The Fashionability of Cynicism

People have had an awful lot to say about what Julia Gillard's been feeling and expressing lately.

She's been wooden, stiff, mechanical, and unfeeling we've been told. Everyone's been luxuriating in elaborate performance analogies, with images of over rehearsed lines and stale gestures flying across newspapers and the online world.

And following yesterday, when she made an emotional tribute to both victims and volunteers of the Queensland floods, she is under a new form of criticism. She has expressed emotion, and it seems that many are crying false.

And I believe that the main reason that this is happening is because of the earlier reports. Because of the assessments with all the vitriol of a film critic and the maturity of a child, claiming that a mechanical delivery represented an inability to feel. Suggestions that the Prime Minister is incapable of expressing emotion properly. All of these reports have been doing their job, hemming the public perception of Ms Gillard into a small box.

And suddenly when she breaks the box we thought we'd only just established, we are confused.

But rather than realise that human behaviour is incredibly complex, and not something which can be so easily read, predicted, and judged as the last few weeks' headlines would have us believe, people assume the opposite - this current behaviour is a charade.

And this is the problem I have with an obsession on how politicians 'perform', as everyone becomes an expert on what advice Ms Gillard is getting, and on when someone should express grief and how.

As "james from sydney" opined on a Herald Sun article: "the time for that emotion was at the time of the crisis, at that instant, at least that would have been a little bit more believeable."

It would be unthinkable to suggest to someone who has recently lost a loved one that there is a correct way to express emotion - that the crying must come first, and that mechanical shock is always wrong. Yet it feels to me that a similar standard is being applied by some people here.

I, like most Australians, have no way of knowing exactly what our Prime Minister is feeling at any given moment. Like any of us, her emotions can manifest themselves in different and sometimes uncontrollable ways - perhaps even more so, given the constant stress she is put under to behave in certain ways.

And so I do not believe any of us can really make smug, sweeping criticisms of her 'performances' without failing to consider what it is to be human.

As a teenager, I haven't been exposed to politics for long.

But I firmly believe, and will continue to believe, that a healthy political scene is one where policy will be the subject of discussion, not emotions, appearances, and performance.

Stupid, Misinformed Comment Repeated

A poorly-thought out and offensive comment made by somebody of little to no importance was amplified across news organisations today.

The comment, made by a model, irrelevant politician, or actor, is likely to inflame a social issue which is already difficult, and help spread misinformation, clouding key facts around the issue.

The inane quip, which has been pilloried in headlines around the web, was not corrected until the final two paragraphs of the story, when an expert who spends their whole life correcting the misconceptions voiced by the person maintained that "this kind of talk is damaging, and sets back the debate several years".

Ms Fitzwilliams, a social psychologist from the nearest university (located by the reporting journalist), however, suggested that "it's important for rubbish to be printed and validated, if only so that someone can quietly contradict them at the end of the article, once most people have stopped reading."

Ben Clarke, who read the story, had a different take. "Yeah, what they said was right, you know," he opined of the factually inaccurate and ill-informed comment-maker. "Everyone only jumps on them because they're talking some sense," he added, raising the owner of the widely reported words to a level of social martyrdom.

The journalist who broke the story and cobbled together some quotes congratulated themselves on finding a scoop and shedding insightful light into a complex and multi-faceted issue.

Some Stuff I Learnt Today

1. Some people are never happy, even when you get them a table on the verandah for 10 and they didn't have a booking.

2. Some people stop talking when you take their dishes. I often assume it's because they were in the process of unburdening childhood psychological scars to their fellow diners. Or maybe they think I'll judge them.

3. Some people are perfectly happy to pay quite a bit for a meal and then not eat it all.

4. Sometimes people set themselves dining challenges - like the "how great a surface area can I cover with this dip" or "I'll wedge some serviettes and rubbish into the table because that will be helpful" challenges.

5. When you put coffee and tea dregs, leftover lime spiders, lemon squash, water, and milkshakes into one bucket, it looks like this:

Yes, it was a very big bucket. And when you put your hand in that mixture to fish out solids, it will be cold.

6. Some people like to play little dining games - like "how precariously can I stack these dishes to 'help' the waiter" or "I am an adult and will drop food all over the floor" (a less arduous variant of its sister challenge).

7. Running an efficient dish cleaning system can be immensely satisfying.

8. Watching other people undo your system can be immensely unsatisfying.

9. Working in a team to clear dishes can be heart warming.

10. Some people do not want your help, but would rather be confused by themselves. Perhaps being confused in front of another person is stressful.

Dismantled

Every time I look at ads recently, I've been seeing much more than I used to.

Since working on ads and public relations projects in an organisation for the last few weeks, I've begun to understand how they work and are shaped.

And so I no longer see an ad telling me to buy something - instead I see images, drafts and drafts of them, worked on by someone in long hours between lunch breaks, of unproductive office hours spent checking emails or reading newspapers, of mental blocks. I see an ad and I see the person who worked on it, who was perhaps proud of it by the end, happy with the border colour change they made in the final copy, or the changing of "great" to "awesome" somewhere in the copy.

And it makes everything about ads feel more human and alive.

Ads written by people who wondered perhaps, during idle moments, whether they should change jobs, whether they were happy, if they would come up with something better.

And eventually they met their deadline or were satisfied, and the ad was produced. Then they went on to create more ads, and by the time they're laid in their grave there will be a trail of work left behind with their invisible mark on it.

Like empty rooms and houses once lived in, breathed in, swore in, hated in, loved in.

And in a way the ad becomes something beautiful.

Like a small piece of insignificant permanence left by someone who in 100 years will probably be forgotten. Perhaps it will be uncovered by someone studying cultural history. And they'll laugh at the misguided values or artistic direction, wonder at the person who made it, and pass over it.

But somehow this thought loses its impact once it is articulated as I've tried above. It becomes a tired thought, trotted out in many guises. Words fail it, and it disappears as either odd and incomprehensible, or commonplace and weak.

Words, words, words.

WAKE UP!!!

It has been brought to my attention very recently that this blog has been napping for an unacceptably long time, even for something which has recently returned to the taxing business of churning out the drivel dancing around in its head for other people's judgement-free enjoyment.

So if I am waking it up, then what sort of sleep has it had?

Was it a siesta, taken on a summer afternoon, as the Spanish sun beats overhead, high in the noon sky, and the village slumbers behind drawn blinds with ice packs on their eyes and glasses of water by their bed?

Or was it a coma? Doctors milling about the bed, frowning and shaking their head. 'It's not going to make it,' their stethoscopes sighed. 'It has been having respiratory problems almost every since it was born. It was never long for this world.'

Or was it just a natural, genuine sleep, the kind which comes at the end of a day?

And now as it awakes, I realise it was a nap. It sits up from its bed, not quite refreshed nor fully rested. It has a slight headache, and that dizziness that comes from short sleeps. But it was a sufficient nap. And as it rises from bed it feels stronger again. It will take on the world!

This blog is alive. And now it's awake.

But it doesn't want to fall into old habits.

Old habits of newspaper trawling, issue picking, sensibility, humourless attempts at analysis, a grab at 'serious writing'.

Not yet.

It's summer, and for the blog, as it stretches and stumbles down the stairwell to get something to snack on, that means lazy stories and narratives full of images incomprehensible to anyone outside its mind's eye. It means a complete and utter relinquishment to cognitive indulgence, without thought or care for the ride of the reader.

'And why shouldn't I enjoy a lazy summer?' thought the blog, as it stepped outside into the dreamy, hazy heat.