boobs and interest rates

There is nothing quite like sitting down with good friends and chatting about life, the weather and of course, boobs and interest rates. The kind of stuff everybody talkes about, right? I should probably add that the context was a discussion about consumerism and the impact of the media on society.

I didn’t actually think this was exactly fodder for common conversation so I was more than a little surprised to discover some of the places these kinds of discussions are happening.

As I headed for the train after work last week my curiosity was piqued by the MX’s scattered through the station and I picked up a copy. Please don’t think less of me. For fear of imploding brain cells I skimmed quickly through the newspaper but was caught by an article entitled, “Some would argue that all this whining is the sound of a society slowly realising that consumerism has lied to us.” Yes, in the MX! In it the author goes on to describe the mass of complaining she hears over miniscule inconveniences as a “venting [of] our collective disillusionment at a social order that constantly assures us happiness is just a purchase away.”

Perhaps there is a growing disillusionment with the things that a capitalist, consumerist society seems to value? Either way, I’d like to open up the discussion more. In honour (and explanation) of my conversation with Nath Pearson about boobs and interest rates I wanted to share this song that he wrote. It is called “Boobs and Interest Rates”:

______________________________________________________________________________________________

.

Sealed for your protection says my toilet seat

what to do man, I Need to take a leak.

I don’t understand anything at all

Remove the lies and nothing breaks my fall.

.

We’ll conserve as long as it won’t affect Consumption

We’ll Preserve if we can keep our Presumptions,

with Ivory swords we’ fight to save the Whales.

but if the share price drops , we quickly bail.

.

The Whole world is dying,

and we Ain’t even trying

All we want to know is …

Did she get a boob job

and the impact of her Nipples on Interest rates.

.

Get your share advice, Your Pills and a bigger dick

With that and a fake degree I’m sure you’ll pull the chicks,

oh you don’t need that, yes you’ve got a cool car

top Job, Good looks and a big cigar

.

buy a house six times bigger than you need

then vote the rest of your life based on greed

Slaves to the markets ebb and flow.

Your dreams on the hope your super will grow

.

Cut the crap we ain’t saving the world

we’re making so much money helping it burn

mesmerised by our plasma TVs

maybe in high-res we can see…

If she got a Boob Job

and the impact of her Nipples on Interest rates.

.

Looking for needles though the haystack is on fire

While we kill their kids their daddies won’t retire

stupid wars and based on bent mythology

all to fuel archaic technology

.

Boobs and Interest rates,

distracted as our world disintegrates

Boobs and Interest rates

Amuse us while the rich obliterate

Nath’s speil about it:

“the first verse may need some explaining…I arrived in America on my way to build houses in Mexico. When I got to my hotel room the toilet had this wrap around it “saying hygenically sealed for your protection,” which is the most overblown advertisement speak way of saying: “we cleaned your toilet after the last person used it.” It’s actually pretty common but at the time I thought it was a pretty stupid thing to say, but more broadly the stark difference between the poverty of mexico and, just 10 mins away across some line drawn a map, the wealth and hyper-consumerism of Americans made me see the world in really different ways… the kids I played soccer with in a garbage filled dirt street seemed happier than the kids I saw at disneyland days later. As for the title; well I thought it was an acurate summary of the news for one particular week… “

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culture

Culture has been described as “the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group.”*  That sounds kinda stale, but so much of culture is anything but.  It can be seen in unique expressions of art, music, dance, food and so much more.  It colours the landscape of human existence and offers identification and belonging in community.

At the same time, I have also seen dark sides to cultures.  Just as we develop healthy unique expressions of culture in our communities, I guess we can also develop the opposite.

I was chatting with some friends recently about culture and how faith should interact with it.  What do you think…should our faith impact our culture?  If so, in what ways?

It amazes me how ingrained culture is.  Hans Magnus Enzensberger once said that “Culture is a little like dropping an Alka-Seltzer into a glass-you don’t see it , but somehow it does something.”  We don’t tend to think why we do things the way we do them.  Culture often functions like an invisible script for life playing in our heads, and critiquing your own culture is perhaps one of the hardest things to do well. 

As it is so ingrained, changing or setting culture is also incredibly difficult.  Because of this I think these can be incredibly powerful questions: What kind of culture are my words/actions setting?  What kind of culture would I like to be a part of?  What would I do if I was going to create that culture?

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distraction #6: negativity & cynicism

I was chatting to a friend a few weeks ago about my distraction experiment and asked them if they could think of any potential distractions that I hadn’t though of.  They made a suggestion that surprised me at first.

“Negativity and cynicism.”

This was a bit left field.  I’d never really thought of these things as distractions.  But, the more I think about it the more I’m drawn to his suggestion.  A negative or cynical approach to life can be a massive distraction!  I know that when I am feeling negative about something it is so hard to see beauty in life.  Hard to see options in a situation.  Hard to orient myself around what I know to be true and important.  It’s like wearing a pair of sunnies which, instead of being rose-coloured, are painted black.

I think this is particularly significant for Australians as we tend to have a fairly sarcastic and cynical approach to life which can distract us from a lot of the good things and a lot of the possibilities in life.  What do you reckon, am I overplaying it?  Have you ever seen negativity and cynicism become a distraction?

Here are my rules:  no negative and cynical statements.  While allowing room for realistic analysis of things, to approach everything with a productive, forward thinking attitude…focusing on the possibilities rather than the problems, the achievements rather than the failures, the goals rather than the fears…and to use language which reflect this.

Why am I doing this???  Read about the experiment.

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culture of violence or culture of peace?

A quick peruse of my dvd collection reveals something quite telling and maybe even a little sinister about my preferences. Mmm….I think to myself, V for Vendetta, The Kingdom of Heaven, the Bourne Trilogy, I-Robot (though Will Smith is fighting with Robots), Pirates of the Caribbean and Avatar. The common denominator – Violence!

I have been thinking about this for quite some time and it seems like violence pervades our culture and our preferences in a lot of things. For instance, it seems young people much prefer to play violent video games, which would certainly be having some form of influence in how they deal with things in life. Maybe this phenomenon accounts for the increase in violence at schools that has been prevalent in the news lately.

It seems that the reasoning underlying all this is that the only way to deal with difference and any form of confrontation is to ‘win’ ‘destroy’ or ‘beat’ the other person and to take revenge when wronged. Unfortunately this occurs at the international level too. It has been estimated that global military expenditure is $1.5 trillian annually, and therefore, $4.1 billion daily and  $2.85 million every minute (see here). That’s a lot of money going to a lot of violent conflict.

Maybe it’s just about being a guy that gives me this desire to watch violent movies, but I’m not quite sure that holds water. Maybe, and probably more realistically, I’m a product of the culture in which I live, a culture that uses violence a little too readily in order to deal with conflict. It is unfortunate that all too often we associate men and women of peace with weakness rather than strength. Maybe this is merely a cultural thing also. If we are forced to think critically of our culture maybe we will find that these people are not so weak after all. There seems to be a lot more strength and creativity demonstrated in dealing with conflict in constructive and life-giving ways than there is in lifting a hand or a fist in a fit of uncontrolled rage.   

On a personal note, I suppose the question we need to ask ourselves is how we have traditionally dealt with conflict in our lives? If I’m honest with myself, there have been situations in my life that I could have dealt with things more creatively and constructively rather than a quick harsh retort that leaves neither party satisfied with the result. How have you observed conflict being dealt with in violent ways in our culture and how do you think these conflicts could have been dealt with in more constructive life-giving ways?

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