Are you feeling as uninspired today as I am? Been like that all week? Perhaps it’s what I’m going to start calling “The Sydney Effect”.
OK, if you’re not in Sydney this won’t work for you. But today it’s not just me feeling flat. So is my office manager. So is The Other Andrew. So are most people I’ve spoken with on the phone — and email volume is definitely down today.
A few years back I was talking with a psychiatrist who’d practised all over the world, including Sydney, London, the US, Europe. He’d noticed that in every city, each day his clients would be in different moods depending on what’d been happening in their life. Every city, that is, except Sydney.
In Sydney, if his first client was depressed, then everyone else that day would be depressed too. If that first client was angry, so was everyone else.
He didn’t know why, he just knew that it happened.
Maybe I should run a test each morning. Phone someone at random, see what mood they’re in, and plan the rest of the day accordingly.
I’d suggest a ‘Melbourne effect’ also exists — living here is, to steal Bill Bryson’s memorable phrase, like living under Tupperware. Surely Melbourne is the Seasonal Affective Disorder capital of the Southern Hemisphere?
Then again, it could be down to aggressive cyclists, violent drunks, and the spruikers that obstruct every street corner…
… or it could be the people you hang around….
Or it could be gratuitously insulting comments from people who don’t know me.
I wasn’t referring to you; I was referring to the original post, but take it personally if you’d like.
A sage observation, Stilgherrian.
And a ripe opportunity for a footnote from our ancestral homeland:
Let’s talk about the Adelaide Malaise.
It’s neither a daily citywide moodswing nor a seasonal affective disorder, but a profound, perpetual fatigue in the collective consciousness that seems to prevent almost everyone from ever really moving forward in the world. To live and work in this social quicksand is literally like one of those flying dreams where you only just manage to become airborne, and no amount of effort or inspiration seems to propel you faster than walking pace. Thus, for most indigenous crow-eaters, to move forward usually means to move away from Adelaide. Just ask Rupert.
Sadly, The City of Churches & Black Magic keeps producing lots of very bright young men and women who very early on learn to expect — and worst of all accept — the dirty look for their fresh ideas.
That is, until they blow the joint and take to the skies.
‘I wasn’t referring to you; I was referring to the original post’
In that case I withdraw my response and apologise.