Misty-eyed grey heads reminisce over times gone by, when a handshake was an unwritten guarantee, when people would give you the shirt off their back, and when we left our houses and cars unlocked.
Did such a time ever actually exist, and if so, what happened to it? Our current society seems full of watertight contracts, pre-nuptial agreements, small claims courts and unending demands for 'rights.'
Catastrophes and emergencies are glimpses of the past as individuals place themselves at huge risk for the sake of others. We have seen this recently in the White Island eruptions, and the responses to the Christchurch and Kaikōura earthquakes, where people without capes or superpowers returned for survivors and climbed into collapsed buildings for their fellow man.
Alas, this is not the norm in everyday life as we fight for carparks, ignore merging traffic, install security cameras and hardly know our neighbours. What has changed?
Selfishness or self-centredness, where we see our rights and desires as paramount and deserving of all of our efforts and resources, as opposed to selflessness, where we saw our role as supporting and helping others.