Charge your life, not your phone.

Before Castlemaine I was seeking waves, women and song; only song came with me to the hot and cold, relentless weather, of this old gold mining town two hours north of Melbourne.  Now it would be boy against the hard labour, sparse luxuries, mosquito filled water tank and a hungry open fire.   I bought a cheap stone cottage on the crest of a bare hill poking out of an iron bark forest. It had one bedroom and one living area with two open fire places and a slate floor; about the size of a shipping container.  Before this I was living in Adelaide trying badly to be some kind of photojournalist, pretty useless. I was a good photographer with no idea. Now life in the forest with a 44 gallon drum for all water needs, a couple of kerosene lamps for electricity and an open fire and a big black pot for cooing lentils and black pepper would great me, challenge me, every morning.

It is pointless to talk about how stupid, lost, pathetic and weird I was before I came. I prefer to think back and remember the first piece of wood I chopped and how I learnt to sharpen the blade and the liberation I felt as I moved from my mind to my muscles. Yes, if anyone could think themselves insane it was me. I felt joy in simple physical work, an Amish, with a packet of Drum Tobacco and a swathing beard up to my hair. This is why I am so sensitive about living in these days, where everyone has a screen as their friend, when I had redback spiders and tiger snakes.  Every soul down the screen drain needs to know there is no way back. Once we give ourselves over to 5G there is no more to give: it is all taken.

People like me born in the 50’s do not feel old fashioned, we feel fashioned, by organic food, nature, surf, Neil Young and Hiawatha. The next step after mine, is Artificial Intelligence , you know the kind I mean: where everyone becomes someone else’s program.  Willing benefactors of a life  permanently attached to a TESLA battery or mind implant.

Over the years in Castlemaine I learnt to build my own house, cook lentil stew, bake whole meal bread, grow vegetables; they are some of the practical things I will always be grateful learning. What I really learnt of infinite value; something I never could at school: I could make my world not buy it.   I could build a house with the power of my mind, traveling to my muscles, brick after sweaty brick, I knew everything in my universe was up to me. This saved me because my father wasn’t rich but he had enough money to gorge on curried crayfish and drive a Peugeot 504. I leant on his success way too often and became quite spoilt.  This spoiling went directly to my undisciplined mind, to a gypsy lifestyle and I would eventually crash, years later, onto this soil that makes a man or woman which was hard as rock and baked clay called Castlemaine.

I was not completely self-sufficient, none of us were, (there were hundreds just like me dotted through and hidden in the bush) but I remember $10 could last for weeks.

For years I trucked in chicken manure to make  a fertile garden, dug dams to hold the water for it and yes it took a long time to build a two seater toilet as well.

For a brainy nut like me it was a wonderful time and now I seek meditation to take me back to that peaceful state of mind but cannot get past 10. For everyone on the planet who freely chooses this path there isn’t any better. Using your hands in so many proficient ways to provide food and shelter (free of debt and interest) is joy itself. A pathway home to the garden of Eden where there are still apples and tiger snakes and beautiful women living with nature. Playing with the God’s and Devil’s that you can see and touch, smell and hear; that have always been here and always will.

So, don’t fear this simple life, it is your freedom from a world that is not your own, anymore.

Roditch 2021