Brisbane is overlooked by outsiders when one thinks of Australia. The metropolises of Melbourne or Sydney and the beaches of the Gold Coast draw the crowds. What is Brisbane? It doesn’t have the same magnetic pull as those other places, but that may be its greatest strength. The voguish cities are drained of any semblance of reality as they cater to the accursed tourist. Every transaction, every purchase takes more than a product or service from these places, it corrodes its soul. Every swipe of a foreign card is like a knife slicing away at the heart. The tourist takes a piece back with them to their homeland.
Brisbane is a place that resists the blight as much as it can. It hides under the radar of the foreigner, betraying its sister cities to the slow death of tourism. Brisbane creeps along, focusing on its own modest existence. Walking through the streets, one can feel the energy of the real recharging the spirit after living in the apocryphal West. There is an embrace for the simple life — a quotidian existence. Finding reality in the world tends to lead to simplicity. Materiality constructs a thin veil of meaning on top of everyday life, but when the authentic is acquired, it embodies plainness. The streets in Brisbane secrete it at every step. There are more small restaurants and shops than one can ever hope to visit. Local outweighs the corporate. Creativity outweighs the mass produced. There is not the drive for success as in America. Success seems to be reclassified in Brisbane as an uncomplicated life, filled with tight relationships, and real experiences.
Before the internet and other forms of interconnectedness, Australia was alone. Reality forced itself on the early settlers. The Dutch were the first wave of tourists to arrive in Australia. The initial act of spoliation was naming the continent New Holland. Anything new usurps the original and devours the old. Artifacts, writing, and stories are all that remain as the essence of the old becomes a reinterpretation by the new. Look no further than the massacre of aboriginals to see the most evocative representation of new purging old. America did it to the Native Americans, and Australia did it to the aboriginals. Both nations were birthed in pools of blood. That blood washed away much of the meaning amassed over eons, leaving only the thinness of the new.
In the 19th century, there was a diaspora of British men who were in search of gold. The price Australia had to pay for this pillaging was a further abatement of meaning. Today, there may not be gold pulling tourists to Australian shores but what brings people is the existence of the real. Despite all that has happened in Australia, it has more reality left in it than most of the West. America has already consumed its elixir of truth and sold it for profit. A sabbatical is now the only way to find meaning. Australia gives theirs away to all who wish to visit, which consumes the remaining reserves. Tourism may yet be the most destructive aspects of modern life, permeating the world like a plague that strips out significance and erects veils of materiality wherever they step. What will happen when all purpose is destroyed and consumed by the growing wave of tourists? The West is already detached, but will the entire world become detached? Will we consume all meaning and confine ourselves to a soulless future?
