This
is a story about the gorilla in the room, but not from the view
you might be expecting.
(And
yes, I suppose I usually try to find a spot that allows me to
create an unexpected view of the topic being presented. Bonus
points for recognizing this isn’t unusual and that stating it
is a bit unnecessary.)
(And
no, that doesn’t mean we’re going to discuss elephants in the
room instead of gorillas. Though I suppose I understand why you
would think that was slightly off in the distance and headed our
way.)
In
August of 1642, Abel Tasman set out on a voyage. He had been charged
with a bit of a fact finding mission to gather information for
the Dutch East India Company. And, well, one way of summing up
his first journey would be to say he managed to prove that Australia
was an island without ever seeing Australia.
Ok,
yes, it’s fair to say Australia probably isn’t an island. It’s
a continent, and calling something an island continent does seem
to be a slightly misleading use of definitions and terms. Still,
it is a land area obviously surrounded by water. So, walk like
a duck and talk like a duck, check and check.
This,
however, is not wondering about that island continent debate.
It’s about missing Australia.
Tasman
and his group sailed around Tasmania, off the coast of Australia.
They went near both islands of New Zealand. Stopped by Tonga.
Historical records credit him as the first European involved in
journeys that went to the Fiji Islands, Tasmania and New Zealand.
(Yup,
the name Tasmania isn’t an accident for those attentive folks
reading this. Can also be said, however, on his first voyage he
never saw Australia.)
You
might be surprised to learn that Tasman’s two adventures out to
these waters weren’t considered successes. Sure, sure, some two-hundred-years
after the sailing was completed, Tasmania was renamed for him.
Still, no new trade areas or routes were really uncovered. In
fact, even though he did see Australia on his second trip, the
primary critique of Tasman’s work was that he hadn’t really done
a thorough job exploring the areas he discovered. And that critique,
when you begin reading a bit more about how things played out,
really has a lot of supporting evidence.
It
is in that not too well explored idea that we find our gorilla
known by name as Australia.
You’re
in a room, let’s say a square of fifteen-feet by fifteen-feet.
An armchair, sofa and recliner are in the room. To make for a
nice use of space, we’ll make it a single-person recliner that
has those zero wall capabilities where it doesn’t need to be placed
significantly away from the wall in order to recline. Add three
end tables to the furniture. Oh, and there’s one adult gorilla.
I’m
going to ask you to into the room and map it out. What would you
say needs to happen in order for you to miss the gorilla? Because—yes,
figuratively—go to your favorite search engine, look for a map
of Abel Tasman’s first voyage in 1642-43, and you’re going to
see he missed the gorilla. Saw the armchair, walked into an end
table, sat on the sofa, and tripped over the recliner. He completely
missed the gorilla.
That’s
the basic, really basic and barely whispering against the surface,
story of Abel Tasman and a voyage around Australia. I think about
it whenever I run into a situation where someone does something
so mind-bogglingly absent-minded that I can’t understand how they
approached the process of whatever that they missed the gorilla.
(Speaking
of which, you’ve heard about the men that are asked to examine
an elephant in the dark and describe what they find, right?)