Good evening. It’s a Tuesday night in Sydney. Tonight I wanted to talk about what was really important and have a bit of a confession. I would say in my lifetime, I had gone through phases of being incredibly materialistic and very, very worried about keeping up with the Jones’s. A little bit like my mother I guess, we used to think she was a reincarnation of Mrs. Bouquet or Mrs Bucket as she was on the TV show.
I think I’ve been like that definitely in parts of my life, where I thought the clothes I had, the jewelry I had, where I was going, who I was seeing, were the most important things going on. Over the last 24 hours, 48 hours, if you are in Sydney or Australia, even anywhere in the world at the moment, you’ve probably heard about the fire warnings that are going on in Australia, New South Wales and Queensland in particular, the area where Olivia and I live, we’re blessed.
We have an amazing National Park at the end of our street. Across the road from our house is a Oval and then there’s a National Park. We’re lucky, we’re so lucky. End of our street, National Park, you go through a bush walk and there’s Sydney Harbor, like divine. That also has risks because there’s Sydney, New South Wales is made up of these corridors of incredible bush land and what happens is fires get into them and then they just spread like wildfire.
I’m not going to get into the political stuff and the climate change stuff that’s going with all the conversations at the moment. We all know our government system and the appalling job of managing our environment and climate change and what’s been going on with the fires, just appalling, but I’m not going to get on the soap box about that now.
What happened yesterday is, I kind of didn’t really… I was like, “Eh, whatever, it’s not that close to us.” Then we got notified that Eliddy’s school would be closed today because they’re inside the National Park, amazing location. They do bush walking for sport. Then we got sent emails and notifications that our Evacuation Centers were here, there and in these places. I was about to show you on an app but I’m using my phones so I can’t, all told to download the Fires Near Me App and keep an eye on things and get notifications about what you’d pack.
It was very smokey here last night and Sydney had this warning of catastrophic fire conditions for today and catastrophic is like, the worst that they can possibly think. Now, literally saying like, if the winds change and pockets go up, you cactus, we can’t help. There’s just so many fires, so many incredible people doing the best they can to put them out. Then you read things like nine-year-olds lighting fires. Don’t get me started. Anyway, so Olivia and I discussed what was important, what would we pack?
I’ve got a folder, I should have got it out to show you, that has our passports, birth certificates, the kind of important stuff in that I can just grab. Then we’re like, “Oh, the cat and the dog” and she was Teddy and then was like, “Well, what else is important?” I kind of went, “Photos.” And it’s like, “Well, a lot of them are electronic and any of them that are prior to that, well, the memories in my brain anyway,”
If it’s a case of getting out, it’s a photo who cares, jewelry, whatever. Yeah, it would be nice to have mom’s wedding ring, but again, that’s jewelry. Then I of course said, “I would get mum and dad’s ashes because they really important to me.” The irony of that was, “Well, what’s the worst that could happen to ashes?” Yeah, ludicrous, but I’d need to pack medication, and charges, all that kind of stuff that you need to kind of keep going.
Why I want to talk about this, it was really interesting for me realizing, “I’d take my laptop because my life’s on there.” It was really interesting for me realizing that, all this stuff’s not important and I don’t think it’s important anymore, and I don’t know when I stopped thinking it was all important. I still love beautiful things and I love my house and I love my jewelry and my shoes and my clothes and all that stuff.
Don’t get me wrong. I ain’t gone minimalist anytime soon. You can come and [inaudible 00:04:48] my house, but no, I still like my things, so that’s not going to change. But, I no longer had that importance, like hanging on them and I think that’s really fascinating because I don’t know when it changed.
So I encourage you. Hopefully the worst is out of the way for many people tonight, there are areas in Australia which is just decimated and it’s so heartbreaking. I’m not going to say thoughts and prayers because thoughts and prayers do Jack shit in these kinds of situations, you need water and you need help. I can’t send that, but I wish I could, but I am sending you love and I hope it doesn’t get any worse tonight.
It’s very hazy and smoky around here and it’s not a great situation. Yes, bush fires happen in Australia. They don’t need to be this bad people, they really don’t, and doing something about that is in our power. But I’m not go on my environmental rant tonight. All I want you to do is actually just sit down and think. Even if it wasn’t the situation of a fire and you had to get out, if it was a situation of a flood or a situation of, I don’t know, some Will Smith movie and a meteorite is going to come and land on your house, Armageddon, whatever.
What is important, really I’d get you to question those things because it sure as shit has changed for me. Yeah, amazing.
So I’m sending best of luck and love to everybody tonight in Australia, I hope the fires get contained, at last count, I think it was about 90 of them. Our nearest ones are about five kilometers away, but I think we’re fine unless something crazy happens.
So have a good night, stay safe and spend time with the people you love and the things and the animals that you care about and not on the crap.
Night, night.