My current host in Australia had an extra ticket for an internet marketing seminar and invited me to join him. I presumed it would be some sort of scam/pyramid scheme but as I’ve never been to one of these events it qualified as an anthropological experience. It did not disappoint!

Around 100 people gathered at the conference room of some local hotel, most of them were around 60+ years old, obviously not the most internet savvy.  The lecturer spent the first hour saying ‘I’ more times than I could count. He recounted his life story filled with small failures, allowing people to relate to him and large successes, flashing the immense amount of money he’s made, causing them to look up to him. If you, like me, are wondering why such a successful entrepreneur would spend his time in these small seminars? Well, if you choose to believe him, he only teaches 30 days a year because he wants to give back to the community.

His rhetoric’s was straight out of a parody on self-help lectures, or maybe evangelist ceremonies. Forcing the audience to complete his sentences, making them move for him and repeating over and over: “Yes or Yes?” leaving no room for disagreement while they all chanted after him “Yes”. His self-contradictions were just as funny saying things like: “My book has everything in it and we’ll go through most of it today and so much more than what is in the book.”

Perhaps trying to avoid potential lawsuits, he gave a disclaimer saying that there was no guarantee for success, it was up to us. He concluded this part with a long story I don’t really remember but the lesson was “If you want to make money you have to want it more than the air in your lungs!”

The next session was about convincing us that an internet based business is the best and easiest way to make money. In fact the best way to do it was to write an e-book on some niche topic and sell it (which is actually sort of what I’m trying to do with Young Hero Tales minus the selling part). There was actually some info here, mostly how to outsource and get others to do everything for you from writing content to building your web site to marketing. There was some general good advice about making your customers feel unique and how to market an idea. He also mentioned some useful web sites for researching traffic and outsourcing. In-between these recommendations he slipped in some of the websites he actually owns and offered people licenses for marketing his products. All they had to do was build a web site, which could be done using his tools and hosted by a company he is vested in. A ‘one stop shop’, in his words, a Pyramid scheme, in my opinion.

I asked him what he thought about the donation model as my generation does not pay for content. He turned the question to me “How do you do that?”
Based on success stories like Amanda Palmer I told him “By connecting to your customers, getting them to like you and creating good content. If they want you to keep on creating they will support you”. He liked the part about connecting to your customers but was obviously disgusted by asking for donations. He even hinted that I must have a self-esteem problem if I don’t want to charge people. “If you want to succeed you have to change your model or change the market you are targeting because this is not how the world works!” he said. To which I replied “Or change the world”, which actually left him at a loss of words for about a second and a half. I guess I don’t want to make money as much as I want the air in my lungs and the truth is I don’t want to live in that type of world, I seriously hope I’m not alone in this.

Finally, before lunch break, came the pressure to register to his mentoring program. He used the same methods he recommended to us moments earlier, trying to make us feel special just by coming to his lecture. He gave a special offer for just 15 minutes saying that his experience shows that ‘those that can make fast decisions’ are the ones that succeed. He even shoved in some fear tactics by saying “What is your plan if you don’t come to this program?” My bet is he paid the first guy that came up to register and maybe even the second. Unfortunately there were more than just two people waiting to register when I left.

 

 

 

 

Traveling up the east coast in Australia brought me to some close encounters with the species that is commonly known as a ‘hippy’ – read on…

 

Nimbin, a real (dirty) hippy town where marijuana flows like water and the clouds are green. Not that the stuff is legal but the inhabitants don’t mind and actually use it as a tourist attraction.

This is where hippies retire and grow old after traveling from one festival to the other. In fact, this town sort of started out as a festival. Back in 1973 it was a town like any other until some people organized a week long hippy festival. The festival was so successful that the hippies just stayed in town and sort of took over. They have a weekly newspaper dedicated to weed, numerous shops selling all the paraphernalia, and people offering Hydro on the street.

As always, the fact that everyone is into something, makes me do the exact opposite, so I didn’t even check the prices. I can pass on the recommendation that, just in case you plan a visit, don’t buy from the street venders, instead go into one of the shops and ask around.

I couldn’t smell weed on the streets but I could definitely see its effects, like red eyed zombie people slowly walking down the street almost getting run over. Besides that, there seems to be a strange connection to rainbow colors and second hand sales which dominate the tiny, one street, town. There are also organic food stores, cafes and some galleries, but if anyone’s interested in making some cash I’d recommend opening a munchies food place which is painfully missing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In comparison to Nimbin, Byron Bay, which is an hour’s drive away, is where the hippies that want to make money come to. The constant flow of tourist in this pretty surfer town is a capitalistic hippie’s dream comes true. Restaurants, bars, clothes stores and surfing gear, along with backpackers on every corner, all overly priced with mediocre quality. Even the parking costs $3 an hour! The Art Factory backpackers I’m staying in is a micro-cosmos of the town. It’s beautiful, well designed but there are no cups in the kitchen and you have to give a deposit if you want to use a pot!

Before we started on the walk we had two days to get used to camp life and all it entails. Setting up camp, gathering wood, building fires, cooking, cleaning, digging toilets (and using them). Browse through the pictures to get all the info.

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Despite the many jobs and hardship of life in the desert the group remained amazingly conflict free. This has a lot to do with the way it was managed through the circle! All the info and decisions are made around this circle which surrounds the central camp fire. The circle usually meets twice a day, after breakfast and before dinner. There were ‘leaders’ in the circle but their only position was to facilitate it. All people had equal say. Most times people’s suggestions were agreed by everyone and it was quite easy to find common ground but there was a very strong feeling of avoiding conflict to the point of hypocrisy which made me think how long this system could hold up before something boils to the surface.

As for the work, at the beginning of the week a roster sheet was passed out with all the tasks that needed to be done and people were asked to fill their names in. As I wanted to learn as much as possible I signed up for a different task each day. One of the tricks I noticed, was to make sure there are lots of helping hands for each task, that way even a seemingly hard task like cleaning the toilet only takes a few minutes, as every person has to do only one small part of it. It probably isn’t the most efficient way but it worked. In fact, one only had to work on average around three hours a day (including packing and unpacking your own tent) to make sure the camp runs smoothly. It did help to have some real workaholics that kept on going and going.
The extra time we had was used for playing music, dancing, creating art, getting to know each other and learning more about uranium mining, which the entire second day was dedicated to.

Senator member, Scott Ludlam, from the greens flew in with some media and other activists. We heard about higher cancer rates in rural communities near Uranium mining sites, about nuclear reactor accidents like Fukushima, radioactive waste disposal and about the economic inefficiency of Uranium mining and Nuclear Power. In contrast to their ‘hippy’ looks and attitude the organizers surprised me with a deep understanding about economy and have very concrete plans on how to prevent the Uranium mine from being built by using economic influences. They are sending out reports to prospective investors showing that the mine is likely to lose money as well as buying up shares in the company which allows them to influence it from within! Not all of the arguments convinced me (accidents are not a logical step to stop progress, should we stop driving because of car accidents?) But two facts made up my mind against the Nuclear Power industry, if Uranium consumption is kept up at its current rate it is going to be depleted in the next 50+ years. That fact, in combination with the millions of tons of Nuclear waste created, which will last for more than 10,000 years (some more than a million years) is enough to make me want to stop this industry and move to real sustainable energy.

Another interesting aspect of camp life was the children. Families came on this walk too and there were around 15 children aged 2-13 amongst us. The children were integrated as much as possible in all aspects of camp life and kids as young as 4 were helping around camp. They even had a circle of their own! I have worked with a lot of children and these were extraordinary, curious, friendly, knowledgeable and with so much experience for such a young age. I realized there is something more natural and perhaps even easier for the parents to raise children in this type of community environment. The parents were never far off yet a lot of the time the kids were playing or being taught by someone else in this big ‘family’. Perhaps this is what tribal life used to be like. There was only one thing I was disappointed about, seeing traditional gender roles set in at such an early age, as most the girls helped in the kitchen while the boys went to collect and chop wood.

Coming up next – Hunter Gatherer – What I learnt from the Aboriginal Rangers.

If New Zealand was the magical land where everything worked out Australia seems to be the opposite. Nothing works out and everything is complicated, not to say expensive. Getting a sim card to work, boarding a tram or even just meeting up with someone, has taken so much effort and sometimes even ended in complete failure.

 I always thought of myself as a city person but 3 months in NZ have been enough to change my mind. I can feel the stress in the Melbourne air, as well as the stick of cars. Even though it is very safe compared to other big cities I can’t stand seeing the few drunken homeless shouting on the street. Even sitting in the botanical gardens I can hear cars and machinery from a construction site. THERE ARE JUST TOO MANY PEOPLE!

Another thing I can’t stand is the over protectiveness of the state. Treating citizens like children. I could feel a little of this in NZ but here it’s worse. You get finned for just about everything; not wearing a helmet, a broken bicycle light, playing golf in the park. Obviously you’re not allowed to drink in public. It’s no secret that I’m really against smoking but I think the government here has taken it too far.

I guess the only good think is that this city is big enough to have some less main stream venues, so I managed to find a regulare contact improvisation jam.

I’d probably be long gone by now but I’m still waiting for my new bank account to work out… (long sad story…) Maybe I’ve just used up all my luck in NZ? And if that isn’t enough to resent the city there’s still some things that give me flash backs of Isael…