I was at the MCG on Friday night for one of those memorably close preliminary final struggles where the fans can get seats rather than the corporate theatre-goers.

The noise was extraordinary; I did not hear any of the four sirens.
What endures in my memory is that for a city of our size we punch above our weight in hosting amazing and peaceful sporting spectacles.

 
In the cauldron of the MCG there were almost 90,000 people yelling their lungs out. Not a single violent incident on or off the field.

 
Almost half the crowd was female, and near me they were the most vocal. Kids of all ages were everywhere. A group of Somalis occupied the row in front of me. The Hawks seem to have a lot of South Asian fans.

 
After the game, opposing players embraced and the emotion between the indigenous players was strong.

 
The crowd left the stadium in peace and shared irreverent humour.
In the context of global recession, national political mediocrity, and the continual dumbing-down of our culture, you need to find something positive, and I found it Friday night at the ‘G.

 
Go Melbourne (the city)!

Cool artist called Theopilus London.

Some people have compared him to Kid Cudi. What do you reckon?

I really love this video clip. It kind of reminds me of a scene you’d seen in Michael Jordan’s “Air Time”

“I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him”

- Booker T. Washington

This is one of my favourite quotes as it shows how we are in control of our own thoughts, actions and feelings. This awareness allows you to realise that the way you treat others directly reflects on your own wellbeing.

If you spend all your time focusing your attention on negativity towards others, you will end up feeling negative yourself. This then has a degrading effect on you.

But on the other hand, if you focus your attention on being compassionate towards others, then you too will reap the rewards of compassion.

Treat others well, because really you are treating yourself.

All the girls that hold it down, gettin’ beat on by their man
Respect women, I don’t care if they a 2 or a 10

I use the word ‘circus’ to describe what I see at times in the mainstream media. It is a metaphor that fits well because it describes something that is spectacular and an attractive form of entertainment.

There is a difference between being informed and being entertained. I feel a lot of ‘news’ coverage fuels entertainment. I then pose the question. Do the majority buy papers to be informed or to be entertained? Just some food for thought, ultimately only you will have your personal opinion on this. Your opinion will be neither right nor wrong, just your opinion.

My opinion is that I think a lot of media attempts to engage with its potential audience through providing a form of entertainment through the lure of adequately informing them.

They ultimately know and understand what their potential audience wants, and that something is drama. We collectively seem to be addicted to this drama that becomes a form of entertainment.

I address this to those that may read this who work in the media: when dealing with such sensitive issues such as sexual assault, drug use and gambling is your intention to engage your audience through providing ‘drama’? If this is the case then yes you too are a part of the ‘circus’ and I understand why you would react defensively in respect to what I am saying . If you are a journalist who is frustrated at the nature of a lot of journalism I hope you respect and support my stance. Although I understand this may be difficult if your media outlet falls into this category.

I argue that it is more productive to be proactive than reactive in most situations. I have learnt this in a football sense by some of the great defenders to have played the game. I have had the privilege of being coached by Stephen Silvagni, James Clement and Shane Wakelin who taught me that the most effective form of defence is through being proactive rather than reactive to your forward. Engage with your opponent by doing your work early before the ball gets to your vicinity and before it is too late and the forward makes the first move and the damage is done.

The same can be said of many issues which exist in society. Including drug abuse and trafficking. Instead of placing so much attention on isolated incidents such as Brendan Fevola’s personal struggle with a gambling addiction, let’s take a look at the structures which exist that allow this to happen in the first place. The media could uses their immense power to do this and engage the masses to become proactive on these issues.

I believe this is a more productive thing to focus on. This is something I learnt whilst I was at Uni studying Sociology. In order to understand social phenomena it is more effective to take a sociological view point rather than attempt to gain psychological understandings.

We are a society that seems to be addicted to drama. I do not lay all the blame on one entity that being the media. I just believe they too need to be held accountable. We individually need to observe how our world view is shaped. Unfortunately many in our society’s world view is heavily blinkered and tainted by the media they consume. This is unfortunate because when you observe rather than digest some of the media that is highly accessible to our society you witness the phenomenon of how much we seem to be addicted to drama.

Did we need to be updated with Brendan Fevola’s every movement whilst he was at rock bottom? Ask yourself if this provided you with entertainment…If yes then the media did its job.

It is a vicious cycle. The major stakeholders are US (not the united states!) and we are held imprisoned by this thirst for more real life drama because it allows us to play a game of ping pong on the table of morality. We fill our consciousness with this useless drama that seems to spill out into not only our leisure time (consuming the media circus), but into all other facets of our lives.

When I had the privilege of being in the presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama the 1st words I heard him speak were on this topic. Before the media had any chance to ask him questions he addressed them in regards to the responsibility they had by inheriting their major influence on society.

I am just hand passing his message on.

I hope you do the same because we are all in this together. Media, Government, Educators, parents, children…..EVERYONE

OBSERVE WHAT YOU CONSUME!

Yesterday I found myself observing the actions of people through a window, without having any idea of what they were saying to each other or the context of their conversation.

This observation forced me into self reflection.

How would you act if you could see yourself from the viewpoint of an outsider?

We often act with little regard for how our actions are seen through the eyes of others.

Have you ever noticed how the silence in an elevator immediately disappears as soon as the doors open and people go on their separate ways?

Have you ever noticed how people whisper to each other on trains yet as soon as they leave the train they start speaking normally to each other?

So why is it that we are consciously aware, and almost secretive, of our actions and words in certain situations, yet so easily fall into the trap of acting out of anger, frustration or aggravation?

Take this for an example. A person yells abuse at a friend. Two hours later, when the emotion of anger has passed, they immediately apologise to their friend.

When they are able to allow their emotions to settle and analyse the situation, the way they see their actions changes. Consequently, they see where they have acted “wrong” and apologise for acting in the “wrong” way.

If you had the ability to know when you were acting “wrong,” would you stop yourself at that very moment?

Now, take this principle to the next level.

How would you think if others could hear your thoughts?

I think you would find that you would not want people to hear some of your thoughts. Negative thoughts; including judging, cursing and just the plain left field.

This idea then becomes a matter of not only seeing yourself from the the perspective of others, but from the perspective of who you’d like to be.

You have the power to control the way you act, feel and think! So why waste time feeling negative and spend more time embracing positivity?

So ask yourself, do you fall into the trap of being controlled by your mind, or are you in control?

Live for Hope

I have been listening to Triple J a lot lately and was fortunate enough to be tuned in while the Unearthed finalists were announced.

Unearthed supports up and coming Australian artists, giving them the opportunity to pursue and fulfil their musical dreams. It is great to see the amazing array of Australian talent expressed through a variety of different genres.

Check out all the bands here and support this fantastic initiative. My personal favourite is “The McQueens.”

Why not browse and try to find another cool band while you’re there?

Cool song from Australian artist Gotye. Accompanied by an awesome video clip. Check it out!