The solution.

I just think I might have found the solution to what I found most depressingly sad in New Zealand life: the general and utter apathy. I think I have to start from the beginning to explain how I came to the idea, because otherwise it would seem completely insane. There's much more logical and practical basis to it than it might seem on the first sight.

It was today. Now it is the middle of the summer in New Zealand. now, if you've never been to New Zealand in summer, I have to say to you: in summer, New Zealand is, quite possibly, the most beautiful place in the world. It is like a fairy-tale, with insanely lively and bright colours you could hardly find on canvas of Botticelli, and grass is of that shade of emerald-green that flickers on the sun like a pile of precious gems, and the sky is clear and blue, like an endless, deep blue glass... And the bright red, violet, blue, yellow flowers that emit the odour of fresh honey, and the cicadas with their songs... So, I was walking around the city between all that desperate, intense, almost painful beauty and observed its acute contrast with the people. New Zealand humans were walking around with their lifeless eyes and blank expressions on their faces, seemingly devoid of any feelings, so alien, so stylistically incompatible with the beauty of the nature. Momentarily, it seemed to me, that I was watching some sort of mechanical dolls or giant amoebas, so empty they were, not humans, but only empty shells of humans with nothing underneath the shell, like empty skins of cicadas... Are they even human, thought I, are they even able to feel anything at all, if they can't even feel the delight over the triumph of beauty around them?

And then - it just came to me, like a small light bulb popped up over my head. So, people of New Zealand don't have any passion in their lives. It's a kind of self-defense, probably. After all, if any man, woman and child in New Zealand felt the same way I feel, every summer thousands and thousands of people would suffer the Stendhal syndrome and there would be hardly any time left for any kind of productive rest and labour. Instead, New Zealanders learn from their early childhood to cover their feelings and to turn the blind eye to the beauty, and to everything that causes any kind of strong emotions for that matter. They live with half of their hearts. They don't have any art - they have "creative content", they don't have love - they have "relationships", and they have no beliefs, period.

And you know what? It's possible, that it's all for the best. With their apathy, New Zealanders have the chance to become one of the most progressive nations in the world. For example, start with my old nemesis, the copyright laws. New Zealand, of all places of the world, would suffer least if all and any kind of copyright protection is canceled for good. The "creative content" produced in New Zealand is of hardly any value anyway, because lack of passion makes all such content shallow, primitive and predictable. Do you know any great New Zealand artist, or poet, or composer? Have you at least heard of any decent New Zealand rock band - and by "decent" I mean something with non-trivial aesthetic and political message, not something the 13-year-old girls can dance on? For once it's true - if all the commercial content-providers in New Zealand would suddenly disappear from the face of the Earth, with all their studios, corporations and lawyers - nobody would cry, or even notice. New Zealand should announce that any kind of copyright legislation does not apply in the country any more. It should become the land of free sharing and information exchange, a heaven for hackers and a world-wide pirate harbour. There would be no sense in producing proprietary content on New Zealand soil - and that means great impulse to free, open-source, independent creativity. New Zealand can really lead the way here.

And there's more. For example, decriminalization of drugs shouldn't cause any pain at all, because apathetic New Zealanders are much less prone to any negative influence from any substances. And euthanasia - why wouldn't New Zealand decriminalize euthanasia? Death shouldn't look scary for someone who lives, gliding like a surfer over the surface of life. New Zealand, more than any other country, is ready to redefine the philosophy of life and death.

I always thought the immanent apathy of New Zealand people is a curse, but it could just as well be a blessing. All we need is some social and political power to apply the necessary changes.