Peter Slattery

I really thought that GFC meant ‘Go find carrots’. Yet while I was seeking vegetables I discovered my error, and that in fact GFC makes reference to our globe, to finance and to, apparently, a crisis. So I got in touch with a financial advisor I know and asked if I should be worried or doing something, because I was just about to have a coffee. He sent me this reply:

‘Pete
Have a double shot!!!
Nothing you can do except to sit tight and watch your super go back up
and interest rates drop!!!!
Regards’

And I was relieved because I really was about to buy a diamond mine in South Africa.

On the front page of this morning’s paper I read a description of the GFC (see how fast I learn!) that said:

‘This is the calm before the storm.’ And: ‘The point is that the bad stuff hasn’t really started happening yet.’

I am really interested in these views because:
1. I am intrigued that we still have people who are regarded as financial experts when it seems to be the very same people who were experts before the GFC and unable to do anything to avoid it. Handy having experts who can do nothing.
2. While noticing that we do indeed seem to have a problem, some (reasonably realistic) views and expressions of hope, optimism and positivism (is that a word?) seem much more useful and certainly much more welcome.

So I think I will attend to the advice that says: ‘Sit tight and watch your super go back up
and interest rates drop!!!!’

And while I am sitting around..and possibly having a coffee, here is a video that I found heart-breakingly beautiful and uplifting. I know I am a big sook but I think it might just be lovely anyway. I hope yous enjoy it too.

I have been quick to put something up here as Amy (below) tells me that although I claim her as a favourite person there is no pic of her on my website…there is now Amy!

And so we went bush again with the Beyond Empathy mob…hip hop, circus, indigenous dance, film-making, percussion…and oh dear…paint ball…

and it was amazing as on other occasions.

Not always easy…but easy is easy. The tougher moments are the test and the negotiations and discussions were truly remarkable. I would vote for you for Prime Minister Danny…an 18 (19?) year old young man who raised with everyone something that he thought was important and with no expecatation that his preferred option would be taken up, was fair, assertive and articulate. Fantastic stuff…I will post more about this week as it was terrific. Just thought I better get Amy up here fast!

Ahh yes…well there you have it. ‘Used well’ it is of course fantastic. Used ‘not so well’ then it ain’t so good at all. And the thing about ‘using something well’ is that it seems to be quite hard to do.

It’s late at night, I’m tired and having a coffee (yes I know, this may seem odd but it works for me) and I relax and channel surf for what I hope is going to be 10 minutes. Just to get my head out of ‘complex thinking mode.’ It’s a good idea right? And usually that’s what I do, but occasionally I find a half hour passes before I say to myself: ‘this is rubbish and I’m going to bed.’ Bingo. For me, wasted time. And as a bonus I find myself strangely compelled to buy a knife that will cut through a shoe. (Why did I never realize before just how essential that item is to my life!)

And only slightly less extreme…I might want to have a conversation with someone about something important and there is a TV in the background…or I might want to go to a restaurant for a meal and just be with friends, chatting naturally. Yet if a screen is there it’s siren call seems irresistible. I find that a moving picture draws my eye, and before I know it…and it doesn’t seem to matter how crap the show is…I’m watching television.

With all this in mind here are some comments (or research depending on how you want to take it) on the vices of the screen:

So from Limit TV there is this.
- Academic achievement drops sharply for children who watch more than 10 hours a week of TV, according to the report “Strong Families, Strong Schools,” from the U.S. Department of Education, December 1994.
- The same report stated that three factors student absenteeism, a variety of reading material in the home, and excessive TV watching account for nearly 90% of the difference in the average performance of 8th graders’ mathematics scores.
- American children spend more time watching TV than they do in school, according to Drs. Sege and Dietz in Pediatrics, October 1994.
- Sixth and 12th grade California students who were heavy viewers of TV scored lower on reading, written expression and math achievement tests than students who viewed little or no television. (Judith Van Evra, p. 53.)
- North Carolina fourth graders watch an average of four hours of TV per day, and 25% of the children watch six hours or more. (1992 Study.)

So…there ya go. And from whitedot there is this:
Every time your turn it on, your television is giving you these messages:

TV is bad for democracy!
A study by Roger Putnam at Harvard University revealed that generations of people after 1950 have stopped participating. They know less and join in less. From bowling clubs to national politics, people are staying home and doing nothing. The study isolated a single cause for this erosion of social capital: television.
You’ll also get a chance to rediscover your own life: you are interesting. Your friends are worth knowing, and the things you do are more important than the things you watch others do on television.

And then there is this from How TV affects your child:
- Research has shown that kids who consistently spend more than 4 hours per day watching TV are more likely to be overweight.
- Kids who view violent events, such as a kidnapping or murder, are also more likely to believe that the world is scary and that something bad will happen to them.
- Research also indicates that TV consistently reinforces gender-role and racial stereotypes.

Of course I’m an adult, so none of this thankfully applies to me.

David Engwicht is maybe one crazy fella. Now is that bad? I must read more of what he says but one of his books is called ‘Mental Speed Humps’…and (if I’ve got this right) he is saying that the more traffic rules we have the less we seem to take responsiblity for what we are doing. We kind of trust in ‘THE RULES’. And there seems to be increasing evidence across Europe that when the traffic rules get taken away, accidents reduce. Yes..reduce. Because we start to pay more attention, be more aware, be more sensitive and more alert and more mindful of others. Kind of makes sense really.

I facilitate many groups and have long been an advocate for working in groups without rules – though I hasten to say that discussions about how we want to work together is something else -because everyone knows what respectful is, and a rule that says we must be respectful is kind of paradoxical. So the ‘mental speed bumps’ idea certainly makes sense to me in terms of running groups. And it makes sense in terms of helping organizations run well. People tend to know already what is fair and what isn’t. If you are in a relationship, you may not have the rules written up on the wall but you sure as heck know whether it’s okay to go out to a bar tonight and pick up someone you might just fancy. We do have ‘mental speed bumps’ and they are good for us.

I suspect David is ever so slightly provocative, as he sits here in New York city in his chair…making a statement about reclaiming the streets…

Nothing wrong with that really.

Ingrid Poulson has been in the news a little lately. In 2003 her then husband, murdered her father and her two young children.

I listened to an interview with her on Radio National (‘Life Matters’ 7th August 2008) and she sounded really lovely, really well, really positive. Pretty amazing. And she has written a book ‘Rise’ and I am only too pleased to say so. I have no idea if it[s any good but I intend to take a look. In the interview I was struck by a number of things. She said that when her children were killed she was ‘un-mumed’. And she asks: what are we without a role? She asks: if we lose our role do we lose our identity? Good questions I think.

She also said something along the lines that at one point she had been telling her story so many times to so many groups that: ‘I was…it was becoming a little bit too much of my story…I’ve really chosen to move on…’ This also seems a great comment about how to deal with tragedy.

Of her current partner she said that perhaps the radio interviewer could ask him to help her with children. So even after her experience of 2003 she wants more children. She says: ‘…it’s something I wouldn’t mind doing.’ Pretty impressive I thought.

And from the Sydney Morning Herald (August 9th 2008) I read that her idea of resilience is based on four ideas:

- Resolve (Giving yourself permission to survive)
- Identity (acknowledging your wins and embracing flexibility)
- Support (You cant do it alone)
- And everyday (eat well, get some exercise and don’t watch too much TV)

I think my top four would be:
- A sense of belonging
- Identity and a clear sense of self
- Good relationships
- A sense of being in charge of yourself

I wonder if we really differ so much? All the very, very best to Ingrid. An inspiration truly.

This is where it gets tricky. I love excellence. It’s wonderful to see human beings excelling, at whatever they do. Striving, achieving, moving, developing…and I mean both the personal…like…‘wow…that guy is loving and kind…how fabulous!’ As well as the …‘I can run really fast!’…type of achieving. Doing stuff is good. And doing it well is wonderful. I have been running since I was a teenager. I have run marathons, been in triathlons, walked in the Himalayas. I think I have some understanding of the joy of doing physical things, and of pushing yourself.

And yet,..and here of course is the ‘rub’…when it comes to the Olympics for every winner there are many, many losers, and for every gold medal there is a long list of ‘never heard of them.’

And then, and THEN there is how we spend our dollars. The Olympics is costing how much? And China has just had a major disaster and the best thing to do, naturally!…is to have a GREAT BIG opening ceremony. (The pic below is from the Sydney Morning Herald 9-10th August 2008)

Of course, this is not particularly about China. Most countries would do the same. And the next Olympics I am sure, will be ‘the best ever.’ And right now there are the most horrific and moving photos coming out of Georgia. And the one I have included here from the Sydney Morning Herald (August 11th 2008) is not by any means the most disturbing.

I actually scanned in a number of pictures that I might use in this post but some are just too distressing to reproduce here. The one above is tough enough in telling us what is happening in that part of the world.

So with all this, I feel I have to ask: what matters? What do we care about? How do we spend our dollars? Where do we put our energy?

I found the following video on the website of Chicago Public Radio presents:This American Life, and it’s charming…and makes an interesting comment on…well, not sure really…perception? Communication? Memory? Relationships? Gender? Imagination? Whatever…I think it’s deligtful. See what you think.

This is a bit of a development from the last thing I put up. The camp where most of us were young-ish…and some of us somewhat older. And good things happened:

And as our 5 day camp together came to a close I asked a question of a bunch of people of various ages ranging across 35 years. This is what I asked: What is the best thing in the world? And this is what they said:
Life
Music
Friends
Children
Life
Music
People
Life
Love
My daughters

So…how would you answer the question? What do you think is the best thing in the world?

So in June we went and did it again. The Beyond Empathy camp in Northern New South Wales. Many of the old crew, and some new crew. Around 50 or so of us, mostly yungins but some of us older ones to add something we hope. And we did a bunch of stuff. And the animoto video here gives you a pretty good idea of what that all was.

And if you can’t make that work for some reason or if you just prefer pics that don’t move about…here are some stills.

A very good experience of people working together, getting on, finding differences, finding the common ground…eating, talking, laughing, pushing boundaries a tad…all in all … a good thing.

So I’m listening to dear old radio national (The show is ‘Life Matters’ May 19th 2008) and I hear Martin Seligman and others talking about teaching Happiness (I added the capital H. It was radio after all) at a fairly flash school in Victoria. And the discussion scrolled through whether it was a good idea, whether most schools could afford the millions Geelong Grammar is spending on this, (the answer is ‘no’), whether there were down-sides, the place of parents in the whole process…a lota stuff. And Michael Carr-Gregg (well know psychologist) was saying that he was seeing kids with ’spiritual anorexia’ and who were filling the void with ‘rampant aflluenza’ and adoration of silly popular figures. (Cannot bear to repeat who was mentioned)….

And, possibly the week before all this I was reading Ruth Ritchie in The Sun Herald on 7-8 June who was saying: ‘We live in a time when contests are not won but lost. The focus is not on the winner but on the fear and humiliation that surrounds loss, abandonment, betrayal and eviction.’

She was of course, talking about the many and various ‘reality’ TV shows where ‘…the winners are so rarely qualified or to be admired for being anything other than the last limpets hanging on to the rock in a tsunami.’

And I think she has a point. She described these processes of elimination as ‘…heartily endorsed, institutionalized bullying.’ And this is all kind of sad really. It seems that depending on the show, people have the chance to be yelled at by a chef, sacked by a rich guy or snarled at by ‘upper class ladies.’ I’m sure there are more shows but gee it’s hard to keep up. So given that we have this awful stuff going on, and let me not make too light of it, I do think it’s awful, maybe the idea of teaching happiness is not a bad idea after all.

And it seems (back to the radio show) that those who are happy tend to be more altruistic, so the idea isn’t about being selfish. They seem to volunteer more, do more stuff for others. So the happiness idea seems to be about being personally strong, about being connected and about doing something meaningful in life. And so yes, all ideas can be turned into something silly (we’re good at that aren’t we for some reason?) or turned into something which exists in name only and is devoid of its own intended meaning. But maybe doing something which isn’t a silly TV show (especially one based on being mean to others), but something which encourages us to be decent to others and ourselves…maybe that ain’t so stupid.