My first encounter with 'yolo' happened a year ago when I found a bracelet from the floor with the words 'yolo' written all over it. I didn't know at that point what 'yolo' stood for. Nonetheless, I started wearing the bracelet with certain pride. I was proud about my found because 'yolo' sounded cool.
I was lucky, because my gay friend, who is younger than me, noticed my new bracelet and he couldn't believe I would consider wearing such bracelet. My 'yolo' moment of happiness faded. I realised that 'yolo' isn’t cool. Drunk driving with attitude is 'yolo', or calling girls bitches and being macho proud about is 'yolo', or shooting kangaroos with a shot gun is so 'yolo'. I removed my 'yolo' bracelet straight away.
Maybe I shouldn't have, because our national 'yolo' moments hadn't yet arrived. Who would have thought that Australia as a nation, continent, global player on international affairs will go totally 'yolo'?
'Yolo' is an abbreviation for 'you only live once'. Which is so true! We all live only once here on Earth, unless you have a near death experience and you'll come back to life. It seems Australian politicians are doing everything to drive us to experience national near death experiences. That we could wake up again and realise everything what has previously happened was just so 'yolo'. Imagine that!
Imagine our Prime Minister not saying 'Coal is good for humanity'. Of course it has been good for humanity, but under current circumstances of changing climate coal mining is only pushing us closer to a humanitarian catastrophe. That is so 'yolo'!
Imagine Australia not developing the Abbot Point coal port expansion next to the Great Barrier Reef. Our own Federal Environment Minister together with Queensland's Premier are pushing it through at all costs. No matter what the cost would be for the precious ecosystem of Great Barrier Reef. That is so 'yolo'!
Imagine never having had the 'right to be bigot' dispute where our own Attorney-General furiously enjoyed the right of power to change the law to allow us all to torn each other apart. If that is not a 'yolo' moment, then what is?!
Should I mention the Immigration Minister's 'humanitarian' 'yolo' moments with asylum seekers and their abuse incidents at our off shore processing centres, where people in need haven't been granted even basic humanitarian conditions. And as a cherry at the top of the cake the Cambodia deal. Australia is violently disdaining itself away from the international law. Yes, it's another 'yolo'!
Can you imagine Australian people being able to go to university with minimum stress rather than feeling left behind because of high tuition fees. Scandinavian countries, Scotland, Germany, Argentina can do free education, but not Australia. Here the fees have to rise because education is an economy not a human right, as our Education Minister has expressed himself. If that is not fully 'yolo', then rolling out a National School Chaplaincy program funded by the secular Federal Government is totally 'yolo'!
Or otherwise so wisely speaking Communication Minister has to support copper based NBN while South Korea is speeding up it’s network connections to the speed of light. Latvia, Japan and Hong Kong would be great examples also, but no, we have to have our own Australian made ‘yolo’ National Broadband Network.
Currently Australia is participating in a humanitarian mission against Islamic state. Australia has entered into war. We had an enormous budget crisis, simple two worded message banged to us every day by the Treasurer. Surprisingly an enormous amount of funds were made available to support the unexpected crisis in Iraq. That might not qualify to be 'yolo' itself, but combining it with the humanitarian crisis of fight against the Ebola virus it seems pretty 'yolo'. Nevertheless calling wind farms ‘utterly offensive’ and a ‘blight on the landscape’ is definitely Treasurer’s clear tick at the ‘yolo’ box!
It feels as if I should go for a look out for my 'yolo' bracelet, because Australia has gone totally 'YOLO”! The Urban Dictionary explains 'yolo' as follows: “The dumbass's excuse for something stupid that they did. Also one of the most annoying abbreviations ever.”. Help me to wake up from this 'yolo' insanity.
Ps! Hashtag your own Australian 'yolo' moment. It can be a public raid by 800 federal and state police in Brisbane and Sydney with a plastic sward being presented as a triumph and our Internet and journalism freedoms being smashed by ASIO law straight after the raid. And wait... our Prime Minister Tony Abbott 'shirt fronting' Russian President Vladimir Putin at the coming G20 meeting, and etc.
For sure, let's all go #YoloAustralia!
