The young and the restless.

This session was particularly notable for me, because I accidentally made a rude gesture at Michael Williams. But I only did it because he pointed at my computer and hissed ‘Lies! All lies!’ He’s not all sweetness and light, you know.

I had originally circled in my program (what I call ‘job-seeking’ behaviour) the Adventure Story session featuring Rupert Isaacson, whose book about his son’s affinity with horses and shamanic healers sounds so extraordinary, but it was sold out. Note to self: check the program to see what’s sold out next time! Since my friends always say that I look like a television comedy shaman, though, I thought I could live with missing out. What to do? Since I had just run back, puffing, from the SYN studios, the logical choice was Our Restless Life with Brigid Delaney and John Carroll.

Kalinda Ashton introduced the session as being about new technologies and their capacities to connect and disconnect us. What defines life in the modern era? Does the instant allure of online mediums distract us or serve us? Do we have too much choice or too few choices underneath it all?

A concise, thoughtful sociologist, John Carroll presented some interesting statistics as a response to the question: is our world

John Carroll

getting more restless, and what does that mean? Carroll had a surprising answer: ‘Things usually change much less than you think.’ He wasn’t so sure in regards to a question everyone is surely interested in this ever-connected age: ‘Is the barrage of new technology and web-related activities really changing who we are? I think this is an open question.’ If we are really restless, Carroll suggested, society might be expected to be unstable. Yet contemporary Australian society is arguably at its most stable to date. Our political situation is stable; the family may seem less stable, but is par for the course. But ‘restlessness’ can be discerned in our shift to a world where individuals have to make their own meaning in terms of what they do and who they are, as we don’t rely on religion and traditional community activities as much anymore.

To further elaborate this new way of life, Carroll borrowed a concept from the ancient Greeks, who were fans of the idea of life’s ‘beautiful rhythms’, or eurythmy. This concept proposed that if we manage to do something with some level or perfection, excellence or attention to detail, we rise above our ordinary, mundane selves. In modern Western societies, Carroll thought, we are returning to this life-view.

Brigid Delaney, a journalist who has worked in literally hundreds of jobs, and been published, inter alia, in The Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald and Griffith Review, is now working on a novel, This Restless Life. Apt! Her book focuses on restlessness in love, work and travel.

In love, there has been a proliferation of ways to become restless. Speed dating, which involves marketing yourself, minimal effort and waste of time; and internet dating, the ‘evil cousin’ of speed dating, encourage a restlessness in seeking romantic partners, ‘almost like you would flick through a catalogue’. Delaney thinks that ‘this kind of restlessness has and will continue to have profound consequences for how we view love and treat other people.’

With regard to the work arena, Delaney related her concerns about the increasing casualisation and fracturing of employment. ‘I miss KFC [her first job] because it provided me with a narrative I haven’t really found in any other jobs,’ she said, describing the trusty promotional trail from trainee to management as a vital developmental track. Delaney considers that character is formed through jobs and feeling pride in moving through the workplace: ‘There’s not really a sense of developing character and further skills in [fragmented] work.’

Very pertinent to Australians, some of the best-travelled nationals in the world, is the area of travel: Having spoken to a lot of people who were travelling a lot for work opportunities, Delaney suggested that these individuals couldn’t settle because they felt like they were missing out on choices if they did. ‘It’s hard to turn your back on choice, because…there’s the potential for regret.’ But the corollary of this is that these itinerant workers don’t feel like they belong anywhere.

This session made me think of an article I read recently about the seeking circuits in our brain that urge us on to more and more reward-seeking behaviour, even if it doesn’t make us happy. Lots of questions in this session, revealing lots of audience interest in a topic that is slowly and surely shaping our lives.

Estelle Tang, 3000 BOOKS
Festival Blogger