Jog back to the halfway line like nothing happened

Years back I went to a past school friends party, and chatted with his mother in law. She was recounting one of the students back in the day that had got ‘all huffed up’, ie way too self important and above station. I became more intrigued when I sussed she was talking about me. The years had passed.

Indeed I’d danced the sugar plum fairy in the schools Nutcracker suite, wavy blonde hair and tights. That and a few other baubles had gone to my head. It was time to sport some off-uniform swag, get a detention, pull wheelies on the 125, price mags for the Cortina.

New Zealand wide, garish displays of outwardness were not encouraged, one was to stay buttoned down to a simmer at best. She was right, my chum’s mother in law. I’d started off under the radar but had taken to dancing like a showpony.

My dad would say that when you score a try, no hero moves, it’s not about you. 30 odd others on that field, coaches, ref, ambo’s on standby … jog back to the halfway like nothing happened. Go minimalist on the chuffed bit.

Being raised to not show off, when I go ‘look at me’, like this blog, there’s a voice saying ‘Baz, maybe not’. My dad used to call people in media and advertising ‘Fly-boys’, cos they’d flit around and stick to anything that smells rich in the moment, gone in an instant the minute something more tasty appears over the way. He considered such types to be a bit light on character. It’s conflicting … right in there, holding back, what to do.

Some of us, moi included, have our fingerprints all over the web like the neighbourhood Tom. Posting on social like we’re feeding pokie machines. What’s that about ?

Media geezer from the 60’s Marshall McLuhan claimed a change in info parameters when he observed ‘the medium is the message’. TV was getting its game on, before we carried the medium in our pockets. You bet pop will eat itself, and it most surely is. We’ve now fallen under the spell of the pocket. The Greeks gave us Narcissus, and seems we are no less than he, in love with our own reflections.

All the more given our Pocketeer’s seek we become info-enmeshed, from mush to intellect and back, so many strangers so little time. The expectation of constant availability, offerings of pleasure and fear, and that gravity defying trickle-up of money, info and soul. Seems the idea is to over-run human capacity then pass the epi pen’s around a surrendered populous. Overstimulated on hi-vibe in a digital lockdown. Uppers and downers, clever pocketeer’s running a dollar each way.

Buy me a coffee

The age of anxiety is certainly earning its keep, and my job description these days ? Sifter. Imagine thousands of midget info assistants running round our heads prioritising and binning the oceans of info. Busy 2026 heads have we.

The medium is absolutely the message or massage, cabal’s of AI gatekeepers with tabs on words published, voices heard, films viewed, data accessed, rabbit holes ventured, realities altered. We’ve new-skool access where everyone’s an influencer, youtube star, follow me, click and share, where the pocketeers can pull or spin any algorithm anytime. You’re someone ? You’re no one.

Going through the gears feeding our online selves is a lot of work. We square off our boasting and humility in a kind of cage fight for one, values in the ring and a few bruises later, some compromise and integrity we can work with. It can be a beat up.

Being on-line fit as a content maker means showing up and showing off regularly. And as consumers we need stamina to stay abreast of our domains. Surveying multiple domains requires the staying power of an ultra marathon runner, mental agility of a chess master. Venn diagrams everywhere, crack out the crayons and sheets of A2.

For me it’s about connecting. Whether that’s with a handful of chums and followers or just myself, it’s important. It might be about vanity and self interest, and it might be more than that. I worry about aloneness, mine as much as others. My life has lotsa peep’s in it, it’s not that. I feel adrift as a privileged westerner swimming in individualism, our neoliberal creed. The great misfire of economic growth.

Adrift from real connection with mother nature and her mycelium nervous system, the insects, animals, birds and tree’s, adrift from big picture collective, community both human and existential. Sure I can swim and sail and bush walk, do some sundown omm’ing on a coastal walking track, cuddle the grandkids. But I’m aching for the wider collective beauty that we have, the love that we miss. Yearning for more shift in fellow consciousness to help us Come Together in the face of our challenges.

For years I had one very close friend that I never met. Not Jesus. Michael Leunig, an Aussie cartoonist, for years ‘of no fixed abode’. His offerings informed me for decades that I wasn’t mad or alone. Double phew. I had another close friend who this weekend a year ago took his own life. He lived in a house but had become ‘of no fixed abode’, a terrible aloneness in his heart that was difficult to reach. Not so much loneliness, but a fortressed aloneness. Kiwi’s can be big on this, it’s not a resilience I admire.

Yes, aloneness. I wish everyone in the world could stay at my place, I’ll go hard on the cheese toasties, there’ll be a sofa somewhere to crash on. I’m even building a tree house out the back, could pop some short chums in there.

I guess when I smash out a bunch of song vids, blogs, interviews, I am doing my best to bridge both a personal and systemic aloneness. I’m ranting my view of the world into space in the hope that it resonates with a handful of people, and is of some value. The process helps me think sideways, broach areas of concern with decent enough intent and sometimes humour. There’s always some self indulgent toss, a few passing showers of self-doubt, but on a good day I feel the fear and do it anyway. When I feel connection, every day is a good day.

In posting stuff I’m asking people for their most valuable thing - time. I have no expectation that anyone will click on the links. I hope that whoever reads or watches stuff I put out, will in turn be excited to share their thoughts too. We all have observations and reflections. One of my biggest buzzes is to turn people onto sharing their stories with others. To be a bit vulnerable. Trust and be trusted. I can’t remember who I should attribute this quote to, but it’s a keeper:

The world has everything we need for a thriving human civilisation, except a communications system that shows us how to build it.

So let’s both suggest and build it while we can, cos in the future we’ll be facing power and internet outages, and online will become even more of a fickle friend, like not show up. Imagine the end of swiping, we’ll be checking our thumbs into rehab. A few km radius of analog reality could become our lives. #1 tip for this blog ? Like most of them, double down on goodwill with actual people, ones you can hold hands with, drape your arm round, hold, cuddle, help dig a garden with - our physical neighbours, they won’t evaporate as easily as our online ones.

I wonder if what I feel, a desire to connect, to receive love and have love received, is playing out in all of us. I am happy to be all huffed up and show pony if that’s what it takes to invite others in. So sorry Dad, sorry my school chum’s mother-in-law, if I’m a bit too rant & spectacle. It’s an attempt at connection in an anxious world.

The rants may or may not resonate. Please, rant back, comments box is there, a soapbox in the online square.

Arohanui all, and I’m leaving you with a selfie with my dear chum Royce, fellow teacher, flatmate, techno bunny motorbike riding beautiful clever and conflicted decent geezer, gone a year ago. I found a pic of us in London, off to a Ken & Barbie party. Barbie’s even wearing her 1987 stockmarket crash Amex card earring. Must’ve been quite some occasion.

Till next time :)