HUMAN nature, as we’d have it, can muddy the lens on life and how we see the world.
I could stop my weekly wisdom there, but that would be like putting a massive full stop in the Harry Potter series at the point where Hagrid tells the boy he’s a wizard. Or stopping Jaws at the bit where the shark lunges at the boat. Or calling it a day on Squid Game at the end of the “green light, red light” game.
We’d all be shocked, but we’d be left with a taste of unfinished business in our mouth, and a disdain for Netflix for daring to air a plot without an end.
And I wouldn’t do that to anyone. So allow me to explain.
Over the years in Logan, I’ve read – including senseless diatribe in this esteemed publication – with some interest, that people feel Logan is without identity.
Editorials with no solution, politicking with no outcome, letters written with solutions but no sense, and a gigantic question mark hovering over why we care about identity at all.
You see, identity gives us a sense of belonging, of being part of the club.
Places with strong identity bring an element of tribalism to their communities. They bond. They care. They enjoy who they are.
More importantly, they carry a heavy load of pride. Not in a burdensome way, rather a way that people on the inner circle are happy to pitch in – do their bit – to ensure their identity is lifted and displayed to any outsider who cares to look.
These people are proud, and shameless, and often the envy of others.
I’m thinking volunteers who help their fellow person in a crisis, New Zealanders at a rugby match, plate smashing at a Greek party, a French picnic full of baguettes. You get the picture.
Logan, they tell me, doesn’t have any of that.
But as Wags drags me around the neighbourhood on our afternoon walks, I am left wondering whether we’re all missing the point.
I see flags of different nations, and I see in literature that 200-and-something cultures are represented inside this city’s walls.
I then return home to turn on the nightly news to see Putin bombing the insides out of buildings. I watch tennis where players represent no nation. And I see countries where ignorance has led to famine.
I share this important information with Wags, but he’s got his nose tucked into a blanket and his paws over the top of his ears.
I get it, Wags. It’s deep. And it’s depressing.
But if you were patient with me, you’d hear that there’s an upside to all this.
I wonder whether the thing that the politicians and scribes and naysayers would say is tearing us apart could actually be the thing that brings us together.
If we were to embrace and celebrate the differences of each of those 200-and-something cultures, that therein might lie our identity.
Think about it, Wags. You’d have 20 different types of sausage to get excited about at a Logan Food Festival. You’d have Afghan hounds, and bulldogs of French, American and British persuasions all playing in the same doggy park.
You’d have so many more fashions to choose from when you woke up, so many more parties to be invited to, so many more languages to learn, books to read, histories to explore.
And tourists would come to Logan, not for school sports carnivals, but for the 365-day-a-year insights we can offer. A global experience, all the time. A small world theme park that would have Walt Disney itching to burst from his grave.
Sure, there’d be knockers. There’d be those who for reasons which often go unexplained don’t like diversity.
But they’d be unwelcome. Because we’d be Logan, where instead of big prawns, lobsters and pineapples, we’d have flags and food as far as the eye could see.
That’s right, Wags. Our identity would be created out of our diversity. And we’d be doing our bit to ensure anyone who came here saw what it’s like to be proud of global pursuits, where race was an education, difference a celebration, and diversity a blessing.
Hey Wanda, what did we do with that sombrero we brought home from the cruise?
