The Truth about Quokkas
“Voltaire was a hack. Ask any-quokka.”
In the midst of a lengthy business trip, I found myself in Perth, Australia without plans.
“What should I do this weekend?” I asked everyone.
“Go to Rottnest Island” was their unanimous reply. “Get a quokka selfie.”
Rottnest Island sits 18 kilometers off the coast of Perth and is only accessible by ferry. There are no cars. You get around by bike, or you don’t get around. Which is manageable, it is only about 12 km from end to end after all.
There are 300 full-time residents of Rottnest.
Humans, that is.
The primary denizens of this little desert island are the tiny marsupial known as the quokka. They are pervasive.
As a result, an entire tourism business has built up around the diminutive quokka. The Rottnest Tourism Bureau even provides helpful instructions on how to take the best quokka selfie:
It was all so camp.
And yet, I couldn’t contain my curiosity. So, bright and early, I took the ferry from Perth, rented a bike, and began a solitary ride around this lovely tropical island.
About an hour in, I noticed something moving along the side of the road. Lo and behold: a pair of quokkas!
I sat down in the dirt, pulled out my phone, put it in selfie mode, pasted on my very best smile, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
They seemed to be ignoring me.
I looked back to see what the quokkas were up to, and weirdly I only saw one. I swear there had been two. What happened to the other one?
So I turned back around and-
GAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
I nearly had a heart attack.
I froze. He had just soundlessly appeared. And he looked so- friendly?
In fact, as the locals will tell you, quokkas are friendly, tame, and plentiful. What the tour books won’t tell you is this:
Quokkas are also VERY intelligent. Very.
This quokka was making a little noise that at first sounded like “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee”.
As I sat still as a statue, the sound changed subtly. It became:
“Leeeeeeeeeeeee.”
And then:
“Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeibniz.”
I squinted at the happy quokka. I must have just imagined that last part.
I waited some more.
“Leeeeeebniz.”
Did he just say-
“Leibniz” he now said, rather matter-of-factly, in an unmistakable West Australian accent.
ME: I’m sorry, what? Did you just say Leibniz?
QUOKKA: Yes. I was hoping you would stick around for that part. Most don’t.
ME: (head verging on exploding) HANG ON. You are the tiniest marsupial in the kangaroo family living in the scrub brush of an island in the Indian Ocean. There is absolutely no way that you just said “Leibniz.” I must be hallucinating.
QUOKKA: Suit yourself. Sorry, Quentin, I thought we finally had a smart one.
ME: Quentin? Who’s Quentin?
QUENTIN: hallo!
ME: GAAAAHHHHHHH! Guys, stop sneaking up on me like that! So wait, you BOTH talk?
QUINCY: Honestly, his powers of observation are positively stunning…
QUENTIN: Oh come on, Quincy. Give him a chance to catch up.
QUINCY: Fine. Hi there, Lookie. Suuuuuuuuu-prise! We can talk. And think. And dream. And dissect various philosophical arguments, approaches, counter-arguments, nuances, beliefs, ethical decisions, prevailing theories and methodologies. Philosophy’s our primary gig when we aren’t foraging or pooping.
QUENTIN: But at the end of the day the only philosopher that really holds any water for the quokkas is Leibniz.
ME: (agape) But you can’t…
QUINCY: Not Kant, mate. Leibniz. Keep up.
QUENTIN: Come on Quincy, you’ve dumbfounded the Lookie. Give him a moment.
QUINCY: Why should I have to? If this Lookie has made the leap to realize that we are self-aware, why is it my problem that he’s now sitting here with that frankly unflattering Lookie expression on his face?
ME: Lookie?
QUENTIN: Your species. You are a Lookie. At least that what we’ve always assumed you call yourselves. It’s the first thing you always say to us quokkas anyway. “Lookie, Martha! Lookie Jim!” What’s your name then?
ME: um. Andrew ?
QUENTIN: Right. Pleasure to meet you, Lookie Andrew.
QUINCY: But honestly mate, any time you want to take that gooberish look off your face-
QUENTIN: You know, Quent, he does seem to advance our theory about the large Lookies being stupider than the small ones.
ME: Large Lookies?
QUENTIN: You see, we basically spend our days being photoged by you Lookies-
QUINCY: -and we are always attempting to make a deeply intelligent connection with you. But the large ones never make the leap. Only the small ones do.
ME: Wait, children know quokkas can talk?
QUENTIN: Of course they do! Up to about age 5. Every last one. They sit down with us and we have the most wonderful conversations.
QUINCY: But then here come the Large Lookies dragging them away. “But I was talking with the quokkas!” the little ones will plead. The large ones just frog march them away. Bloody shame, really.
QUENTIN: Our scientists have long hypothesized that as Lookies grow bigger, and the brain mass to body mass ratio of Lookies shrinks — so does your intelligence.
ME: Wait, there are Quokka scient- OUCH!
QUENTIN: Sorry Mate! Just checking to see if you’ve got any Cheetos in that rucksack of yours
ME: Cheetos? You eat Cheetos?
QUINCY: Well. We mostly eat guichenotia ledifolia, those little shrubs you see everywhere. They have been engineered by nature to provide nearly all the nutrients and water that a quokka needs to survive.
QUENTIN: But we do love Cheetos.
QUINCY: Come on now, we saw the orange dust on your fingers when you rolled up.
ME: The signs all say not to feed the quokkas.
QUINCY: Rubbish.
ME: Look, I’m trying to be a good steward of nature here, I’m not going to break the- OUCH!
QUENTIN: Quince, ease off mate. This Lookie will voluntarily give us the Cheetos in a moment. It is the best possible outcome. Focus. Remember your Leibniz.
ME: Why did you keep saying Leibniz??
QUENTIN: The quokkas are all very pro-Leibniz. What’s your stance on Leibniz, Lookie?
ME: I — I well. I… Well, to be honest, I….
QUINCY: You’ve literally never heard of Leibniz have you?
QUENTIN: Go easy, Quince…
ME: I have heard of Leibniz. He was a famous philosopher, right? Actually, yeah. That’s pretty much all I know about Leibniz.
QUENTIN: No worries. We’ll explain Leibniz to you.
QUINCY: We’ll use small words.
QUENTIN: So quokkas revere the 17th century German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, because of his irreducible explanation for the existence of Qod.
ME: Did you say Cod? The fish?
QUENTIN: Not Cod, Qod. With a Q
ME: But not God…?
QUINCY: Typical Lookie…
QUENTIN: Essentially, Leibniz argued that anything in space and time could potentially exist in more distinct combinations than anyone can imagine. We could have an infinite number of possible worlds, and statistically, nearly all of them would be absolutely terrible. Unlivable.
QUINCY: The fact that we ended up with a very nice world can only be thanks to the existence of a much more powerful entity that looks after us all.
QUENTIN: Qod.
QUENTIN: Leibniz believed that if our wild, rich, beautiful, diverse world is statistically impossible, it follows that this world must have been purposefully created by Qod.
QUINCY: Leibniz called ours “the best of all possible worlds.” And it is, at the end of the day, the philosophy that rings most true with quokka-kind.
ME: It is?
QUINCY: Think about it, Lookie. We live in paradise on this island. We have our own little habitat. We have no natural predators…
QUENTIN: …we have plenty of food and water. We live peaceful, happy quokka lives.
QUINCY: And we have an abundant supply of Lookies to provide us the only nutrient we cannot get in the wild: Cheetos.
QUENTIN: The Best of All Possible Worlds!
ME: But Cheetos? Really?
QUENTIN: They’re quite good for the fur.
QUINCY: They give us this nice sheen.
ME: Best of all possible worlds… Wait, I thought that was from Candide. Isn’t that what Pangloss keeps going on about, and ultimately it all falls apart?
QUINCY: Oh Qod. Quent, can you believe he just brought up Candide? Yes, Voltaire thought Leibniz was a blubbering, unrealistic optimist and he wrote the Pangloss character to lampoon the poor man.
QUENTIN: Voltaire was a hack. Ask any-quokka.
QUINCY: So look here, we’ve done our bit. We’ve given you the selfie, taught you about Leibniz, explained the quokka world view. In the best of all possible worlds, this is the moment that you spill some Cheetos. We don’t have all day.
ME: Yeah. Well. I can’t really argue with that rationale, here you go…
QUINCY: Crunchy Orange Banquet of the Qods! (Munch munch munch)
QUENTIN: (Munch munch mun-) Quince! More Lookies coming up the path! You know what to do!
QUINCY: Right! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
QUENTIN: Eeeeeeeeee
ME: What are you doing?
QUENTIN: Eeeeeeeeeeee
QUINCY: Eeeeeeeeeee
ME: No! No! Wait!
QUOKKAS: Eeeeeeeeee
ME: Please! Talk to me! I have so many questions! How did you learn about Leibniz? Do other animals talk? When did you find out about Cheetos?
QUOKKAS: Eeeeeeeeeeee
ANOTHER HUMAN: Lookie Simon! I found some quokkas! They’re so cute! (Sees what they are eating) Hey….. Mister, Didn’t you read the signs?? What’re you doing feeding them… what is that….Cheetos??? You’re feeding the quokkas Cheetos???? I oughta report you for this!
ME: You don’t understand! Ask them about Leibniz! Ask them about Qod! It’s good for the fur, it gives them a nice shee-
QUOKKAS: Eeeeeeeeeeeee
HUMAN: Oh, hear that accent, Simon. An American. Well doesn’t that just figure. Right then, scram you. No bloody respect for nature.
What had just happened? How would I reconcile this knowledge with what I thought I already knew? I distractedly pedaled my way back to the ferry landing and sat at the open air beach-side bar, aimlessly eating French fries and trying to make sense of it all.
Before long, a peacock wandered through the bar. He acted like he owned the place.
After a time, we made eye contact. He strutted over, looked left and right a bit conspiratorially, and then leaned in toward me.
With trepidation, I whispered, “yes….?”
After a further pause he opened his beak:
“Nieeeeeeeeetzsche.”
