When driving into Geelong from Lorne and if time permits a reflective dawdle, I take pleasure from pulling into the small car parks that dot the road at Cathedral, Spouts, Moggs, Fairhaven, and Guvvo’s, to daydream and recall the simple pleasure of being ‘out the back’. While it is many a long year since I was a regular part of that quiet, peaceful place, I remember it well … ‘out the back’ … a slice of solitude where I could catch my breath, switch off, enjoy the lap of surface chop beneath my board, and choose to join – or not – in the desultory talk of fellow surfers awaiting ‘the next set.’ Oh, how I ache for that simplicity and conviviality now.
For the most part, I avoid writing about ‘things political’. There is far too much of it. It addles the mind, and poisons thought. But these last few tumultuous weeks, with parliament in abusive uproar, righteously angry women marching the streets, and the voice of outrage strident across the country, myriad decent men have been forced to cringe within the remnants of their masculinity.
For male or female, young or old, civility, trust, and generosity of spirit have never seemed so far from reach.
Whether from witnessing the soul-destroying spectacle of the dis-United States, narcissistically exceptional only unto itself, as it spirals into an abyss of division and hate: or, closer to home, from seeing shabby, self-serving identity politicians make claim against counter claim on the shifting sandbanks of their individual power and prestige, not on the solid rock of ideas and policy … I long even more to be ‘out the back’, pondering the simple question – ‘where has kindness gone?’
Nowadays, it seems essential to be anti-kind … to lay condemnation and accusatory responsibility at the feet of someone – anyone – while self-absolving fault as we lay our self-righteous blame.
Many things set the human species apart – note: not above, but apart – from others, but there is one over-riding gift that eclipses all others – the power of language: words, speech, and the capacity to communicate. ‘Out the back’ it is to be courteously understood when calling ‘mine’ to the looming third wave of the incoming set. There, it still happens – most of the time – but courtesy, kindness, and empathy are words lost in our parliament, by our politicians, no matter their stripe.
Our words have hardened. No longer are we ‘affected by’ … but ‘affected’ lacks dramatic effect … now, we must be ‘impacted’ – though my medical training commonly attaches a more uncomfortable connotation to impaction!
Worse, almost every event in our lives is now ‘unprecedented’ – though the claim for a lack of precedence most commonly just uncovers a paucity of knowledge of precedent human history on the part of the breathless reporter. ‘Uncommon’? … perhaps; ‘severe’? … sometimes; ‘the worst I can recall’? … yes! But to claim the absence of precedence is a risky claim indeed, and one that is now far over-worked.
As for the ubiquitous ‘stakeholder’, it inevitably evokes a deeply-seated pang of pity for all the sad sausage-graspers and chop-clutchers who – unlike John le Carre’s spy – must now to remain out in the cold. Everyone suddenly is a ‘stakeholder’ – though in or of what is often unclear.
Words matter, and matter deeply … especially kind words: words of inclusion, not exclusion … words of trust, not blame … words that draw us together, not crack us asunder. Violence, battle, and the imperative to dominate now seem ubiquitous: whether the 24 hour a day death, destruction, mayhem and murder we watch on our TV screens [oops, should I have said 24/7?]; or whether the more perverse offerings watched in the blue-light glare of ‘devices’ under the covers by night.
It is hard to find a streaming series or film without a minimum double-digit death by automatic weapon, or a gruesome serial murder solved equally gruesomely. Where is Mr Darcy? Where are sense and sensibility? While Bridgerton and Downton Abbey were lights of civility in a sea of mindless violence, and while Schitt’s Creek has offered us some welcome laugh-out-loud relief, comedic pleasures and drawing-room trysts largely graced by gentle language and good authorship are few and far between. Meanwhile, another multi-hundred succumb to a hail of lead as bereft script writers try to outdo their competition with even more mayhem and greater brutality.
As for the TV news … don’t start me! I, for one, no longer watch it, infinitely preferring the Great British Bake-off, Would I Lie to You, or Escape to the Chateau. The news is no longer news – it is simply gratuitous titillation, sordid blobbed-out petty criminals, and car crashes.
Is it the fault of our kids that so many are unsure of how to respect the sensitivities and space of others? No … we have led them there, tutoring disrespect and disregard, every day.
As I look with dismay at the degradation of national mores in our parliament, I wonder if it truly is their fault … or is it really ours – as a society? After all, those doing bad things in our parliament grew up, learned their trade, and took their cues from the same violence, disrespect, degradation of sexual boundaries, and civil misbehaviour that our society has taught them. We are far from innocent. They are the product of us.
One of the joys of living in a small seaside town is its sense of social cohesion. Lorne has that. I am sure other towns along our coast and in our hinterland would say the same. Kindness and smiles still grace our streets and beaches. Though cracks may appear, now and then, broadly the fabric remains strongly woven. Perhaps this lingering cohesion comes from having spent time ‘out the back’ where, after struggling through the white water of the break, many have learned the escape of calm reflection and desultory, friendly chatter. Maybe is why coastal dwellers form such a magical group apart.
As I pause on my way to the ‘big smoke’, as I watch, dream, and remember the satisfaction of being ‘out the back’, I toy with one recurring thought: maybe all men and all women in our parliament should be taught to surf!
John Agar
