When I discuss the upcoming Presidental election with my friends, I’m shocked at the number of people that respond ‘I just don’t like Hillary’, and therefore would prefer Trump to win the election. For the life of me, I am not sure when likability became an important personal attribute to leading the free world, but let’s look at that word ‘likability’ and what makes someone ‘likeable’.
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Climbing Uluru and why it's a dick of a move.
n the early days of 2010 I travelled to Central Australia, a result of always being captivated by the Indigenous Dreamtime and Creation stories that my mum read to me as a child. I spent hours bumping along desert roads in a 4x4 with a soft-focus gaze out into the lonely bush, marvelling at its beauty and imagining its voice as it told the elders, so long ago, about Yeperenye and Mala. The three week trip from Adelaide to Darwin was beautiful and life-changing and epic and all of the words in the thesaurus. During this time, I found peace, culture, history and love, as well as a deep connection to this land; land that was not ours, yet we took it anyway.Perhaps because I have been there and witnessed the strength and beauty of Uluru, or perhaps because I have an empathetic streak that seems to elude the majority of our MPs, but regardless, I feel the need to add my voice to the rumble against climbing Uluru.
Read MoreAndrew Bolt triggered my existential crisis.
I read this column a couple of weeks ago, and then, as now, it struck me as a beautiful piece of writing on a horrendous topic, with a horrible protagonist. Bolted Down - The Monthly Daily I have thought of it many times since my first reading. There's something so uncomfortable about the honest portrayal of a vile man that ends in vulnerability. A young boy writing a poem - is it autobiographical? Already in the poetry there's a sense of justification and permission: a hint that he knew that his life would be a dispensation of of 'teasing and taunting'. At 13 it is remarkable insight, yet surely he could have changed...? I have been wondering lately how much of our lives are fate and how much are choice and cause. Beyond determining the hour I get out of bed and what I eat for breakfast, do I determine my job, or my skills, or my relationships? Or do they determine me? Was I doomed to live this life from a young age? Or can I still make a change? A song to suit the mood To come back to Bolt: he reminds me of a man I used to know, who may have had an impact on who I am now, that was very black & white (pun?). There was his way, which was always right, and then another, which he would instantly dismiss; no time or inclination to understand the opposing argument, or even appreciate the greys. I am thankful that man never had a platform, and I cannot understand why Bolt does. But then, I suppose we all need a voice of reason. Bolt is the voice of reason for those with no imagination, no grey, and no empathy. They can justify their viewpoint because he shares it .I believe that unless we are strong enough to stand up to the fear that the poetic Bolt wrote about - the fear of defending the bullied - then we are all just as bad as him. In this time, with the world in such a state, it's not enough to do any less.