Mike's Minute: We need to take a good, hard look at ourselves

I'm an AvGeek. I like plane and travel videos and one of the regulars I watch is a guy called Nonstop Dan.  He's American and has just been here giving the world the predictable view of the place.  He can't believe how amazing it is, he can't believe how remote it is, and he is thinking of moving here.  He won't of course because most don’t. But you get the vibe when you come from outside that this really is an extraordinary place.  Part of it is that nothing happens, which is why one of our offshore children was telling us how ridiculous this country looked to him and his mates this past week melting down about the cyclone that wasn’t.  Not the actual weather, or the bits that got hit, but the mad buildup. The endless, angst-driven hyperbole as day after day the media told us to take action, run for our lives, pack a go-bag, duck for cover and change our travel.  From the other side of the world, they could not believe what too many were turning this into.  His conclusion is we are so small and literally nothing happens, so we need to invent stuff and upon receipt of some weather we went to town on it.  Another relative told us yesterday he was convinced if we were to organise a lockdown reunion, with special sourdough segments and a reprise of the Pulpit of Truth, you'd be amazed at how many would be into it.  Maybe that's the trick. Maybe that’s why the media, or bits of it, are a bubble. They can't see it, they don’t get out and they just co-exist in their microcosm of smallness feeding off each other.  Maybe you need to live on the other side of the world, where it's kind of chaotic and busy to get a better perspective.  If a 24-year-old can see it from Britain you then need to ask what is the balance between Nonstop Dan looking at our beauty and serenity and wanting a slice of it, and our small-village idiocy that must be damaging our reputation, not to mention our productivity? And how do we strike a balance?  Our isolation and location are a wonder to many. Yet our fear, myopic navel gazing, and predilection for being told how to live our lives and behave has got to be holding us back.  We seem to be a bit lost trying to find the sweet spot. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.