Mum reacted with the following to my post, "About wanting to climb into a box".

Not unlike the Great-Grandparents I mentioned, when I was a baby we lived for a while in a home (if you can call it that) that Mum and Dad built for us out of car packing cases in a boat yard. They were chasing a dream to build a yacht and sail around the world; pretty poor but industrious.

While the boat yard is not far from where I live today, the family’s circumstances have changed a lot since then, largely due to family values passed down through generations.

On that basis, it seemed appropriate to share her thoughts here.

Well written, well thought out, very complicated issues. The multi dimensional nature of the discussion means multi dimensional solutions.

Ian and I have lived our adult lives through 20 different governments, left, right and in between, and for the most part I don’t think politicians solve our problems.

Realising that we are, for the main part, responsible for our own success was, and is, the starting point for us. What do we want for our lives, and for our children?

One thing that doesn’t exist for us today, but did for me and possibly for Ian, is that hardship and poverty were a built in feature of our lives, the same as for most people.

To change that you need to do four things: Know what you want (or what you don’t want). Educate yourself (education and experience are the cornerstones of success). Work hard and, yes, live within your means.

What I do or don’t do personally is also more important than focusing on other people’s behaviour. I can’t complain about what politicians aren’t doing to deal with climate change or pollution if I’m not prepared to reduce my trash and use of plastic, cans, bottles etc.

Yes, I think Society is playing games. Consumerism, advertising, credit. At Wealth Mastery in 2006 we met a man who talked about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — Conquest, War, Famine, and Death — which originated in the biblical Book of Revelation by John of Patmos.

That vivid imagery is frequently adopted as a secular analogy, with forces like consumerism, advertising, credit and unchecked materialism acting as modern-day harbingers of financial ruin and spiritual emptiness. People need to have the strength to not play those games. And not play the games on other people.

The other day, I found myself asking someone to help me find a big box. I wanted to climb into it for the next six months, have them throw food through a hole, and not emerge until the elections were over. Both of them, local and overseas.

I'm not proud of that impulse. But there it was.

The reason wasn't complicated. I couldn't stomach watching another election where politicians seemed genuinely tone deaf to what's actually happening.

And look, I know how that sounds, I'm the guy who usually argues for optimism, who tries to get people to see the bright side, who genuinely believes most humans aren't evil and want to do better. So when I'm the one asking for a box, maybe that tells you something about the state of things.

But here's the thing. The frustration isn't actually about the politicians themselves. It's not about whoever promises three free doctor visits and thinks that solves a cost-of-living crisis. It's not even about rates increasing faster than families can absorb them while councils shrug and say "infrastructure costs money."

It's deeper than that.

What's actually eating at me is that we've built systems, government, banking, corporate structures, all of it, where good people can do genuinely harmful things and never have to look the person in the eye. We've optimized ourselves into a place where complexity has become a smokescreen. Where you can't get a straight answer because there's no one person who can give you one. Where the handshake, the conversation, the human agreement to work something out together, that's basically gone.

My grandfather was in local government. A farmer, seriously principled, got involved because he actually wanted to improve things for the people he represented. I believed him. I believed that was possible.

But I'm watching that kind of integrity get buried under process. Under "the rules." Under layers of bureaucracy that let institutions claim they're just following protocol while real people get crushed by the machinery.

My great-grandparents bought a piece of land and dragged a shed onto it. They lived in that shed. I know, most of us can't imagine doing that now. But they lived within their means and created something. Over their lifetime, they built a house around that shed, room by room, as they could afford it. That house still stands. It's probably better built than most modern houses, and they did it incrementally, without destroying themselves financially.

That's what happens when you build within your means.

Now we have a system that everyone says is better, better quality housing, better protection, better standards. And sure, I understand the logic. Less mold. Safer structures. Better for people. But most young people can't afford modern houses without totally indebting themselves for probably their whole lives. And the rules don't allow them to do what my great-grandparents did. They can't start small. They can't build incrementally. They can't even try.

The choice has been taken away. And we've convinced ourselves that's progress.
Here's what scares me: I can't tell anymore if this is happening by accident, a side effect of systems that grew too big and complex, or by design. Either way, the cost is the same.

We've created a world where the system has more agency than the people in it. Where a young person can't build a future the way previous generations could. Where a caseworker can't deviate from a rule even when the rule breaks the human situation in front of them. Where a government department can rack up penalties so punitive that recovery becomes impossible, and they can rationalize it as "just collecting what's owed."

And maybe the weirdest part? We've convinced ourselves this is fair. Progress, even.

I don't think the system is unfixable. I'm not ready for that box yet. But I do think it starts with people like you and me actually noticing what's happening. Asking questions that feel simple but somehow have become radical: Does this add up? Is this actually serving the people it's supposed to serve? Or have we just gotten so used to complexity that we've stopped asking why things cost ten times what they should, why straightforward problems take six months to solve, why nobody can give you a straight answer?

Your corner might be different from mine. You might be inside one of these systems, or you might be outside getting crushed by one. But I'd bet you've seen it too, the moment where things stopped making sense but everyone acted like they did.

That's where I think the shift starts. Not with some grand fix. But with people who are willing to look at what's actually happening and say: "Yeah, this doesn't work anymore. We can do better than this."

My grandfather would've agreed with that. And maybe that's worth climbing out of the box for. Even if all we're doing is asking the right questions.

Because at some point, you have to wonder, is the compounding cost of stupidity something we can actually afford anymore?