Oldies are everywhere in the St Ives shopping centre, hundreds of them, walking with sticks, limping, my own image, in not so distant future. Being with them feels like a nightmare in which I am moved to a retirement home against my will.
But this is not what I would like to be in my sixties and seventies, surrounded by replicas of my approaching sorry state, not yet. I want to be mixed with cosmopolitan demographics, younger people, marginal people, eccentric bunch, artists, minus drugs, crime and filth of course. Perhaps too much to ask, yet I dare. I want to see or be with interesting people.
Meanwhile I cannot avoid noticing those quintessentially Australian images of terrible weekend outfits in the shopping mall too; men wearing grey track suits with worn out knee sags, extra bright snickers no one is supposed to be buying, complete with an NRL club uniform.
There are also equally gruesome looking middle aged women, wearing worn out babette shoes, about to erupt a toe hole any minute, tops from mother's wardrobe, complete with a pair of outdated blue jeans from bygone era. Add whimpering kids all around them, and sad looks of teenager shop servants locked up in this hell for quick bucks over the weekend, voila, this is your tour de shopping centre, Sydney style.
Obviously as far as these people are concerned shopping centres are extensions of their living room in which they constantly binge watch The Bachelor or Master Chef or both while they move their pinky toes in ecstasy as they eat snacks, check out Facebook during commercials, in more or less the same outfits, with no imagination, motivation or background whatsoever, to think or act differently, alien to concepts of being original and devoid of presenting themselves authentically to the outside world. An anti-sensual, anti-sexy, anti-original and excruciatingly boring bunch.
The problem is, these people, with their petty goodness and overused politeness decorated with plenty of thanks and sorries, with their epidemic of hanging into their judeo-christian roots even if they may be non religious by now, are never interesting.
They talk about cricket, NRL, and kids' football. They whimper around interest rates, or rising petrol prices. They will walk away however, if you start talking about grander issues, the world out there, philosophy of life, or modern art, architecture or anything that is beyond the realm of suburban sphere.
The good news is middle class Aussies are not harmful. They are utterly boring, but they are not capable to harm.
Finally you are free to move to elsewhere if you want some action, so it is your choice really.
