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Introduction
'His name richochets down the canyons of [thirty years] - richochets, because the trajectory
of his zigzagging life, never direct, dodged this way and that, ever elusive and often devious'*
Sounds like my life.
University
With an honours degree in zoology, after four years of desultory study and keen living, I went
to Cananda to do a PhD. It didn't work out academically but was a pivotal three and a half
years, including travel through South America to South Africa (girlfriend). The ANU paid my
fare back via London and also promised me a second class rail fare to Melbourne, for some reason,
when I completed my PhD. They reneged on the rail fare.
I didn't know it but I'd abandoned zoology, when I took a job at the Centre for Continuing
Education (CCE) at the ANU in 1979. There I met Fred Emery, one of the world's great social
theorists, became hooked by his ideas and continued a productive association with him on and
off until he died in April this year.
After a year at CCE, I went to Northern Ireland on a prestigious Fellowship for which I had no
expertise at all, but had a splendid year following up on some of Fred's stuff and becoming
involved in community action. It took me six months to get home via Norway and India —
the first of several trips to India (no ashrams).
Work
Back in Australia, I spent the first half of the 1980s running Search Conferences and vaguely
trying to make a living as a consultant in organisational change. Broke, I joined the Industry
Department at an interesting time and worked there full and part-time for four years. At the
same time, I accidentally started a strategic market research company, Q–Research, which,
after eight generally satisfying years, I bequeathed to my business partner and left in 1995
with my other partner, Denise, for a year's travel in Thailand, Burma, Pakistan and India. For
the past 18 months I've been giving advice on the R&D tax concession (Industry Department
experience) to large companies. A very lucrative and relatively easy form of consulting, which
has built my resource base back up again. I am currently severing the apron strings from this
work and wondering what to do next.
Literature
Yes, I've written an unpublished novel. I taught myself to write fiction over six years on the
same novel, rather than writing several, so you can imagine what the final product was like. I
may yet write a novel but I've turned more to non-fiction lately and have a couple of projects
on the boil. I've also been floating a treatment of a travel book on the Karakorum Highway
around Australia and the UK this year, without success. It's a tough time to get published.
Love and aspiration
Didn't marry but have had several excellent relationships along the way. Feel that I've been
learning for the last thirty years and it's time to get off my backside and do something useful.
I've also been getting slightly radical recently and am interested in ways of introducing
participation and even participative democracy into society.
Conclusion
It doesn't seem like thirty years. I've noticed some envy of baby boomers lately - we'll be a
real handful as the grey power generation. Indeed, I'm looking forward to the next thirty years
years with anticipation...
* William Manchester, A world lit only by fire 1992
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