I’m a recovering Catholic and apathetic atheist, classic Greens voter from a very conservative family. I’d like to know the answer so that we can all stop fighting.

Sick of seeing a difference in how I am treated.

I’m fascinated by moral integrity, greed and art. I also have mixed feelings about didacticism, especially in art. My question stems from a recent ethics forum centred on Art and Ethics where an esteemed ethicist provoked the audience with the statement that the only ethical art was one that instructed or commented on Climate Change (and/or social inequality).

I’m curious

I saw graffiti on a wall showing two characters arguing with each other. One said, ‘Question Everything!’ The other said, ‘Why?’
I was introduced to a body of work on cognitive style that highlights 40 years of research on the predictable differences in the way people think. People do not think alike yet can anyone suggest any management strategies in any organisation or in society that recognizes these differences and allows for different styles of thinkers to thrive? I have asked this question for ten years and found just one organisation that shaped approaches for different style of thinkers. The cost to organisations and societies for not recognizing these predicable differences is tremendous. You see it in our cliches. For some, seeing the glass as half full is positive. For others it is negative as you fail to see that the glass as twice the potential. As such, seeing the glass as half empty is positive as you twice the potential. Yet society thinks seeing the glass as half full is seen as positive; it can also be seen as accepting the mediocrity of the status quo.

This matters to me because our community, and individuals within it, tend to be labelled and stereo-typed based on aggregate statistics. I believe this matters as we can’t talk about empowering and engaging while disempowering and perpetuating stereo-types.

When I was young and read Macbeth In highschool I was obsessed with humanity’s ‘black and deep desires’, and since growing up I’ve realised they are closely woven with emotions that are positive. Examples of this are the idea that suffering is always an element of desire, that control and love are so linked, and pain brings greater joy. As I’ve become more articulate about the tumble of emotions that reside within me like a thunderstorm, I’ve discovered that destruction is a temptation of love. And I won’t to know why.
(PS I am a big fan of Cheryl Strayed and want her to tell me a life story that will explain this).

It always surprises me how few Australians have seen their country or met people from other parts of it. If we were compelled to make better connections with people from different backgrounds and situations, would we have a better understanding of Australian-ness?

It seemed the obvious question to ask and it doesn’t matter to me but I will be interested in any responses.

The state’s involvement in economics, our system of interventionism, breed further and further control over individual lives, liberty and freedom. It matters to me as I’m a producer constantly paying higher and higher taxes, and losing more and more of my freedoms. It should matter to anyone who values freedom and liberty.

I’ve already noticed I don’t carry change. So what of buskers – and panhandlers?