THE GREATEST EXERCISE IN MIND STRENGTH
19th August, 2013 and 16th September, 2013
An Open Letter To Jock Palfreeman
My extremely bi/tri/quart/?-lingual tutor is banging on about journalism stories that advance an idea. It’s interesting, until he asks the class for an example of a story like this that’s a commentary on AFL. Way to void a decent concept. My tutor speaks 7 languages. There’s been a lot of conflict in universities because the Labour government has just slashed university funding by $2.8b. Meanwhile, they’ve increased funding to drones by $3b. Shows where their priorities are – thank God there’s an election in a few weeks, I just wish there was a smart person in a suit worth voting for.
My mind drifts. Someone brings up a story from the weekend about six young Australians who are being pinned for the murder of a Peruvian doorman who went over a balcony (while they were backpacking Peru). It’s getting serious, the Peruvian government wants them to stand trial. But they’re in Australia – they’re fiiiiinnnne. It made me think of that young Australian guy; whose heartbreakingly dedicated father was constantly flying back and forth from Bulgaria was it? What happened to him? Anyone else see that Four Corners story? I might’ve even watched it with my parents a few years ago on a Sunday night.
And now I am so sad to learn that the old man I saw on TV just trying to help his beautiful boy, can’t possibly still have the means to maintain his plight. Times were desperate, then. I saw that story years ago, how are you Jock?
The kneejerk is to say, well, there’s nothing interesting happening here. But of course that’s not true at all, relatively. It’s easy to say when one of your girlfriends goes overseas, that there’s nothing special happening here on the Mornington Peninsula, but that’s not entirely true. It’s easy to say to a girl you used to go to school with, at a birthday dinner that brings together an odd mish-mash of different friend groups, “Just busy with uni and working, really”, but there’s more to it than that.
Because walking down Swanston Street, with a secure sense of independence and relaxedness is an experience in living. Ducking up Fitzroy Street to the IGA to grab some butter and soy milk is an experience in living. Writing-off your car for parking in someone else’s spot, and then making the fraught decision to dip into your hard earned summer savings – locked away for your graduation trip – to buy a new car is an experience in living. Perhaps that’s why I’m writing to you Jock.
Some important years have been taken away from you. Fucking shit time and fucking shit place, mate. And I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but you are having an incredible experience in living. Of patience, of tolerance, of absolute disregard for your personal truth, of the absolute unfairness of human beings and corrupt government. Someone or something needed you to learn the greatest gravity of these ideas. To go through the shit Jesus went through (and I’m not religious at all). I can’t imagine how you’ve reconciled yourself to the events of your life, but that would require extraordinary power. I can’t not respect that.
Bumbling idiot Tony Abbott is a fluffy kitten. We’re fiiiiinnnne. When your day comes Jock, I will be watching.
Love, Alexandra