a conversation

...'being' australian versus 'things' australian

SCENARIO:   You and a friend are having a chat....

Your friend asks,"Hey! What's something Australian?"

You respond with, "A wombat - a wombat is Australian! Look, here are some pictures of wombats, biographies of people who've studied wombats..."

"Okay, so what would being Australian look like?"

"Well, being Australian could be the experience of crawling on your belly down a wombat burrow to observe them and draw maps of burrows...  That is 'being' Australian because it is something you're experiencing (the state of being) in an Australian context.  The wombat is being Australian too, in a way, since it is both Australian in origin and also experiencing life in an Australian context ~ living in an Aussie burrow."

"So - what's the difference?"

"The difference is THING versus EXPERIENCE.

A wombat is an Australian thing.

I can go anywhere to learn about 'things' (animals, people, objects, events and happenings).

Crawling down the burrow and coming face to face with a wombat is the experience, the event, the happening from your perspective, the moment in your life that has a distinctly Australian resonance to it."

"But wombats are very Australian.  Why not promote this fantastic book I have about wombats on Being Australian?"

"Well, there are two reasons why we aren't doing that:

(1) Our mission isn't to provide data people can find elsewhere about Australian things in isolation.

(2) We're focussing only on people's experiences of 'things' -- not the things themselves. 'Things' are merely a context for finding out what it is to walk in the shoes of a person having the experience -- even if that person reporting the experience happens to be a visitor to Australia and not necessarily an Australian citizen. That's why we say, "Everyone matters".

'Experience' is the grist of human drama from which learning and understanding come.

'Things' are merely props in the show."

"But why are experiences important and not Australian things - like wombats?"

"Why? Because we cannot get to know each other better as people, as fellow citizens, through knowledge of things alone.  I won't understand how life is for you if you only tell me about 'things' without telling me about your experience of those things.

When I become more informed about your experience of life as an Australian - no matter what that experience happens to be - then I am able to reach more informed decisions that may directly or indirectly affect your future (e.g. through the ballot box, etc.)

In other words, we can't possibly become a stronger community, a better society, a maturing nation accustomed to making better decisions affecting each other's future if we focus on sources of experiences ('things') external to us without also being interested in our experiences of external things in Australian contexts that shape our quality of life and identity as 'Australian'.

A collective snapshot of who we are now as the product of our experiences can help us make more informed decisions affecting who we become - and how our children will live - in the future."

Still confused? Consider this!

What's Australian? A redback spider.
What's being Australian? Being bitten by one, in the dunny out back!
Dunny photos courtesy Tim's House