Society understands the architecture of academia and knows there are relevant qualifications in different fields, and the media accepts the idea of specialisations and accords greater respect to those with greater expertise. With one exception: climate science.

If people can't acknowledge the wisdom of indigenous cultures, then that's their loss.

Children say they are unhappy in every language they have. They say it in silence, and they say it in riots.

Time is found in the calibration of the individual to the timing of a collective endeavour, the social grace that less clock-bound societies must practise.

Singing with others is an unmediated, shared experience as each person feels the same music reverberating in their individual bodies. Singing is part of our humanity; it is embodied empathy.

Being adequately informed is a democratic duty, just as the vote is a democratic right. A misinformed electorate, voting without knowledge, is not a true democracy.

In many traditions, the world was sung into being: Aboriginal Australians believe their ancestors did so. In Hindu and Buddhist thought, Om was the seed syllable that created the world.