Greed is Good
Blog Number Eight: 28 December 2008
So much for Christmas then. I have survived, just, the unwanted Christmas cards that once flooded my mail box. You know the ones; chirping red robins sitting on a snow covered branch, or that fake old man in the red suit driving a sledge. I must be getting through to my family and friends though, because this year, I got cards with pictures of native birds and pohutukawa trees. Two were standouts. My granddaughter who designs and makes her own cards gave me one decorated with pentacles and instructing me in big bold silver letters HAVE A MERRY HEXMAS. And a dear friend, currently living in northern England and coping with icy winds and snow drifts, sent me a card with a photo of New York City on it because “Glittering NYC is where I’m not-so we have that in common this Christmas”.
I loved this card especially when I read the back of it and found out that the card was made from renewable trees and the ink from soya beans. It made my vegetarian heart sing. Problem is, I don’t know whether to keep it or eat it.
The weather is warm and sunny and Hamilton city has become eerily quiet. That is because everyone has left to go to the beach. This town is right in the middle of the North Island and “too far” from the sea. By local standards that it. But the west coast is only a fifty minute drive from my house and the east coast about an hour and a half drive.
I am constantly reminded that my homeland is an island. Has this shaped our culture? Damn right it has. New Zealand people have the sea in their bones. To live near it or on it is the goal. To live far from it is to be bereft.
I am in the process of reading books that illustrate the various forms of creative non-fiction that may be of use to me when I begin tutoring for the course that Peter Wells is lecturing for summer school at the University of Waikato. I came across a book called The Ash Range written by the celebrated Australian poet Laurie Duggan. (Pan Books, Melbourne, 1987). The book is an epic story written in prose and poetry about the white settlement of Gippsland, Victoria. The foreword is written by Don Watson. The very first sentence sets the tone. “Until very recently I had not realised that Gippsland was an idea as well as a place.” He goes on to talk about the prominence of snake stories that he heard as a child. “Deep in the Gippsland subconscious there lay a coiled snake. If it had been a Catholic province I believe there would have been an annual festival.”
This got me thinking. If we had to choose one symbol that haunts our subconscious it would have to be a waka of some kind; a double-hulled canoe or a sailing ship. We are always on the move, a restless people, a people who have an extremely high percentage of the population with current passports. It is a standing joke that wherever you go in the world, no matter how remote, some @#%$* Kiwi will already be there in jandals and shorts and drinking a steinlager.
There is currently a moral panic going on about massive numbers of New Zealand people moving across the Tasman Sea to Australia. It has become a political football, each party blaming the other for the exodus. Waste of time. It is the old pattern repeating itself albeit in a different guise. When questioned about their reasons for leaving, the ‘traitors’ almost always quote economic advantages. It does not matter how many people crunch the numbers to prove that the taxes are higher there and the cost of living in a city like Sydney horrendous, the myth is firmly entrenched.
Anyone who strives to ‘get ahead’ (meaning get more affluent) is praised to the skies even when we are in the grip of the total breakdown of the world-wide monetary system. The media is flooded with finger-pointing moralisers who cry Greed Greed Greed! Everybody wants too much, they say, and we are doomed. It is nonsense to put the blame on individuals and groups for being too greedy. We as a society are ear bashed daily about the ‘need for greed’. Witness the current push to make people spend more on Christmas presents to ‘keep the economy going’. Capitalism needs greed and constant growth to stay afloat. Let’s be honest; we praise the self-made person, we are obsessed with the rich and we all dream of winning lotto. Besides, it is impossible to pull out one aspect of capitalism and decry it without seeing it as a moral universe far deeper than the superficial economic arguments for and against the institutions that keep the system afloat.
I find the media so tedious at the moment. As we approach New Year all we hear about are the so-called highlights of 2008. This includes the ‘best’ people of the year. Mostly sports heroes of course. To write an article about the worst people of the year would be fun. Any takers? Who would they be? People like me who don’t own anything and have a substantial sum of money in a bank account that pays no interest? I do this through choice. But guess what, I am seen as a fool to live like this. More than a fool, as one who has somehow let the side down, big time.
I am in the process of changing the format of my website. I have had some feedback from readers who have become a little lost in the online writing. From this week on, my blog will be separate from the story of Hannalore. I will continue to post the story on the Page part of the software. If you look at the right hand side of the opening page of my website, you will see a new page titled Hannalore: Part One. This will be a repeat of the story so far with a small addition at the end. This will enable the readers to follow the story as it is written and will be easier to read in chronological order. The novella will be in three parts and with numbered sections as before. I would welcome any feedback on the new format.