Day 17 - 7th Jan
TINNY .
A cul-de-sac halfway up a hill
Rain slicks to roads not poles
Overcast days a novelty now
Over vast skies
They can't seem to close them in
Dale Alcock and Ronald McDonald
They still lie before the Australian sky
Squat and prostate.
Small in their business.
The Australian sky is not European
The Australian sky
is not ATSI
there's only so high you can throw a lanyard in the sky.
An awkward thing
With the little metal ring
And the laminate
And the rent-a-rainbow
Maybe with a badge halfway up
Like a leprechaun who lost the run of himself
Got ideas above his station
No
A rainbow is what we see
At our end
Rain on a tin roof
(The real thing)
To be underneath it.
Not a fever dream participation
on some app
With inexplicable thunder
No
the real thing
And to be underneath it.
Is to at least accept
The papers for the divorce from the sky
Have come through
Dripping slow.
Then it lets up
And you look up
And you say to the sky
“Let me talk to you”
Don't contact my lawyer Ronald
I won't go through Dale
And as the soul is let alone
The membrane gives way
No dirty thoughts or chicken bones
No thirst traps or brats or slats or slits or slots
No shots
fired into an empty sky
Nothing happens or is solved or is resolved.
I am.
And in my eye the sky.
Niall Campbell
——
This might have been Seth Godin’s take, but it doesn’t matter—it’s part of the zeitgeist.
The boomers have always made things about themselves.
When they were young, it was about Vietnam. When they were parents, it was dad rock and Springsteen. In middle age, it was about economic security, good times, and the Clinton-Blair era. Now, as they age, the focus shifts to wellness, mortality, and existential questions.
They’re not the hosts of your favourite podcasts, but their influence is everywhere. Culture has always bent to their presence, and it will remain about them until enough of them are gone. They are the cultural deep state.
This isn’t to attack them, but to note their lack of a major generational test or collective ontological shock. No defining war, no global upheaval forced them to deeply question themselves. Their lives have been steady—jobs for life, stable marriages, and little exposure to the world’s chaos. Solipsism is inevitable.
Now, as they face their mortality, they start to confront life’s big questions, often through their kids and grandkids.
Boomers built modern Australia. Criticising them, though, is met with glazed looks or outright defensiveness. It’s not just that they don’t want to hear it—these conversations are generally outside their frame of conceptual reference.
Self-reflection wasn’t their job. They were tasked with building the material world.
And they built community well. Watch a boomer catch-up—they make millennials look like amateurs. A few texts and they’ve coordinated a coffee catch-up that feels like a small army gathering. It’s something younger generations could learn from.
But while they’re great at building the framework of community, they don’t often fill it with depth.
You can see this hollowness in the Australian suburbs. Look at the skyline—it rarely aspires beyond the ground. The steeples you occasionally see weren’t built by boomers. Their skyscrapers are functional but uninspired.
Our built environment reflects our inner lives.
As younger generations try to rebuild community, we need to aim higher and deeper.
The Australian sky demands more from us. It says, “Send good, beautiful things up to me.” The Australian sky is a magnificent thing. You only relapse that until you don't see it for a while. Chat to an Aussie who has recently returned from a stint in London or New York. They can't stop looking up.
We don’t need more golden arches or dull towers. We need better ideas, better conversations rising up from the big coffee tables and the towns in which they are located.
This might have to wait until the boomers are gone, but their wealth can still build something lasting.
We don’t need to abandon their legacy, but we do need to make it better.
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