From Jennifer Marohasy

 By jennifer

To ‘corral’ is to enclose, envelop, fence, pen, coop, cage.   It is the opposite of freedom.   We don’t escape this by claiming a love of freedom.  Can we escape this by being resilient?

I am a bit tired of the freedom mantra.  It has given a lot of accredited propagandists the opportunity to speak nonsense when they could be testing perceived barriers to freedom.

They suggest there is chaos, when all I see are cycles.  To suggest that change is bad, when change is the only constant in life and at coral reefs.

Understanding, derived from truth is much more important than freedom – and it is harder, it requires some discipline.   And when it comes to the Great Barrier Reef it requires the ‘talking heads’ to get in the water, and to observe.

Perhaps resilience begins with some awareness of the reality of the situation, and after that some historical perspective.

What does it mean to be resilient – for a coral reef, for a community, for an individual?  How can we measure resilience?  It is important.

According to the American Psychological Association: “Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioural flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands. [end quote]

So, what does it mean to adapt?  And what should we be adapting to?  And what is more important – freedom or truth in terms of being resilient and being adaptable.

There are usually choices.   But those forcing change don’t usually agree when an individual refuses to be corralled in a particular direction, and instead smashes through a perceived barrier.   Of course, that requires a level of fitness, a level of fitness beyond that assumed by the builder of the barrier seeking to corral.