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I Don't Mind the Walls
Jun. 2nd, 2026 08:32 pmI am genuinely touched by the outpouring of sympathy and kindness, publically and privately, received following my post on Kayo's passing and my desire to give respect and honour in her memory. I want to emphasise that I'm doing quite fine, despite the initial shock, and not because I have put up walls around this. To further the metaphor, we often used to talk about "the wall of awful" that people with ADHD experience, as skillfully explained by Jessica McCabe), which could be relevant in this context. Rather, there are two old lessons from the ancient Hellenes that particularly relevant; (i) the blunt opening in "The Enchiridion" by Epictetus ("There are things which are within our power, and there are things which are beyond our power"), and the (ii) a primary life-interest in the Socratic triad of Truth, Justice, and Beauty, not just as ideals, but as a pragmatic interest in how to understand and improve the world. Combined (as Borges wrote in "La escritura del dios"), these two approaches prevent much of the despair caused by calamities or the temptations of hedonistic indulgence, as they give us a glimpse of the workings of the universe.
On the topic of more pragmatic walls, the 2026 Commonwealth Budget has included several significant housing reforms. This is an issue that I have written about many times before, including the Capital Gains Discount and Negative Gearing. When a magazine like "The Economist" calls Australia's policies "crazy", you know there's a problem. House prices have become increasingly unaffordable, especially for young people, and we've subsidised accumulation rather than producing new housing. The budget has reformed both problems; negative gearing now only applies to new buildings, and the capital gains discount is being replaced by cost-based indexation. The effect will be that housing price growth will be closer to the inflation rate, there will be an improvement in new supply, and investors will have to put their money into something actually productive. Naturally enough, the conservative media is fuming because that's what their paymasters have told them to say. But the reality is that this is the most important and necessary change to housing policy in over twenty-five years. To be blunt, it means that young people will have a chance to own a home.
Finally, I wish to talk of fictional walls, or rather the Marlen Haushofer novel "The Wall" (1960). The book was relatively unknown until it was popularised by the German feminist, nuclear disarmament, and environmental movements in the 1980s and wasn't published in English until 1990. It tells the story of a middle-aged woman on holiday in the Austrian countryside who suddenly discovers she is cut off from the outside world by an invisible wall, where all life has ceased. She lives with a stray cat, her dog, and a cow, and with these companions she writes a report of her experience as she tries to recall how to live a subsistence existence. An extraordinary piece of premise fiction, it explores how the protagonist deals with what could be devastating loneliness and fear (and these themes are present) with practical attention to life's details and empathy toward her non-human companions. I have nothing but great thanks to a quasi-anonymous hikikomori Reddit friend who recommended it to me in passing. Even the plot background made me think about the potential to explore the themes in a contemporary urban setting. How would you respond to discovering the rest of the world had ceased to exist, trapped in an area of a few hundred metres with no other living people?
On the topic of more pragmatic walls, the 2026 Commonwealth Budget has included several significant housing reforms. This is an issue that I have written about many times before, including the Capital Gains Discount and Negative Gearing. When a magazine like "The Economist" calls Australia's policies "crazy", you know there's a problem. House prices have become increasingly unaffordable, especially for young people, and we've subsidised accumulation rather than producing new housing. The budget has reformed both problems; negative gearing now only applies to new buildings, and the capital gains discount is being replaced by cost-based indexation. The effect will be that housing price growth will be closer to the inflation rate, there will be an improvement in new supply, and investors will have to put their money into something actually productive. Naturally enough, the conservative media is fuming because that's what their paymasters have told them to say. But the reality is that this is the most important and necessary change to housing policy in over twenty-five years. To be blunt, it means that young people will have a chance to own a home.
Finally, I wish to talk of fictional walls, or rather the Marlen Haushofer novel "The Wall" (1960). The book was relatively unknown until it was popularised by the German feminist, nuclear disarmament, and environmental movements in the 1980s and wasn't published in English until 1990. It tells the story of a middle-aged woman on holiday in the Austrian countryside who suddenly discovers she is cut off from the outside world by an invisible wall, where all life has ceased. She lives with a stray cat, her dog, and a cow, and with these companions she writes a report of her experience as she tries to recall how to live a subsistence existence. An extraordinary piece of premise fiction, it explores how the protagonist deals with what could be devastating loneliness and fear (and these themes are present) with practical attention to life's details and empathy toward her non-human companions. I have nothing but great thanks to a quasi-anonymous hikikomori Reddit friend who recommended it to me in passing. Even the plot background made me think about the potential to explore the themes in a contemporary urban setting. How would you respond to discovering the rest of the world had ceased to exist, trapped in an area of a few hundred metres with no other living people?
