The previous essay attempted to show how a magical substance acts as a proxy for power in modern societies. This essay considers how that substance has transformed the world. About an hour south of Nambucca Heads, the Pacific shore curves eastward and then north to form a graceful sweep of

In the previous essay, I looked at how stories can serve power by walling in our minds. In this nineth essay in the series, I consider a human invention which provides the framework for those walls.   In the modern world we celebrate individuality and freedom, but the truth is our

In the eighth essay in this series, I consider how learned stories circumscribe our attitudes and behaviours, and I endeavour to show that even the prized myths of nationhood are curated in service to power. When Mark Fisher popularised Fredric Jameson’s aphorism that it’s easier to imagine the

In the preceding essays in this series, I looked at how conquest, capture, and trauma have shaped our modern predicament. In this essay I consider what we can learn from the people who preserve what existed before. The road to Yapa weaves through clumped grasses in red sand woodland to

In the sixth essay in this series, I begin an examination of the consequences for human health and happiness of a world reshaped by conquest and capture. “It’s a sick society.” You’ve probably heard it said. You may have said it yourself. It’s one way of expressing

In the fifth essay in this series, I consider how evolution helped make us victims of our own success. The trick to perpetuating injustice, as any skilled propagandist can tell you, is to make what is entirely arbitrary seem natural and inevitable. The politics of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and its

In the fourth essay in this series, I consider some ancient precedents of today's looming catastrophes. In the early 2000s a retiring senior executive from a prestigious German car company predicted our definition of luxury was about to change. Grandeur and excess would be superseded in the new

In the third essay in this series, I ask why a once proud and plucky country like Australia should be stupefied and immobilised in the path of era-defining challenges. Dr Stephen Porges, originator of Polyvagal Theory[1], noted that Covid-19 exposed how individual physiological states intersect with the health of

In the second essay in this series, I look at how seemingly harmless decisions turned Australia's honourable national ambitions into a game show of unearned gains and unanswered needs. On a panel show one night a small gathering of influential white people discussed an issue affecting Indigenous Australians.

In 2022 Australia appeared to change course. Daunting problems, egregious failures and wasted opportunities had been piling up. A change of government was predictable. But an erosion of major party dominance was something new. In this series of essays, I will argue this is a minor tremor in a global