Kiwi’s in Oz and what if

As a Kiwi (not the fruit) living in Australia I find that there is a wonderful rivalry between us ANZAC cousins something akin to the sibling rivalry of the USA and Canada. Our relationship goes back to the 18th century and the European discoverers who ventured far from their comfortable homes in that place to explore the unknown.

When growing up the one explorer who was pre-eminent, the great Captain James Cook who sailed in the Endeavour around the South Pacific, caught our imagination.

The story of Captain Cook was he visited and mapped many islands and lands during his 2 or 3 trips down under and finally tried to make friends with some native people in Polynesia who unfortunately wasn’t friendly at all and promptly killed him on the beach where he had landed. (They were obviously not intimidated by the white man and his big boat).

But this you say is in direct conflict with your last blog where you stated we should all try to get over our preconceptions of others and look beyond the outward appearance. YES I am still convinced of this!

My oldest daughter commented on my blog and queried the commonsense in some areas, of my argument that is why I am writing this. Sure Captain Cook was killed because he chose to to look beyond the outward appearance and not to have the preconception that because these people look uncivilised they might hurt me.

I am coming to the point now, Captain Cook was not afraid to experience other people and their cultures, he sought them out and with his crew he documented their existence. He did put himself in very scary situations and I for one would never advise anyone to enter a place or situation that made them feel afraid, scared, terrified or upset.

For all that he made a fantastic contribution to the natural history and political/social history of mankind. Just because he was not phased by someones appearance. He made more friends than he did enemies.

The question is why are we afraid to approach others. Are we just comfortable where we are, scared we may have to actually work toward somekind of platonic relationship or just plain disinterested in any type of relationship (man they are hard, try being successfully married for 32 years)

Ah! but the fruit that results from these relationships far outreach, outshines and overcomes any problems by the way. I would not give up the last 32 years for anything, even through all the the hard times they are gold and silver and precious stones to me.

On Facebook the other day I did a “Find” on the name of an old friend, what came up looked something like my friends name but I was a little apprehensive about adding him as a friend after all it had been 35 years and totally different paths we had pursued. My mind was made up just because he is a Solicitor and I a lowly worker didn’t make any difference, so I added him as a friend.

Guess what, less than a day later and he accepted me a s a friend and now we have an awful lot of catching up to do. Life is filled with “what if s” don’t let an opportunity slip by you to reach out to others in friendship. What if I never did this, what if I had done that.. live life to it’s fullest that is what you were created for.

And the only way to do that is with others…

PS. I doubt very much that any of us will ever be in Captain Cooks situation on a beach in the South Pacific with angry Islanders wanting to kill us.

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