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Coping with loss

By Ruth Ostrow on 9 September 2011 in All Posts, Weekend Magazine Columns

HOW do we cope with the untimely deaths of close friends? How do we find meaning in grief?

I was overwhelmed with this question recently when I found my old address book and realised that so many friends were no longer around. I was reminded of all the women and men I’ve loved who died so young, leaving young kids or bereaved parents behind: three of cancer, one of Motor Neuron disease, one of a heart attack, two in car accidents, one by suicide.

And I wondered how other people deal with the grief from all the losses we’ve suffered and the impending losses we know are yet to come? Continue Reading →

Jealousy

By Ruth Ostrow on 26 August 2011 in All Posts, Weekend Magazine Columns

Envy is our best friends. It can tell us what we really want under all that resentment, so we can go get it

SEVERAL years ago, I noticed I was feeling very unfavourable towards a certain friend.

Every time I talked to her, I felt out of sorts. I began noticing things I didn’t like and avoided talking to her.

Because I like to self-reflect, I gave the matter some thought. Why was I suddenly pulling away from someone I dearly loved? And it came to me. Jealousy.

Rather than let the friendship go, I decided to list all the things that were making me feel jealous of her. And only one came up.

Although she is gorgeous and very talented, my red light was that she travelled a lot for work. Just back from London, just off to Paris, just back from Vietnam, just off to America. I wanted to slap dat bi-atch down.

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Global Irrelevance Crisis

By Ruth Ostrow on 19 August 2011 in All Posts, Weekend Magazine Columns

A NEW phenomenon has struck the world. We’re going through what I’ve decided to call a GIC — a Global Irrelevance Crisis — and therapists I’ve interviewed agree.

The GIC is the new 1970s identity crisis; or the midlife crisis of the 80s. Most people I talk to are experiencing a sense that they are irrelevant — that they are invisible, unseen and forgotten. In the old identity crisis, people lay about in encounter groups sobbing because they didn’t know who they were. In the 2010s we know who and what we are. We just suspect it isn’t relevant. Or if it is, it won’t be for long in this ever-changing world where standing still is going backwards.

Having been a social observer for decades, I can say that while people have always felt unsung it’s never been this bad. Technological advances are making many feel things are whizzing by too fast for them to make a mark. We’re all replaceable. A brilliant web designer I know who works at $150 an hour is now competing for work with 18-year-olds in India who charge $20 an hour. “Cheaper, net savvier, younger!” is the catchcry and people fear for their jobs, or products. Even retailers and book publishers have become irrelevant in the cyber world, where convenience is king. Continue Reading →

Nothing to Fear

By Ruth Ostrow on 13 August 2011 in All Posts, Weekend Magazine Columns

Buddhists say there are only real two emotional states, Love and Fear. And that all other emotions stems from them. Which one governs you?

A WONDERFUL tale. A dear friend of mine was very worried because life was about to change in ways that were beyond his control.

The house he was renting was unexpectedly put on the market. Given his lease had expired and he was on a month-by-month arrangement, there was no stopping the wheels of change. The agent informed him that he had a couple of months to move out.

Not so easy. The house was a very basic home in an outer suburb, dark and hard to heat. But it had one major plus. The owners allowed dogs and the garden was large enough for two rather feisty ones. So he stayed and stayed. The news couldn’t have come at a worse time. With an ailing sister, and the necessity to spend several months interstate imminent, he was shaken. “No one will take me with two dogs; I will never find anywhere in a couple of weeks.” Continue Reading →

Is common courtesy dead?

By Ruth Ostrow on 5 August 2011 in All Posts, Weekend Magazine Columns

Have manners died in the era of social media when it’s so easy to ignore emails or texts? And what about common courtesy in general? I was in the movies last night and some dude was munching lollies and crackling paper all night during a sad (great) movie The Tree of Life while the woman in front was texting – the light going in my eyes. Road rudeness is everywhere. But “email and text neglect” is the worst.

It’s so rare to get a return email from some people that you figure there is something wrong with your inbox. Maybe you’ve turned on spam by mistake? Nope! It’s just bad behaviour that’s all! And lack of respect. There is always the plea:

“I never got your text” or “My email was down for the past few days,”

Which is the “cheque’s in the mail” of our decade. After all, who could argue with the precarious nature of electronic media? The worst display of rudeness comes from those who take calls and texts while you’re with them at dinner or coffee. Read the full story in the Weekend Australian.

And share your views here on rudeness and what cheeses you off.

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Motorists’ Revenge

By Ruth Ostrow on 4 August 2011 in All Posts, My Daily Raves

</p> <p><a href="http://video.news.com.au/2079568156/Crushed-by-a-tank" class="broken_link">VIDEO: Crushed by a tank</a></p> <p>

A Lithuanian mayor uses a tank to crush an illegally-parked Mercedes in a campaign to clear bike lanes. And I love this video. Yesterday I sat in a lane that was trying to turn left for an hour and missed part of my University lecture.

The reason? A car was parked in the lane, illegally, which meant that all of us on a busy road had to sit in the right turning lane. Because we left turners were cramming the lane, the right turners got stuck with us, and we stuck with them as light after light went red. When i saw this bulldozer clip, I felt a sense of joy. The wonder of having a tank parked on the pavement which would roll out and over that car and many others as they selfishly hogged lanes in peak hour traffic. What a way to discourage driver selfishness!

Equal Rights for Men?

By Ruth Ostrow on 29 July 2011 in All Posts, Weekend Magazine Columns

According to research men would rather say they were unemployed than the primary child carer.

NOTHING has really changed for men. In the ’90s I did a stint promoting male issues and the fact that men wanted to be more involved in child-rearing and home making, thus enabling women to be more available for their careers.

As the daughter of an absent father, I lobbied that it was nourishing for both children and fathers if dads took the domestic reigns for a while. Women agreed, but at the same time still expected their men to be the major breadwinners. Men were deeply confused.

And it hasn’t changed. According to University of Western Sydney researcher Deborah Wilmore, men passionately want to be involved in childrearing but are often embarrassed to admit their role because they still get stigmatised by women and other men.

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5 Top Sci-Fi films

By Ruth Ostrow on 28 July 2011 in All Posts, My Daily Raves

Just found a cool new video site 5 Min, which lists the 5 greatest sci-fi films including Alien; and the ten greatest planets from sci-fi movies. As a sci-fi junkie and Trekkie I was so happy to find Arakas from Dune and Genesis from Star Trek and Pandora from Avatar . The winner of sci-fii classic films was Bladerunner.

Interested in your views: Best Sci Fi movie ever made; best planets; best species. I love the Vulcans and the people of Arakas the best.

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Kids in Cyberspace

By Ruth Ostrow on 22 July 2011 in All Posts, Weekend Magazine Columns

Within 3 years kids will study in 3D surround-screen Hologram classes. Watching TV likewise. Our TV rooms will soon be like something out of Star Trek. Welcome to the ‘not too distant’ future of Science Faction.

YOU only have to be the parent of a child over the age of seven to know what I’m talking about: the vacant eyes so preoccupied by what’s on screen that they can’t focus on your face for more than a few seconds before being drawn back into the cyberworld.

As you talk, your little darling types or toggles. “Are you listening to me?” you ask, only to be told in a precocious tone: “Yeahhhh. I’m multitasking, Mum.”

It gets worse. By 16, girls no longer seem to have use of their tongues. “Text it to me, Mum,” quips my daughter, barely able to contain her contempt that she has to speak and breathe at the same time. I know one mother who got her daughter to the dinner table by posting the request on Facebook. It was so like social death for the girl that, like, she never failed to come to the table again. Technologies such as Twitter are alarmingly succinct. If you can’t say it in two lines, don’t bother. Luckily, I come from the dinosaur era of the telegram: “Come home (stop) Finish homework (stop) Or no mobile (stop).”

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