Andy Jans-Brown

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I believe in health, education, and the arts — and in creating harmony, wherever possible, through honest expression.

I believe everything we do in our human capacity should be in service to wellbeing, beauty, and meaningful connection. I believe in taking responsibility for oneself, and in lifting others up wherever we can. I believe in kindness.

I believe in freedom of thought and expression, limited only by the need to preserve health, dignity, safety, and sustainability for all.
I believe in a 'Will to meaning' not in a 'Will to power'.

I believe in independence — and in interdependence. Artists, journalists, innovators, and truth-tellers must remain free to express their visions, but we must also work together to lift each other higher. As my grandfather once told me: “He who climbs the highest is he who takes others with him.”

I believe in the practice of tolerance — and in the transformative power of deep listening. We all come from different places. Our perspectives are shaped by unique constellations of experience, memory, and inheritance.

I believe in the importance of intellectual self-defence — especially against manipulative media, propaganda, and fear-based messaging.

I believe in beauty, in poetry, in dancing and dreaming. I believe in songs that ache and stories that heal. I believe in synchronicity, romance, deep conversations, and mystery.

I believe that music, the arts, food, sleep, dreaming, community, exercise and peace are medicine and that governments should exist to protect health and learning — not corporate greed. I believe polluters and food manufacturers should be held accountable, and that the wellbeing of people must come before profit.

I believe in reconciliation. That Australia cannot truly move forward without first acknowledging the injustice and pain of its past. We are privileged to share this land with the world’s oldest continuous culture, and we must honour its wisdom, languages, and sovereignty.

I believe in change —"I changed my mind, coz that's what minds are made for.....changing". I believe in our ability to rise after every fall. "Every little step is falling, but you'd never learn to walk if you didn't dare to fall first." I believe wisdom is born from suffering, and that truth begins with being honest with ourselves.

I believe we are part of something greater — a mystery with a centre everywhere and a circumference nowhere.

I believe that whatever the future holds — even if we become machines, hybrids, or something beyond ourselves — may we still know how to sing, how to grieve, how to love, and how to marvel at a well-told story.

Because these, to me, are the true treasures of existence.