The last word, Vaughan Gunson's final column

Does it matter that Antares can consume 663 trillion Earths? Photo / Getty Images

TOPICAL TAKES

Well, this is my last column. It's time to move on to a backlog of projects I've made little progress on these past four years. And spend more time with the kids, the usual stuff. Also do my other job a bit more effectively than I have been. As I'm sure my boss would agree.

There can be regrets when you move on from a job. I'll have a few. Like the big events and stories I won't be writing about.

It would have been nice to pen a few words in response to New Zealand winning the World Cup (the cricket one that is).

The end of Trump in the White House would have been worth celebrating with some choice words, particularly if it coincided with the arrival of the left-wing maverick Bernie Sanders.

Writing about work commencing on a two-track rail link to Auckland was something I was looking forward to doing. But many others will be able to do that, if it happens.

The end of Trump in the White House would have been worth celebrating with some choice words, particularly if it coincided with the arrival of the left-wing maverick Bernie Sanders. Photo/Getty Images

I won't miss, however, having to try and keep up with what's going on in New Zealand and the world.

The tendency working in the media is to be reactive. There's always the next disaster, the next crisis or political storm. You begin to feel this pull quite strongly. I don't know how Mike Hosking keeps doing it, week after week, year after year.

I've realised that, for me, following the ball like this, isn't particularly healthy. Space away from all the noise of events and conflicting opinions is what I crave right now. Some deeper thought and reflection is on my wish list. And longer format writing perhaps.

After a break, who knows, I might want to enter the fray again, if there's an opportunity. Or maybe I'll be content just growing a bigger vegetable garden.

We're all looking for a balance between work, family, creativity and political engagement with a world that's in the process of changing more than any of us can fully comprehend.

I'd like to thank Lindy, Craig, Nick and Rachel for all they've done in giving me a platform to write, without any constraints, for a Northland audience. It has been a privilege.

Does it matter that Antares can consume 663 trillion Earths? Getty Images

Since it's my last column, I think I can get away with finishing with a poem. It's called "Arriving":

Life, creativity, better even than God
which many believe in, more than the dollar

or the existence of fermions — does it matter
that Antares can consume 663 trillion Earths?

Monstrous weight, that can, if you like, be lifted
by the work of bees: a miracle none foretold.

We can't get it right like Newton — we search
for patterns to lay it down in best durable forms

[laughter]:

watch the sea deal with rocks, feel sand between
your toes — let's say of art that it thinks differently

about the shape of mushrooms we picked together
on Saturday — we don't know anything about them

except two hours of fun in paddocks: the biosphere
and adventure ours—no one's going nowhere

but the infinity of our own creative purpose
arriving at a place unknown.