Men's School @themensschool

When the size and scale of our living and working spaces overpowers our monuments and shared spaces, we lose important guideposts - signs - that tell us what it's all for and how it came to be. When we build monuments to wealth and consumption, the vital forces that once enabled the city are weakened.

Entrepreneurship might be the best path forward for many mid-career men who want more freedom and new challenges. What is the best way to start? Arguably, by finding others you trust to collaborate with, inspire, mentor, and motivate as much as to help implement ideas; to share risk, resources, and returns with people and not just markets.

A necessary part of this process is understanding the ideas of 'defined community' and 'private civic goods' : a way to invest in local communities and directly participate in shaping them.

Can collective funding efforts and the creation of 'local public goods' improve local communities? New ways to raise capital independently might give locals greater influence over their own backyards.

Funding the future of local communities x.com/i/article/2113…

Imagine living in an apartment building with only friends and relatives as fellow occupants. What kind of problems would be avoided? What kind of lifestyle would be created? Imagine living in a small rural community (or village) with enough water supply and farming land to be self sufficient among neighbours you know and trust. With the space and freedom to build your own home how you wish. What kind of life would be possible? Imagine working with like-minded people on projects that are directly necessary to your community and measuring success by its benefit to them, both in function and form. Most of us are dependent and live among people we don't know or trust. What can we do better?

Renewal and regeneration follow deterioration and decay. The loss of an old world creates opportunities - and the necessity - to build a new and better one.

Employment income is increasingly unreliable for many of us - especially those in corporate environments - due to outsourcing, offshoring, AI, and HR filtering. How can we turn this adversity into opportunity? Big ideas such as economic localisation and distributism exist, but so do smaller ones like cooperative enterprises and credit unions that serve local regions. We are currently many individuals workings for a small number of businesses, but is it possible be more like local collectives working for ourselves?

A holistic adult education is vital for anyone who has only experienced seperate disciplines and specialised learning programmes. To make sense of, and perhaps even improve, the complex modern world we live in, we should attempt to understand a broad range of disciplines to avoid becoming rigid and narrow in our thinking. We may live in the age of Economics, where all aspects of life can be quantified and measured according to their utility, but we can begin to work towards a more human existence through what we learn and teach.

A lot of unhappiness in life comes from believing our lives are either more or less significant than they are.

What happened to English grammar education? x.com/i/article/2109…

Culture is the accumulation of traditions.

Many of us have strong bodies but weak minds. It is common to observe people who are in good shape but lack courage, critical thinking skills, and emotional resilience. Who don't want to ask tough questions or confront difficult problems. Like an imbalanced workout routine, we often don't spend sufficient energy acquiring useful knowledge, wisdom, or virtue in equal measure to muscle. This is shown in our societies, which are - largely -reflections of who we are as individuals.

What's happening in your local community? Development proposals, regulations, events? Is your local council doing a good job? Could you do better?

Sources: Saulwick, Jacob, Sydney Morning Herald, 'Demolition by neglect:' Future of Callan Park unclear, 2018. smh.com.au/national/nsw/d… NSW Government, Proposed works for Callan Park Conservation Area and Buildings, haveyoursay.nsw.gov.au/callan-park-ca NSW Government, State Heritage Inventory, hms.heritage.nsw.gov.au/App/Item/Searc… NSW Government, Greater Sydney Parklands, Callan Park building safety demolition, greatersydneyparklands.nsw.gov.au/callan-park/pl… Friends of Callan Park, No, Minister. Callan Park is our most precious heritage park – and needs protections, callanpark.com/no-minister-ca… 7NEWS, Callan Park's transformation sparks heritage debate, youtube.com/watch?v=a8628Y…

Despite a public consultation process, there seems to have been little chance of deviation from a long-term plan for the site, with successive governments allowing it to deteriorate. From the NSW state government's Heritage Impact Statement: “Other alternative such as retention of these buildings and/or adaptive reuse was not considered because the purpose of demolition is to facilitate use of the place as a park by recovering the open historical landscape setting. "Demolition of these buildings will have a positive impact on the significance of the place, and will partially reinstate the historical landscape of Callan Park…Demolition of the buildings supports the continued use of the place as a public green space.” Many other buildings have been assessed by the government as having low historical significance, so those wishing to see the site in its current form should visit soon.

"Demolition by neglect" Demolition of nine buildings at the New South Wales heritage-listed Callan Park has begun, as part of the state government's long-term plan to transform the site from a place of heritage value to "one of Sydney’s most significant urban parklands".

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