noreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Thu, 15 Oct 2026 10:47:05 +1100Blogger http://www.blogger.com164125http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/en-ushttp://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2026/06/treme-and-me.htmlTremenoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Sat, 6 Jun 2026 10:55:21 +1000tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-5116967883781326311 In a world in which it seems normal to go through life thinking that all is forever lost and that it would be so easy to give up and move on to something better somewhere else - somewhere ostensibly safer and nurturing, to a certain moment in time and space in which the soul was nourished, the scars wiped clean, and the ruminations numbed permanently... Anywhere but here in this discarded, 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2026/05/soup-kitchen-ing.htmlDepressionMid-life crisisnoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Tue, 5 May 2026 13:11:18 +1000tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-3863247133061604349 I feel dumb.To qualify, I feel dumb these days.I also feel; left behind; overcome; trampled upon; overtaken; marginalized; destitute.I don't know if I should have fed all these feelings into a generative AI program to get back a whole post about exactly what I am feeling - disseminated to the masses in an easy-to-digest, grammatically impeccable, particularly anodyne, and 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2025/07/somewhere-over-horizon.htmlAgeingMid-life crisisnoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Sat, 5 Jul 2025 14:29:00 +1000tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-1225533207317169551Having been someone with a pretty loud internal monologue manifest over the course of my forty-six years of life, it has always been a source of interest to me to dispassionately observe the topics that make up the main theme of the monologue at various times - through periods of change and continuity, through personal crises and successes, through epoch-making instances, and to the extent that 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2025/04/liminality-or-death.htmlTodaynoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Wed, 23 Apr 2025 08:45:00 +1000tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-7612713243569502778I'm not sure if this is to be my last post on this blog or the first post in a new series... I'm not sure if the world will ever awaken from this dribs-and-drabs consciousness of our place in deep time or if we are condemned to fade away like every other apex species - a victim of our own sentient capriciousness and greed.... I'm not sure if the oceans will soon rise up in protest and 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-age-of-peak-gaslighting.htmlPalestinePost-Israelnoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Sat, 25 May 2024 15:57:00 +1000tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-7043002037160286720If there is a word that has discovered a contemporary relevance in the modern world far beyond its original raison d'être - as a gag used to psychologically manipulate a hapless spouse in a movie first made in 1938... a word that was also Merriam Webster's Word of the Year in 2022, gaslighting has so thoroughly transcended its common usage in quasi therapy-speak as to now actually and fully 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2023/11/ignatius-hirudayaraj.htmlMemoryPoemsnoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Thu, 23 Nov 2023 14:20:00 +1100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-1050852831806968842 My Father doesn't exist on the Internet.I google his name expecting to see some rare snippet of lost information about himAs if the ghost of his passed life will somehow emergeIn the memory of someone who was so inspired to enter it into:a post/ a comment/ a reflection/ a reference...For me to seeAnd to know thatHis life made a difference to someone somewhere,Other than me.My Father doesn't0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-voice-to-parliament-2023.htmlThe Voice to Parliamentnoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Sat, 28 Jan 2023 09:26:00 +1100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-8527269174521397784Far be it from me to ever claim that I am anything but mostly ignorant of the lived experience of the First Nations people of this land; of those who continue to experience one of the worst ongoing atrocities ever to be committed on Indigenous peoples anywhere in the world through time and space in the history of our civilization. But I do want to weigh in on the sad debate that is currently 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-queen-is-dead.htmlWhite Peoplenoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Sat, 24 Sep 2022 11:57:00 +1000tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-3160677739036399422The news over the last few weeks has been like a tediously long hallucinogenic trip that has overstayed its welcome. But what it has done for the world's understanding of how much we are still beholden to the idea of a supposedly divinely preordained 'chosen' bloodline to represent the standard of what being human entails is... revelatory, to say the least.The pomp and splendour and ceremony0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2022/08/a-return-to-conservatism.htmlA New World Ordernoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Tue, 30 Aug 2022 11:48:00 +1000tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-655020919187027959 As the world grapples with the full-blown threat of global recession, as China's gargantuan property market faces imminent collapse, when local worker shortages are being felt everywhere and in everything all at once, and the clear and present (and visible) danger of climate change resoundingly self-advocating in a northern hemisphere summer of dried up river beds and flooding clearing 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-last-roll-of-dice.html#auspol2022noreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Tue, 17 May 2022 16:43:00 +1000tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-6694841340196677235I sincerely wish I do see a time when I can finally look back, come the fat lady reaching the highest pitch in her song, and when the hills have long since been climbed over and now disappeared from view behind me, and when liminality is a concept in my life that has both served its purpose and has its ultimate relevance renewed, and revel in the knowledge that the Australian election of 2019 was0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2021/09/so-much-to-say-so-little-to-do.htmlCovid-19noreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:00:00 +1000tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-5149583950165969592The movie, 'Groundhog Day' (1993), which allows the Bill Murray character a chance to redeem his erstwhile obnoxious existence by reminding him of the preciousness of seemingly simple 'everyday life' in small-town America, has become the definitive trope of our times to describe our collective sense of futility at the endless re-visitation of the current cycle of lockdowns and restrictions 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2021/03/panic-in-needle-park.html2021noreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Mon, 29 Mar 2021 11:56:00 +1100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-7693164196970562365If you drive a really nice car down a dirt and gravel road, through a shabby-looking part of town you have never been in, at the dead of night, all alone with no GPS and very little gas left in the tank... you would be forgiven for that onset of hysteria beginning to take shape in the pit of your stomach, long distilled from childhood warnings of unseen chainsaw-weilding marauders and 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2019/12/white-boy-rick-2018-and-privilege-of.htmlNarrative Privilegenoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Fri, 6 Dec 2019 12:25:00 +1100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-4770081101391525117What we find ourselves believing of the world today depends on whose story we're listening to. Climate change matters... or it doesn't, Trump Derangement Syndrome or the Dumbest Fucking Criminal President That There Will Ever Be, Brexit or Bust and Colonialism Was A Good Thing... etc. etc. The debate about who gets to tells these stories is as old as time itself and there has been a tradition of 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-names-mud.htmlIdentitynoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Tue, 13 Aug 2019 14:01:00 +1000tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-4981371591332717145I like movies like, 'Mud' (2012), full of atmosphere and vernacular, rich in metaphor (the character's name, the white shirt, etc.) but also overflowing with human failing, and the loss of innocence, and the gulf between; expectation and reality; hope and faith. This is a momentous week for me... for us as a family. The end of a long, torturous journey certainly, but also the end of some 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2019/06/i-saw-john-pilgers-utopia-today.htmlPoemsnoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Tue, 18 Jun 2019 13:59:00 +1000tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-3102605472695123809I saw John Pilger's Utopia today. After I had argued with an Aboriginal girl about who was blacker - she or I. I saw heaven reflected in the face of a child. I thought about leaves and the setting sun and the full moon. I read about refugees committing suicide. And then I read about refugee-suicide (with the dissociative hyphen included prominently). I dreamt about knights and minarets and 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2019/05/do-russians-love-their-children-too.htmlAustralian Federal Elections 2019noreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Tue, 21 May 2019 10:40:00 +1000tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-2037345264272309164In the aftermath of a 'surprise' result in the Australian federal elections, and in the wake of long-form comparisons being made between it and the Trump/Brexit debacles in the rest of the Anglophone world, it may be relevant to examine the fault-lines between the 'local' interest and the 'common' interest, and whether one can still support the idea that people can be persuaded, emotionally or 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2019/05/auspol.htmlAustralian Federal Elections 2019noreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Mon, 6 May 2019 11:22:00 +1000tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-2816774420049289928I cannot vote in this election, though I most probably will in the next one. This puts me in the unique position, advantageously or disadvantageously, of a concerned political stakeholder incapable of participation. What this uniqueness gives me is an 'out' - a way to distance myself from the complicity of my fellow man/woman in the choosing of the quality of governance in this country over the 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2019/02/reckoning.htmlDiscriminationImmigrationnoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Fri, 22 Feb 2019 12:34:00 +1100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-7671583705226417891The drama of life is incomplete if one has not had the singular experience, each time, of being singled out; I speak of the occasions when I have felt uneasy at an interaction with someone in authority whilst being treated with less dignity than the perpetrator(s) would probably afford their domestic pet; an occurrence that leaves me feeling bereft of an easy categorisation within which to place 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-edge-of-space.htmlCitizenshipnoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Tue, 5 Feb 2019 12:49:00 +1100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-4117653474318007444A facet of immigration that is lost on commentators when they idealise the many reasons why people from distant shores come over and make lives in the West is the need for atonement. It is a hard concept to articulate for many immigrants because atonement, or the idea that one confronts active or passive realities and makes peace with them with humility and emotional reparation, brings with it a 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2018/05/stop-being-seen-not-heard.htmlCriminal Complicitynoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Wed, 16 May 2018 11:29:00 +1000tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-6479345152608937536Are we complicit in sustaining a structurally racist patriarchy the world over simply by trying to be nice? It's a question that has to be asked if we are to achieve anything like a semblance of parity in a world where brutality seems to reign supreme; over our coveted personal spaces and our time; over communities struggling to provide for their basic necessities; over whole nations whose right 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2018/04/toxic-parenting.htmlParentingnoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Wed, 18 Apr 2018 10:46:00 +1000tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-3731022693411044047We live in a world that covets the blame game. Why is my life so dull? Why are my career options so limited? Why can't I find true love? Why do I have mental health issues? Where did my life go so wrong? How did we elect this president?... To each of these questions, and countless more, we have justified our misfortune by casting the villain of the piece in question as, for example: lack of 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2018/04/finding-fit.htmlDepressionPoemsnoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Sat, 7 Apr 2018 14:45:00 +1000tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-3655997599993242087The tail of the dragon is long, Bearing ridges, serrated edges, the marks of a thousand vanquishings. Would it covet the length of its appendage so much as reflect on its provenance? But the dragon is unfeeling, we know... and unthinking Didn't I read today about dinosaurs And their inability to recognise, from sight or smell, The toxicity of the flowers that would bring about their demise. Are 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2018/02/2018.htmlPoemsnoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Thu, 8 Feb 2018 12:59:00 +1100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-2391929093311982288 What would you have me write about? Perhaps of an immutable substance meeting an unstoppable force, Or the unchanging injustices of the world. Commentary on the good fortunes of some of us, maybe? And the bad fortunes of others... The changing climate or the worsening weather, The cyclical nature of our collective misfortune, The widening gap between what we know to be true and what we believe 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-prodigal-son-redux.htmlMiddle Aged White MalesPrivilegenoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Tue, 24 Oct 2017 21:59:00 +1100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-7278781917086781637I never really thought about privilege until I didn't have it any more. That is both - an admission of a deep-seated moral failing, and an insight into the non-intersectional anomalies that characterise the third-world lived experience and some first-world barricaded outlier cultures. Privilege is being increasingly brought out of the shadows into the mainstream by the glaringly obvious 0http://thegethighfiles.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-feature-thinker.htmlTime-Space Dissonancenoreply@blogger.com (GetHigh)Thu, 5 Oct 2017 09:12:00 +1100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3297862947190675236.post-2374203731415307537What is disturbing about the times we live in, even more so than the vacant political leadership, the resurgence of right-wing extremism, the increasing legitimacy of discredited nativist philosophies and foundational myths of ethnic parochialism around the world, and the continuing denialist environmental policies we enact to ostensibly guard our way of life while inexorably degrading it, is 0