Against all expectation, in direct contrast to what one might expect: Sunday Read

Against all expectation, in direct contrast to what one might expect of me on paper, I spent most of my teenage life in a perpetual state of anger. There I was, enjoying what can only be described as a privileged white life, with primary concerns being surfing and girls, growing up in Australia at a time when it was called “the land of plenty” (https://goo.gl/gFnbEf) and I could feel myself wanting to rage at the world, blast out at everything in sight. In the long years since I have come to not only temper that sense of anger that has never quite gone away but also step back from it sufficiently to ask: “why”? The Wikipedia definition actually provides some clues (https://goo.gl/yxHjFI). It calls anger an emotional response to a “perceived provocation or threat” and the teenage me (and later the slightly more mature and controlled adult I became) has always felt that there was a larger system at work. One that I could neither directly see nor ever hope to affect and that system ran my life. Determined my future. Defined me. In the 70s the world was locked in a state of tense détente (https://goo.gl/8Ndp27) where the steps that were being taken to reduce the possibility of a nuclear holocaust were also drawing attention to it. There was the feeling that processes were grinding away in backroom deals, decisions taken away from the public scrutiny, the fate of the world was being shaped by men who somehow felt they were more than the rest (and they weren’t).