It seems like no coincidence that you sent me an ask right after I had a brooding session that led to me wanting to send you an ask. Here we are 🤭
Mine's unrelated to music and chronic illness though: I wanted to get your view on what being Australian is to you. Who are we? What are we? I've been having this identity crisis all my life because my ancestors are immigrants from everywhere, with different cultures, and I feel like I don't belong here despite how the land has also shaped me into who I am.
Sometimes I think at the core of the culture of Australia is loneliness/isolation and I also wanted to know your take on that too.
Hope you're well, lovely 💛💛💛
ooh. wow. hmm. i'm... not doing great as you can probably tell by the time at which i'm posting this. but i surprisingly have a lot of thoughts about this.
for me, it's a connection to one of the oldest lands there is--i've studied a lot of geology, i've had to for my degree, and because of the lack of volcanic activity for so long our land, everything about it, is real old, and that's something i have a lot of respect and reverence for. i've also been drawn to Indigenous culture and Indigenous land stewardship for the longest time: the community, the spirituality, the sense of survival and justice, the shared resources, the storytelling, the art, the connection to the land. i'm not the least bit indigenous to anywhere really so i don't really know why, but you've made me realise something writing this, i should start to go seek that out a bit more and find community and stuff in it, it might be part of what i'm longing for.
diversity and a loss and reconstruction of identity is i also think part of it too. we are so diverse, aussies are from everywhere, from those who were born to a long line of stewards of this great land, to all those who came to it from everywhere: all parts of europe, asia, new zealand--everyone's family has a story of how they came here and why, of a brand new start for one generation, and everyone after having to go through putting together the fragments and figuring out who they are, reinventing it as they face new things compared to what any of their ancestors ever have. in a way it's about deciding again and again to rediscover your home culture/s and figure out how to fit them into a context of diversity, find your people or bring a new tradition to your people, but also take tradition lightly in terms of it has to fit around survival in harsh conditions, it always does, practical comes first which I'll get into but i'd say part of it is navigating the patchwork of cultures and realising yours is never going to be everyone but also no one can take it away from you, realising that because they try, but ultimately no one who does that will ever succeed. not even the colonisers who generations down have made us forget a lot of our Indigenous culture and feel empty as a result; if you're here on this land you've got some responsibility to care for it and every generation longs for something we don't quite have: this is where it's so useful to have other cultures around, because we need to learn from each other. we do so much better when we do. (alternatively, say you grew up in sydney without saying you grew up in sydney. it's a whole world there if you haven't experienced it).
but I would say that not only loneliness and isolation but also loss of identity are core to being Australian. questioning it and finding it again, being nothing like you ever imagined. there's a lot of generational trauma written into this land that's going to take quite a while to recover. we've all left it behind in the past, we've more often than not experienced some degree of violence in doing that be it from colonisation and the way the cities we have now (aussies are drawn to cities, the stats show us as one of the most urbanised places in the world, no matter what the stereotypes are) being Not Born Of Indigenous Input to violence of poverty and being driven to crime then shipped halfway across the world away from loved ones, to violence of displacement from other lands from poverty or war or overpopulation. we're all kind of unmoored even though many don't ever show it, we're all coming from a place of having lost that deep connection to self and either trying to find it or not bothering and I think it does really show in the way we connect to each other, the way we connect to the land, the misunderstanding and exploitation and often trying to be something we're not.
but i'd also say our strength is in our survival. we're good at coming together in natural disasters, we're often really creative when it comes to getting by, we're hard working, we know we're entitled to nothing. it comes when you've lived in conditions like ours: poor soil, harsh weather--be it drought or too much rain, we've been there, we've seen it, every year and every season is like we jump to a different climate zone, our agriculture isn't suited to our climate or our soil and our cities aren't planned but we get by anyway. we're hardworking and humble and when you put an aussie in another country and another setting you really see that. and we do it like it's nothing and still think it's nothing and don't understand compliments on it, we're self-deprecating like that. survival happens if we all do well enough to get by, independence leads to interdependence, and as a result we don't like people who take too much and we want those who are struggling to succeed. we aren't all like that, sure, but you see someone trying to get ahead and getting up themselves because of it? they won't last long as an aussie. community can and will ostracise them and no one's gonna feel bad. we hate our politicians but we have them anyway. we don't let them get too big-headed, we know they will, we have artists specifically employed to make fun of them. we're not perfect at this but they're older white men (problem) we don't feel bad about bullying them even if it'd be more productive to have a diverse group of people--but then we might actually feel bad about bullying them so that won't do. politics are for show anyway to get along with other countries. aussies don't care about anything we can't see with our own eyes and touch with our own hands, preferably holding a shovel or too-big set of tongs. 'she'll be right, mate' we say but really we just don't want to deal with it. why would we when getting by for ourselves is hard enough? don't talk about abstract concepts. but behind the survival if you break into that part of our minds that longs to be seen and cared for, you might have gotten our attention even though we will never admit that kind of vulnerability (it's why so many of us find western models of therapy etc so confusing. we're hardened folk)
there's a lot of negative but we kind of live with it i guess? we don't pretend it isn't the case. and sometimes we do something good. aussies invented permaculture, for example. i'm sure there are other things right there but i can't call them to mind right now. do you know what permaculture is? go have a look into it. it's one of my favourite things. in a more academic sense we invented water sensitive urban design and biodiversity sensitive urban design as well. and we needed to from a place of survival. it's the beauty of it, it's authentic and when it's there on the ground we can touch it so it's real and other countries can then see what we do and implement it themselves. with these things having popped up in recent years i think we're in a stage of transition as a nation, we're still a patchwork of confused cultural threads trying and failing at being european with our education and agriculture models--we haven't grown into ourselves yet. we haven't realised the potential of all the cultures we have to inspire something better. we still get a bit scared of each other. we still haven't figured out who we are--and personally, looking back at my family, generations of immigrants whose children become immigrants to somewhere else, i feel like there is a lot to discover that i have no idea how to find. how to internalise. my ancestors come from all over the world, and no one has had to pull together such a diverse range of ancestral and found cultural influences until me (i should give myself credit for that. and also not just talk about it but actually do it). and then when it comes to things like religion we're skeptical but also just long to be loved. and we'll take what gives that if we don't have to talk about it, but we won't take what limits us, and i feel like we're still figuring out how to lose tradition and hierarchy while keeping the heart of all the faith traditions we have here. another thing i should investigate. because we're still trying to be someone else i think, and it's not working. so to sum it up i think we're a whole lot of unfounded potential and messy sort-of functionality. no one does it like we do. not even us.
but this is coming from someone who is strangely really connected to everyone, like it's a bit of a weird talent and a little bit hippie (but aussies are hippies too, even though the hardened country folk would never admit it and the city folk don't have time for it and that leaves the label to tasmanians and northern rivers/byron coast folk who the rest of us associate it with). like i can connect with anyone for better or worse, and i do, i can't stop myself, but it's also tiring. who needs the autonomy and freedom of the bush and the novelty and connection and opportunity of our biggest cities. i'm well suited to my career i guess, but not so much self care! and yet. the reason i know how to survive is that it's handed down from ancestors from literally everywhere. we've all brought that and faced this harsh land in the last century, and now it's up to me to do that in a modern setting with modern problems like overpopulation and biodiversity loss.
and i'll also admit a lot of my conceptulisation comes from i am australian by the seekers. i generally sing/play the song without the third verse (or whichever one is about the war) because i find that in this moment in time it's not actually the biggest thing in aussie history that shaped us--it's more a global thing we were dragged into and we do better to leave it and instead think about ancient history, about the people who came with colonisation who weren't all bad individually though they were forced into a bad situation and became many of our ancestors, about the land as a living thing with a spirit, and about the things we create.
otherwise if you're looking for something that more captures what i think you might relate to being australian and some of the generational trauma you see around you that's so woven into our country if not your immigrant family who are trying to fit in but haven't yet specifically there's bloodline by luke hemmings. you know, because at the moment i can't shut up about him or his music.
anyway, do yourself a favour (heck, do me a favour) and get out of that country town of a suburb you live in. it's very insular, possibly one of the most insular places i've seen in this land and i've been to a lot of country towns and urban precincts. we love walkable cities but we yearn for more, more enrichment in the enclosure, and so literally, get on a train and go somewhere, anywhere, and notice things. notice how they do things there. and let me know if it feels good to do that. I will mail you a go card with money on it if that's what you need. go find yourself
