Bogan Hunters

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So I just viewed the first episode of 'Bogan Hunters' after having waited weeks in anticipation, and though they asked the viewers at the end not to complain or blog about it, I begged to differ, so here I am complaining about why I loathe this very country: bogans.

Stereotypically, a bogan is an Australian lacking teeth, brains and substituting water for beer and shoes for thongs. They smoke more cigarettes than a person in a Lucky Strikes advertisement, and they have no respect for their country or its original inhabitants, the Aboriginals. They walk around throwing derogatory slang words at every immigrant and tell them to "go back to where [they] came from" even though the bogans never originated from Australia in the first place.

They do not like to own an atlas, let alone any other book, so they tend to tattoo their location on their bodies in case they are abducted by a wild crocodile, in which case recovering their body would prove easier because of the creativity of their tattoos seeing as most of them are done by drunk or stoned artists who could draw in kindergarten and used their Centrelink money to purchase a cheap tattoo kit on eBay from China. It is a race that disgusts me and if I had enough financial assistance then I would not remain in this godforsaken country. The most nutritious meal to a bogan is the cheapest thing on a McDonald's menu, and the best dinner is a 'snag' on the 'barbie'.

And in my daily life there is nearly never a time where I do not come across the words 'culture' and 'identity' and having to coincide the two of them with the word 'Australia' simply frightens me. Though I am glad that I live in a middle and upper-class country that does not know the true meaning of 'famine' because most of its inhabitants have not experienced it, and a country that is not attacked by 'terrorists' or North Korea (yet).

But the one thing that I am mostly ashamed of when I think of myself as an Australian resident is the fact that we celebrate 'Australia Day'. Yes, it is great and patriotic and whatnot to dedicate an entire day to the discovery of your country, but it loses its value when on that day, the 26th of January 1788, the First Fleet arrived and brought with it the terror towards the Aboriginals. They were exploited, kidnapped, raped, murdered, tortured, they had things done to them that no human of any race, colour or gender should deserve, and for that I will never celebrate 'Australia Day'.

In fact, they should rename it 'Exploitation of the Land Down Under and its Original Inhabitants, We are so Sorry to have Treated you so Badly' Day. Maybe then I will consider celebrating, and by celebrating I mean travelling to Alice Springs and hugging tightly every Indigenous person in sight. They need to be loved. They need to be commemorated far more than in a tiny university statement which is barely read in the duration of a student's life. They need to be cared for, not prejudiced against, and they need a far better apology speech than that of Kevin Rudd's, but I must admit, Kevin, that was a great start.

Paul Kelly's song Bicentennial paints a somewhat vivid picture of my attitudes to Australia Day. Why should I celebrate a day that depicted such inhumanity? Why should I celebrate a day equivalent to cutting down the last tree on earth and bringing down with it the last young bird species in their nests, crushing them with the loud thud of colonisation? And to think that most of our race, the bogans, loathe Aboriginal people for being 'filthy'. No, I will not celebrate a day like this and I will wave no flag. Aussie? Aussie? Aussie? Shame! Shame! Shame!

Mother's Day

As per usual, today was another excuse for my family to gather together and share within ourselves ten large pizzas, how we ended up fitting them all inside of us  I still cannot recall. All in the name of Mother's Day, we headed out onto the freeway and placed the phone order as we drove.

And as per usual, something shook me today. One bridge in the freeway overlooks a large memorial garden, where tombstones lay in commemoration of some we have lost. Not my family though, not yet. But what struck me was looking at hordes of family members wearing black, stopping at tombstones and placing large bouquets of flowers. Little people who the idea of death is still abstract to, big people who know it too well and older people who are expecting it at any moment gathered on a piece of land underneath the freeway as we passed, unappreciative of just how good it is to be alive with people and eating a lot of fresh warm pizza.

And the fact is that I do not live my life to its fullest potential. I still sit here in my little 'everything will be okay every time' bubble and thrive in it when in reality everything is not okay. I need to push myself away from thinking critically about partaking in any activity that will prolong my stay here and push myself away from the abstract thing that is death so that I may live until my time comes. Today reminded me of that. I have my mother, my sister, my entire family, and I still choose the glow of the computer screen over them. I still choose watching videos and looking at pictures of people doing things rather than doing things myself.

I think most people are like that nowadays, though. People have become too afraid to take risks because they feel it is better to observe them being done by somebody else to avoid the pain that may come with the flip-side of that risk. There was a time when I was eighteen that I took so many risks, when I look back at them now I think of the person I was as a totally different character, someone so foreign to me. But that was when I was happier. I had a sort of freedom in anything that I did, but I had to stop it all because it was eating away at me as well, the fastness of it all, the scum that I met along the way, and capitalism knocking on my little door telling me that its rent was due.

So I have turned away from risk to acquire a different form of reward, a reward given to my mind and my pocket. I still need to reward my body, though, and that will come with the rewarding of my mentality. I keep reminiscing to that scene today. Everything can fall away so quickly. It can slip away so fast, the strongest of arms cannot hold on, this entire facade we call 'life' will not be lenient when it wants to leave us, no matter the impact we make. It was not lenient towards Abraham Lincoln. It was not lenient towards Mother Theresa. It was not lenient towards Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Amy Winehouse, nobody. It does not accept any deals. It does not offer mercy to those who have offered it their entire lives. It does not respect any legacies or any endeavours. It wants your soul and there is nothing to do about it but enjoy it while you can.

The reason why I cringe when I think of a career is because you are paid for your time - time can never be bought back. Yes, work at McDonalds for three years as a manager, get paid thousands, that is fantastic - but all you did was swap three years of living for three years worth of money, a mere thing that the government has crafted in order for us to swap things. Even if you are not residing in a third world country, even if you are rather powerful, you are being exploited, and the exploiter is mankind.

Appreciate all that you have right this very moment. Stop all sources of exploitation and sit and listen to yourself breathe for a bit. You exist. You are temporary. So is your mother. Or your sister. Or your aunty. Or your grandma. Or yourself, if you are a female. Or any male. Everyone. Happy Mother's Day. Happy Another Day Day. Go. Live.