Nobal Glomad

A middle finger here, f#@$% idiot there, let me in the lift before you get out annoying pregnant lady, I don’t care if you were waiting for the bloody car space clearly I’m in the biggest hurry, no… I was first in-line arse-face, you’re not old enough for me to offer you my seat on the bus saggy hag, just wait dumbo pedestrian this crossing shouldn’t be here, get your own God-dam bags outta the taxi tourist…

Good old-fashioned manners have clearly left the building.

Today I witnessed a disgusting act of public dis-courtesy. This older chap with elephant sized umbrella stood waiting for 2 ladies busied at a parking meter to shift for his self-important right of passage. Clearly they didn’t hear his mumbled “Exsqueeze me”. He proceeded to shove passed smacking his brolly in their faces. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I shouted as he mumbled something about them refusing to make way. I followed him home and posted a fresh dog dump in his letterbox.

My mother talks of June Dally Watkins. My father the school cane. From a young age there’s a certain dose of administered discipline that can help kick precociousness back in line. A quick whack of the wooden spoon, the slap of a hand on the butt or the ker-snap of a belt taught me quickly not to overly smart-arse my way through pre-pubescent parental interaction. It’s simple. Respect certain hierarchy and thou shalt be rewarded with sleepovers and Santa presents. Go the other way and it’s grounding and empty the kitty litter (my lifetime punishment).

I watch double-figured teens in supermarkets with their parents playing a cyclical game of back-chat. At best there’s a 30% awareness of what’s being communicated by both parties. It’s way too hard. Too much time is spent on dissolution rather than reaching resolution. What if they listened to each other instead of scrambling like vultures for the speaking stick?

Singapore. In 1979 their government launched a national campaign that encouraged how do you do’s, public acts of courtesy and more frequent pleases & thank you’s. This has been updated with a focus on kindness rather than ‘may I leave the tables’ after dinner, but the directive has succeeded since Singapore’s independance. Let me set the record straight… I’d rather pull nails slowly with blunt pliers than live in sweat-fest mall-ified bland.com Singapore, but Sydney could do with a slice of their powers that be interest in community consideration.

With a centralized population of nearly 13 million Tokyo dishes up the extreme version of ‘polite’. For a city of so many shuffling from A to B the last thing you feel when amongst the mayhem is the need to panic. It’s a city of considered precision. Walking from Shibuya station a few years back I felt the shadow of the stalk. After sometime I turned to face the assailant, pocketknife fold-out spoon ready for the plunge. My scarf. This dude had been trailing me for 10 minutes. He was too polite to interrupt my conversation with my travel buddy. Do the same thing in Sydney and a few hours later you’ll find it eBay’d .

WakeUp Sydney is a shiny first step in the right direction. Started by John Fisher, a caught-up-in-the-rat-race convertee, his aim is to help city-slickers discover kindness within and in turn encourage positive social change. A little too hippy? Far from it. You don’t need to Buddify your existence to know being decent and accepting of your neighbour isn’t normally the first option. Perhaps the thrash of next door’s music is killing you. Instead of ‘You love Zepplen eh? Me too. I’ve got to get to bed, could you shift it down a notch?’, the approach is more likely to be ‘Hey fuck-face, turn the fuckin’ shit down motherfukka’. Would you speak to anyone in your family, workplace or friends like that?

WakeUp released the Kindness Cards scheme. When you feel the desire for a random act of kindness. Just do it, and leave a kindness card behind. Simple. Beautiful. Go on check out their website now and invite me along for their next event.

Google ‘Sydney + Considerate’. There’s an endless list of personals and flat-share ads. It appears that in our personal shared moments of living and loving we’re all about kindness and awareness. Step out of this zone or throw a kink in the works it’s too easy to fly off the wheel. Next time consider holding that thought. Do you really need to abuse, criticize or control all the time? Let something go… Forgive.

Enjoy. Live. Love.