Steve Irwin: US icon, Australian, environmentalist, Mensch

US icon, Steve Irwin, died yesterday doing what he loves; working with animals.

Wildly vibrant, Steve Irwin was a ‘rough diamond’, a diamond in the mud that sparkles for those who see past the bits of mud. A massive icon in the US where he was a refreshing, honest, straight forward, passionate walking inspiration, here in Australia, Steve Irwin had a smaller following and in his own words on the tribute show last night on Andrew Denton’s ‘Enough Rope’, Steve talked of Aussies finding him ‘a bit of a joke’, an embarassment.

I find this sad fact a to be about the embarassing nature of how Aussies cut down Aussies, ashamed of almost anyone ‘home grown’, including many of its own talented indigenous people.

Steve Irwin was idiosyncratic to the max and as such he barely noticed the ’social normality’ most people are perhaps too conscious of to their own detriment. This idiosyncratic nature allowed him to be a raving non-conformist, to be blatantly honest, to innovate, to believe he could do the impossible; even buy up vast areas of land for the conservation of endangered species around the world.

Whilst Steve had no problem blowing his own trumpet he was no narcissist. He was an exhuberant character who lived life as if it was to be celebrated every day, including the appreciation of one’s own existance among that of others; human, animal and all of nature alike and equal.

Steve Irwin epitomises the Aussie ‘dag‘ the person who is so self-owning, so non-conformist they let it all hang out, the opposite of self conscious. Given all the harm we do to ourselves and others through our over-developed self consciousness, Steve Irwin reminds us spiritually, that there are other ways to live our lives.

Stung in the heart by sting ray, perhaps one of the strangest deaths of any human being, it is perhaps poetic given that Steve Irwin, like so many idiosyncratic people so seemingly ‘off in their own world’, probably knew on a soul level that it people needed to open their hearts to the plight of native and endangered species, to realness and caring and each other.

Steve Irwin lives on in those he has touched in so many ways and in the legacy of habitat he has left behind for those he spoke up for; animals who we so often never listen to.

Donna Williams

www.donnawilliams.net

author, artist, screenwriter, eccentric.