As spring cranks up the engine of renewal, I like watching dragonflies flit and hover in the light before disappearing like tiny ghosts.
They are good reminders of the ancient aphorism Seize The Day — make the most of the moment you are living because the next one is never certain.
Dragonflies spend years underwater as eggs and larvae before bursting into glittering life for just a few days or weeks.
Without stretching the metaphor to breaking point — so do we.
We spend years in childhood and adolescence before leaving the familiar surrounds of home and family and starting off on our own as adults.
That’s the ideal path of human growth, but it can be diverted by a lot of things out of our control.
Today, the path to adulthood can also be blocked entirely by our own self-made barriers of social media and property ownership.
As I live through my 70th year, I sometimes think there are a lot of things I would like to be or do again. I would like to return to the moment of my first kiss, or my first motorbike ride, my first pay packet or buying my first house. Things were different then.
But in the third decade of the 21st century, in Australia, I would not want to be 14 or 25 years old again.
Our children are being robbed of their childhoods as they become slaves to the algorithm and end up dissociated from the world and depressed.
Thankfully, it seems the government has woken up to the potential of losing a generation to technology-induced mental illness and has promised to pass laws to prevent children’s access to the poisoned ocean that smartphones offer. How this will be achieved is still being worked out. But at least a commitment has been made.
This is not the case for the next generation in their 20s and 30s, who are seeing the dream of owning a home slip away because of impossible prices. They face a lifetime of existing in the larval stage of adulthood, either living with parents or in rental accommodation and never achieving the freedom of owning their own home.
Explanations for this sad state of affairs are many and complicated, but the fundamental reason is we have allowed the basic right of housing to become a commodity to be speculated. Homes are not homes any more — they are investments and a means for a few with multiple portfolios to become wealthy.
The government’s solution is to build more social housing — a worthy aim. But this could take decades, with building trades already under pressure through lack of skills and supplies.
There are some things that can be done now to discourage the mindset of property as a commodity. Getting rid of tax incentives such as negative gearing and limiting the number of properties that can be owned by an individual is a start. Forcing the sale of thousands of properties that sit empty across our cities as investors wait for price hikes rather than face the hassle of renting them out is another.
Reducing immigration intake is a contentious but sensible option until our housing availability reaches acceptable numbers.
These things could be done now to help ease the housing crisis and give young adults at least the hope of freedom. However, a 2023 analysis of parliamentary disclosures found that Victorian state politicians collectively own 260 investment properties. This would be multiplied many times across the country in other states and in the federal parliament. So demanding politicians limit multiple property ownership is like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas. Keep watching the dragonflies.
John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.