One thing Australian's like to pride themselves on, rightly, is their independent nature. The smart Ozy, tough when it matters, generous but not wasteful, and above all, able to see through a scam - to not have the wool pulled over our eyes, avoid raw prawns, and in general make up our own minds. Yet here we are, each spending hundreds of dollars a year on bottled water even AFTER we've spent hundreds of millions getting great tap water into nearly every building and every tap in the country. Here we are buying - paying for - plastic bottles that we throw away after 10 or 20 minutes. Here we are spending thousands of times what we need to for drinking water, even when tests show us that bottled and tap are basically the same product. Plain old water, for God's sake, costing more than petrol! And we are right in there, being ripped off for hundreds of dollars a year, over and over!
How come? How do we allow this to happen? What has turned us into a nation full of patsies, of easy marks for well dressed con artists? It is like someone came to town, filled up a bottle with something we already had, told us it was a miracle that would make us healthy, put a 3000% mark up on it....... and we believed them!! We buy it! Over and over!
The only reason that I can think of, is that we have lost touch with a sense of our own selves. We are being led in a kind of dream. We have forgotten the qualities we pride ourselves on, hypnotized and dazzled by dreams on billboards and screens, our own ability to choose has been hijacked by slick talkers. It made me realize that free choice is not automatic. It can't be given to me - even by Australia, or mateship, or education. It is something I have to - that's right - CHOOSE! I have to decide I want it, and then take it. Otherwise, there are plenty of shysters out there who will take lassitude as a licence to take me, and my money, for a ride. So, you choose. Follow the plastic bottle fantasy of those who make a mark of you, or dump the plastic bottle and grab your own future.
Tap water - get something real into you.
An article by: Dipak Ramsay
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