Not Every Opinion Deserves Respect

We are constantly told that everyone is entitled to an opinion.

This is true.

Everyone is also entitled to wear Crocs to a wedding, put pineapple on pizza (which I don't mind at all, if I wasn't loading it up with a nosebleed five factor of chilli) and spend their retirement savings on commemorative plates. Entitlement does not automatically make something wise, attractive or worthy of respect.

Somewhere along the way, we confused a person’s right to express an opinion with everyone else’s obligation to treat that opinion as valuable.

They are not the same thing.

You are perfectly entitled to believe that the Earth is flat, vaccines contain tracking devices, climate change was invented by people selling reusable shopping bags, or that a crystal placed beside your bed will repair your liver while you sleep.

You may say it loudly. You may make a video about it. You may add dramatic music, capital letters and several red arrows pointing towards absolutely nothing.

But I am equally entitled to think your opinion is ridiculous. That it was, in fact, made by a dick.

This apparently comes as a shock.

People now present their opinions as though they are newborn babies that must be admired and protected. The moment anyone questions them, they become offended.

“That’s my opinion!”

Yes. I know. That is precisely the problem.

An opinion isn’t a magical shield against facts. It doesn’t become intelligent simply because it belongs to you. If you announce that gravity is a government conspiracy and then walk off a roof, gravity won’t pause halfway down because it respects your personal truth.

We used to understand that opinions had to earn credibility. You formed them after reading, listening, learning and occasionally accepting the deeply unpleasant possibility that you might be wrong.

Now, forming an opinion seems to require nothing more than a Facebook account and the ability to type “DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH” beneath an article you haven’t read.

Research once involved books, evidence, experts and perhaps several years at university. Today, it means watching three videos while sitting on the toilet.

The internet has made everyone feel qualified to speak with authority on everything. A person can spend twenty minutes online and emerge ready to correct doctors, scientists, economists, historians and anyone else foolish enough to have dedicated their life to understanding the subject.

Apparently, expertise is elitist now.

Of course, experts can be wrong. Governments can lie. Scientists can disagree. Doctors can make mistakes. Questioning authority is healthy and necessary.

But questioning something is not the same as inventing an answer you like better.

And disagreement is not censorship.

If you post your opinion publicly and someone tells you it makes no sense, your freedom of speech has not been taken away. It has been successfully exercised. You spoke—and then somebody else did.

That is how the arrangement works.

Freedom of speech does not include freedom from embarrassment, correction, contradiction or somebody asking where on Earth you got that idea.

We should respect people. We should allow them dignity, safety and the right to speak. But we do not have to respect every thought that wanders out of their head wearing a little hat marked “opinion.”

Some opinions are thoughtful.

Some are informed.

Some are based on experience.

And some are complete bollocks.

Pretending they all deserve equal respect doesn’t make us tolerant. It makes us intellectually lazy. It allows nonsense to sit beside knowledge as though the two are merely different flavours of the same thing.

They aren’t.

You can have your opinion.

You can share it.

You can defend it.

But once you release it into the world, the rest of us are allowed to examine it, challenge it and, if necessary, laugh at it.

Because everyone is entitled to an opinion.

They just aren’t entitled to have it admired.

My Body Has Opened a Phlegm Factory

Day thirteen of being sick, and apparently my body has abandoned any ambition of recovery and moved into full-scale mucus production.

At first, I assumed I had a cold. A few days coughing, a bit of sniffling, perhaps an afternoon under the doona feeling sorry for myself. That seemed reasonable.

Instead, my lungs appear to have opened a factory.

Production continues around the clock. There are no staff shortages, supply-chain problems or public holidays. Great lobs of phlegm are being manufactured with an efficiency rarely seen in Australian industry.

I don’t know where it all comes from. I’m not eating it. I’m certainly not ordering it. Yet every few minutes, another delivery arrives.

Meanwhile, I’m taking Vitamin D, preparing for B12 injections and waiting for liver scans, because apparently my body is no longer a functioning human organism. It is a project with several trades already booked and more damage being discovered every time somebody removes a wall.

I’ve been dieting. I go to strength class. I have made an effort.

My body’s response has been to produce green sludge.

At this point, I don’t need a doctor. I need a building inspector, an industrial vacuum and possibly a demolition permit.

However, I will go back to the doctor—just as soon as I’ve published this. I may be falling apart, but I still have professional standards. 😁

A Renovator’s Delight

After yesterday’s visit to the doctor, I have decided that I don’t need treatment. I need a restoration team.

Not one person with a stethoscope and a prescription pad. I need several tradespeople, scaffolding and one of those television programs where everyone walks around shaking their heads and saying, “This is much worse than we expected.”

I have been dieting. Not merely thinking about dieting while eating toast, either. I have actually been making an effort. I'm fasting for 17 hours a day, sometimes more. I have also started going to a strength class once a week, where I lift things, stretch things and discover muscles I had previously assumed were decorative.

Surely my body should be grateful.

It should be responding with renewed energy, improved strength and perhaps a slightly more streamlined silhouette. Instead, it continues to feel blah.

Not dramatically ill. Not interestingly unwell. Just blah—the physical equivalent of a grey cardigan.

This seems deeply unfair. If I am going to deny myself food I actually enjoy and voluntarily attend a class where someone tells me to do another ten repetitions, I expect results. I don’t necessarily need to emerge looking thirty years younger, but I would like to get out of a chair without making the sound of an elderly wardrobe being dragged across a floor.

Instead, I have liver scans to arrange, B12 injections to endure, Vitamin D to swallow and enough green mucus to supply a small special-effects department.

Apparently, my body is one of those old houses that looked perfectly charming from the street but once purchased, reveals rising damp, faulty plumbing and wiring installed by somebody’s uncle in 1974.

Every time the doctor investigates one thing, another problem appears behind it.

“While we’re here, we’ve noticed the foundations are shifting.”

Wonderful.

I am trying, though. I’m dieting. I’m strengthening. I’m taking the vitamins. I’m turning up to appointments. I am doing all the sensible things people tell you to do when you reach the age where your body starts issuing maintenance notices.

Perhaps the benefits are quietly happening somewhere I can’t see them. Maybe beneath the general blahness, my muscles are improving, my health is recovering and my body is slowly remembering how to behave.

Or perhaps I’m simply holding the whole structure together long enough for the next inspection.

Either way, I no longer want a makeover.

I want a full renovation, a generous budget and somebody else to manage the project.

Why Am I The Latest Restoration Project?

I went to the doctor today, which is always a mistake.

You can walk in feeling reasonably functional and walk out carrying several referrals, a list of vitamin deficiencies and the unsettling suspicion that your entire body has quietly resigned without bothering to tell you.

Apparently, I now need liver scans.

Nothing makes you feel quite as cheerful as hearing the words “liver scans.” I don’t know exactly what they’re looking for yet, but I assume my liver has finally lodged a formal complaint about the conditions under which it has been expected to operate.

Sheez! I only drink when someone comes to dinner these days. Probably stuffed it years ago when I used to guzzle...

Then there are the B12 injections.

I’m not entirely sure why I need those either, but evidently swallowing an ordinary vitamin is no longer sufficient. My body has reached the stage where nutrients must be injected directly into it because asking it to absorb them normally is apparently expecting too much.

Vitamin D also needs to be added to the list.

This seems particularly insulting. I live in Australia. We have so much sunlight that half the country spends its life trying not to get any on them. Yet somehow, despite living beneath a giant flaming ball in the sky, I have failed to collect enough Vitamin D.

And then there is the mucus.

I have become a mucus generator.

I don’t know where it is all coming from. There cannot possibly be this much spare space inside one human being. Yet my body continues producing great quantities of green sludge as though it has secured a government contract and must meet a monthly quota.

It is revolting.

I cough, blow my nose, clear my throat and briefly believe the supply must finally be exhausted. But no. Somewhere deep inside me, another shift starts work.

At this point, I don’t feel like a person. I feel like an ageing house discovered during a renovation. You pull up one floorboard and suddenly somebody is talking about damp, structural movement and whether the wiring is still legal.

Why is everything falling apart at once?

My brain has already required more repairs than most major highways. My legs have their own ideas about how walking should work. Now my liver wants professional photography, my vitamins have disappeared and my respiratory system is manufacturing industrial waste.

I went to the doctor with green mucus.

I came home as a restoration project.

My Greatest Literary Achievement Was Two Paragraphs About Mucus

I have written more than 500 blog posts, which means I have spent a significant portion of my life arranging words in the hope that somebody might read them.

And now, after all that effort, the internet has finally chosen my greatest literary achievement.

Sniffing.

It was two paragraphs long.

Apparently, I didn’t need talent, research or an opinion. I just needed mucus.

Apparently, Illness Is My New Content Strategy

Yesterday, I wrote a blog announcing that I was sick, my brain had stopped functioning and I was going back to bed.

Five thousand people read it.

This is slightly insulting.

I have written about politics, social media, ageing, technology, modern culture and the gradual collapse of civilisation. I have sat at this computer attempting to make intelligent observations, construct proper sentences and occasionally say something that might cause another human being to think.

Apparently, none of that was necessary.

All I had to do was become ill.

Five thousand people arrived to read about me lying under a doona, unable to follow the plot of a television program or remember where I had put my damned drink.

This may be the most successful professional decision my immune system has ever made.

Naturally, this creates a problem. If I recover, will the readers disappear? Am I now required to remain slightly unwell for the sake of engagement?

Perhaps tomorrow I will need to develop a rash.

By Wednesday, I could have a mysterious limp—although nobody who knows me would notice the difference. And on here, behind a computer, I can be whoever I want to be. Young. Beautiful. Possibly even able to walk in a straight line.

Because really, if you can be anyone you like online, who is going to deliberately choose old and ugly?

This is how the internet works now. You can spend hours researching an important subject and carefully developing an argument, only to have twelve people read it—three of whom are probably bots trying to sell you cryptocurrency.

Then you write, “I feel like crap and I’m going back to bed,” and suddenly you’re Tolstoy.

I suppose people responded because being sick is universal. Politics divides us. Social media infuriates us. But everyone understands lying in bed feeling dreadful, negotiating with themselves about whether they are sick enough to justify getting up for food.

It was honest, simple and required no specialist knowledge beyond having once possessed a human body that betrayed you.

Still, five thousand visitors is five thousand visitors. I am not complaining.

Actually, I am. Complaining is apparently excellent for traffic.

So, today’s health update is that I’m still sick, still tired and still incapable of producing anything profound—except weird, thick phlegm that makes me gag.

Based on yesterday’s numbers, this one should go viral.

Sniffing...

Hard to believe, yet it's the truth.

I still have this damned cold; albeit; down to a running nose that has me sipping and slurping back in. It's revolting. At least the 'everything is aching' part is over with.

It's rather amusing. Tuesday and Wednesday I wanted to die. Begged to whatever God just to give me blessed relief. Kill me now...

Now; I have to say, I'm rather glad they ignored me!

My Body Has Lodged A Formal Complaint

I am sick.

Not mildly unwell in that glamorous television way, where someone lies elegantly beneath a white doona with slightly tousled hair and a single tissue nearby.

I mean properly sick. The sort where your entire body appears to have held a meeting without you and unanimously voted to stop cooperating.

My head hurts. My body hurts. Even my hair feels unwell, and technically it’s already dead.

I had every intention of writing something clever today. Perhaps a thoughtful observation about modern society, politics, social media or another miraculous Facebook product apparently invented by a doctor nobody can locate.

But my brain has temporarily left the building.

At the moment, my greatest intellectual achievement is remembering where I put my drink. Occasionally, I find it. Unfortunately, by then I’ve forgotten why I wanted it.

Being sick also destroys your sense of time. You sleep for what feels like eight hours, wake up convinced it must be tomorrow and discover that seventeen minutes have passed.

Then you attempt to watch television, but following a plot requires resources you no longer possess. Somebody gets murdered, three detectives arrive and before long you realise you’ve been staring at the screen for half an hour without absorbing a single thing. By the end, you don’t know who the killer was, who died or whether you accidentally changed programs halfway through.

People tell you to rest, as though that is an activity you can perform successfully. You lie down. You sit up. You adjust the pillow. You remove the blanket because you’re hot, then drag it back because you’re freezing. You cough, complain and briefly consider whether this is simply your life now.

So that’s today’s blog.

There is no social commentary, no clever conclusion and no attempt to explain what is wrong with the world.

The world can remain wrong without my supervision for one day.

I am going back to bed.

Apparently, I Have Nothing To Say

I sat down to write today’s blog and discovered I had absolutely nothing to say.

This is unusual for me. I normally have opinions about everything. Politics, television, social media, ageing, potholes, weak coffee, sharks, household appliances that require an engineering degree and products advertised on Facebook that claim to reverse thirty years of physical decline using rosemary and positive thinking.

Today? Nothing.

I stared at the screen, waiting for inspiration. The screen stared back. Eventually, we both accepted that neither of us was bringing much to the relationship.

Of course, the internet doesn’t allow you to have nothing to say anymore. You must constantly produce content. You need thoughts, reactions, hot takes and preferably a strong emotional response to something that happened twelve minutes ago. If you aren’t posting, commenting, sharing or becoming temporarily furious, people may assume you have died.

Once, you could simply have a quiet day. Nobody demanded an update. You could sit in your house, drink coffee and achieve nothing without turning it into a lifestyle philosophy.

Now, even doing nothing has to become content.

“Today I am embracing stillness.”

No, you’re lying on the couch watching television. And that’s perfectly fine.

Perhaps having nothing to say is actually a sign of mental health. Maybe my brain has finally decided it doesn’t need to investigate every idiotic advertisement, political statement or celebrity confession placed in front of it.

Perhaps it has taken the day off.

It has been working fairly hard lately. There is a lot of nonsense to process. Every time it thinks it has caught up, someone launches an AI-powered toothbrush, a billionaire starts another argument, or a woman on Facebook explains that doctors don’t want us to know about the healing properties of ordinary kitchen salt.

My brain deserves annual leave.

So; today’s blog is about nothing. No profound conclusion. No outrage. No carefully constructed observation about the collapse of civilisation.

Just me, sitting here, drinking coffee and admitting that for once, I don’t have an opinion worth sharing.

I’m sure it won’t last.

Great White - In A Cave Somewhere Pointing At A Map Of Bondi

Apparently, Australia is rolling out an enormous new shark strategy involving drones, surveillance, tracking systems and enough futuristic technology to make the average beach look like the set of a military operation.

We now have drones flying overhead, listening stations beneath the water, tagged sharks sending signals and people staring at computer screens waiting for something with a fin to wander into the wrong postcode.

All of this is designed to keep us safer.

And fair enough. Nobody wants to be eaten while trying to enjoy a Sunday afternoon at the beach. It would put a definite dampener on the day, particularly if you had already paid fourteen dollars for parking.

But I can’t help wondering whether the sharks are sitting beneath the surface, looking up at all this equipment and thinking, What the bloody hell happened to these people?

Because the sharks haven’t changed.

They are still doing exactly what sharks have always done. Swimming around. Eating things. Occasionally investigating something they probably shouldn’t. They aren’t plotting against us. They haven’t formed an underwater terrorist organisation. There isn’t a great white in a cave somewhere pointing at a map of Bondi.

We are the ones who have changed.

Once upon a time, people understood that the ocean was not a municipal swimming pool. It was enormous, unpredictable and full of creatures that had not signed a behavioural agreement with the local council.

You went in knowing there were risks.

There were waves. There were rips. There were jellyfish, stingrays, blue-ringed octopuses and several thousand other Australian animals quietly waiting for an opportunity to ruin your holiday.

That was Australia.

Now we seem slightly offended that the ocean still contains sharks.

We behave as though they have broken into our space, when technically we are the ones wandering into their house wearing fluorescent bathers and splashing around like injured seals.

Then, when a shark appears, we call the authorities.

“There’s a shark in the ocean!”

Yes. That is generally where they keep them.

We’ve become so accustomed to controlling everything that we can no longer cope with the idea of nature doing whatever it likes. We track our sleep, count our steps, monitor our heart rate and receive alerts when the washing machine has finished. Naturally, we now expect the sea to send us a notification before anything dangerous happens.

Warning: Large shark approaching. Please exit the water and consider visiting the gift shop.

Soon, I expect every shark will be required to wear a GPS ankle bracelet.

There will be an app, of course.

You’ll open it before going to the beach and discover that Barry the Great White was last seen near Newcastle, Sharon the Tiger Shark is behaving suspiciously off Port Macquarie and Kevin has breached the exclusion zone again.

Kevin has always been a problem.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t use technology to protect people. If drones can spot sharks, locate swimmers in trouble and help lifesavers respond faster, that is obviously a good thing. Anything that saves a life is worth considering.

But there is something fascinating about the lengths we will go to make the natural world feel safe, orderly and answerable to us.

We don’t just want to reduce the risk. We want to eliminate it.

We want to swim in the shark’s habitat without encountering a shark. We want to build houses surrounded by bush but never experience a bushfire. We want to live beside rivers that never flood and under trees that never drop branches.

We want nature, but only if it has been properly supervised.

Preferably by a drone.

Perhaps this is because we have spent so much of our lives indoors that we have forgotten what the outdoors actually is. Nature is lovely on television. It is less charming when it bites you. We love wildlife when it is photogenic, distant and aware of its contractual obligations. Dolphins are welcome. Whales are magnificent. Penguins are adorable.

Sharks have terrible public relations.

A dolphin could probably knock someone unconscious and we would still describe the encounter as magical. A shark swims within fifty metres of a person and suddenly helicopters are circling overhead.

The shark itself may not even be interested. It could simply be passing through, completely unaware that it has triggered three drones, two patrol boats, a beach evacuation and a live cross to breakfast television.

Perhaps the real problem is that we have come to believe every bad event must have been preventable. If something goes wrong, somebody must have failed. There should have been a warning, a barrier, a policy, an app or a government department making sure the wild animal behaved appropriately.

But the ocean has never promised to be safe. That is part of what makes it the ocean. By all means, use the drones. Track the sharks. Warn the swimmers. Give the lifesavers every tool available to help keep people alive.

Just don’t forget who is visiting whom.

The sharks haven’t invaded our beaches.

We have simply become shocked to discover that the ocean is still wild—and that not everything in the world can be made completely safe, no matter how much technology we fly above

My Bedroom TV Is Bigger Than My First House

...and somehow, you still think you could have gone a bit bigger.

I was sitting in bed the other night, watching television, when I had a rather disturbing thought. My bedroom television is seventy-five inches.

Seventy-five.

And the really worrying part? I don't even think of it as big anymore. In fact, when we bought it, my first thought was, "It'll be fine for the bedroom." The bedroom. The lounge still has the bigger television.

There are only a couple of inches between the edges of the television and the wall. Any bigger and we'd have to knock through into the neighbour's lounge room.

Somewhere along the way, we've completely lost our sense of perspective.

I remember when televisions were pieces of furniture. They had polished wooden cabinets. You didn't hang them on the wall. You built the room around them. If they stopped working, your dad would walk over and give them a decent thump on the side. Nine times out of ten, that fixed the problem.

If you wanted to change channels, you didn't reach for a remote. You reached for the youngest child. "I'm not getting up!" "You've got younger legs." That was our remote control.

There were four channels if you were lucky.

Nothing was on after midnight except static. And somehow... we survived.

Now we complain because Netflix takes three seconds to load. We've become impossible to satisfy. The other day I realised we'd bought a new television. Not because the old one had broken. Not because the picture was bad. Not because it was too small.

Simply because there was a sale. The old television didn't go to landfill, of course. No Australian household throws anything out. It simply gets promoted. Or demoted depending on how you look at things.

The new television went into the bedroom.

The old bedroom television moved elsewhere.

Everything gets a second career. Televisions. Speakers. Coffee machines. Even towels. Nothing retires in Australia. It just gets reassigned.

Sometimes I wonder what my younger self would think if he walked into my house today.

A seventy-five-inch bedroom television. Cappacino at the touch of a button. Music following me from room to room. A robot vacuum cleaning the floor.

He'd probably think I'd become a millionaire. The truth is, I'm just an ordinary woman... ...living in a world where ordinary has quietly become extraordinary.

And that's the strange thing about progress. It doesn't happen all at once. One day you wake up and realise your bedroom television is bigger than the first flat you ever rented...

...and somehow, the Squeeze still thinks we could have gone a bit bigger. 

AI Didn't Make Us Lazy. It Just Gave Us Permission

Remember when you had to actually know things? Not everything. Just... enough to get by.

You'd write your own emails. Think of your own birthday messages. Struggle through a school assignment. Argue with your partner using words you came up with all by yourself.

Now

"ChatGPT, write my resignation."

"ChatGPT, write a heartfelt wedding speech."

"ChatGPT, explain quantum physics to me like I'm five."

At this rate, people will soon be asking AI to decide what takeaway they should order because choosing between pizza and Chinese is apparently an intellectual burden.

We've become a civilisation of prompt engineers. Not engineers. Prompt engineers. The hardest part of many people's day is typing, "Can you make this sound more professional?"

The worrying thing isn't that AI can write.

It's that so many people have stopped trying.

Every email now sounds as though it was written by the same cheerful corporate robot. "I hope this email finds you well." No, it doesn't.

It found me deleting another twenty-seven AI-written emails that all begin exactly the same way.

Everything is becoming suspiciously polished.

LinkedIn posts sound identical.

Company newsletters sound identical.

University assignments sound identical.

Even online arguments are becoming suspiciously articulate. Half the internet suddenly knows the phrase "it's important to recognise the nuanced implications..."

No, Karen.

Last week you couldn't spell "nuanced."

The funniest part is that people are using AI to save time... then spending the time they saved watching strangers' clean carpets on Facebook.

Humanity has finally invented a machine that can do our thinking. And we've rewarded ourselves by using the extra time to watch someone cleaning their carpet. And it never works! I've watched hundreds of 'how to clean your mattress like it came from a hotel!' It doesn't work.

What a species.

The irony is that AI isn't replacing human intelligence. It's replacing human effort. There's a difference.

AI can write a speech. It can't care about the person you're giving it to.

It can write a joke. It can't know whether your mates will laugh.

It can generate ideas. It can't live your life.

The best writing, the best music, the best conversations and the best friendships still come from people who put a little bit of themselves into what they create.

AI isn't the end of humanity.

But it might be the end of us bothering.

And that's not the machine's fault.

That's ours.

Your Phone Knows You're Bored Before You Do

I don't remember deciding to pick up my phone.

That's the strange part.

It just... appears in my hand.

I'll be making a cup of coffee, waiting for the milk to do it's thing, and somehow, I'm standing there watching a bloke in Finland restore a 1938 tractor with nothing but sandpaper and optimism.

I don't even own a tractor.

Five minutes earlier I wasn't bored. I was simply waiting.

There used to be a difference.

We used to stare out windows. We watched people. We daydreamed. We let our minds wander. Occasionally we even had an original thought. Now there's no gap too small for a screen to squeeze into. 

Waiting in line? Phone.

Commercial on television? Phone.

Someone takes longer than three seconds to answer a text? Phone.

Red traffic light? Well... hopefully not. Although judging by some drivers, I'm not entirely convinced.

The frightening thing isn't that our phones distract us.

It's that they seem to know we're about to be distracted before we do.

I swear mine senses the slightest dip in stimulation.

The moment life slows down; my thumb starts moving almost on autopilot. Before I've consciously made a decision, I'm scrolling through videos of dogs wearing sunglasses, someone baking sourdough in Tasmania, and a heated debate about whether pineapple belongs on pizza.

I don't even like pineapple.

I do sourdough.

The algorithms are frighteningly good.

They know I'll stop for a clever headline.

They know I'll watch a dashcam crash.

They know I'll click on an article that begins with, "Scientists have made a shocking discovery..."

Nine times out of ten, the shocking discovery is that mice prefer cheese. Thanks for that. Somewhere, thousands of computers are quietly building a digital version of me that probably knows me better than I know myself.

It knows when I'm awake. It knows what makes me laugh. It knows what annoys me. It probably knows I'm thinking about making another cup of coffee before I do.

The scary part isn't that artificial intelligence is becoming smarter.

It's that we're becoming more predictable.

We've trained ourselves to reach for our phones whenever life becomes even slightly... empty.

We've forgotten that boredom isn't actually a problem. It's where ideas come from. It's where imagination lives. It's where you notice the clouds, overhear funny conversations, remember something important, or simply enjoy five minutes of peace.

Instead, we've filled every tiny crack in our day with endless scrolling.

And somehow, despite having the entire world's knowledge in our pockets, most of us spend that precious time watching strangers organise their pantry.

Perhaps the phone doesn't know we're bored before we do. Perhaps we've simply forgotten what it feels like not to be entertained every waking second.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to check something on my phone.

I've completely forgotten what it was.

Funerals, Potholes and Pokies

The alarm went off at 7.30 a.m.

I know that doesn't sound particularly early to most people, but these days it felt positively cruel. There was a time I'd be up before the birds without a second thought. Now, anything before eight requires negotiation.

Outside it was freezing. Rain was drizzling down, the sky was grey, and all I wanted to do was crawl back under the doona.

Instead, I climbed into the car with my brother and sister and headed for Bendigo for my aunt's funeral.

It's about two and a half hours on a good day.

Yesterday wasn't a good day.

The traffic crawled for what seemed like forever, and once we escaped that, we were introduced to another Victorian attraction... potholes.

Honestly, Jacinta Allen, perhaps instead of announcing another shiny new project, you could spend a few dollars filling the craters between Geelong and Bendigo. Some of those holes were big enough to have their own postcodes. I was half expecting to see road signs saying, "Welcome to Pothole. Population: Three Hubcaps."

Eventually we arrived.

Funerals are odd occasions. Nobody wants the reason for the gathering, yet it becomes a family reunion all the same.

We caught up with cousins, uncles, aunts and relatives we hadn't seen for years. Stories started flowing almost immediately. The older stories became funnier with every telling, and by the end of the afternoon we were all laughing about things that happened decades ago as though they'd happened last week.

My aunt made it to ninety-one. That's a pretty good innings. I think she'd have been pleased that there were more laughter than tears.

After the formalities, everyone headed across to the hall for afternoon tea; where we dumped half the people and headed off to the RSL.

A few drinks somehow became quite a few drinks, and before long someone suggested a visit to the pokies. As it turns out, my aunt must have been looking after me because I walked away two hundred dollars richer. 

Thank you, Aunty.

My sister and I, loath to stay any later and watch the chorus of the shouts for "whiskey!!" went home at about 9.30 where we staggered to bed.

This morning it was time to head home.

I travelled back with my brother and my two sisters, bouncing our way down the same pothole-infested road towards Geelong.

It gave us a few more hours to chat, laugh and remember.

Funny how funerals work.

You go to say goodbye to one person, but somehow end up reconnecting with everyone else. It was a long couple of days; but I'm glad I went!

Cold.

Wet.

A little emotional.

A little blurry by the end.

Alot of laughter and memories.

And I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

The Sharks Haven't Changed... We Have.

Every time there's a shark attack, the headlines are almost identical. "Something must be done."

As though the sharks have all held a meeting somewhere off the coast and decided this is the year they're finally coming after us.

Here's the thing. The sharks haven't changed. Not one little bit.

They've been swimming around Australia's coastline for millions of years, doing exactly what sharks do. They hunt. They eat. They occasionally mistake people for lunch. It's hardly a new business model. We're the ones who've changed.

We've built cities along the coast. We surf before work. We paddleboard at sunrise. We kayak, jet ski, foil board and swim hundreds of metres offshore. Then we wonder why we occasionally bump into the locals.

Imagine if a shark started swimming laps in Kardinia Park during a Cats game. People would think it had completely lost its mind. Yet every summer we wander into the sharks' home, wearing black wetsuits that vaguely resemble seals, splashing around at dawn and dusk, then seem genuinely surprised when a curious shark turns up.

For years, our answer was simple. Catch the sharks. Cull the sharks. Blame the sharks.

But something interesting is happening.

Instead of trying to change the sharks, we're finally changing ourselves.

We're using drones, smarter surveillance and better technology to spot sharks before people swim into trouble. It seems obvious now, but it's a much more sensible approach than expecting a 400-million-year-old predator to suddenly read the warning signs.

The sharks are still doing exactly what they've always done.

We're just getting better at living alongside them.

Maybe that's the lesson.

Not everything dangerous exists because it's out to get us.

Sometimes the world is simply being the world.

The ocean isn't safe. It never promised to be. The mountains don't apologise for avalanches. Snakes don't issue press releases. Crocodiles don't put up warning signs outside their favourite river. Nature doesn't have a personal grudge against us. It just doesn't know we're the main characters in our own story.

Perhaps that's why I like the idea of using technology to help us rather than trying to punish nature for behaving naturally.

The sharks haven't declared war on humans.

They didn't change.

We did.

And perhaps that's exactly how it should be.

My House Is Slowly Becoming A Museum Of Expensive Mistakes

I've reached the age where I can no longer pretend my house is full of "investments." It's full of expensive mistakes. Every room contains something I bought because I was absolutely convinced it was going to change my life.

The advertisement promised it would make life easier. I'd be healthier. More organised. More productive. Better looking. Possibly immortal.

Three clicks later, I owned it. Although sometimes it is within one click…

Fast forward a few months and it's sitting in a cupboard wondering where it all went wrong. Take the bathroom. There are shampoos that promised thicker hair, creams that would erase wrinkles, miracle serums and enough beauty products to supply a small salon.

I'm still waiting for the miracles.

Then there's the technology. Robot vacuum (although I use that twice a day and it is good… But I have to do a good vacuum and mop once a week…

Smart gadgets. Apps that promised to organise my life. Subscriptions I forgot I was paying for. Every purchase follows exactly the same pattern. "This is brilliant." "I'll use it every day." "I should have bought this years ago."

The thing is, we're not really buying products. We're buying hope. Hope that this gadget will finally make us organised. Hope that this exercise equipment will somehow make us exercise. Hope that this miracle cream can negotiate a ceasefire with gravity.

Most companies aren't selling stuff anymore.

They're selling the fantasy of a slightly better version of ourselves. Sometimes they deliver. Mostly they deliver another cardboard box.

I keep telling myself I'm going to clean everything out. Then I pick something up and think, "I might need that one day." Apparently "one day" requires an entire spare room.

One day my grandchildren will inherit mysterious cables that fit absolutely nothing, unopened gadgets, instruction manuals in twelve languages and enough charging cords to wire Geelong. They'll probably think I was a collector. I wasn't. I was just ridiculously optimistic every time Facebook showed me another advertisement.

My house isn't really cluttered.

It's simply a museum of every version of myself I thought I was about to become.

Admission is free.

Just don't touch the exhibits.

I might need them one day. 

Every Hobby Is Now A Side Hustle

Every pastime requires branding. Every hobby needs a logo. Every creative outlet apparently deserves its own Instagram account, YouTube channel, Facebook page, TikTok profile, email newsletter and a podcast for good measure.

The funny thing is, most of them never amount to anything. They keep us busy for a week or two before quietly joining the ever-growing graveyard of abandoned channels and forgotten dreams.

And why would you even want to be an influencer?

One bad post. One joke that lands badly. One opinion that half the internet decides to hate and suddenly you're public enemy number one. Imagine living your life knowing that every sentence could end up on a thousand angry Facebook pages.

No thanks.

I'd much rather enjoy my hobby than spend my life worrying whether strangers approve of it.

God forbid you simply enjoy doing something.

We No Longer Own Anything

I miss buying things.

Remember that? You walked into a shop, handed over your money, took the thing home and, in a radical concept that now seems almost quaint... it belonged to you.

You bought a lawnmower. It was yours.

You bought a record. Yours.

You bought a television. Yours.

If it broke, you fixed it. If you didn't like it anymore, you sold it. If you wanted to keep it for twenty years, nobody turned up demanding another monthly payment before allowing you to switch it on.

Somewhere along the way, ownership quietly disappeared.

Now everything is rented. Music? Monthly subscription. Movies? Monthly subscription. Television? Three monthly subscriptions because apparently each company has decided it deserves its own streaming service. Software? Subscription. Cloud storage? Subscription. And that’s just off the top of my head!

It's a strange arrangement. We pay more than ever before yet own less than ever before.

Our movies can disappear from streaming services overnight. Our eBooks can be removed from our libraries (if we had any; I prefer the old fashioned book in hand). Our music exists only while someone keeps billing our credit card.

Half the things in our homes work only because a server somewhere, owned by someone we've never met, continues to exist.

We've become permanent tenants in our own digital lives.

Nothing is ever finished. Nothing is ever fully ours. Everything renews automatically, expires unexpectedly or asks for another payment just when you thought you'd already bought it.

I don't mind paying for things that genuinely need ongoing support. That makes sense. What I object to is buying something only to discover I've entered a long-term financial relationship with it. I don't want a monthly commitment with my software. I don't want one with my television.

I'd just like to buy something again... and have the outrageous expectation that it's actually mine.

"AI-Powered." My Toothbrush Will Probably Ask Me To Prompt It Next.

I don't know exactly when it happened, but apparently, we've reached the point where absolutely everything is now powered by Artificial Intelligence. Not just the obvious things. Everything.

I swear if I walked into Bunnings tomorrow, I'd find an AI-powered garden hose that analyses my lawn's emotional wellbeing before deciding whether the roses deserve watering.

Every advertisement now has the same sales pitch. "Now with AI!" Wonderful. What was wrong with it before?

It used to be enough to tell me a vacuum cleaner sucked. That was literally its entire job. Now it apparently maps my house, learns my cleaning habits, predicts where the dust will appear next Tuesday and sends me performance reports. (While I don’t have a dust prediction system, I do have a robot vac lol)

All I want it to do is to vacuum the bloody floors!

Even toothbrushes are getting in on the act. Somewhere, someone is brushing their teeth while an app congratulates them for achieving an above-average molar performance score.

I don't need feedback from my toothbrush; I need it to remove yesterday's coffee stains.

Everything now promises to "learn." My television learns. My car learns. My phone learns. My coffee machine probably knows more about me than the Squeeze; and frankly, that's a little unsettling.

The funniest part is that companies don't even explain what the AI actually does anymore. They simply stick those two magical letters on the box and add another hundred dollars to the price.

It's become the modern equivalent of "low fat," "organic" or "gluten free."

AI mattresses.

AI pet bowls.

I'm waiting for AI toilet paper.

"It anticipates your needs before you sit down."

At some point we've got to reach peak stupidity. We'll buy an AI-powered kettle that refuses to boil because it has analysed our caffeine intake and decided we've had enough for the day.

Meanwhile, I'm still standing in my kitchen yelling at my robot vacuum because it's trapped itself under the same chair for the seventeenth time this month.

Apparently it's intelligent.

I'm not convinced. 

The Problem With Donald Trump Isn't Donald Trump

The problem with Donald Trump isn't that he says outrageous. ridiculous things.

Politicians have been saying outrageous things since somebody first discovered that outrage gets attention. The problem is that he proved being a fucking nutcase running a country, works.

Before Trump, there was still a vague expectation that presidents should occasionally sound... presidential. They didn't always manage it, but at least they pretended to aspire to it.

Now politics often resembles a never-ending online argument where the loudest person wins. Insults have replaced debate. Nicknames have replaced policy. Every disagreement is treated like a heavyweight title fight.

Winning the news cycle has become more important than solving world hunger.

Trump didn't invent division, but he has become one of its greatest beneficiaries. Every inflammatory comment guarantees another twenty-four hours of headlines. Every confrontation becomes another loyalty test.

Every criticism becomes evidence of a conspiracy. And somewhere in the middle of all the shouting, the actual issues quietly wander off unnoticed. The issues remain.

What worries me most isn't Donald Trump himself.

One day he'll leave the political stage.

The style won't.

Future politicians have watched him dominate attention and learned a dangerous lesson. You don't need thoughtful speeches if outrage keeps people watching. You don't need compromise if conflict raises donations. You don't even need people to like you. You just need them to never stop talking about you.

That's a terrible lesson for democracy.

Democracy depends on disagreement.

It doesn't survive very well on permanent warfare.

We should expect more from our leaders than the ability to trend on social media. We should expect honesty, restraint, respect for institutions, and the ability to admit when they're wrong.

But those qualities don't generate viral clips.

History won't judge leaders by how many headlines they created. It will judge them by whether they left their nation stronger, calmer and more united than they found it. And that's a much harder test.

And it's the one that really matters.

The Death of Being Average

Being average has become embarrassing.

Somewhere along the way, we decided that ordinary wasn't good enough anymore. I sometimes think the worst thing social media ever did wasn't making us compare ourselves to celebrities. And I mean real ones – not “influencers”. 

It convinced us that being ordinary was some kind of personal failure. Apparently, we're all supposed to be exceptional now. Not just reasonably competent. Exceptional.

You can't simply enjoy cooking anymore. No. You need a food channel, a cookbook, a knife range and an opinion on Himalayan salt.

You can't go for a walk. You're on a wellness journey.

You can't have a garden. You're creating an outdoor sanctuary.

You can't own a dog. You're a pet parent raising a fur baby with emotional intelligence.

Everything has become a brand.

When I was younger, nobody expected greatness from everyone. Most people simply hoped to have a decent job, raise a family, own a house if they were lucky and perhaps retire before their knees completely gave up (and most don’t get to). That wasn't considered failure. That was considered life.

Now every second person online claims to be an entrepreneur, an influencer, a thought leader, a mindset coach, a digital creator or a visionary. I'm never quite sure what half these people actually do. They seem to spend their time teaching other people how to become people who teach other people.

It's like watching an endless pyramid scheme built entirely from motivational quotes.

The pressure to stand out is exhausting. Every photo has to be perfect. Every holiday has to be breathtaking. Every meal has to be restaurant quality. Every birthday has to look like a Hollywood movie premiere.

If your life doesn't attract strangers on the internet, apparently it barely counts.

Meanwhile, most of us are just trying to remember where we left the bloody car keys…

My Aunt Died Today. Ninety-Two.

92! Which, let’s be honest, is a bloody good innings.

It changes the way you think about death. When someone dies young, it feels like someone slammed a book shut halfway through the story. When someone reaches ninety-two, they’ve finished the last chapter, read the acknowledgements and are probably asking whether there’s a sequel.

I don’t mean it isn’t sad. It is.

Every death leaves an empty chair somewhere.

But there’s also something comforting about a long life. Ninety-Two years. Imagine everything she saw.

She was born into a world without the internet. Without mobile phones. Without Google telling you how long to boil an egg. People actually had to ask other people things. If you wanted directions, you stopped the car. If you wanted to know something, you went to the library. If somebody ignored your phone call, they genuinely weren’t home.

She lived through wars, recessions, governments, fashion disasters, music that horrified one generation before becoming classics for the next. She watched televisions become color, telephones become computers and photographs disappear into little glowing rectangles we carry around in our pockets.

She saw children become parents… and then grandparents themselves.

That is an extraordinary amount of living.

We spend so much of our lives complaining about getting older. The wrinkles. The knees. My back... The memory that doesn't quite work as it should.

Yet getting old is actually the prize.

Not everybody gets to do it.

When someone reaches ninety-two, I think the sadness sits beside something else. Gratitude. How lucky are we that they were here for that long?

How lucky are we that they left stories behind? Family behind. Memories behind.

I hope that if I make it to ninety-two, people will say, “Bloody hell… she squeezed every drop out of life.”

Rest easy, Aunty.

Ninety-one.

A bloody good innings.

Selling Stuff Online Isn't a Hobby Anymore

I've decided to have a clean-out. 

Out with the old (which is brand new some of it!)

I've probably got about five thousand dollars' worth of perfectly good stuff sitting around the house that I no longer use or bought, and it didn't fit. A coffee machine. A television. A few bits and pieces that deserve to be in someone else's home instead of gathering dust in mine.

Simple.

I'll just stick them on eBay. How hard can it be? Good Lord. I swear you now need a university degree just to list one item. It used to be easy. Take a photo. Write, "Works well." Put a price on it. Done.

Not anymore.

Now it's like filling out an application to join the FBI.

What category?

Which sub-category?

What brand?

Which model?

What year?

Serial number?

Condition?

Features?

Measurements?

Does it have Bluetooth?

Wi-Fi?

HDR?

4K?

OLED?

QLED?

Does it come with the original box?

Original receipt?

Original owner's first-born child?

By the time I'd answered all the questions I'd completely forgotten what I was trying to sell.

Then came the photographs.

Front.

Back.

Side.

Other side.

Close-up.

Power cord.

Remote control.

Another angle.

One proving it actually exists.

Then eBay politely suggests that my description could be improved.

Really?

It's a coffee machine.

It makes coffee.

I'm not submitting it for the Booker Prize.

Then there's postage.

How much does it weigh?

I have absolutely no idea.

Enough that I'm not carrying it to the post office if I can avoid it.

And then there are the buyers.

You list something for $500.

Five minutes later someone offers you $75.

Seventy-five!

I'm all for negotiating, but that's not negotiating. That's seeing whether I've completely lost touch with reality.

Remember garage sales?

You'd write "Garage Sale Saturday" on a bit of cardboard, stick it on the nearest corner and people would just... arrive.

No algorithms.

No keywords.

No postage calculators.

No AI trying to improve your listing.

Just a driveway full of junk and people wandering around hoping to find a bargain.

Technology was supposed to make life easier.

Instead, selling one coffee machine now feels like a project that requires planning permission.

I've still got about five thousand dollars' worth of stuff to sell.

The problem is...

...after listing the first item, I think I've earned a little lie down.

Brain Is A Bit Iffy...

I think my shunt is playing up; or starting to break down. Hopefully it isn't.

But after twenty-seven brain operations, you get to know when something doesn't quite feel right. You can't always explain it. You just know.

Of course, my brain, these days, looks like a washing machine; bits and bobs added here and there. When my neurosurgeon operated last time it was his first time. I told him it was the left and side to which he replied “it all comes from the same well, so it won’t matter…” So, I had the operation on the right side only to be back in two days later to have the left done.

He learned a lesson. He sent me for MRI’s and pieced the whole thing together.

The good news is that I actually feel okay. Well... my brain would want to. The problem isn't necessarily how I feel today. It's the waiting.

First, you have to see the GP. Then they send a referral. Then it takes a few days to reach the neurosurgeon's office. Then it gets triaged. Then someone decides when you get an appointment.

Brains don't always appreciate bureaucracy.

I've learnt over the years that, when it comes to your brain, it's probably better to be the annoying patient who came in too early than the brave patient who waited too long. So yes, I may have jumped the gun.

I'm perfectly happy to have a neurosurgeon tell me, "Carol, you've worried over nothing." That would make my day!

Because if they're right, I get to go home and continue annoying the Squeeze for a few more years.

I’m worried about my bloody hair. I have just got it right. Honestly, you'd think after twenty-seven/twenty eight brain operations I'd have my priorities sorted out. Apparently not.

People imagine that facing brain surgery involves deep philosophical thoughts about life, mortality and the meaning of existence.

Not me… I'm wondering how long it'll take before I can get back to the hairdresser.

I genuinely hope everything is fine. But after everything I've been through, I've learnt one thing. If your brain starts behaving differently, don't wait for it to send you a second reminder. And if this all turns out to be a false alarm...

...I'll happily apologise to my shunt.

Right after I apologise to my hairdresser.

Neurosurgery. What Fun. Not.

Before anyone wonders...  I'm fine.

Well... I'm reasonably fine.

It just feels suspiciously like one of the shunts in my head is deciding it's had enough of gainful employment and is considering early retirement.

If I'm right, it'll mean another trip to the neurosurgeon. Another operation. At this point I honestly can't remember the exact number. Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight? Somewhere around there. Once you've had enough brain surgeries, they all start blending together.

You know what annoys me the most?

Not the operation.

Not the hospital.

Not even the recovery.

My bloody hair.

I have just got it right.

After months of trying to get it to an even length, because neuro’s ain’t no hairdressers! They don’t have a hairdressers brain between them! And now some surgeon is probably going to shave a chunk out of it again. They may as well use a lawnmower with the GT stripes up the back.

Honestly, you'd think after this many brain operations I'd have my priorities in order.

Apparently not.

People imagine facing brain surgery involves deep philosophical thoughts about life, mortality and the meaning of existence.

No.

It is my plan to go out this way. Just go to sleep and never wake up! No pain. No awful accident. I’m well prepared for it; well who wouldn’t be after twenty seven/eight brain operations? I’ve even got the plot at the cemetery and the plaque to go on it!

But I regress lol. I'm standing in front of the mirror wondering whether the hairdresser can somehow work around another scar.

The thing is, after this many operations, fear isn't really the emotion anymore.

It's irritation.

"Oh... not this again."

You know the hospital.

You know the forms.

You know the smell.

You know they'll wake you up every two hours to ask how you're feeling.

"Tired."

"I wonder why."

The upside is that modern neurosurgery is extraordinary. The people who do this for a living never cease to amaze me. They've kept me going through more than two dozen brain operations, and for that I'll always be grateful.

I just wish my shunt would stop behaving like an ageing appliance.

Everything else in my house seems to want to be replaced lately.

I'd rather my brain wasn't trying to join in.