with Australia and subsequent charting of the east coast.

Much as it is absurd to impose modern 'standards' on writers from the past (also arrogant and plain foolish) it behoves us to become aware of the social and cultural milieu of the time when assessing historical figures such as Cook. Maybe its a youthful thing, to be so full of self-righteous anger and to be so prone to confirmation bias, but not understanding people in their own time as a prerequisite to assessing their worthiness is so obviously wrong as to be incontestable.

It seems that retaining January 26th as Australia Day has become popular again, with 69% of people asked in a recent survey that they wanted no change. I don't know the small print of the question nor the reasons respondents gave, but it strikes me that a reaction against progressism, such as we see elsewhere, is well and truly underway.

I don't think that its because Australians aren't fair-minded because I think, for the most part, they don't like to see injustice being done to others nor people being oppressed. Aboriginal activism against the 26th goes back a long way. I found a publication from the 1930's (amazingly called 'The Abo Call') which was organising alternate gatherings against the day even back then.

It could be that Aboriginal Australians are caught up in the general reaction against ceaseless change on the fringes of society (I won't say what). Some people likely think moving the day is in the too hard basket, given there are many days that might be objected to for one reason or another.

It seems probably that the date of Australia Day will be ever contentious and so, might have to accommodate simultaneously, two opposing views - the notion of the disastrous 'invasion' and the idea of celebrating a successful nation. I think we can do it. After all, cognitive dissonance is widespread and largely embraced, albeit unconsciously.

Happy Australia Day!

Thinking about how relationships are these days - with much talk of toxic masculinity - I recalled how I thought about and approached the the potential relationships I had yet to enter when I was but a lad. It was a different world, largely free of pornography, entirely free of social media (except the telephone and the local milk bar) and less mediated by non-binary complications.

It's not that there weren't men with prediluvian attitudes to women - there were, though they were a small minority. It is that relationships were approached differently and nice blokes, like yours truly, had space to work in, even if there remained amongst many women, the desire for an alpha male. I am not sure about the latter phenomenon, whether biological, cultural, or both, but it always surprised me how many nice girls would date boys who were likely to let them down repeatedly.

My real problem, at least very early on, was to place a girlfriend on a pedestal, confident that no wrong could be done by doing so. Au contraire, but it could. It is a foolish mistake to imagine that your love is without any personality defect or that her every word or deed is without blemish.

The pendulum eventually swung somewhere closer to the middle, the Goldilocks zone of moderate contentment and reasonable co-existence. What more can you ask if you are seeking mutual satisfaction and a shot at longevity.

Thunderstorms and blackouts have taken their toll on the internet here. While I dutifully disconnect the power during storms, the gargantuan and rolling nature of yesterday afternoon and evening's tempests seem to have overwhelmed the system. The NBN box is flashing an ominous red and will not respond to any of the suggested troubleshooting tips. Either the box or the outside lines or both are clearly faulty.

I was awakened in the middle of the night when everything went black - street lights, night lights, anything-charging-lights, and awoke this morning to a continuing blackout. My first thought was  - how do I make a pot of tea? - a desperate thought, I grant you. I am usually thirsty in the morning and hankering for the quenching liquid ( and a ginger nut). That is a far more pressing matter than an internet connection, for me anyway.

I think that I'll invest again in the one of those inexpensive gas camping cookers, if for no other reason that I can guarantee a cup of tea in the morning, should the plug be pulled again.

In amongst all the bad news that the first two weeks of 2025 has generated, there are stories that uplift the spirit. I think we all need these stories to balance out the drip drip drip of negativity that comes from the news media, who are only trying to turn a dollar, I understand.

Last night I found a story from fire-ravaged Los Angeles about a family who returned to their home of 37 years only to find it totally destroyed, as all the neighbouring homes were too. There was nothing standing, nothing preserved except one solitary object  - a statue of the Virgin Mary, without blemish or burn, completely intact.

The family gathered in a wide circle around the statue and began to sing Regina Coeli by Antonio Lotti, beautifully and in harmony. You will have to watch the video to appreciate the sadness and joy of the moment, people of faith singing amidst the ruins of their home, grateful for this one miracle. I challenge you not to be brought to tears and yet also, to marvel at the wonder of it.

The emergence of the 'Tech Bros' over the last two decades is a phenomenon that only goes to show that shallowness can lead to great riches. The platforms that they preside over offer very little value in terms of genuine human development. But they do offer a wealth of exploitation, misinformation and Janus-faced dissembling, the like of which has rarely been seen in such a public context before.

And yet it all pays a lot of money. And power, apparently. A cadre of the bros recently went to Mar-a-Lago to tug the forelock to the incoming President. Having trashed him somewhat in the past, they went in fear that their fortunes might be compromised lest they pay due homage.

One of their number, he who claims he is 100% certain that we are living in a simulation (and also that nuking Mars would be a good terraforming option) is apparently amongst the most senior courtly advisers to the new King. I doubt that two such gargantuan egos can co-exist in the same room, but we shall see.

I would prefer that 2025 were not characterised by providing us with 'interesting times' to live in, but the signs do not look promising.

The horrendous bushfires in California are a reminder, if one were needed, that the climate is changing and we are more vulnerable to extreme weather events. It is awful to see the burnt homes and cars and such utter destruction. But no quantity of disasters will convince climate sceptics that the threat is real and upon us now, for they have already laid all the groundwork for their cognitive dissonance via their peer bubbles and entrenched pridefulness

Unlike California, we are in official bushfire season but very fortunately we are experiencing a wet patch which may see us through to February or March. But a spell of hot; dry weather and days of strong winds could see everything go pear-shaped very quickly. Those who live in the Mountains understand the risks - or they should - and we are ready.

No one wants to lose their home - everything they have worked for and built - but factoring in that possibility has its own calming rationale. We hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

Grace

In the fancy basement food hall,

I slide by well-healed women

And men in anxious suits,

Lose myself in bespoke aisles

Of pickles and plum pudding,

Marzipan, maraschino cherries,

Slabs of date and fig,

Walnuts and dried fruit and

Stashes of exotic chocolate,

Searching for that one,

White-iced rarity of

An English Christmas fruit cake,

And realize, astonished,

That I am looking for 

my Mother.

There is no use pretending that the new year is a jot different from the old, save we add a '25' at the end. Never mind the fireworks, the back-slapping, kisses and firm resolutions, the day after the last day of December is exactly the same, a continuance of the human condition without respite.

I don't need to glance again at the daily news for confirmation, for the perfidy of the species will continue unabated. Even now, there are multiple sirens on the highway, a sign that drivers remain careless and impervious to change.

Of course, we experience days in quite different ways, depending on our outlook and what is going right or wrong. Nobody desires suffering and affliction, though most don't feel the need to crash their cars into innocent people just because they hurt. Some, of course, do.

Days

What are days for?

Days are where we live,

They come , they wake us

Time and time over,

They are to be happy in:

Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question

Brings the priest and the doctor

In their long coats

Running over the fields

Philip Larkin