ARE WE?
So we should be.
We are the single most sensitive and misunderstood wee souls in the entire universe.
Awww, don’t fret, Diddums, we love you …
IN THE MEANTIME FOR THOSE
with an analytical bent and no first hand experience here’s your quote from the objective BBC —
What’s behind New Zealand’s shocking youth suicide rate?
By Andreas Illmer
Think of New Zealand and what likely comes to mind is beautiful nature – fjords, mountains and magnificent landscapes, vast, empty and endless.
But for years already, the country has been struggling with another form of isolation – depression and suicide.
A new report by Unicef contains a shocking statistic – New Zealand has by far the highest youth suicide rate in the developed world. A shock but no surprise – it’s not the first time the country tops that table …
For myself I’m nether shocked nor surprised. Ho hum (yawn, too). But you’d have to live here to understand.
FOR MYSELF
I came up through our world-beating Kiwi ‘education’ system. (We weren’t taught to think but boy, could we ever play rugby!)
It took me decades to break free of the conditioning. I had to teach myself—my dear ol’ Dad often in despair because I perpetually had my snout in a book.
At school I was roundly hated for answering questions that smug teachers would pose to
(a) shut us up and/or
(b) demonstrate their superiority.
THE JAPANESE
have a saying to the effect that the nail that sticks up should be hammered down—kiwis take it to heart in spades. So I became a quiet ‘loner’.
Lonely? No way—I revelled in it. Scrooge enjoyed darkness because it was cheap, I enjoyed solitude because of the company* .
NEVER FOR A MOMENT
did I ever contemplate killing myself. My world was angles, blocks, colours, rhyme, distances, history and endless unanswered questions.
Life itself was a challenge and I quickly burned through the religious hoo-flung we were fed—I quietly drew cartoons in Bible class and no-one said a word so long as I stayed quiet. I stayed quiet so long as no indoctrinated idiot challenged me.
Built the lot out of nothing, I did. Dad did. We did … bugger …
Long before coming across Aristotle I’d learned to see through contradictions for myself. Powerful stuff.
SO WHY
does ol’ God allow kiwi kids to pop themselves off all over the place?
OR COULD IT BE
that kiwi kids are simply a bunch of over-indulged Snowflakes these days, and God just doesn’t come into it?
I’VE MENTIONED THIS
one before, that once asked at a gathering ‘how to raise the self-esteem of a kid’ my response was ‘Set that kid a difficult task, as tough as you can make but within his reach’ … stunned silence.
Now please don’t ask me how to lower our world-beating suicide statistic.
It can be done. It could be done—but I predict with one hundred percent confidence that it won’t be done.
So we shall continue to be ‘world beaters’ in that field too, boom boom!
* Some of the greatest minds that ever lived.
—bugger …
