So, you say there’s nothing to watch. 2026 and you can’t find anything to watch? When I was your age, we had four channels to watch on the television; 5 if you had really good reception. 3 commercial stations: Channels 7, 9 and 10. These were the channels that had the money to pay for the latest and greatest shows.
ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) was the government sponsored station and was rather dull despite being ad-free. It was channel 2 and although it was considered uncool, it had many of the shows we all adored and still look back on wistfully scattered among the boring shit.
Channel 0 was the dark horse. SBS: Special Broadcasting Service; the one only certain houses could get. It was special alright! These people scored an extra channel through some TV signal lottery people called reception. Unless you had a high-quality antenna you just had to be living in the right spot. Fair dinkum! Your neighbour might have it, and you don’t. As a kid this felt most unfair.
Funny thing is that most of the shows on SBS were shit (or so we thought back then). It was the multicultural network and mostly had programs from non-English speaking countries. Subtitles! Fuck that! Subtitled shit and British soccer were all I can remember. That and the common knowledge that the evening movies on channel 0 had a very good chance of female nudity! I don’t think those foreign films were scrutinized quite as much as the mainstream fair on the commercial channels; subtitles gave a film more artistic flair perhaps.
That was it. If you couldn’t find something among those slim pickings, tough shit! Go read a book or listen to the radio kid. If the station had technical difficulties or it was closed that was that. Yes, I said closed; most stations simply shut up shop not long after midnight in my younger days.
Oh, I forgot to mention that the average house only had 1 television, so you also had to share who chooses what to watch. There were times you just accepted you would have to find something else to do because someone in the house was watching something crap.
If I visited someone’s home and they had 2 TVs I would think they were rich! A TV in your room? Un-fucken-real!!! They only have that shit in the USA! I would see kids in American movies with that luxury, and it seemed so awesome! That was nothing compared to the absolute marvel that was cable television! Holy shit! Those Yanks had how many fucken channels? We wouldn’t see that until the mid-1990s.
When my pop lived in the converted garage out back, he had a little black and white television. I remember our neighbours having one too. Wow! I was around during that phase out. I can also remember a pretty even split between FM and AM radio stations for that matter.
That was it. No video for a long time yet and if you were fortunate enough to have an Atari or other gaming system you had to wait until the television was free before you could play it. No wonder we spent so much time outside.
As long as there have been laws, there have been those who disagree with them. Most begrudgingly comply and pretty much everyone breaks a few ‘little’ ones now and then. A few others will break the law by ignorance or accident; others again may disobey as a form of defiance or protest. However, we usually reserve the title ‘criminal’ for those people who do this kind of stuff on a regular basis and may even do it for a living. Of course, if you break the big ones, you earn yourself the title instantly! Murder, rape, armed robbery etc. welcome to the club, whether you like it or not.
This being my corporate thread, I am most interested in the concept of ‘organized crime’. When a motley crew of thieves, thugs and hangers on decide to form a ‘gang’ and, like any business affiliation, try to pool their resources to create a greater outcome per member than could be achieved working solo. I’m sure more fail than succeed in the same manner also.
I’m not necessarily talking about a band of thieves kind of scenario; pickpockets, burglars, car thieves or even stick-up guys. These gangs might work alone or be part of a larger crew. In business terms these guys are the tradesmen. If you have a good reputation, you may be recruited by the mob; this may or may not be a simple invitation that can be refused, by the way. Trying to be a lone wolf, or even a small pack can be very bad for your health in a big city.
I mean there are even gangs whose modus operandi is standing over and robbing smaller crews. You may have to pay protection money just like the square head grocer in a bid to keep these hyenas at bay; many of which work for the very same group you will be paying. This protection racket can be a highly profitable business model if you can pull it off.
Just imagine collecting a fee from ALL the businesses in your area. Not just the stores, restaurants and street vendors; but also, the thieves, the drug dealers, the pimps, gambling dens and anyone else you can intimidate. That’s a large chunk of change!
This is where the brains and brawn balance becomes important. Without the muscle to create the required fear you have no business model (you also cannot fight off the competitors that will be snapping at your heels). Nevertheless, a group of undisciplined and disordered knuckleheads will not last very long.
The boss of this outfit first and foremost must figure out how to maintain authority over a group of nefarious hoodlums. A firm hand and proper remuneration are essential; unruly and/or underpaid villains can prove quite destructive. Disloyalty can easily translate to defection to a rival or just snitching out of spite. A disgruntled crew might be quite receptive to a change in leadership.
Weasels informing law enforcement or trading secrets to other mobs are a very real and perpetual threat. Remember you don’t get fired and toddle off with your golden handshake. You rot in prison or anywhere they decide to toss your carcass.
That will do for underworld management 101. Now where was I?
Organized crime – right. Let’s use turn of the 20th century New York for its familiarity. Lots of boroughs divided up along racial lines; many of the slum like ones inhabited primarily by very recently arrived immigrants. They flock together for a sense of insulation through shared language and culture. Sadly, this does not prevent exploitation from your own people.
The local law enforcement is unreliable and often unsympathetic to your plight. Almost all cultures have some form of alternative in regard to authority. Many of these immigrants are here because they have fled persecution from authoritarian and/or severely corrupt governments. Although even a more equitable nation state would still have these same shady organisations. They would be the providers of illicit goods and services and, of course, ‘protection’.
These groups or their representatives arrived along with all the other immigrants in hopes of a better life. They may have their own individual title: La Cos Nostra, Yakuza, Triad. Or they may be identified simply by the country followed by Mafia or Mob: Russian Mafia, Irish Mob. Interestingly if you just hear the word Mafia on its own, most people automatically think of Italy or Sicily.
Anyway, these crews existed to perform the role of organised crime in the various ways (and probably many more I have no clue about) I have described above. They operated mostly in their own areas, but like their tribal ancestors, the temptation to expand was always present and you had to be ever vigilant and willing to fight if you wanted to keep control of your turf.
Which brings us back to brains and brawn. You need the soldiers, but you also need the earners just as much (most good members could do both to some extent). Not only do you need to keep your underlings paid, but you also need to grease the right palms in local government and law enforcement. You also need to be able to negotiate with hostile neighbours.
Beside the potential for violence these groups also helped solve problems in their communities; all favours come with obligations of course. Intimidation and brutality can provide a decent income, but its main application was keeping order and power. The best mobs provided stuff the people wanted. Either stolen merchandise at bargain prices or illicit goods and services that can’t be found elsewhere.
No sooner is a commodity classified as illegal do the best black-market operators establish a supply chain. Thus, governments are often lining the pockets of organised crime members whenever they ban anything. I finally got to where I was planning to start. See you next time.
Thinking back to Kevin’s bucks’ night from a few instalments ago I recall it was the middle of winter. Pretty much all the antics he was the brunt of involved him stripped down to his underwear. He was tied to the clothesline in his underwear and spray painted. He was tied to the headboard of a flatbed truck and driven around in his underwear.
When we all returned to the house and continued our drinking and joint smoking, Kevin continued in his underwear.
Eventually we had all had enough, and one by one retreated into the house to crash in, or on, anything we could find; beds, couches (long ones for laying or single ones for a little seated sleeping action), blankets on floors, or just a pillow and the floor; a dog’s bed. It doesn’t really matter once the mind is so munted it just wants to shut down. I woke up in the laundry sleeping on one of those ‘Ab-Roller’ contraptions!
Kevin, for some unknown reason, remained in the yard and fell asleep on the grass, in the middle of winter, in his underwear. The morning brought a lovely frost to settle on the unconscious Kevin and still his mashed mind refused to wake him. Needless to say, that Kevin received an added unwanted bonus for his buck’s night celebration: hypothermia.
He had to be taken to the hospital in the early hours of the morning. Thankfully he was sorted out without too much trouble, but it could have been fatal! The amount of marijuana and alcohol in his system prevented his body from jolting him awake and alerting him to the imminent danger of freezing to death. Everyone else was too wasted to notice that Kevin was left out there in the cold. It could have been disastrous!
Foresight is 20/20 and with this story it is horrific! Moving backward through the night, it was just one dumb move after another, all multiplied by the relentless massacre of brain cells. It was almost inevitable that someone was gunna become a casualty.
Luck was on the side of the ridiculously intoxicated buck. Still, it is interesting what we consider lucky. I reckon luck should have prompted at least one of us to notice the near naked Kevin asleep in the yard; bring him inside and give him a blanket (and possibly his clothes back). I guess we don’t get to choose when luck will step in. We must just all be grateful that this buck’s night didn’t conclude with a fatality.
It is a scathing paradox that the rise of ‘civilisation’ would coincide with such unbridled subjugation. Once the numbers start to swell it becomes almost as inevitable as it is dreadful. The only way to avoid it is to put as much distance between your ‘primitive’ people and ‘civilisation’ as possible.
The quest for power, wealth and subjects was growing right alongside the population. More people equals more labour – more labour, more stuff. Why not get those people living in overcrowded ramshackle shelters to build massive structures of stone and marble? What better way to display just how important you are?
Once it’s built, those unwashed scumbags better not defile the place with their presence. I’m sure there’s some way we can exploit them somewhere else.
The longer it went on the more entrenched the nepotism would become; the concept of aristocratic lineage and entitlement. As soon as they could write it down it would have been the record – the family tree. “This privilege is our birthright because of great, great, great grandfather Scrooge…”
Probably best to leave out the stuff about the treachery and the arbitrary nature of his taking the Top Dog title. After a couple hundred years who can tell what fact is anyway and that is before you factor in the colossal amounts of bullshit most of these bloodline records must be full of.
“This noble status is our legacy!”
It would most often stop right there. If anyone was foolish enough to protest, they could be secretly dispatched or publicly tried as a traitor. Most people in this era were illiterate and could be very easily bluffed by an impressively dressed person holding out a book.
“It’s all written down right here”
If you hold the reigns, you control the narrative. Fear, ignorance and apathy will take care of the rest. Wrangling and muscling into the top spot was somewhat more difficult once the Dynasty had been created by the ones who inherited it from their ancestors who scammed and bullied their way to the top spot.
Impossible from the bottom, but the upper echelons could conspire against you, so you had to look strong and or smart. A great way to do this is by conquering territories and expanding the empire.
“Look how great WE are!” would be the exclamation.
Peasants working the fields, labourers building ludicrous structures wondering how this ‘greatness’ improves their lot. A good way to make them feel special is to instil the old superiority complex.
“We’re the original plebs. You Johnny come lateleys are beneath us”.
And slaves! Everyone gets to look down on slaves. There’s nothing like a pecking order to keep the riffraff distracted. No conquering without division. Keep them bickering amongst themselves over the few measly rungs at the bottom and they’ll never realise how high the ladder actually goes.
Then we have those shady middlemen: the guards or whatever name was given to the ones who ‘kept the peace’. Becoming a soldier and going off to fight would have been seen as an opportunity to rise from the rabble and find adventure; maybe even improve your social rank a little. Much like today most volunteers did so because their other options sucked major ass. A guard though? I’m not taking about a proper bodyguard or member of the security team for the honchos. I mean the hired goons responsible for keeping law and order.
Someone who walks the streets and breaks heads in the name of the king/ queen or whatever. A member of the lower class who now has authority over his former peers and a lot of discretion with how to use it. These guys weren’t detectives solving crimes, they weren’t even cops. They were riot police at best. Thugs employed to prevent the unwashed masses from rising up.
“The peasants are revolting!”
“Revolting” said the king, “They’re disgusting.”
And so, on it goes throughout history. Empires rise and fall; Family dynasties dominate and then topple. The masses do what they must to survive. A new face on the throne, a new flag perhaps. Take what you can get if they’re generous and watch your ass if they’re tyrannical.
Genealogy is written and re-written, updated and revised; history is written by the victorious after all. Nations form and dissolve. Our land becomes their land. You wanna keep it, you better fight for it. Alliances are formed, exploited and abandoned or betrayed.
This whole time it is only a small percentage of the population consciously attempting to orchestrate these events while the overwhelming majority are swept up and spat out with little idea of the grand scheme; and even less ability to control the fortunes of war and peace.
Somewhere between then and now the ledgers were stamped and generational wealth and power became accepted. People were born into a social class or station, and nobody questioned the legitimacy of the whole thing. That girl is an heiress and my dad shovels horse shit; guess it’s on me to try and climb out of this hole.
Lines were drawn on maps. This is our nation and it will remain that way until the outcome of the next war; then we shall see. This is my land, my property. No, I didn’t buy it. As a matter of fact, it goes so far back in my ancestry, I couldn’t even tell you who bought it.
Hmmmmm???
ROLAND: You’re not of noble birth!
WILLIAM: So we lie! How did the nobles become nobles in the first place? They took it. At the point of a sword.
The concept is sickening yet simple, and with the revelations coming out from the Epstein Files, nowhere near as farfetched as we would hope. A savvy entrepreneur has thought of another way for the mega rich to entertain themselves at the expense of the peasants. Hunting humans is so blasé and exhausting. Why not just have the pleb of your choice incapacitated in a room filled with all sorts of tools and surgical instruments, where you can torture them till your black fucking heart’s content.
Unwary tourists are lured away from the more popular European locations to a little town in Slovakia with the promise of all sorts of hedonistic pleasures. The town is basically owned by the clandestine corporation running this atrocious service; thus, our eager travellers are completely isolated and at the mercy of these sick fucks.
The torture scenes are brutally disturbing as expected, but when the horror subsides you are left with another, and in my case much worse, grisly sensation. This whole gruesome affair which is designed to gratify evil rich bastards would not be possible without the local minimum wage grunts doing the dirty work.
This is divide and conquer at its finest!
The local economy is crap, and this torture factory is possibly the best paying gig in town. If the money isn’t enough to thicken your skin, how about resentment? Fucking tourists coming over here treating us like toys. They think that because their currency is stronger than ours, they are better than us? Fuck them! We’ll square up and make some good money to boot. Who’s laughing now?
The honeytraps and spruikers get to feel the rush of lethally fooling these blow-ins and the security people get to feel the power of life and death over another human who may or may not have looked down on them; all while earning a good quid. I found much of that stuff just as gut churning as any of the torture porn.
The original film has one of the victims escape through a combination of luck, determination and quick thinking; the kind of stuff we want from a hero (or at least a survivor who turns the tables). While there is no glorious victory and he is sure as shit not going to bring this operation down, he at least gets away and manages to dish out a few savage paybacks along the way. With a film this dark, we’ll take that small victory and be satisfied.
Flash forward 2 years for the sequel and say goodbye to any sliver of hope you had for the common people. Like any self-respecting sequel, this one ups the gore and cruelty, but I am unsure if Roth deliberately upped the cynicism with this one: no justice for the peasants here.
To get the ball rolling, we open with our tenacious survivor from the original movie getting taken out and his severed head delivered to the boss of the torture club. No way a lowly pleb is getting away with what he did! On with the show then.
This time we have three female suckers (I mean art students). I won’t waste time with the plot, and we only need to focus on Beth for the purpose of this exercise. I’ll just say that if you enjoyed the original (you may need help) you will enjoy this one. Needless to say, they all end up being the target for some wicked rich prick’s twisted fantasy.
This time around Beth is our survivor/hero. She manages to get the upper hand on her tormentor (she literally has him by the balls!), but this time our champion does not make an audacious escape. She is trapped in the room with her now captive would be torturer.
Rather than a daring breakout we are presented with a short standoff. However, we don’t get to see the club’s policy on hostage taking (it’s hard to guess if they would simply kill a customer who was careless enough to end up in this position). Instead, Beth lets it be known that she is not short of a quid herself (or her family isn’t).
Her stooge makes a desperate attempt to outbid her, but the boss reveals that they know his buddy paid for him (ex-buddy if you know what I mean) and he cannot honour his bid. The deal is struck and Beth is all but out. There’s just one more thing…
I suppose here I should tell you why Mr Stooge’s generous mate is no more. You see, he lost his nerve and couldn’t do the deed. Now it’s entirely up to the client what goes on in the room: indulge in any grotesque abuse your vile imagination can muster or go straight to the coup de grace; but you must get your hands dirty; you must leave this place as a murderer. It helps keep everyone on an equal footing. Well, old matey tried to opt out of this stipulation, and he already knew way too much and so…dog food anyone?
Beth is presented with the same option, and her dunce-now-victim decides to hurl insults at her to help her with her decision, may he rest in peace. Beth struts out defiantly and we feel vicarious triumph. To add icing to the cake, Beth orchestrates a trap for the conniving bitch who lured them all there in the first place and gives her the good news.
Hooray! The good guys win!
And I thought the original left a bitter taste in the mouth.
You do realise that the only reason Beth got away was because she was richer than the other guy and she was willing to kill him and become a ‘full’ member of the club. A slight difference from the first film’s escapee. He couldn’t afford to buy his freedom, and, in the end, he didn’t get away at all. He literally lost his fucking head!
Yeah, both survivors killed assholes who were participants in this horrendous enterprise, but after all is said and done, besides the one or two torturers they nailed each, they only killed the working stiffs. That soulless fucken boss never even looked vexed! This whole Epsteinesque operation would probably carry on without a blip even if he was drawn and quartered anyway.
The audience is handed a few expendable scapegoats, and we cheer at their demise, while the whole macabre business carries on and the money keeps flooding in. There will be no shortage of replacement conmen, temptresses and grunts to continue feeding fun seeking tourists to this meat grinder, and there certainly will be plenty more depraved rich people wanting to partake of this vicious ceremonial status symbol.
Whether it was just his way of arranging a more permanent escape for Beth or was a deliberate depiction of the banality of evil it hit home hard.
“Like a dog lying in a corner
They will bite you and never warn you
Look out, they’ll tear your insides out
‘Cause everybody hates a tourist
Especially one who, who thinks it’s all such a laugh” (1995)
Reckon it’s time to start a new thread. Feels like I have been trying to squeeze a few ideas into some categories where they don’t quite fit. This one will be a little more random in some ways, but it will basically be what you expect from the title. I was born and a kid in the 70s, a teen through the 80s and a young adult during the 90s.
Through all those stages I heard some old timer start a story with “when I was your age…” and every time their age seemed long off. I am now older than most of those storytellers were when they spoke to me and many of them are kaput.
Nowadays I find myself beginning many a yarn with those very same words and am often amused. So many times, I’ve used a pop culture reference from my youth and witnessed the blank stare of disconnection from the youngster I am conversing with. I smile thinking about when it will be their turn. I am also astounded when I consider that the gap between them and their younger friend will probably be even wider.
I was born into the final quarter of the 20th Century. A time where technological change was beginning to speed up. The leaps and bounds made during that century compared to all human history were amazing. Even more astonishing is the advances that took place in the first quarter of this century. The evolving innovation seems to be accelerating at a pace that was unthinkable when I was kid.
I do not plan to embark on a “my generation is better than yours” spiel. I really want to express my amazement at how much things have changed in my lifetime. I hope this one will be fun, but I make no promises.
Joe has mastered the craft of building chairs. He has made a few and they are selling well. He charges $20 for each chair. It costs him $7 to buy the wood and nails to make 1 chair. It takes him around 12 working hours to make 1 chair. $13 profit = $1 an hour for Joe with $1 leftover. He saves those dollars for a rainy day and makes 5 chairs a week. That’s $100 for a 60-hour week. $65 profit. For reference, let us say that the average rent is $20 a week. Joe’s doing pretty well for himself.
To avoid complication, I will leave out taxes and any innovations or efficiency improvements. It’s just Joe, his skill, his tools and the raw materials.
The chairs are selling like hot cakes, and Joe realises that he cannot keep up with demand; Joe is going to need to employ another chairmaker. Again, for simplicity I will skip an unskilled assistant or apprentice. Joe hires a craftsman that has his own tools and can build one of his chairs in 12 hours.
Now Joe has doubled production and is making 10 chairs a week. After purchasing double the wood and nails, the profit is now $130. Of course, Joe must pay his new employee (#2) out of that money. Here we hit the first bump in the capitalist road. Joe hypothetically estimated his pay at $1 an hour. #2 is doing exactly the same work as joe. Should he also get $1 an hour?
A Marxist may very well insist on it; anything less is exploitation. Before we explore the gamut of business expenses, let’s assume there are none. Joe started the business and Joe designed the chairs. Joe fronts the money for the raw materials and Joe got the demand increased before #2 arrived.
If you were Joe, would you split 50/50 with #2?
If you answered no, then I guess you can stop here.
If your response was yes, let’s look at the most basic of overheads:
The work takes place on Joe’s premises and Joe is responsible for its maintenance.
Joe foots the bill for utilities.
Joe also takes the loss for mistakes resulting in waste.
He cops the hit for returns and refunds.
Is an equal split still appropriate?
A hard-core socialist might say yes. I am by no means a free-market capitalist, especially when it gets to the extreme ‘profit above all else’ larceny. There certainly needs to be checks and balances on the profit-margin moguls. On the other hand, if there were no rewards for taking the risk of starting a business venture there would be a massive decline in entrepreneurship.
What would be the point of Joe expanding his business if every new employee shared the profits, but none of the expenses or risks? There is scope here for a new type of business model, but that is another exercise. A brief hypothetical question though: To get an equal share of profits, would you be okay with the boss deducting expenses from your pay?
A better example might be this: If a doctor got paid the same minimum wage as everyone else, how many doctors do you reckon there would be? You can even include free education if you like. It’s a hell of a lot of gruelling study and the responsibility and pressure on you is more than a little full-on compared to loading supermarket shelves.
I’ll say it again; I detest the outrageous profits we are seeing while people struggle to survive. However, just because one loathes an extreme, it is not necessarily a good idea to swing over to its opposite. I apologise for being a bore, but moderation is important in most cases.
I will stop trying to convince invisible (and possibly non-existent) people. I am merely laying out my thoughts so I can observe them more clearly.
I like the Joe analogy. I reckon I will follow his progress as his business grows and grows. I am fascinated by where it will lead. I get a feeling he is going places.
Mercedes: Remember when we were kids and Edmond got that whistle for his birthday, and you got a pony? You were so mad that Edmond was happier with his whistle than you were with your pony.
The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)
Who are these Joneses we keep hearing about?
What is success?
There’s the title for two books right there!
So, how to keep this bite sized? Well, if you have a job that pays the bills and lets you have a little fun you are already doing better than a shit tonne of people. If you only ever compare yourself to poverty-stricken people, your life looks pretty fucking good! You’re welcome, see you next time.
Okay that’s way too flippant and it also removes aspiration which can be a good thing if it is channelled properly. My focus here needs to be much more on defining success (as in a life well lived). The Joneses often just muddy the water. Competition with others, especially in something as obscure as ‘success’ is a fool’s errand.
I’ll throw out a few generic measures of this mysterious goal: Travel, education, physical traits (beauty, physique, strength and fitness), corporate status, material possessions, money to burn, power and ability to intimidate, kindness, spirituality, love, kids. Any of those hit a nerve? If they all do, you may be beyond help.
There’s that glibness again. It is possible that they all matter, but I am hoping that they score differently in terms of priority. They probably also differ in terms of timeline i.e. Kids by 30 or maybe 1st million or Mount Everest by 30; enlightenment by thirty maybe?
I’m not writing a self-help guide here, but it is essential to point out 2 things:
Nothing is set in stone: you must remain flexible.
Goals change: what matters now may not always matter.
I will avoid the temptation to elaborate on those other than this: adaptability and perseverance can be superpowers. Here endeth the sermon.
My fascination lies with where these measurements of success come from. There’re the usual suspects: family, friends, society, government, media (this can of worms we will open later), school and religion. All of these will have an effect on you. Positive or negative. They may draw you in or repel you, but they will all be a part of the script for that voice you hear inside.
If you factor in your inherent temperament and actual life circumstances and experiences, the stuff affecting your choices and behaviour has just gone from extremely complex to unfathomable. Free will debates aside, we can at least agree that a lot of the choices we make are not 100% our own. We are constantly bombarded with influences and knowing this only offers more protection; no one is immune.
The mission I am suggesting here is trying to figure out what are YOUR ideas of success? When the curtain comes down it’s going to be you looking back and judging; most of those people you were trying to impress or outshine will be gone in one way or another. You would like to believe that all those imaginary boxes you ticked were the ones YOU cared about. The right ones? Who gets to say what that is?
Will you feel fulfilled knowing that you have travelled to almost every country on the planet? Does your bucket list require passport stamps. Let’s say that’s your goal and you are smashing it at present. You’re at a party telling people about your recent trip to Paris and Venice. Another intrepid guest asks if you visited Bordeaux and Rome. “Shit! Maybe I should have said France and Italy”.
If that interaction caused you noticeable discomfort, you may need to check your motivation. If you find yourself feeling like you missed something you would have enjoyed, you may need to alter your idea of what being a world traveller is; as in the places themselves, the people and experiences matter more than the sheer number. A statement like ‘I just got back from the US’ would often incur similar queries; New York, California, all those other places in the middle. The passport stamp still only counts for the USA though.
If you find yourself feeling like you have been one upped, you may be participating in that fool’s errand I mention earlier. Was your motivation more about clout? Is this really your passion or is it what you want to be seen doing? Take away the impressed and/or jealous looks from people listening to your adventures. Forget about social media attention. Without all that, do you still feel the wanderlust?
Only you can answer that, but if the answer is no, you could save yourself lots of time, energy and money, that can be spent on trying to find your genuine passion. Remember also that these things are on a continually changing scale of priority.
I apologise if I seem to be knocking travel, it’s just that it seems to be growing in popularity and that intrigues me. You could run anything feasible through this test to give you a different perspective. Feasible as in doable; happiness or success are not actual things you can do. They may be the outcomes you hope for, but they should not be goals in and of themselves.
Of course everything is open to dispute; beauty can be a target, but it is subjective (in the eye of the beholder). Power is very often dependent on the situation. Oh, we’re going to have fun with this!
There is so much to mull over on this subject, and for me, it is one of the most important in terms of how we live and interact with each other; why we work and strive. I will definitely be revisiting this idea many times in the future.
My first full time permanent job began sometime in the early 1990s. It was a small lighting fixture manufacturer rune by 2 brothers. Their 2 wives ran the office and reception, and there were two other guys making the fixtures before I arrived. A grand total of 7. There are a few stories from this place (1 actually made it into the Potential Death etc. series!) This time I have a simple thought I want to follow.
We got paid in cash. One of the ladies would hand us a little yellow envelope with folded notes and coins inside which added up to our pay that week. I don’t even recall a slip with information written on it. It was a tiny place, so any questions you had about leave or tax or whatever you just asked.
I also remember that being a family business, they would shut for 3 weeks over the Christmas/ New year period. That only left you with 1 week holiday to use when you wanted. It was the cause of some drama when the next bloke got hired later in the year and had not accrued enough leave to last the 3 weeks. But again, I digress.
My interest here is on…well, interest. From the banks that is.
Most people would have still been paid in cash back then. It was then up to them if they wanted to put any of that money into a savings account. Plenty of people just didn’t have bank accounts. I remember opening an account for myself and 3 friends to save for a holiday because none of them used banks.
I would get paid on Friday and I would walk up to the bank near my work to deposit some money into my account. Not a great amount, this was just my savings account. Eftpos was not a big thing back then and cash was king. Your keycard was mostly for finding an ATM to get cash. Seeing that I already had that cash, I would never withdraw from my ‘savings’ account unless I was really stuck.
That is a key word here: ‘Savings’ account. I put money in there because I wanted to ‘save’ it. The only money in that account was the cash I had physically taken into the bank and given to a teller with a deposit slip. It was whatever I could spare, and the plan was to have it grow. To simply withdraw it from an ATM later would be stupid!
I’ll not get too far into financial management and budgeting, my purpose at the moment is just to look at the drastic change our relationship with banks has had and 1 factor I believe had a big impact on that. Banks did not have automatic access to our earnings. They had to entice us to put our money into their coffers.
Believe it or not, but back then money in an ordinary savings account increased! Seriously! The interest you earned was worth (at least a little bit) more than all the fees and charges. If you did nothing it would indeed grow, rather than be slowly chewed up until it vanished.
Banks had to do a bit of work to entice your hard earned ‘cash’ onto their books. They also had to compete with Building Societies and Credit Unions, which had the irritating habit of trying to help people accumulate wealth, even if that was simply by not ripping them off. A financial institution that was not insatiably chasing profit and was content with just taking its’ fair cut. Inconceivable!!!
Years passed and the banks slowly absorbed the building societies and the credit unions slowly faded away. Technological advances swept in and improved payroll efficiency and security. Much like other such innovations it resulted in many jobs lost. Payroll office staff were slashed along with armoured car and other security work. Tedious and dangerous jobs, but they paid the bills.
Anyway, my gripe is with the choke hold on our income this new and improved service gave the banks. No more would they need to cajole our measly leftover cash for savings accounts. Oh, they would still be called savings accounts, but the whole system was upended, and the balance had greatly shifted to the banks. Depositing our cash into a bank account was no longer optional.
Prior to this, a worker’s budget (if they bothered) might look like this:
PAY $446.00
RENT $180
BILLS $50
PETROL $20
FOOD & FUN $100
SAVE $90
Only that last bit would go into the bank. Everything else was paid for in cash.
The new set-up meant that the banks got your whole pay and charged whatever they considered was ‘fair’ to look after it for you. Those charges inevitably surpassed the interest earned on a peasant savings account, so the whole concept of compound interest was pointless. It still existed, but most people would have been unaware of it and the banks would have counted on the majority not shopping around.
Now the budget must be worked in reverse; providing that the employee has a budgeting strategy at all. ATM withdrawals are now the norm and ‘savings accounts’ are that in name only. Anyone serious about saving would open a new account to avoid ATM temptation and find a better interest to fees ratio.
The overwhelming majority of businesses paid their employees this way. Therefore, all those workers now had to have a bank account. All that glorious money to invest and earn with. All that extra capital meant massive profits. All those new account keeping fees meant massive profits.
Wayne, Rodney and I were walking across the road from Two Shores Caravan Park at The Entrance to the beach. Our mission was to find wood so that we could have a bonfire and invite all the other youngsters for a gathering. It was going to be so cool!
As soon as our feet hit the sand Rodney puts up his finger and cries “ding!” Wayne and I both look at him in anticipation of his revelation. “Ding” he cries again. He points to a two story timber frame of a house under construction on the beach.
“Construction site” he says “Equals timber” he says.
Wayne and I agreed that this was a fantastic idea and the three of us headed over to the construction site. The sun had just gone down, so light was scarce, but we could see enough to follow a path through the rough deadwood-like growth that grew around the dunes of the beach. To walk through it is a painful experience (don’t get ahead of me).
We casually entered the structure and prowled around looking for this elusive timber. We found none on the ground floor so we headed upstairs via a ladder in the centre of the house. We split up on the second floor and continued our search.
When the first thump sounded I had no idea what it was, but another came in quick succession; then another. I heard Wayne scream “they’re throwing bricks!” as he whooshed past me. I had no idea where Rodney was.
“Get the fuck out of here!” was the cry from the unknown person or persons hurling the bricks.
It was clear that there were one or more people at ground level who were protecting the site from thieves…and we were the thieves!
I was desperately trying to find the ladder, but in my panicked state, and in the dark, I was having no luck. I gave up my quest and headed toward the beachside where we had initially entered. The brick hurlers were positioned on the roadside of the structure and my main focus was on getting away from them.
I got to the edge of the house on the second story and stopped. I am amazed how little effort was required to get me to jump off onto the sand. I had two choices: risk getting branded by a projectile brick or jump. I quickly chose the latter and was down on the sand still hearing bricks landing above and far off cries of abuse as I stumbled to my feet.
I could not find the path, so I had no choice but to run through the deadwood growth. I didn’t register the pain; I put that down to the extreme amount of adrenaline running through my system (it definitely hurt later). At this stage I still had no idea where Wayne or Rodney were, I was just focused on getting to the sand and back to Two Shores for sanctuary.
I made it to the sand and found Wayne and Rodney pacing in exasperation and exhaustion. I joined this confused pair and did my own back and forth for a few moments. We all silently agreed to hustle back to the caravan park with our tails firmly planted between our legs.
Upon arrival Wayne and I both turned to Rodney and almost in sync said “Ding! Great fucken idea! Ding!”
There was no bonfire that night, but there was an awesome tale of our death defying escape from the house frame of doom.
MINDLESS MUSINGS 