Tim Walker’s Homily

I can’t think of a more appropriate time to be delivering homily than right now, at the start of a new day, at the beginning of this New Year.

Honestly though, does anyone even want to hear it?

Does anyone ever want to hear it?

In New Zealand we have a proud history or telling others what to do; this is not the gentle offering of advisement either, but the telling, the firm instructing, the brazen demanding that others follow our rules, our etiquette, our homily.

Indeed, in New Zealand, we seem to thrive on telling others what to do; some Kiwis, the assertive (bumptious) ones, they consider themselves the delegators and, exerting this self-imposed qualification, will then basically bully the other (less bumptious, more agreeable) people into accepting, abiding, even advocating their homily…

Childish as this may sound, this is a grownup practise.

…The alternative, if somebody (less bumptious but still able to think for themselves), decides they disagree with a given instruction thus are unwilling to go along with the delegator’s rules, this so-called leader is likely to have a tantrum and possibly withdraw into a sulk until they get their way.

Childish as this may sound, I assure you, this is a grownup practise.

I am aware that this assertive leader/bumptious delegator hierarchy thing goes on in other cultures too but, New Zealand being a country composed of tall-poppy-chopping yet overconfident, depression-prone yet stoic, self-admiring yet pretentiously humble, too-cool-to-be-seen-trying-hard yet fiercely competitive, quick-to-take-offence yet feverishly laid-back Kiwi battlers, across any other culture that I have witnessed/experienced, among the general population, I don’t believe I have ever seen/felt the effects of self-imposed hierarchy as severely as I have experienced in New Zealand.

It’s always good to take advice where advisement is required but, in my experience, almost every Kiwi thinks they know how to do it better than you will.

Almost every Kiwi will offer unsolicited improvements even if they don’t fully understand the topic.

Now, here’s the irony: most Kiwis don’t like being told what to do, particularly the kinds of Kiwi who thrive on telling others how to behave.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Mie A Whey

Photography by Bess D Whey

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