I think back to a conversation with someone who studied architecture and her referral to the new housing areas as suffering from brick-venereal disease. I am not sure I would choose to suffer a brick venereal disease but you have to have a certain income level to make those kinds of choices. Reading about the importance of providing as many people as possible with beauty outlined by Dennis Glover and again today reading from William Morris's 1894 (18th November) 'Makeshift' https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1894/make.htm. It is clearly an ongoing human endeavour to make our surroundings as easy on the senses as possible and good things follow. To be honest I love the water, growing up on the Clarence river (northern NSW), I always thought I would return to the beauty of a river or ocean. I wonder if that is wishful thinking now? I am enjoying my surroundings right now more than I had expected I would. I wonder if you can make anything beautiful if you put your mind to it. I am pretty sure you can so long as time and a little bit of cash can afford you this. I will go get a dose of overindulgent beauty from the National Art Gallery here shortly with the Versailles exhibition (another big tick for Canberran life). Now it seems those French people did not forego beauty and art but at whose expense? Did it provide improved conditions for more people than it didn't? I don't know. Just as Morris asks, What is the cure?
Lastly on the plane trip to New York last year I watched a documentary about an entrepreneur that had a gift to make money, he took home a pay packet not much more than that of his employees and the profits were dispersed out into the community. Now this just seems too good hearted and practical. He was using his skill which gave him power to employ other peoples skills which he couldn't do without, which in turn gave them power. Could it be as simple as this? Can't be otherwise wouldn't more people do it. Unless, that person with the gift of making money truely believes that they worked harder than the other people around them. That they worked harder than my friend who walked for weeks and weeks carrying a child to escape civil war and lived in a refugee camp for ten years to save her children's lives and only dreams that she will get to see her brother again in this lifetime. She feels tired now but she has not worked hard or has she? Should we be inspiring each other to use the gifts we are given or suffer through something in order to make loads of cash. We have to save it all for ourselves for that rainy day hey. Words of an artist are rich. I don't make money so it easy for me to say, but I have the luxury to do this. What do I provide then, and does that have any value? Take my words with a grain of salt or there is the possibility to be offended. I like to think that I might make something beautiful for someone else. What will this look like? I want it to be practical.