Introductory Regime

I am getting old!

He now has more time to think abstractly and write blogs.

I grew up in Oceana in a relatively poor family with no radio, bathroom and an outside toilet. A toilet, that when the bucket was full, was emptied into a hole dug specifically for that purpose. As soon as we were old enough, old enough to dig, this became one of my chores. We all lived in a small country cottage, a bed for the parents, a smaller bed for the kids; a large enough yard to play cricket and kick a football – all you could ever need as a small boy growing up in the country.

I went to a small country school. One teacher, responsible for about 20 children across seven grades. I attended secondary school in a largish city and went onto become a surgeon on education scholarships. Being born and therefore brought up in Oceana, I practiced my surgery in a number of countries but now live in Australia.

I have been a faithful husband to my wife through our rather longish marriage (she is Caucasian). I have a family of mixed colours and backgrounds and by marriage, adoption and natural causes/fun.  Including grandchildren we have now grafted Caucasian, Chinese, African and Filipino into our family tree.

I am somewhat distressed by the way our society is heading. I am a Christian but have lived amongst Hindus. Muslims, agnostics etc. I have dealt with huge spectrum of ill and sick people (HIV, cholera, smallpox etc.), employed those of different sexual orientation and been able to live in harmony with them.

Being a keen observer of people, having lived and worked in many countries, being a father and grandfather (and now great-grandfather) and the breakdown in social and familial relationships, and some of the newer legislations introduced by state and federal government that chisel away at necessary freedoms and simultaneously alter millennial old moralities. To be absolutely honest, the present shifts in today’s society deeply concerns me.

My plan for this blog is that it be a mixture of experience/s, thoughts and observations.

Hopefully, if you continue to read what I publish, you will see both the broadness and the narrowness of my thinking.

Regards,

Dominic Cartier

PS. I have taught at tertiary level, conferences and in churches,  My goal always was to  encourage, spur on, and inform my listeners. I have found that teaching is often most productive when it acts like a ‘burr (irritation) under the saddle’.  Making people think more clearly and sometime, just sometimes, changing people’s lives!