This week, a gift for all bored activists, motivated hedonists & believers in a better Australia : a new royalty, tax and copyright free campaign for you to run wild with. Consider it your own to bend as you please : a campaign for an Australian siesta.
Advancing Australia
I had a dream…. around midday yesterday. This wouldn’t have happened without deciding to enjoy a freelancer’s siesta, a little noon-day nap away from the summer heat. And the dream was one of a giant hammock, large enough to fit 22 million people, generously shaded by coconut and mango trees. If you can measure the quality of a society by it’s leisure time, then surely we should have come further over the last 40,000 / 200 years? Who do you want to be today Australia? If they took away your leisure time, let’s be stealing it back.
Solar Century Behaviour
In case you missed it, the end of the 20th century brought with it some of the hottest years in recorded history. More than half of the world’s Nobel prize winning scientists agreed that this was the result of global warming, a condition we will continue to face for many decades to come. Part of a solution to this involves shifting from fossil fuels to solar power, and another is getting out of the bloody midday sun – and winding down the industrial machine from 11am until 2pm every day in summer. It’s bad enough that we continue to design Australian houses more suited to the English climate, but tis even dafter that we organise ourselves in the cities around patterns of work and play that don’t accomodate our local living conditions. Bring on the siesta and watch our cities spring to life – becoming living areas rather than transit zones between the factory and the accountant.
Do It for The Economy
Think of all the Aussie pillow manufacturers who would benefit from a siesta. All of the grinning cafe and restaurant owners. The hammock knitters, massage therapists, swimming pool operators, roller skate hirers and motel managers. Tuesday’s work still happens on Tuesday – it’ll just be with a bigger gap in the middle where we can enjoy ourselves. Not that you have to work later if you don’t want to – in a society where we are continuously training machines to do our work, we are always going to have large unemployed numbers. And so people who want to work less hours should become national heros, selfless citizens creating employment for others. Stay out of the midday sun, work less hours, create more jobs.
Bring On The Hammocks
It won’t happen overnight, but it may happen. Write letters to senators, appeal to your bosses, your unions – but more importantly, take matters into your own hands. See if you can cut back on your work hours around lunchtime. Get yourself a medical certificate that says you can’t work when it’s over 34 degrees. Bring a pillow to work. Fall asleep on the job. Organise public sleeping parties in prominent locations. The options are endless, so get creative. Together we can end this midday slavery.