Yesterday, straight after work, I ended up being a volunteer at a festival. Something I haven’t done in over a year now.

I have forgotten how thankless, tiring and draining event work is. No one really appreciates the effort that goes into making an event come to life. But that is the song of chaos and control you must dance to as the event organiser.

It was also a blast to be back.

All the usual hectic activity was happening. When an event is underway and the initial set up is complete, it is a breeze. All you need to do is ensure the program runs smoothly and every single person is aware of their duties. The event essentially runs itself. There is no need to be running around.

Instead you rest, relax a bit and soak in the atmosphere you’ve created over many painstaking months. You chat to patrons, volunteers and rub shoulders with the band.

My volunteer shift started with the shitty job. The part of the festival that is never fun and involves a lot of frustrated and tired people: bumping out.

I knew exactly why my tutor (the general manager for the Brewer’s Festival) put me on for the bump out. He was aware of my experience in the past in dealing with festivals and in particular, angry stall holders.

So he made me the gatekeeper. The first man to be yelled at and assaulted by sponsors, food vendors and tired festival workers.

I had honestly forgotten how you can get the biggest spectrum of reactions from people. You can always tell who did the worst at the event and the ones who were successful. You can also always tell those who just want to get the hell out of there, safety and people be damned and others who are understanding and know the realistic situation everyone is in.

Those who pull rank on me, I despise. “I talked to Trevor! (not my tutor’s real name) He SAID that I can come in and do this, in front of these people here. I don’t care what others are loading, they’re not loading a 1.6 ton cart onto a trailer with 6 people. Why can’t you just let me in?” whined the ice-cream man who clearly made something of a loss.

Then I’ll get other responses like “Hey mate, all good man. I get it. I don’t mind waiting. You got a pretty good job though hey?” the relaxed cider guy would say with a sarcastic smirk.

Finally, the last typical response would be “Ahhh shit. Not much you can do right? Alright mate. Keep me posted” the tired whiskey man would say with a deep sigh.

Customer service skills, are something I still need to work on. It’s not easy, stroking the egos of so many different types of people and making them all happy. But then I will confess that I have always struggled when I am a “volunteer”, unsure of how much authority I am allowed to stamp out. As the boss of my own festival, I know that I am a firmer character and stick less to the rules. I am more flexible, relaxed, preferring the “rule of the jungle” than trying to impose any sensibility into a chaotic time, like bumping out.

“First come, first served” is more my style, as it takes the blame out of the organisers and there is more competition between the stall holders to see who can get to their stall first. I can direct traffic better this way, than being more rigid and sticking to a time slot.

But that is not the rules of engagement I was handed with and so I had to be a dutiful soldier and follow orders. I still ended up being a bit flexible in who I let in, but it was within reason and I think the bump out process went as smoothly as it could have.

I struck multiple deals though. Promising to help this stall out, by carrying half their load up a small hill. Reassuring another lady that she would get through soon, after this guy sorted his stuff out.

I only ended up fulfilling half of them. But that is the nature of the chaos that always descend during bump out.

I must say, overall, it was fun to be working amongst hard-toiling volunteers. There is a camaraderie that is struck up so quickly and naturally, and despite being amongst complete strangers, it was fun to share a bit of banter and work.

I stuck to my usual default “silent & strong” mode, chiming in only with a quip or offer for help, the words of eternal wisdom: “better to be silent and be thought of as a fool, than to open your mouth and prove them correct” echoing strongly in my mind as I kept working.

I was also curious to find out that I was still the best equipped volunteer there, my faithful companion of many years, the Pelican flashlight proving to be an invaluable asset as night fell over the venue, as well as the Mechanix Cut gloves I always pack in my EDC (Every Day Carry) bag. I would be remiss to not mention my other faithful friend, the Leatherman Skeletool multitool that honestly …. I have lost count the number of times I have used it at events and aorund in life.

I guess my atypical mentality of being “over-prepared” for everything does pay dividends in the long run.

Another strange piece of reflection I had during the bump out, was seeing my trusty combat boots finally get dirty. I had worn these for so long, just as casual piece of footwear, only to now truly see them in their element, keeping my feet comfortable, moving and stable over gravel, wet grass, patches of mud and endless ice from endless beer … it made me grateful I am always seeking the best the military has to offer and buying them for my own use.

It made me happy to see my investments enabling me to work harder and longer without discomfort. I enjoy bringing tools, gear and kit to environments and really testing them and seeing how I can work more efficiently with them.

A point of pride for me, was the fact that my stamina and strength had increased since the last time I was at an event. I covered a surprising 12.5km yesterday, just from walking around at work and at the festival and I felt physically OK at the end of it all. The B30 Challenge and my fixation with tennis paying off.

Overall, the Brewer’s Feast was a good event to attend, even if I was only there briefly. I was astonished at how long people spent there and how everything had a very cosy atmosphere. Despite the amount of alcohol that was flowing, there were very little need for security to step in, and there truly was a family friendly vibe about the entire event. I couldn’t believe how many vendors attended and took the opportunity to showcase their unique alcoholic blends. I liked the layout, the staff, and the vibe.

It wasn’t hard to see why this event had been running for 5 years and still saw massive attendance, even in the twilight hours of a Sunday.

It was just … nice to be at an event again, running around, being busy, physically and mentally and using all my tools again.

The Brewer’s Feast was a reminder that this is truly the industry I want to work in and that while I nearly missed the start of the MotoGP & F1 because I had rush home, and that my dinner consisted of slightly stale McDonalds nuggets … I wouldn’t trade attending a good festival for all the hardships in the world.

The best thing too, was that the night was topped off with an awesome race in Imola by the F1 fraternity.

~ Damocles.

The older I get, the more politics seem to grate on me, and I feel myself longing for some type of controlled anarchy.

Before I come across as some type of chaos agent from Get Smart, what I specifically mean by that is a community that understands and values the core principles of individual responsibility.

Fundamental to that ideal, is the idea that you alone are responsible for what happens to you.

It places a greater pressure on yourself to be the very best version of you. It also implicitly blames you for your own choices, poor decisions and failures. There is no pinning the blame on others, on the world or some perceived slight against yourself.

You go through life, keenly aware that everything you do, you did for a reason.

You also fight complacency at almost every step, because you realise that you can’t really afford to make bad decisions without facing some type of consequence.

It breeds mindful people. People who understand that nothing they do can really be taken for granted, that the casual toss of rubbish here affects others, that your decision to snack on junk food today, will mean more tooth decay and adverse health benefits tomorrow.

A society where people are more aware of their own impact on themselves and others can only generate more positive outcomes to the broader community.

This doesn’t eliminate assholes of course, but then nothing ever will. There will always be people whose predilections and outlooks on life offend you. But they can be assholes with a purpose. They understand why they are behaving the way they are, and will actually have a reason why they do the things they do.

In other words, a person with legitimate reason for believing the things they do and can actually back themselves up, regardless of what atrocious or reasonable beliefs they may have.

So why did I use the words “controlled anarchy?”

Well beyond the shock value, and odd juxtaposition of definitions in those two words, I find that the two find a strange middle ground in terms of governance, with perhaps a slight lean towards anarchy.

I like the appeal behind anarchy, because it is all about self-reliance, and it strips away any pretension we might have about each other. It is raw, animalistic and probably the worst and most stressful way to live, because honestly, you’re not living …. you’re just surviving.

Which brings me to a crucial next point. Individual responsibility isn’t just about empowering your beliefs and values. It also helps highlight deficits you think you might have in life, especially with regards to personal health and skills.

Survival skills have been lacking in a lot of people recently. We are now less observant, less healthy, and less prepared than ever before. You can argue that in an urban environment you no longer need to navigate by the stars, or be able to pluck a chicken.

The counter-argument to that is of course, you still do need survival skills. Cars, bikes, construction work, there is still a prevalent need to develop awareness to avoid nasty accidents and injury.

But the most important issue that is being missed, is that old-fashioned wilderness skills are key to appreciating nature itself.

A greater appreciation of earth is never a bad thing, especially with how people treat their rubbish, food waste and daily consumption of goods. Survival skills help you understand and empathise with the living world around us, to help humble your ego and instill in you, a sense of mortality.

Mortality … a word that barely registers in our consciousness nowadays, but really should. We all think we are going to live forever with the advances of science and medicine, but I think the COVID-19 crisis has finally warned us, that we are very, very susceptible to death.

However, instead of reacting in a knee-jerk way, and celebrating the end of COVID-19, should there not be a greater and deeper reflection on the way how we live our lives? Should we not embrace the greater responsibility to self and work to improve and embrace more of the time we have left?

Where is the gratitude for surviving a plague?

Where is the drive to get healthier, to spend less, to see the positives effects of slowing down humanity’s progress to allow the Earth to catch up?

Instead we just chose to resume everything as normal again and ignore any net positives COVID might have taught us.

Individual responsibility is all about realising that change starts with yourself first. Take courage from that fact, because there is nothing more empowering than knowing that the sky is the limit when it comes to change within.

The world won’t move for you, nor will it acknowledge you, but you have all the power within to enact any change you want.

Want to get fit? Start exercising and trimming down your diet.

Want to get fight-ready? Start training with the money you earn, and sign yourself up for a fight in the ring.

Want to be more attractive? Look after your skin, build up confidence in the strengths you have and take nothing personally. Rejection is not a sign of unattractiveness, it’s a signal for you to search elsewhere.

Want to get better at something? Put in the hours. 24 hours in a day, in which you only lose 6-7 hours to sleep, and 8 hours to work still means you got 9 hours to put in the hard yards to learn, improve and inspire.

This is what individual responsibility is all about. It forces you to take a long hard look at yourself and find the strength within to do everything you ever wanted to do. It inspires you to reach higher heights because you alone know how much you are capable of.

Don’t blame the world, blame yourself first. Only you can change yourself, the world doesn’t give 2 shits about you.

Look after yourself, and stay hungry for more and suddenly it will seem like the sun is shining down especially bright for you, whereas for everyone else, the sky is cloudy.

In a world full of people willing to embrace themselves, improve themselves and better themselves, there is no real ceiling that can stop it. You will see unity amongst people, because they realise that they can’t change others, only themselves and that is OK. You learn to accept others, because they don’t really do you any harm.

The world is less offended, more introspective and accepting. You don’t feel the need to preach to others, to get angry at something beyond your control because you look inwards first and then realise it’s OK if something is beyond reproach.

I think in a lot of ways, the society that truly espouses what I am discussing right now, is early America in the wake of the American Revolution. There was an incredible ideology back then that really embraced what I am discussing, the freedoms in which the American people enjoyed were only made possible because people trusted one another to be responsible for themselves.

In particular if you observe the first 2 amendments of the American Constitution;

The 1st Amendment: Protects the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and the right to petition the government.

The 2nd Amendment: Protects the right to keep and bear arms.

Cast your mind back to that period of history, where governments and kingdoms ruled with an iron fist and enjoyed suppressing people as much as the next local dictator next door … the very first two amendments granted the people the extraordinary ability to police their own government and prevent any supreme leader from appearing.

The Constitution allows people to protest, bear arms against the government if suspected of tyranny and express themselves however damn well they wanted.

All the things modern governments still very much fear and do their best to control.

If the very first two Amendments are not a glowing recommendation for individual responsibility than observe the 9th and 10th Amendment which explicitly states

The 9th Amendment: states that rights not enumerated in the Constitution are retained by the people.

The 10th Amendment: states that the federal government possesses only those powers delegated or enumerated to it through the Constitution.

Both Amendments further restricts the power of the government and places a greater emphasis on people governing themselves.

Much like controlled anarchy.

However, such idealism would inevitably be lost to today’s world, especially with the prevalence of even more censorship, propaganda and downright lies spread by everyone.

The irony of too much freedom, is that people start to wish for more control.

With more control, only comes more laziness, more complacency and a desire to blame the other instead of yourself.

Reject the controlling nature of the world. Confuse the algorithms, or reject them entirely. Be informed, be smart, be in self-control of what you consume, read and think.

By embracing yourself, by taking on more responsibility for yourself, you create your own world, instead of falling into the prison that others have designed for you.

Dare to know, dare to challenge yourself and dare to win.

vivamus, moriendum est.

let us live, since we must die.

~ Damocles.

27 years …

Years. What a strange concept time is. If I was to indulge in a bit of mathematics, then that would mean, I have survived …

9,855 Days

or

236,520 Hours

or

14,191,200 Minutes.

Rookie numbers.

It’s strange though, because for once, I don’t feel like I have changed or regressed. Instead, I’m wondering about the futility of it all, pondering about the whole concept of birthdays and spending the earliest parts of the morning getting my thoughts down.

How little all of this actually means to anyone except myself. And even I don’t really give a shit about it.

The world doesn’t stop because I am celebrating my birthday, nor does it even knows I have one. Time is defined by man, so why did we choose 60 seconds to define a minute of our lives?

Why 60 seconds? What is a second?

All I know about time, is really how much pressure it places on everyone. On me. I can’t help but constantly remind myself about how time I’ve wasted. It’s the one crippling insecurity that constantly plagues my mind.

I like to think myself impervious to most types of self-doubt. I don’t have that much of an issue with my physical appearance, nor my ability to adapt, improvise and overcome challenges. I can be extroverted, introverted and everything in between.

Charming, debonair, average, handsome, ruthless, generous, petty or magnanimous … there is little beyond my reach when it comes to my abilities and charms.

But before the endless progress of time, I feel helpless, angry and keenly self-aware of my weaknesses and procrastination of the important things in my life.

I feel like I am wasting my only chance, my life. I get all too wrapped up on my mortality, and the desire to be named a legend in something.

It’s depressing and nihilistic.

The two adjectives I despise most the in world, because they just seem like an anathema to me, a terrible cycle that induces more time wasting.

In a lot of ways, my fear of time is a lot like if I had alcohol addiction …. I drink to forget I have an addiction, but it only fuels it more.

So, are there any plans to celebrate my birthday?

With the way how things are in the world, not really. It’ll probably just be another day that gets blurred with all others, like in quarantine, just with an added bonus of being more moody and reflective.

As I inch closer to 30 though, I feel like I got to work harder nowadays. I do have this fear of not working hard enough and not committing myself more to some type of success.

I guess this is why I am going to start another challenge for myself. I have to address this insecurity about time and learn to commit to a more regular schedule of work.

3 things to do a day.

Raise my productivity, force my creativity out and shed my laziness.

Physical, Mental or Spiritual …. I need to work on at least one of those 3 aspects in my life to improve things.

There is nothing quite like the feeling when you are aware of how talented, intelligent and overall capable you are, and yet cannot muster the energy nor the will to make use of it.

Physical training, Mental conditional and Spiritual awareness.

If I can at least start to address all of these things by doing 3 simple tasks a day, I think by the time I am 29, I might be able to reach some type of epiphany about my fear of time.

Whilst I get that today’s lifestyle and addictions are a result of rapid technological advancements that are supposed to make life easier, I have often found, in reality, it makes life a lot more hollow.

And the hollow feeling you get, is because you know you could be doing more, with more.

That sensation, is probably one of the most relatable feelings anyone today could have.

It’s OK to feel that.

I just wish it would go away.

That doesn’t excuse my laziness though.

So I got to change it.

3 things Damocles.

Just start with 3 things a day.

Maybe one day, your birthday won’t feel like another finish line where you were too slow.

~ Damocles

To set the scene … I’m sitting, in a largely silent house, listening to Japanese Jazz, and playing with a folder knife.

Soft amber light is casting my room in a comfortable glow, my legs are sprawled comfortably across my chair and bed and I wish I was smoking a cigarette, despite never having had any tobacco before.

I’m lounging like this, when it struck me that I still got two more weeks of this isolation lockdown, this lovely house arrest after our illustrious Melbourne Premier, announced his “roadmap” out COVID-19 last Sunday on the auspicious day of the 6th of September.

The moment that thought struck me, I felt this strange sense of calm resigned depression overcome my thoughts. Several nihilistic actions happened soon after.

I felt bizarrely like dropping my knife into my thigh. Then I wanted to throw it into the wall. Finally, my fingers moved and just gave the knife a couple of twirls, before placing it down gently.

That’s enough of that silliness said my mind to my mind. I agree said my voice to myself.

Nostalgia soon arrived after, like the scent of spring after a long winter, and reminded me what I missed.

The city of Melbourne.

I’ve always beheld her as some dangerously seductive femme fatale in my mind.

Clad in a appropriately black cocktail dress, Melbourne had enchanting emerald eyes like the numerous parks, long wavy raven hair that sparkled like the Yarra at night and lightly sun-kissed skin, akin to her best side at sunsets.

Her voice would be husky, Lauren Bacall-esque in delivery and cadence. She would be moody, like the weather, able to dazzle with daylight and disparage with hail in a heartbeat.

(Just imagine a Elizabeth Debicki type with dark hair and you’re getting a close approximation of how I imagine Melbourne. Elegant, refined beauty that somehow floors you with mysterious wise eyes. Did you know she is a Melburnian? How quaint that such an extremely tall, statuesque silver screen goddess would come from this neck of the woods. But I always long held the belief that the women in Melbourne were beautiful, like the city itself.)

But Melbourne would always be welcoming, enticing you to explore more of her fun, secretive personality, to discover what hidden treasures she had tucked away for the curious.

I miss spending nights with her.

Finding bars in the unlikeliest places. Scouting rooftops that could take your breath away with the climb, the guards and the view. Appreciating quiet venues with comfortable sofas, a fireplace and transit ambience.

I would always visit her at least once a month. I love my home-town too much, to neglect Melbourne like that. There is always something on offer, always some covert restaurant that promised more delicious food, or some tucked-away club that catered to Cuban cigar aficionados.

You can see the highest of highs in Melbourne, and experience the lowest of lows all in the same night.

I think that is what I am finding difficult to grapple with the most. The slow, inexorable death of personality within, that only happens when days merge into each other, when weeks become confused and foggy, the future offering no light at the end of your tunnel.

I know, I know. This is all very dramatic.

I blame the Japanese Jazz, I’m listening to.

Before I was compelled to write this … whatever this is …. I was playing what I call “lethargic” music, the type of slightly edgy, dark, sensual and atmospheric sounds that lulls you into thinking all type of wrong things. Check out The Pink Room by Angelo Badalamenti or Out of Time by Brian Reitzell if this kind of thing appeals to you.

It only ever does, when I feel like fully embracing nihilism, a very unhealthy thing to do in these times, because feeling like there is no purpose, will only make you more aware of how time has dulled in this lockdown.

Feeling mopey, I then channelled French jazz, the type of songs that make you long for the touch of a woman, a stiff drink, a cigarette and a comfortable bed to partake in all of those things. Dance Me to the End of Love by Madeleine Peyroux is arguably the love song of my entire romantic lifespan. I always indulge in this song, when I crave a girl to convince me everything is going to be OK, with her touch, her voice and her gentle ministrations.

Royal Blue by Henry Macini is the second most romantic song I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Whenever I indulge in fond romantic memories, this always plays softly in the background. The melody always rekindles this feeling of simpler, more maudlin and glamorous times, when life wasn’t quite the shitstorm of stress it is now.

I couldn’t quite stand how emotional I was getting, and the knife twirls were only getting more furious.

So I moved onto Japanese Jazz, in particular the work of Yuji Ohno of Lupin the Third fame.

Quite possibly what I consider the jazz national anthem of Japan, Lupin the Third‘s theme, is iconic in the extreme, but it is the song Mayflower that I really adore.

Calming, slow, with a really beautiful piano melody, Mayflower never fails to relaxes me and let me soak in some kind of strange tranquil ambience.

But by then, I was feeling myself slip into too much of a relaxed state. So I switched it up to the excellent album Cafe Relaxin’ Lupin and ended up really wishing I could be sipping a hot chocolate in a rain soaked alleyway of Melbourne, watching people and cars go by.

It’s strange, because now as I reflect upon these past months of COVID-19, I realised I’ve truly run a gambit and exhausted all options. I’ve spent recklessly, gamed frantically, read furiously, written copiously, exercised manically and watched entertainment habitually … but now all I have left are my thoughts.

I’ve outlasted myself. Robbed myself of anything left to do.

Purpose is bereft at the moment. All the lights I’ve tried to maintain are being extinguished in favour of wallowing in the dark of nihilistic sadness.

Thanks COVID-19. Truly appreciate this exploration of the depth of despair.

Hmph.

At least I still got my sarcastic, bitter sense of humour. That’s the one thing nothing will ever rob from me.

I’m not really sure what was the point of writing all of this down was. But it did serve a purpose. It allowed me to vent, to acknowledge the state I am in and feel like I am actually in touch with how I truly feel.

Sometimes, when I write, I just want to write, without rhyme, rhythm or reason.

This is one of those posts.

Utterly rubbish drivel, composed in absurd alliteration, and half-baked similes.

But, this is really how I feel. I’m just getting in touch with myself, through me.

That’s important, when there is so much craziness out there.

Sometimes when we are alone, we have to be our own company.

That isn’t crazy. It’s just logical.

COVID-19 really does strip everyone down to their bare basics.

I feel a bit like Pandora’s Box, my many emotions released into the world like the evils in trapped within.

All that is left is my scornful humour. My “hope” is my cynical amusement.

When Damocles is truly crushed, and fermented and turned into wine …

Acerbic wit, is my distilled essence.

That’s not so bad is it?

No, I suppose it isn’t.

Thanks COVID-19. I hate it.

~ Damocles.

This is the finale to the COVID-19 Series.

Overall, I rather enjoyed writing broadly and personally about COVID-19. I’ve really allowed myself to vent out my frustration, and also see things in a more positive light than what the news has been assaulting me with for the past 6 months.

“The Great Reset” as I’ve come to coined the pandemic, has really shown the disparity in wealth and culture that globalism and capitalism has wreaked upon the world.

When you are sick, but need to go to work to earn enough upkeep to sustain your life, shit is beyond fucked.

Truly my heart goes out to all small business owners who have been destroyed by this pandemic and I can only imagine the stress and pain they are going through right now.

I’ve been fortunate to keep my retail job, this back-up plan of mine that I was going to abandon by mid 2020, literally saving me from the devastation COVID-19 has wrecked upon people’s livelihoods.

But now, with a Stage 4 lockdown coming in, I am on the same playing field, as everyone else. My store will be closed by tomorrow and I shall be out of work for the next 6 weeks.

It’ll probably feel like a very long month and a half if I am honest. I shall be putting most of my effort into getting “racer-ready” and cutting down my lap times in Gran Turismo Sport.

I’ll also have to continue my dry-firing drills, improving my Spanish and ensuring I actually come to an conclusion with regards to Sol, the sci-fi story I am creating right now.

Now that I’m looking on the mountain of work ahead of me, I’m a bit more optimistic about the stuff I have to do on this break.

With any luck, this toughest lockdown will bring the pandemic under control and some semblance of normality will return to my beloved hometown.

The cynic in me though, is skeptical. The mood here is the most down-trodden I’ve ever seen and often when the collective mood is depressive, things tend to get more self-destructive than better.

Our Premier is losing his command and respect, the people are more openly flaunting the rules, and there is a nihilistic outlook on life.

An attitude that says “if we get it, fine, so be it. I can’t be bothered fighting anymore.” This is naturally extremely dangerous and represents a collective defeatist attitude in the town, something that will only prolong the lockdown.

But, I can’t blame people for feeling that way. There is no crueller and tougher way to bounce back, after a victory felt earned, won and sealed, only for it to be taken away.

We walked away, thinking COVID-19 was defeated, that we, as a team, did our duty and job to the best of our ability. That our sacrifices meant a victory in the long run.

To have COVID-19 come back, rendering all those sacrifices for nothing, and with our bullshit tank empty, we have nothing to cling onto anymore. Hope is lost and once people lose hope, it is very difficult to behave rationally.

That is the mood of Melbourne right now, on the cusp of the toughest and strictest lockdown ever felt.

It’s as dire as it sounds.

This series has left me exhausted and replete with the amount of words and emotions I’ve dedicated to this topic.

I doubt I have much else to say on COVID-19. I’ve truly explored all the topics I want to discuss and can leave in peace.

I now have a lot of work to do and other avenues to explore.

I hope you have all enjoyed reading my opinions as much as I felt relief in writing them down.

Until the next post,

~ Damocles. 

This journal, has been expanding exponentially since I’ve decided to dust it off when I started my Before 30 Challenge. 

But it was COVID-19 that really allowed me to take this journal to another level and express myself even more.

I felt like talking more, mostly because I was being driven to the depths of boredom at work.

COVID-19 has really also made me wish I had an editor on board, because the keyboard at work is atrocious, and its “stickiness” causes a lot of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes.

I don’t think I’ve read a single post, whereupon publishing, I would reread it and be compelled to go back and edit out the mistakes.

This keyboard, I am writing on, truly sucks for speed too, as my thoughts often run faster than I can type. I do miss my home keyboard, because it allows my hands to keep pace with myself.

There’s also the frequent interruption to my chains of thoughts, as I have to duck out for a few seconds to serve customers or help them, before returning and struggle to recollect my chain of logic.

It’s a strange mental exercise, but one that I am slowly getting better at. I think it’s an important skill, to hold something in your mind, address something else, and then return to it.

Memory skills are something I really need to train and develop. It never ceases to amaze me, how much I forget in a day, the important details I’ve missed and the crucial conversations I lose track of.

Memories, I feel, are crucial to your overall mental well-being, because beyond its obvious indication that you don’t have dementia, it also serves an important function in reminding you of lessons you need to take heed of.

To err is to be human, to make the same error twice, is stupid.

In context of this journal, COVID-19 has also granted me a boom, in followers. I’ve been really surprised to see the number of people follow and read this blog, and show their support, even in the smallest way with a “like.” I have done absolutely nothing to promote this blog, no tags, no SEO-linkage, nothing at all.

So to have anyone genuinely read my posts, despite the huge amount content out there, still floors me. The fact that I have an audience, no matter how big or small it is, means that I feel encouraged to keep writing and producing stories.

Honestly, I get such a swell of emotion whenever I get that WordPress email telling me that someone reacted positively to my posts. It reaffirms my belief that I am not the most horrific writer out there, that people can actually enjoy reading something I’ve made.

This has been a surprising experience for me as well, because usually I am quite a private person, unwilling to share my thoughts, even amongst my friends. I made the decision to go public with this Journal, because I felt the need to be held accountable for my progress in the B30 Challenge.

“Public shaming” if you will.

I couldn’t live with myself, if I failed in front of people, so that’s why this Journal exists. To keep pushing me to create, be productive and keep practising what I preach.

It’s easy to convince yourself to accept failure when you are alone.

It’s a lot harder to convince yourself that you are doing things right, when you fail in front of people and peers.

I’m really glad I took up writing again, just before COVID-19 started, because it provides me with a reference to my state of mind before the pandemic. As I mentioned earlier, it’s amazing how much the human mind forgets and often, we need a record of ourselves to help enable more personal growth and introspection.

When we look back at ourselves, we should have two feelings: embarrassment and pride. Embarrassed that we were so uncivilised back then and proud that we have grown up and moved past that state.

Seeing progress in ourselves, is what makes us confident and better people.

This Journal has helped me see that I’m getting better, in some ways and worse in others. It lets me identify key problems within, and create solutions to address those issues.

It also serves as a pep talk to myself. I think, everyone reading this Journal can see that, whilst I am extraordinarily harsh on myself, I am also quite encouraging. I know that I’ve made mistakes, that I’ve slipped, but that isn’t a call for defeat, because I can just get back up, take notes on why I made a mistake, and not repeat it.

I suppose you could say, I do reassure myself a lot. Probably my subconscious working to protect my fragile ego.

But if it works, it works, and I’m not one to break from an established procedure that has proven itself.

In a way, COVID-19 has proven itself to be a bit of blessing when it comes to personal development. Whilst the world has gone to shit, I’ve felt more attuned to myself and my needs and my priorities. I’ve focused on making myself resilient and tough in the face of adversity.

And all the pandemics in the world, can’t really take that away from me.

It might seem like a waste of time, a frivolous expenditure of your life, but can it truly be all that bad, when you’ve improved yourself?

COVID-19 might have paused the world, but it can’t pause you.

Work hard, train hard and be hard.

~ Damocles.

Team Farang, my parkour idols ever since I got interested in the discipline. 

This is a bit random, but I felt like discussing my own style and what I particularly like in clothing. 

Ever since I was in high school, and discovered for the very first time what a hoodie was, I have been interested in clothing ever since.

It’s not as strong as my love for tactical gear (I still need to get myself a plate carrier) but there is definitely a keen interest in how to clothe myself. One of the very first blogs I followed on WordPress, and have been an avid reader ever since, was BAMF Style, whose erudite and excellent analysis of so many important pop culture and obscure outfits, have enthralled me and informed my own choices.

I mostly buy a lot of muted, earthy colours. Being a Melburnian, this obviously means a lot of … blue. I’m kidding of course, in reality, the natural colour of this city is black.

But I honestly don’t own that many black items.

My approach to colour tends to be very dark navy blues, with lighter colours like brown and greys to balance out the whole look. Overall, I would have to say my style is quite muted, more akin to blending in with the crowd, than trying hard to stand out and be a personality.

It also tends to be quite functional, with many of my purchases based around my EDC policy, and thus I need a lot of strong belts, pockets and looser cuts to hide my various gadgets.

There are so many looks I would love to explore. A great example I adore is the 80s Miami Vice aesthetics of pastel pinks, blues and aqua, but with my physique and “mentality” when it comes to clothes, I cannot pull off such a look.

Another admirable trend I love, are the colours that often people of African descent can pull off. I love the bright purples, yellows and oranges that they pull off with such ease and aplomb, but, my skin tone and physique again, lacks the ability to handle such brightness.

So, how do I dress myself?

Predominantly in 3 styles.

Street. Paramilitary. Suave.

Each of these style represent a rather unique period of my life and dovetails nicely with the obsessions I had at the time. However, the current theme I noticed in all of them, are practical elements that always pay service to the gadgets I have on board.

These gadgets, have grown over the years, but currently they stand at this list:

• Suunto All Core Watch
• Milspec550 Paracord Trooper Bracelet
• Samsung A90 Phone
• Ipod Nano 7th Gen
• Dr Dre. Powerbeats Pro headphones
• CAT Tourniquet
• Pelican Flashlight
• Leatherman Skeletool
• Car Keys
• Pocket Tissues

It is a lot of gear to carry around, and given my perchance for running, I have to definitely have freedom of movement in whatever clothes I wear. I’ve ran in suits, street-wear and jeans, and enjoyed the feel of all of them.

If I can’t burst into a sprint at a moment’s notice, I automatically reject the garment.

So with those caveats in mind, here is a breakdown of the styles I follow.

Street.

David Belle performing a stunt in the film: District 13 Ultimatum (2009)

The first real style I began to invest in, once I left the bubble of high school, was street clothing.

I was obsessed with cargo pants; their utility, baggy fit, and durability beautifully dovetailed with the amount of concrete I was slamming my body into, when I was getting into parkour.

I still recall fondly my Under Armour cargo pants, which served me for nearly 5+ years, and got so worn around the knees, there were giant holes there. I had genuinely gone through the wringer with them and to pair with these pants, I mostly wore Nike black runners, and my black Reach parkour shirt.

If I was cold, I would buy a cheap hoodie, that I didn’t mind ripping holes into. I ended up going through two hoodies.

The first was a cheap British brand, I forget the name off, in which, after a year, the hem was perforated with holes, from my rough landings. The second was my Ubi-Workshop Assassin Creed II hoodie, which had a small eagle peak atop the hood.

It was this amazing red/black design, that I absolutely loved to wear everywhere and it was also tight and streamlined, thus allowing me full freedom of movement in it.

I was also skateboarding a lot back then, having just bought a cheap board, and then spray-painting it black and adding a red Spiderman logo on it. It suited my hoodie a lot, I must say.

That was my main look, I rocked throughout most of university, skateboarding or running around in that outfit, eager to feel pavement under my feet, instead of carpeted tutorial rooms.

I still own a lot of these items, but now I’ve added a lot more colour (pastel pink and blues) and long-sleeved shirts to them. There is a uniquely Melbourne brand I shop at, called Sure! whose streetwear I love, and support, because “streetwear” should ideally be linked to the city whose streets you love the most.

I don’t really do Supreme or anything similar, mostly because the concept of paying a lot to look a bit “drab” is bizarre to me. Streetwear should be comfortable, affordable and representative of your city. Anything else, just seems excessive.

If I had to sum up my streetwear, it’s mostly long-sleeved shirts, tapered pants, a lot of clothes from the Team Farang store and admittedly, a whole lot of black, because the holes and damage don’t show up as much, when I engage in rolls and tumbles across concrete.

My streetwear, is essentially based around parkour. Comfortable, slightly stylish and sleek outfits that make me feel cool, (physically and mentally) when running through the streets of Melbourne.

Out of the three styles, this one is probably has the least amount of investment in it, because I don’t do parkour as much anymore (even though I really want to), but it is the first adoption of any particular approach towards fashion.

And there are always things on the Team Farang store I really, really want to wear.

Paramilitary.

Lucas Botkin of T.Rex Arms fame, smiling for once. 

Out of the three styles, this is my general preference and the most I’ve actually invested in.

Christened by me as the “off-duty cop” look, it is the style that military or police adopt when trying their best to “blend” with society, but really, to anyone in the business, they stand out like a sore thumb.

It is also a look, that once called out, you can instantly see what it is.

Functional, practical, and slightly mismatched. You can instantly spot why certain articles of clothing enable certain movements and concealment of gadgets. It is also getting increasingly expensive, with the rise of “military Gucci” gear, like certain type of clothes costing exorbitant amounts, because they look good and serve a good function.

Very unlike a lot of gear out there that just serve a function and look horrific.

In my case, it bought about a whole new obsession with flannel shirts, and henley shirts. I ended up with a whole host of colours to suit any mood I am in, and I always invariably ended up rolling up my sleeves and leaving that shirt unbuttoned.

Due to my size and style, I actually buy a lot of these shirts from Muji whose style and philosophy allow for comfortable, simple and nondescript clothing really help play down my paramilitary vibe. Their flannel colours are always nice and I enjoy the little collar to add some depth to the shirts.

For my base layer, it tends to be henley shirts, or just good long-sleeved shirts ideally from Superdry or since I have recently explored and upgraded to this brand, Arc’teryx. Out of the two, I preferred Arc’teryx for their colours, fit and overall feel, but my biggest issue are their stock in Australia. The Canadian and American sites really showcase how much they have on offer, and the Australian website is truly awful in comparison.

I would also love to access the Arc’teryx LEAF collection but that is an impossibility here. I also adore their jackets. I am currently saving up for one, and will be very happy once I get their outer-shell jackets.

Another brand that has actually grown a lot here, is 5.11 Tactical whose pants are phenomenal for this style. They strike the right balance between functional and aesthetic, in particular I love their Defender-Flex jeans which just hits everything I want in a pair of denim pants.

In addition to that, I frequently wear their Apex pants, and swear by them, as one of the most comfortable and utilitarian pants out there.

A typical look for me, everyday, is to slip on a long sleeved Arc’teryx shirt, a nondescript Muji outer shirt, my 5.11 jeans, and my Under Armour Valsetz combat boots, with a Arx’teryx beanie to finish the look.

Every single one of my gadgets feel good in the pockets, or hidden away on my 5.11 belt (I have yet to get a belt from T.Rex Arms) and I feel like nothing is loose or showing too much on my body.

The outfit makes me feel rugged, ready and prepared for absolutely anything, while feeling relatively stylish and casual about anything.

I absolutely love this look, and feel like it is the best representation of who I am, and what I am about.

I’ve probably spent far too much accessorising this style too, with an ever growing list of beanies, gloves, Maxpedition bags, sunglasses and caps.

It is very American-influenced and I don’t mind too much if I am honest. Ruggedness is something I aspire for.

This style is at the moment, what peak Damocles emulates currently.

Suave.

Daniel Craig as 007 in Casino Royale (2006) 

Admittedly, one of the biggest influences for me growing up, in terms of cinema, narrative, style and even as a role model, was Daniel Craig and Martin Campbell’s interpretation of James Bond in the film Casino Royale.

Still my favourite Bond film to this day, with every facet of Bond ticked off beautifully, from exotic locales, to sultry femme fatales (Eva Green still captivates me to this day), Casino Royale was one of those films I rewatched so much, I almost remember every line.

It also sparked an interest in reading the Bond novels, a series which admittedly hasn’t aged particularly well, but serve more as an example of thinking and mindsets popular back then.

What did surprise me though, were the highly detailed description of luxury, interspersed with interesting prose about life, death and action scenes.

The food, clothes, drinks and locations were all vividly described in such detail, I can still remember memorable scenes of Bond eating a meal in the books.

Casino Royale nailed that level of detail and bought it into the modern age.

I don’t think there is a single outfit in that film, that Bond wears, that I have not sought to replicate in some shape or form, except maybe that Hawaiian shirt at the beginning of the film.

The leather jacket in Miami with that pastel blue colour remains something that haunts me, knowing that I can never pull of leather as well as Daniel Craig.

The dark blue Sunspel polo in the Bahamas remains an item, just out of my reach, my bank account unable to justify the price.

Casino Royale remains the fundamental template upon which I still base a lot of my looks around when it comes to more expensive and suave taste.

British luxury brands, are definitely something I have acquired a taste for, but am unable to afford.

Take for example, N.Peal whose amazing cashmere range has been featured extensively in Skyfall, Spectre and No Time To Die. The promotional imagery of all the films, have, in some shape or form, recommended N.Peal, even more than Tom Ford.

The gorgeous tactneck for the Spectre poster, and the classic British military-styled blue jumper for No Time to Die had me salivating for something similar to garb myself.

 That cashmere. 

The perfect blend of luxury and tactical classiness on display there. I don’t think you could look anymore espionage-y if you tried.

And that … is mostly the limit of my suave style. I adore functional clothing that is luxurious and stylish, and would probably gladly swap a lot of my flannel for those jumpers, if I knew I could pull them off confidently.

My style is mostly modelled after Bond’s casual clothing, less his suits, because admittedly, I don’t see myself wearing suits that often.

However, were I to fully suit up, I would probably no doubt spend 5K on getting a Tom Ford Windsor Suit. Tom Ford’s brand and style has become something of a quiet admiration for me. I love that he somehow balances American styling with hints of British and Italian in his suits and I really cannot wait to get a suit and have it tailored to me.

But currently, I will confess, I would rather get plate armour given a choice.

But the paramilitary style for me is actually nearing completion. I’ve nearly maxed out on all the items I really want to purchase. The suave style is my next target and I will no doubt be looking to get N.Peal items very, very soon.

In fact, I only recently bought a Barbour jacket, similar to Bond’s Skyfall finale which was easily the standout costume in that film. Something about the ruggedness, earthy tones and colour combination truly, told me that I needed to adopt something similar.

Skyfall’s Barbour Jacket on display in the highlands of Scotland.

The suave style is something I have a lot of interest and passion for, but … goddamn it, it is just so bloody expensive.

Soon though. Hopefully, one day I will achieve the heights of masculine fashion and be the envy of my past self.

Bonus: Racing

Charles Leclerc of Ferrari fame celebrating.

Even more of a pipe dream than my suave dream, are motorsport uniforms. I love racing suits and their casual uniforms. Classy, sporty and evocative uses of sponsors, I have always loved helmet designs and race suits, whether it is Formula 1 or MotoGP. Something about how utilitarian and functional they are at high speeds, while maintaining a distinct aesthetic really makes me wish I owned one for myself.

I particularly love helmet designs and if I am ever at a stage where I can customise my own, I will be over the moon.

I would probably go for a base of British Racing Green with accents of creamy gold  and a motif of a sword on the back of the helmet (sly reference to my name here).

But that description doesn’t really do justice to how it looks in my head.

Street, Paramilitary, and Suave. 

Those are the main styles that I wear in reality. I have invested the most in paramilitary and am seeking to expand my suave style.

Out of them all, I love paramilitary, since it feels like an extension of my personality.

But secretly, I really want suave to be the “me” people associate with.

Anyway, that is a brief breakdown of the style I predominantly wear, out and about.

Clothes are almost certainly a secret and quiet passion of mine, with so much variation, colour and styles out there, just waiting to be tried and worn out.

I do love fashion, but am certainly too poor to afford it as a pastime.

Damn it … N.Peal

~ Damocles. 

Be honest, how many of us actually started developing better habits in lockdown? 

I sure as hell didn’t.

I ended up gaining a whole lot of weight, having unfashionably long hair, and almost completely letting go of my strict diet.

The main saving grace, I suppose, is that I kept working. But the depressing vibes of working alone, in an empty store, at a depleted shopping centre, with nothing to do, ended up playing havoc with my sleeping habits, my motivation and my discipline.

The irony of COVID-19, is that I was earning more, both thanks to a very generous government and the inability to roster anyone else except myself.

But there was even less to do in these long 7 hour shifts.

Tired, lonely and my mouth aching from not actually talking to anyone, I would trundle home, eat dinner and then play games and mess about on my PC, until I would collapse from exhaustion at 3am in the morning.

Rinse and repeat.

The days would meld together, and I got more and more apathetic and dull.

Which is where I suppose, I should really thank Formula 1, for turning my life around again.

The return of my passion for racing, my inspiration for speed, my temple of pace, meant that I actually felt something break through the fog of desolation that had dictated so much of my life so far.

It got me back into racing games, transported me into genuinely wanting to be faster, smoother and agile and to re-evaluate myself and start losing weight again.

I think one of the biggest takeaways from COVID-19 has been an appraisal of personal health and well-being.

I’ve never seen so many out and about, taking walks, running and exercising, but also at the same token, I don’t think enough people are doing so too.

It’s so easy to fall into a daily routine of eating whatever you want, lounging on chairs, beds and couches, idly your time away, and reading the news about the latest COVID-19 case numbers.

I definitely can see the appeal.

It’s depressing to see numbers rise and rise, knowing that more and more of your city probably have COVID-19 and that this lockdown will only be extended longer and longer, impacting so many people’s lives.

Livelihoods and so much talent and potential has been laid waste by this virus and to fall into a funk, where you just want to watch Netflix and pretend everything is OK, that you are just holidaying in your home and taking time off work, is natural.

But, as I soon found out to my cost, that only adds depth to the bleakness.

Instead of swimming and surviving, I was sinking and suffocating.

It’s important to keep yourself sharp, at all times, when you are still able.

Old age might be encroaching, and your mortality can be held at bay if you keep yourself healthy.

Which is why I had to recapture the early spirit of 2020, when I was still hungry and eager.

I got to maintain my exercise regime and trim down more.

I have to keep practising the Spanish language, a promise I made to myself at the beginning of the year.

I need to keep writing, and make sure I can pump out at least 3 thousand words a week.

I made this series on COVID-19, and I aim to finish it.

I can’t keep abandoning things.

Personal habits should be routines you need to make, develop and adopt, not something you relapse or collapse into.

It’s damn hard to motivate yourself out of bad personal habits though.

But that is what makes you stronger, better and more productive.

Good discipline, good habits, adherence to strict routines, and constant exploration of hobbies and new interesting ideas are what creates a spice to life, that keeps you going.

Without a healthy mix of all those things, you’ll keep generating a listlessness to your life, and let COVID-19 win.

COVID-19 has created an unprecedented pause in society. Work is now cancelled and as are a lot of other things you used to do for fun.

Whether it was as simple as going to a bar for a pint, or as complex as organising a street festival celebrating a film festival, a lot of these options have been robbed from us by this pandemic.

But a pause should never be a stop. You can keep progressing, you can keep continuing on your journey.

I still have this dream of being able to race for real one day, instead of a simulator. I won’t really stop until I get to achieve that first step. I got a lot more personal training to do on my side, so much more to learn about cars, pace and speed.

I still want to continue my event business and become proud of what I’ve achieved on my own.

I still want to compete in a 3-gun competition.

I still want to publish my own novel one day too.

None of these things, have been stopped by COVID-19. Instead it’s given me more time to practice, to “dry-fire” and develop the skills I need to, without the external pressure.

Always keep training, always keep pushing your limits.

COVID-19 can’t stop you from doing that.

It sure as hell, won’t stop me.

Be disciplined, be astute and be exceptional.

Vincit qui se vincit.

He conquers, who conquers himself.

~ Damocles. 

When you imagine what an Australian apocalypse looks like, chances are, you’ll conjure up images of Mad Max. 

As much as I would like to witness such an event here in Australia and secure my ticket to Valhalla, COVID-19 isn’t the apocalyptic event that will usher in a new era of V8 worship.

What I want to discuss here, is the concept of prepping and survivalism. What has been bought sharply into focus, is the idea that a global crisis will envelope everyone, and suddenly you are on your own.

You can’t trust your neighbours, your friends have all disappeared and so your only option is to head out to your bug-out shelter, grab that emergency survival bag and get out of town and hunker down. You’ve got enough food and shelter for yourself, to last several months, and you’re glad you’ve prepared whilst everyone else is suffering.

To me, after watching the Warrior Poet Society’s video, there were a lot of adjusting I had to do mentally, to really understand the realistic intent behind my bag, that I’ve invested in.

I lack a lot of survival skills. I don’t have any proper military training beyond shooting a rifle, and such skills aren’t really useful if you don’t actually own a damn rifle.

I also have a girlfriend and her immediate family to be concerned about. I doubt that I will be abandoning her, my own family just to gallivant around in the woods, on my own.

What is of use to me, are my friends, who have a lot more experience than I do. That is the network that I should be focusing my energy and time on, not spending on tactical gear and filling out a Book of Eli fantasy.

If a true apocalypse arrives, you cannot survive on your own. Humanity for most of its history, has proven time and time again, that protection in a large group is what saves you, as an individual. From the time we’ve dwelled in caves, to now, we are strong together, not alone.

So the real, reality of bugging-out in an apocalypse, is that you should have a prep bag to get you to your network of friends and family. A bag that will allow you to survive until you’ve reached your group hangout. Which is where the marriage of EDC (Every Day Carry) and Bug-Out Bag comes into fruition.

If your hideaway is far and remote, then you need to pack and sort accordingly and have that bag with you handy, wherever you go, so that when shit does go down, you can survive the trip to that hideaway.

However, do we really need such extreme measures for survival?

The question I want to pose to myself and everyone else out there, is that will society ever truly collapse? COVID-19 showed that humanity has the ability to bounce back against such disruptive measures to civilisation and continue to function, barring from a few weeks of insanity.

The only real time such “prepping” may come in handy, would be an invasion by a hostile force, nuclear winters or God forbid, “zombie”-style apocalypse. A lot is riding on you to actually survive the initial onslaught and make it to your hideout.

That is the argument though, if such an instance actually occurs, you got your supplies and abilities to survive on. If you are one of the lucky few to live beyond the first initial disaster, you can thrive on your early preparedness.

Additionally, even if you were to perish early on, at least you could rest easier knowing that your network of friends and family could take advantage of the early preparation you had all invested in.

The reality of bugging out in a true pandemic, is that there is a lot of money, investment and skills you need to learn, in order to prepare properly. A lot of equipment is restricted to military use, and in fact, a lot of preparation is taught for the military, when you are more likely to face “S&E – Survival & Evasion” situations, with your squad captured and death, and you have to escape to friendly lines.

Even in that situation, the goal is not to survive endlessly in the woods, but to just survive until you reach friendly forces.

Prepping is as much paranoia as it is stress-relief, where you fear for your own life and unknown threats, but the skills, and companions you get along the way to assuage this fear, also allows you to tap into something you never really you knew you had before … the ability to excel at a lot of things.

Skills learnt in a survivalist camp, so to speak, allows you to really appreciate long-lost underappreciated skills that a lot of people lack. Getting back to the roots of humanity, with tracking skills, hunting, sleeping rough, identifying animals and edible plants and so much more, are all valuable and stress-reliving activities that acknowledge the huge information gap people aren’t aware they lack today.

It empowers you, knowing that you have such skills at your deployment and allows you to appreciate the dangers and folly of surviving on your own, if you still fantasise about the Book of Eli. 

In addition, doesn’t it just make sense to have someone around in case of injury? If you sprain your ankle, and run out of food, you might starve to death. Surviving alone too, causes a lot of mental instability and in all honesty, there are too many times in life, when you need to rely on someone.

The truth is, COVID-19’s pandemic served as a small wake-up call for me. I had to be more realistic about my prepping and about why I was doing it. This was a small crisis, in comparison to the larger fears I had about nuclear winters or zombie apocalypses.

It revealed I had to be smarter about it all, spend more time preparing my network, not my gear and invest in skills that will actually serve me well.

I also realised that in the first initial stage of any crisis, people tend to go nuts, so I better prepare myself for shortages.

Despite this, I still commend most governments for their work and response to this unprecedented crisis. I still don’t really trust them and their judgement, but there is at least a sense that we might come out of this, battered, bruised, but ultimately stronger.

There is still so much for me to work on.

~ Damocles. 

 

 

 

I like to think there are two types of infrastructures when it comes to issues like COVID-19: Individual Mental Preparedness (IMP) and Government Long Term Planning (GLP).

Out of the two, IMP is the one that slips by the most. In fact, I would say, that it is the one that most people never consider themselves.

When you live in abundance, it is easy to assume that your lifestyle is the norm, that you can take it for granted.

The idea that you should invest in some kind of “bug-out” bag (more on that in another ramble) and have stocks of tinned food is largely laughed at here in Australia.

The issue is not so much hoarding supplies, but more the mental preparedness everyone should have.

For an Australian, perhaps the most American part of me, is the rigid belief that everyone should be a responsible individual, fully aware of their rights and abilities and act accordingly.

This means taking the right steps to ensure that you are a self-reliant individual, that you have done the work to prepare yourself for disaster and you don’t rely on outside help too much. It means understanding your role in society, how you can help others with your knowledge, building a network of support within your circle and coming together when it counts.

It also means that you understand that fundamentally, the government’s role is not to directly support you, but the greater whole, and that it is your responsibility to take care of yourself in drastic situations and those around you.

This does not equate to hoarding supplies for yourself, especially in time of strife. If large purchases were meant to be shared amongst your support network, then this is more acceptable, but such a network should have already been prepared long before the crisis hit.

I think a large portion of the population lack a good amount of IMP. There is a bizarre habit of relying on the government to spoon feed us everything and miro-manage us. However when they do go to spoon-feed us, we revolt and claim that they are oppressive.

I like to believe that when a strong individual has good mental preparedness, there is a keen appreciation for what you already have and the means in which you can prepare yourself. This preparation allows you to have strong mental acuity throughout the crisis, and lessens poor behaviour like hoarding.

Blaming the government for all the problems you have, expecting them to bail you out and rounding on strangers for breaking curfew, are all signs of people who lack good mental preparedness for extraordinary situations.

This is why, in the Facsimile post, I lamented the death of curiosity. If curiosity was a greater element in today’s society, more people who be aware of the dangers that are present out there and be more proactive in learning skills for themselves.

Whether it would be being aware in the back of your mind that the world is due a pandemic, or perhaps even you learning about the great woodsmen who hid out in the forests, living off the land and inspiring you to emulate them, a greater sense of curiosity allows you to develop awareness of issues and create a drive to be prepared for them the best you can.

For those who say what if the danger never comes? Wouldn’t all your efforts be wasted?

To that, I say, if you learnt skills throughout your journey of preparedness, how can that be a waste?

If you were a “prepper” and learnt good outdoor skills like tracking, identifying edible fruits and nuts and had a great time doing so, is that a misuse of your time?

If you made good friends and received help from them during the times when you struggled, is that really an issue?

Becoming a self-reliant and resilient individual, who take personal responsibility of their own well-being, should be the norm for people everywhere. Just because we live in a time of stability, does not means that we should abandon our learning for new skills and abilities.

Having such a strong mental infrastructure to support yourself and those around you, allow you to better prepare for devastating problems and allow you to bounce back quicker.

In today’s society, we are so relaxed, so lazy and so utterly non-curious about life and the skills we need that we have lost sight of what it actually means to be “busy” and actively improving ourselves. We think, that because our society is so great, we can rest easy on our laurels and plateau for the of our lives.

How tragic is that, to know that you can trick yourself into believing you are 100% fine the way you are.

There is a philosophy to Formula 1 that I adore and adopted for myself. At the pinnacle of motorsport, there is a desire to constantly evolve.

Much like how a second is an eternity on track, the same is off-track. The car at the beginning of a season in Australia, is entirely different to the car at Abu Dhabi for the finale. It has evolved, changed, become grippier, faster, and undergone subtle changes.

The colours and overall shape is the same, but it is now several seconds faster than the car it was at the beginning of the year.

Formula 1 cars, are constantly in a “beta phase” of continuous improvement. The progress they make never fails to astonish me. Mercedes-AMG Petronas has literally decimated the sport with their technological advances. Hate them (and I do) or love them, one has to respect their abilities to truly innovate a box on wheels.

We should all adopt such similar attitudes to ourselves. How many skills can you learn? What can you learn? What should you explore?

Should we not be constantly innovating? This only makes our past selves more interesting, because we can see actual progress when it comes to our own individual evolution and makes us grateful for what we have right now.

Gratitude for the now and a sense of purpose regarding personal improvement will easily help and empower a lot of people regain something of what we’ve lost collectively and better prepare ourselves for catastrophes.

Speaking of disasters, before COVID-19 struck, Australia had a particularly bad start to 2020, with bushfires ravaging the entirety of the Eastern Coast.

The conflagration that befell us was nothing short of biblical with its intensity, speed and longevity is defeating almost all of our conventional fire tactics.

To understand just how terrible this year’s bushfire was, there are just three salient points to note:

1. The fire was so intense, the smoke created a breathing hazard in metropolitian areas and turned the skies a hellish brownish red. I could physically taste the smoke where I lived, something I never thought I would ever experience. I researched face-masks before COVID-19, wondering if I needed them, after the smoke proved that bad.
2. We have the largest, most professional bushfire volunteer corp in the world. We know fire. We backburn regularly. We do everything in our power to ensure the flames do not enter properties. We did everything right where we could, but we still lost.
3. 18.6 million hectares were burnt, a billion animals died and many species driven to extinction and as much as 300 million tones of CO2 were emitted into the atmosphere and 6 firefighters died.

It was obscene.

Much of the blame was attributed to extremely dry conditions that had developed in late 2019, and the lacklustre response by the Australian government to properly take action.

Rightly so.

Many people who live in rural areas, already tend to have excellent IMP. They are resilient, hard-working people with extensive knowledge ranging from raising cows to fixing their Holden ute’s engine. But no amount of preparation can combat one of the worst droughts ever experienced and a wall of fire that somehow lit up the areas you had just backburned.

This is where the failure of government long term planning comes into play. Climate change denial is a ridiculous policy to adopt. It is always better to err on the side of caution than to somehow think that there is nothing changing about the planet’s climate.

The government’s lack of response to the drought, the constant refusal and acknowledgement of rural Australian issues and denial to take preventative action is purely theirs for blame. They may not have started the fires, but they were the reason why it took so long to finish the fight.

It should not have taken a Black Summer to end the fires.

The focus of every government should always be the future. In an ideal world, that is their job. To help where individuals cannot. To future-proof us and set-up frameworks that benefit society as a whole.

The Black Summer of 2020 is a colossal failure of that concept. Persistent warnings from Fire Chiefs around the region, and scientific data were all ignored for a party’s policy regarding “ignorance around climate change.”

A party so far removed from the fight, that their illustrious leader tried to force handshakes with people directly affected by it.

I find myself, a relatively reasonable and cool-headed individual at most times, but every time I think about this year’s bushfires, there is this righteous anger that flares up and makes me furious.

The failure of the government’s infrastructure to everyone directly involved, in monumental and I find it despicable that such poor leadership continue to be unpunished.

Anywhere else in a workplace, such incompetence would have resulted in instant dismissal and exile.

Our Prime Minister is still here.

Being a moron.

Moving on, to COVID-19, I think, the pandemic, globally has shown just how petty a lot of our political parties are. The sheer toxicity in the political environment has slowed mankind’s progress down to a crawl.

Ideologies are exchanged without a care for proper vision and a need to guide the future, not destroy the past.

Reactionary division seems to be name of the game for contemporary politics and such stupidity will only serve to slow down our ability to react to our own issues.

Global politics has also serve as a detriment to how we handle national issues. Our leaders do not need to fix the world’s problem. They need to fix our problems first.

The over-complexity of globalism has created an impossible task for politicians. They need to present themselves for examination to the rest of the world, whilst simultaneously proving themselves to the citizens of their country.

This is impossible as well as superfluous. Your country is deemed successful by what your country does within its’ own borders. Everyone else will look on with admiration for what your country has accomplished, if it is ruled well. Foreign policy should be a lesser priority, especially considering how globalism seems to value bringing everyone down to a crappy, instead of individual progress.

For truly global players like the U.S. or China, they can play against each other, but for many countries, including my own, we need to focus less on what the U.S. or China wants and more on what we can improve here. There is this irritating need to placate the bigger powers, when really, the energy spent there, could be focused elsewhere internally.

There needs to be a culture change around manufacturing, around jobs and around how we view ourselves as a nation, if we are to properly address issues within our own borders. Self-reliance, self-sustaining and self-awareness of our limitations, our strengths and our resources are the key to tackling issues that the world throws at us.

The stronger you are internally, the better you can handle the stresses of the world.

The same principle applies to an individual, as it does for a nation.

COVID-19 displayed hundreds of flaws that have been built up around the need to focus on globalism and “anti-local” practices to make a quick buck. This is what I define as a lack of infrastructure to deal with major problems like a global pandemic.

I won’t touch on them all, but the most obvious one to me, are international students and universities.

I won’t sugar-coat it, my dyad of degrees have left me with an extreme bitterness and anger towards the education system, especially on a tertiary level.

How Australian Universities display COVID-19 Lack of Infrastructure Planning.  

There is a high atmosphere of dissatisfaction when it comes to the average Australian university student’s experience.

This isn’t coming from a decidedly bitter and frustrated individual like myself, but many on-the-ground discussions I’ve had with my friends and my limited time as a Monash University journalism student eager to expose the bullshit universities present to us.

First some facts.

In Victoria, university education is not free. HECs are a type of government loan that almost all normal students have to acquire in order to attend universities because paying those upfront fees are almost impossible for most families.

HECs are valued at approximately 10,000 AUD per year. This means that an average student will accumulate around 30,000 AUD in debts by the time they finish their undergraduate degree.

30,000 AUD. Enough to afford a decent car. But instead you receive an arbitrary piece of paper.

With well over tens of thousands of students every year applying for a degree, that is a lot of money rolling in from HECs alone.

However, in their infinite wisdom, top tiered Victorian universities decided to leverage their reputation for excellent education by opening themselves up to the international market.

So now, we get an increased flux of international students from every single country around the world, eager for the taste of juicy Australian education.

None of these students can borrow from the government. All of them have to pay upfront. This means a greater cash flow for universities and thus more money for everyone in them. Everyone should theoretically get a better education. More equipment, better facilities, fancier and better looking tutors and blah, blah, blah.

Reasonable right?

Well, no, you’d be wrong. Because the slow bastardisation from a once proud lineage of excellent education has now turned into a multi-million dollar corporation with the “Vice-Chancellor” now effectively a CEO.

If the Church of EA (a gamer reference there) has taught us anything, most corporations that get big quick, tends to engage in some pretty atrocious anti-consumer practices.

It didn’t take long for universities to do just that.

Let’s go through the long litany of sins shall we? I shall do my best to stick to a 2 sentences per sin.

First, the standard for entry got raised and dropped at the same time. Your score in VCE became more crucial than ever before to get into truly elite courses such as Biomedicine, but was also worthless when it came to other “simpler” courses like Science.

You could now get a degree by achieving the bare minimum. Personal anecdote: I got my Science degree with Passes for almost every single science subject I did. Passes are a score of 50-60. Credit were measly 60-70s, Distinction were ranged from 70-80 and a High Distinction was 80-100.

So many students have applied for universities after high school, without any proper reason to do so, other than “it’s university, you should do it, like everyone else.” This persistent intake year after year, created a situation where in the end, the shitty students like myself caused the idea of undergraduate degrees to become a formality, not an achievement.

Passing an undergraduate, became as easy as passing high school. This creates a different attitude to job-markets, where suddenly everyone has a degree and you are no longer considered special.

Universities’ facilities became worse, as more and more students crammed into inadequate laboratories, and used ancient technology. Where was all the money coming in, being spent on? There weren’t even enough study areas to fit students with their laptops.

University clubs also lacked support, with many Club Presidents having no experience, nor mentors to assist with the maintenance of club fees and be efficient with marketing during Orientation Week.

Privatisation within Universities also became a unique bureaucratic nightmare, such as my own experience in the Fencing Club, as I had to deal with a separate organisation beyond Monash University called TEAM-Monash. They represented and also didn’t represent Monash University in the same capacity, making it a nightmare to navigate the organisation structure and discuss club issues with.

Tutors and lecturers were often unhelpful and recalcitrant, many of them lacking proper education etiquette, leaving many students stranded and alone, desperate for help. Crude powerpoint lectures would lack information and answers for exams, leaving students like myself, immensely infuriated.

The teaching style was insanely lazy. Many subjects resorted to rote learning, quite potentially the dumbest, most apathetic style of teaching ever devised, and of no use in a proper workplace or in the life-skills department. You do not remember what you’ve learnt in 2 weeks of cramming for an exam versus the valuable lessons taught in a proper workplace with hands-on practical assessment.

Rote might be adequate for primary and high school, but at a tertiary level, such methodology are woefully insufficient for what is meant to be a stepping stone to a career.

Perhaps, the last and most damning sin of all, is that universities don’t give a shit about their students. The atmosphere of apathy is so strong, that it leaves many students feeling lost, aimless and depressed.

We are treated like cash cows, given a caged lifestyle of laziness, depression, loneliness and poverty.

Punctuated only by furious cramming and borderline satisfaction that you’ve survived.

Only for that sensation to be depleted by the next semester.

I’ve rarely seen any students have a good time at universities, which speak to the piss-poor infrastructure that universities have created with their management and priorities. When there is a palatable sense of despondency around campus, you know instinctively there is something wrong.

COVID-19 finally paid the huge amount of karma that these institutions have long had coming with their gross malpractice of greed and poor infrastructure. Too long have they relied on international students to keep their coffers full and continue their slide into mediocrity.

I am immensely pleased to see such “education camps” suffer, because they’ve made students and their families suffer for so long, dashed so many dreams and left so many young people broken, with their bullshit anti-consumer practices.

To see this multi-million dollar bastard that has ruined so many people’s potential, start to crumble, is easily one of my greatest pleasures out of this pandemic.

Sincerely, I hope that this is a time for them to reflect on their own failures, and how all their poor decisions has led to this moment.

Universities represent an shining example of how globalism and poor infrastructure in context of self reliance and self-sufficiency has crippled how we conduct business.

COVID-19 needs to be seen as a lesson to start focusing inwards, improving on ourselves, before we can start addressing other nations’ issues. There are still a lot of problems, beyond our shitty education sector that we need to get answers for.

Climate change, land use, natural disasters, urbanisation, population growth, declining standard of living, our own human rights treatment, and how we can actually get a Prime Minister similar to NZ’s Jacinda Ardern are easily some of the most contentious issues plaguing our society at the moment.

All of which have taken a backseat to our need to somehow appease China and the US at the same time, without ever showing how spineless we are.

At the very least, our PM has slowly stiffened his resolve against China and are now openly calling for investigations into their affairs.

I just wished he did it when we seemed stronger.

Australia has so much to offer its own denizens. We could easily be one of the most autonomous and self-governing countries in the world, with our identity forged by our own success and abilities.

But instead, we are subservient to the world, never really pushing our limits and crippled by poor leadership and infrastructure.

If we are ever to grow, we need to really focus on ourselves and our future, instead of allowing the world to dictate what they are to us.

~ Damocles