Exercise 1
Walk to the mouth of Sullivan’s Creek in autumn.
Look at the shoreline of Lake Burley Griffin—observe the algae, the shit, the rodents. Look across the lake, taking note of:
- The spectrum of ochre, citrine, and amber formed by a cascade of deciduous leaves.
- The finesse with which black swans cut through West Lake.
- Occasional groups of talkative kayakers.
Return your gaze to the shoreline. Walk back to your room and think about how much you hate it here.
Many of us act as if we were transported to Canberra suddenly and violently, against our wills.
The claim that Canberra is decidedly boring is made frequently, as if in an attempt to reveal the brutality with which we were moved here.
This is the very brutality that drove us to apply to study at ANU, and, as a corollary, accept life in Canberra as a possibility.
The trouble with authoritative commentary is that it must be informed by more than immediate impressions.
Without more than such impressions, those who claim to be endowed with authority amount to nothing but charlatans.
After all, what have you done to support your claims?
How exciting was your life before the invisible hand dropped you here, anyway?
How many of you have found total satisfaction in your comfortably insular Vaucluse routines, or lay claim to Melbourne’s cultural superiority despite living a winter’s day away from the NGV?
How can social monotony be liberating, while the structure of a planned city is stifling?
This is not to suggest that one should not have an opinion about one’s city.
Rather, it is an appeal for a more careful treatment of epistemically modal phrases.
If Canberra is so objectively boring, one’s argument must surely depend on something more compelling than ‘I think’.
Exercise 2
Buy the Routledge edition of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus from Harry Hartog. Skip to the end, and read the shortest proposition:
What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence (Wittgenstein, 2001, p. 89).
Interpret this literally, as divorced from the preceding six propositions (tonight’s date won’t care about logical atomism, anyway). Consider this interpretation; consider acting on it.
References
Wittgenstein, L. (2001). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (D. F. Pears & B. F. McGuinness, Trans.). Routledge.
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