Culture – Anton Martin Smith Writer

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

You should not want to fit in with the crowd.

Do you not know about ‘the madness of crowds’?

Why would you willingly choose insanity?

Not all individuals are sane,

I will agree with you on that measure –

But

At least we know that a true Individual,

At least has a shot at trying to be sane,

And a shot at actually becoming sane.

A Crowd or a mind infected by The Crowd

Is not afforded that that luxury whatsoever.

Of course I know my words will not be followed.

No one reads anymore,

Let alone wisdom-orientated poetry,

Residing in the backwaters of the Web.

Or perhaps that is The Funk speaking.

Perhaps I am sliding into artistic melancholy –

For surely all Poets who talk of people have it as a bedfellow.

And now to segway from surely’s to Perhaps’s.

Perhaps those not in The Mob aka The Crowd have never truly entered it.

The worst Crowds perhaps very much have ‘black hole characteristics’:

Once you enter its ghoulish grasp – perhaps you cannot ever hope escape.

At least not alive that is – be it physically or spiritually or both.

Perhaps do not be a fool to think otherwise.

And so this quasi-sermon of dire warning almost ends.

But I will end on a positive note:

There are reports of Individuals escaping said ‘black holes’ –

Like a basketball they scooted cyclically around The Crowds ‘event horizon’,

And thanks to the Universal Principle of Uncertainty –

Where saved from falling into the irreverable abyss.

Thanks to a quirk written into the very fabric of the cosmos,

They were spat out as Individuals,

Zipping merrily through the cosmos with permanent ear to ear smiles,

Exclaiming all the while:

“Phew – that was close”.

(or Perhaps they said “zounds that was close but ultimately inevitable”)

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

Australia was formed from penal colony beginnings.

But only because the Brits lost the War of Independence in its American colony.

So in what became the USA, The Brits could no longer use Maryland & Virginia to house its ‘crims’.

The Pitt Govt in England considered Africa, then Canada, but went with Cook’s ‘recently discovered Australia’.

It made sense – a massive mostly inhospitable isolated island –

In many ways – it was already a giant prison.

And so in 1788 the First Fleet sailed out of Portsmouth.

Over the next 80 years the crims flowed like cheap wine,

Australia went from from what it already anciently was, to a penal colony chrysalis, then to dirty winged butterfly.

But official slavery became unpopular & the Molesworth report found the obvias:

A society made & dominated by a penal colony and it’s unfree & freed criminals is imperfect, and full of unneeded vice.

So Pitts lot agreed & it was slowly wound down.

Though Van Dieman’s land continued for some decades longer.

Finally in 1868 their were no more ships coming for penal colony reasons.

And so ‘Modern Australia’ in theory started to form.

This is all very interesting.

But I find this philosophical question most interesting:

Could & can Australia ever escape its beginnings?

Or is there a forever 1788-1868 ‘penal colony cultural field’ pulling its cultural strings on the puppet citizenry?

If so there is something dark about Australia that cannot ever be wound back.

And perhaps the scariest thing that follows from that is this:

Without knowing it, everyone will be cultually programmed to re-create ‘penal colony Australia’,

By something unseen in the mostly scorching hot dry air that surrounds them.

‘All tarred with the same brush’ – if you will.

It’s a script that keeps playing – like a cosmic cultural recording & playback machine – if you will.

It is a scary thought.

And of course if this ‘permanent originating cultural field theory’ is correct –

Australia is but grain of rice among many fields of wheat.

All nations will suffer or benefit from their ‘permanent originating cultural field’.

And I personally believe the theory to be a good one –

For in my life I have seen many people all showing the signs marks of the same very-old-but-still-alive hands.

So perhaps the saying ‘The more things change the more they stay the same’.

Is more of a pyscho-physical law rather than a glib,vague, social tendency.

But in saying all this – I must must must throw some sunlight on this moonlit mire

For many people do escape a seemingly this limiting cultural field.

But how?

Perhaps they tune into, and resonate with, a higher level underlying field than the ambient one.

So let us not give up is hope for the Australians in all of us.

After all,

We know from Flanders that vibrant red poppies bloomed in the warring-rolling-fighting-fields.

Flowers can indeed bloom even if raised in a bad culture.

Flowers will always bloom in the fields of war.

Even as the invisible hands of the cultural field quash the greater rebellion.

Will all the Australian’s one day defeat the permanent penal colony cultural field?.

Well, some of them well at least some of the time.

But while Ned Kelly & Vegemite still is seen as their ‘national heros’.

The chances of redemption are slim to not great.

And yes I can hear their distant psychic retorts:

“But at least we’re not New Zealanders”.

They have a point – for the NZ ‘permanent cultural field’ ain’t that flash either –

As will be covered in in my next week’s prose poem:

“The Great Trans Tasman Debate: Is it better to be dim, disloyal & lazy Or scrappy, potty-mouthed & criminal”.

But all jokes aside,

I do hope we can all defeat the handcuffing fields,

Rise upwards and all find our true higher vibrational plane –

Our “fields of gold” if you will.

And perhaps I’ve missed something entirely in my theory:

The famous ‘Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ one.

Perhaps there is an alchemy between the two theories that breed tough journeymen.

And I do think ‘tough journeymen’ does describe a hell of a lot of modern Australians.

Even the most jaded of us exiled ex-expat kiwis of Australia must admit this ‘fair dinkum fact.

However you will never hear the words “Hazaar the the Australians” cross my lips –

That would be a bridge too far for an aging curmudgeon like me.

Unless of course a revitalized ANZAC battalion forms and kicks ass in WW3.

In which case it would be regrettable statement but strictly not a treasonous offence.

Tag: Culture

“Invisible hands don’t like a rebellion” (A Prose Poem/Article)