How many times have you heard, ‘I wish it was a long weekend EVERY weekend…’ after a public holiday?? Australia has one of the highest rates of unpaid overtime in the western world. In a globally competitive, free-market (rat) race to make a living, are we forgetting to make a life for ourselves? Could a four day week be the ticket to improve our relationships, our mental health and our ability to find meaning and purpose in our lives? How would our economy react if we all collectively agreed to work less?

If someone steals something they are arrested but if someone sends in troupes under dubious pretence killing thousands of civilians, ruining the lives of their own combatants why is it that they just float off to a life of ease? Shouldn’t high office hold high accountability. There must be factors that give them immunity. What are they?

Because I think that our society promotes the myth of happiness and that more will do it.

It matters to me because I am 70 years old and have spent my entire life struggling to make Australia and the world a better place for women. We have made some gains but it still seems a long way to go.

Because I am a woman. All women suffer because of gender inequality. Both men and women would gain if gender equality was a reality.

I teach, research and write in this area. Children’s illustrations are often people’s first encounter with art.

Answers are almost always too safe.

I grew up in cities, but have lived in the provinces for over 20 years, and find it to be a refreshingly connected place to live. I rail against the snobbery of city folk towards ‘country folk’. We have just as many great ideas and cultural practises as cities do.

To quote the late great Christopher Hitchens in introducing his autobiography, Hitch-22, “The most intense wars are civil wars, just as the most vivid and rending personal conflicts are internal ones, and what I hope to do now is give some idea of what it is like to fight on two fronts at once, to try and keep opposing ideas alive in the same mind, even occasionally to show two faces at the same time.” From the personal to the political, and the intersection of the two, why do we find it so difficult to keep opposing ideas alive in the same mind?

This is a question I think everyone should be asking. Your answer to it determines the way you behave in every day life. Optimism breeds a belief that it’s worth getting out there to act on making the world a better place. Pessimism makes us apathetic, and causes us to retreat into dark corners