this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2024
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I think we still have an awful lot of Britishness in our institutions and so on. And probably a lot of globalist corporate and consumer culture now as well - hence the emptiness.
I mean this in the most nicest way possible. Just because you feel emptiness it doesn't mean everybody else does. I'm an optimist and I'm gonna find the good in as much as I can.
To clarify, I wasn't suggesting everyone does feel this way.
However it must be said that my view on Australian life is hardly an outlier. Official statistics on mental health are alarming and rising, and these are official numbers, to say nothing of all the people that aren't being accounted for.
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/mental-health#%3A%7E%3Atext=20%25+or+4.8+million+Australians%2C9%25+in+2014-15.
To put it succinctly:
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. - Jiddu Krishnamurti"
You need to find your Ikigai (life purpose).
I am constantly aware that I work in a bubble of very smart, talented and fairly-paid people. That the people I work with aren't a slice of "average" Australia. But within that bubble of IT workers, we absolutely have that global cultural influence CEO was speaking about.
Then there's the kids. They go to school in a mix of kids from all over. Its a great equaliser. They don't know where their mates 'are from', almost everyone was born here. I get it from their names.
It's easy to look at the news and think our influences are all US/UK. But I think as each generation goes by, they'll be less central to what makes an Australian.
What emerges from that mix? I'm keen to see it. What we already have is clearly recognised by the British themselves as something distinctly separate from their culture.