activism

 so here are two tales of activism.

earlier in the week, I went to a protest. They met at Carlton Gardens in the afternoon to protest climate change. I have been busy dong other stuff but the day seemed free so I thought I would participate. A few observations - 

1. There should be some award for having more police present than protesters. On foot, in cars, in vans and on horses.

2. Once they started marching, I wished they walked a little slower. Savor the protest; I couldn't keep up with the throng. Maybe the protesting game is a younger person's game or maybe I'm just not protest fit. Part of me thought the copious amount of police surrounding us as we were marching were setting the pace

3. When they reached the main destination, a bunch of them locked themselves together or locked themselves to power poles or bike stands. Maybe it's just me but I didn't get it. It came across sort of petulant and childish.

anyway, I participated.

the next story involves a woman at the tram stop at Moreland Road, on the corner of Sydney Road. This woman comes up and asks if the tram is coming soon. I was drinking a coke and she goes into a lengthy diatribe about the carcinogenic properties of diet coke, which I wasn't drinking but she seemed to be leveling some kind of barb at me. Then she asked me if I had learnt anything new today. My response was just now I had learnt the value of peace and solitude - or lack of for that matter. Not getting the hint at all she starts singing some protest song in relation to some incident at Melbourne University from who knows when. Now get this - I leave and she starts following me and continues singing along Moreland Road. Because she is probably getting a tram she gives up not too far from the tram stop.

as I was walking away, I thought, is this the future when activists get old and remain active to embracing whatever cause on hand? 2 possible scenarios came to mind as I was walking away.

1. The first immediate thing that came to mind was to bark at her to fuck off.

2. Then I thought could there be some merit in just calmly stating to her that I am going to ignore you - because it saves time.

it turns out that actually performing and not stating the actions of scenario number 2 worked out fine.