Josh writes:
In the last two days I've stood on the top of two hills in Auckland, and have come to two realizations. The first is that it can get bloody windy on the top of North Head; the second is that thousands of years of human conflict do make sense from a certain perspective.
I can imagine a person standing atop a hill like those I did, looking out at the vista stretching forth in all directions and thinking:
"Mine."
I understand "mine" -- I've always understood "mine", it's just that with me it generally applies to cars and consumer electronics. Not, for instance, vast tracts of land. There's something primordial going there, I assume, but I've never fully tapped into it; certainly never to the extent that I did on the top of Big King, staring out at the city I've called home my entire life for the second time in my immediate history. Of course, there's a difference between the "mine" you feel towards something that's already yours, and the "mine" you feel towards something you really, really want to be yours...
It's always seemed bizarre to me, the sheer volume of lives wasted and destroyed over what amounts to lines on a map. (I could claim that Anzac Day has brought such thinking into sharp relief for me, but I'm pretty sure the timing is just coincidence.) Maybe living on an island nation has something to do with that -- when your nearest neighbours are a fairly serious swim away, you tend to take for granted that the flag you go to bed under will be the same when you wake up.
Nevertheless, I always equated the heavy centuries of atrocity and counter-atrocity that have unfurled as a result of some thick-necked bastard looking at his neighbour's patch with "mine" in his eyes to Aunty Doreen refusing to talk to Cousin Denise because of What She Said About Our Ron At The Wedding. I still do, but I at least feel closer to the root cause now. It's in me, as it turns out, which means (since I'm nothing special) that it's in you too.
So stay away from my fucking PlayStation.
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