S Sorrensen’s Here & Now: That losing feeling

Wednesday. My place, 5.50am

I’m angry. I’m doing that lip thing I do when I get angry. People tell me it’s a sure sign I’m angry, and, when they see it, they take appropriate action. Like leave. Or put their cool hand on my trembling one and tell me it’ll be okay.

But there’s no-one here to be leaving. Or holding my hand. There’s no-one to even tell me I’m doing that lip thing – but I can feel the tension in the corners of my mouth.

I shouldn’t be angry. It’s a fine morning here at my shack under the cliffs. The sun is gentle, not yet frying the joint, and recent rains have turned the brown into green, the neatly mown into overgrown, the listless into lively. I did, though, make the mistake of turning on the radio…

I shouldn’t be angry. My water tank is full. My crop hasn’t failed. The soldiers aren’t at the door. My house isn’t inundated by a rising sea. I’m free to practise my atheism on Wednesdays. My son has a job. My grandchildren are healthy. What could I possibly be angry at?

The wilful destruction of the planet, that’s what.

The espresso thingy whines and I answer the call. I pour some milk into a saucepan, light the stove, and put the milk on to warm.

I have lived a lucky life. I was born into a rare time of peace and prosperity. I never went to war. I was never hungry. I didn’t have to work as a child. (Or that much as an adult.) I had freedom to learn guitar, walk barefoot in a healthy jungle, read books, sail a boat. I had the luxury of money for education and time for contemplation.

I was privileged, just through luck. I was, as the First Hippie said, the seed that fell on fertile ground. But, with privilege comes obligation: the lucky seed must realise its potential. It must flower with an intensity that repays its good fortune, that showcases the best of its kind. This is how evolution works, the way forward.

What makes me angry is when the seed that falls on fertile ground thinks it was not luck but destiny, that good fortune is somehow deserved, that privilege is a birthright.

What makes me angry is when the lucky hurt the not-so-lucky to nurse a swelling but fragile ego, believing others’ pain is an indicator of their power. They are not magnificent, but stunted; not green but orange.

On the radio was the news that President Trump has given the go-ahead for the Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines. Oh dear. I turn it off and put on some vinyl.

I should be used to this small-minded, big-monied insanity that passes for leadership at the end of empire, but it triggered something in me. I’m angry.

I whisk (vigorously) the warm milk into a froth. I pour some coffee into a cup cast by the Pilliga Pottery people. They made these rough but beautiful cups for the protesters who fought to save the Pilliga forest from inappropriate mining. I add the milk.

Something has to give. There is a planetary problem. It is the job of the lucky ones to take responsibility in the garden and bloody fix it. They have the power. But will they?

I sip the coffee. Locally grown. Ahh…

‘Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost,’ sings Leonard Cohen.

I was lucky. I walked the rainforest; I sailed the reef; I drank from the river. I wonder, will my grandchildren be able to do that?

No.

The weeds have strangled the garden.