Shall Owe Words

I tried all day on friday to write a blog. I tried all day to do study. I tried all day to do something fulfilling or somehow useful. And I believe I managed to fail quite miserably. The one thing I managed was a catchy title (see above), but since the poignant moment of listening to M.I.A.’s Kala on ANZAC day has passed, that is also irrelevant. Therefore, the day seems entirely pointless, if rated by the usual ’substance of product completed’, ”concrete evidence of… something evident’ and ‘personal satisfaction with day’. You could almost say it was an empty day.

And, frankly, I would agree with you if you said that. I was about to attempt to iterate some statement of how I did things, how the day was truly fulfilling through that lack of ‘achievement’, etc, but frankly it was quite an average day. The highlight of the day was probably the point in time, just prior to 12.21am, when I and a friend jumped the fences from another friends’ house to mine (two fences in total). This was quite satisfying.

However, the amount of satisfaction that I gained from ‘jumping the fences back home’ was, to be blunt, fuck all, when I compare it to the amount of satisfaction that I feel when, in years past, I have stood on the side of the road, watched the old diggers drive past and honoured their contributions to this country. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am far from being a patriot… anyone who knows me at all, and possibly even anyone who has read this blog would know that. I disagree with war and violence in all its contexts. I quite blatantly disagree with the concept of the armed forces, although I acknowledge the need for their existence. Etc. Etc.

You see, I could keep bitching about the things I dislike about this country for hours and hours, just as I did back in high school, and in the last paragraph. However. The importance of acknowledging the service and sacrifice of the men and women who have died for the country that I am (often unwillingly) part of is something that, for me, far surpasses any of these notions. I don’t exactly know why. But I don’t care. For once, I don’t actually care why I feel the need to remember these people. I just think it matters.

So, next year, on ANZAC day, I’ll try to get to the parade. Instead of waking up with a hangover, wasting a day and then wasting the next one, I’m going to pay my respects. Not to war, not to violence, and not to the patriarchal society that I am a part of, but to the old buggers who we’re slowly forgetting about.