High Defences

High psychological defences, from my experience, is not uncommon to those born in Australia. We live on an island away from the rest of western culture, claiming to be part of western culture, harbouring some of the harshest environments in the world, having started from prison camps populated from the results of an unjust UK legal system and having the yoke of the genocide of a vast majority of the indigenous population anchored in our history; that and, we also own a king's share of the earth's resources with a hundred countries digging their claws in to claim a cut. I'd say there is good reason for our high defences.

I had trouble growing up in Australia. I am an extremely sensitive individual to the point where I have called myself a mimic. I have worn many masks, suppressed anger - having used anger as an emotional threat to make others see things my way or to leave me alone; and in the past have taken on a false personality of overt manliness in order to conform and protect myself to keep my social opportunities open. I'm a tall poppy and my ideas and desires have had the necessity to be cultured alone, away from the prying, cynical eyes of the Australian public.

Having traveled extensively in Europe, I have found there is another way. That instead of knocking down ideas and denigrating people for standing out, we can work together and maintain openness working in concert to achieve a greater goal. While this exists in every culture I've only ever found it in small groups in Australia.

Openness achieves greater levels of happiness and intelligence at the risk of experiencing greater levels of pain and depressions. In the right company, openness can be maintained and defences, no matter now 'useful', can quite often be self defeating. Good friends let us at times walk in ways that might be seen to be a bad path with a bad outcome with the hindsight that the lessons learned strengthen the character and identity of the individual as a valuable part of the community.

There are many lovely groups here in Australia as well - just as there are also many close-minded groups in Europe too, nothing is perfect, I remark on the collective mentality and not at individuals. In my travels I found that my high defences served to isolate me and give others reason to avoid me. In activist circles I believe people have greater empathy and this gave me the chance to see what I'd become. And thanks to my music, I had a ticket to openness, an entry back into myself, the ability to find a way to relate to people wherever I am and forget the importance of the self.

The best life advice I received was from a good friend in Belfast and it goes simply like this,
"You do you, Monti." Usually in response to an expressed insecurity or lack of clarity to a personal decision in a kind loving tone of 'we're gonna make it work, it's gonna be alright.'

This is my perspective of course and everyone else's perspective in their lives may be different - take with salt as required. It is true, I live and have lived a very different life by choice, with life experience that the vast majority of people cannot relate to - as a result naturally I am an outcast but music, something everyone relates to, has been my panacea.



I want to assist humanity in waking up to its greatest potential and I want to assist with the transition into a new age of openness, sharing and abundance. I have been led through a path of self-discovery that has shown me how much in myself needs to be purified before that desire can be genuine without the taint of 'making up for something in my past'.

As well as the music, another lifeline for me has been simply the appreciation of the absurd. Observing the absurdity of culture and looking at it all from a distance within myself, taking a deep breath and letting all that anxiety go.

Society really is terribly absurd. All this wanderings and works we do, all this strange behaviour and mindsets we repeat in the name of culture.

I've spent a fair few months in Ireland and discovered that while close minded people exist (for example: right-wing white supremacists making a rise at the moment due to immigration fears propagated by the media) it is largely due to environmental isolation and ignorance. In general, I felt very little judgement in most circles even if my life proved to be outlandish to them and a level of acceptance of myself as a traveling musician I have not felt anywhere else in the world. Go Ireland! Really fecking friendly people that can look at life from a distance and have a loud belty laugh at themselves as required.

It's possible to be open in Australia. Some resort to maintaining a level of hyper-positivity and safely returning to a social group of people they can be completely open with, that they can trust not to pull them down allowing them grow and flourish. This hyper-positive public personality constantly controls the creation of the reality around them via the law of attraction. This in itself is a defensive mechanism necessary to compensate for what isn't present in the environment. In an open environment, this massive amount of energy expended in maintaining positive control of the environment could be used for achieving our dreams. I don't wish to replace one set of defences for another, I just want to be myself.

Cynicism and judgement has its place but when we all work together for the same cause without personal agendas we become autonomous and high levels of energy are not wasted on keeping up our defences. Through this, we achieve the greatest effect and our energy increases exponentially, providing enough for everyone and more.

Drinking alchohol is a way to involuntarily lower defences as well. There's a healthy drinking culture in both Australia and Ireland. Some keep drinking but the bodies stores run out and then a low is had, and a realisation and fear of how to deal with life without a substance to take all those barriers down. We have to do it ourselves and to change isolationist culture we need to find groups that are open and develop new ways in which we can invite outsiders in and welcome them with sharing and understanding.

My thanks go out to the handful of people in my life that have seen my process of self-discovery for what it was and focused on the thing I would be in the future without all my defences - giving me a reference point to work towards and assisting me to create opportunities to make lasting change in my behaviour. My thanks go out to the people that have blocked me out of their lives, for being honest about what I was, for showing me that from their perspective it wasn't ok to act in that way - all people in my experience have had a place in assisting me to change.

Now my defences are down a fair bit having just returned from a trip to France and Ireland and I want to keep myself from putting those walls up. I want to experience pain because I wish to experience joy - and I'll defend myself in other ways, like not taking people or culture so seriously.

We Australians certainly are an interesting mixing pot of cultures and tastes.

Love you all,

Monti