James Griffin: We can't all be Winston, can we?

Winston Peters. Photo / AP

As it turns out (I had to ask) this is the 12th year I've been writing this column for Canvas. I'm sure this means I have overstayed my welcome but what the heck; I still enjoy writing these amiable rambles, so until someone in authority tells me otherwise I will carry on doing this thing.

It has been only in the last few years, however, that the feedback about my column has become available to me online. Until relatively recently the only interaction I had with the reading public was the occasional letter and people who would, every now and then, stop me in the street or at concerts, or at the mall, to tell me what they thought about something I'd written. Now, of course, it is all on for young and old, thanks to the power and the glory of the internet.

I've learnt a few things from this 21st century form of writer-reader interaction. There are, seemingly, quite a few people out there who mistake what I do for journalism. I don't know whether this is a comment on them or me, or on the current state of journalism, but let me be quite clear that 800 words of me musing on whatever comes into my head of a week should never be considered journalism. Journalism, except when done by Fox news, involves facts and investigation and stuff like that; not crapping on about random stuff.
In general I have developed a (reasonably) thick skin to the less-than-flattering comments that come in. When the same column sees you being accused of being a right-wing apologist and a left-wing agitator you learn fast to take the flak with a grain of salt - which you then rub into the gaping wound of your need to be loved by all people all the time.

But every now and then a comment inspires something just that little bit more; gives me that pause for thought, as it were. A few weeks back I penned a column in anticipation of the Northland by-election and the re-rise (yet again) of Winston Peters. While most readers who expressed an opinion seemed to quite like this column, someone by the name of tigger (obviously not of the bouncy kind) popped up after the election to leave me the following message:

"Whatever you think we don't care he unseated Key in Northland which is more than you will ever do."

Ignoring the grammar/punctuation, etc - this is the internet, after all - it was the last bit that intrigued me; the "more than you will ever do" bit.

This seemed an unnecessarily cruel comment to me, as I started to ponder the logic behind it. Is everything I have ever done and will ever do in my life ultimately less significant than Winston Peters winning a by-election in Northland? Dear God, is tigger right and my life will never amount to even that tiny hill of beans?

As you might imagine, once you've entertained such a thought, the floodgates open. What, actually, have I done in my life that is more significant than Winston winning a by-election in which the incumbent Nat left under the cloudiest of clouds, the new Nat guy was a bit of a waste of space and Labour rolled over and played dead? Surely that isn't setting the bar too high; surely I have done something more than that - not necessarily in politics, but in any facet of my life.

In terms of sporting prowess, for example, I have scored the winning goal in the last second of the football game that meant my team won the championship. Sure, it was the Auckland Open C division, but that must count for something, right? In golf I have had not one but two holes-in-one, which is a lot more than heaps of others. Has Winston scored two holes-in-one?

Even off the sporting field I'm sure there must be things I've done that get me up there, nearing the esteemed heights of King Winston of the North. Writing this column for 12 years, for example, that must surely nudge things up there. Plus there's a whole bunch of other stuff that I've written that I'm quite proud of - but are these works enough to get me across the Northland by-election victor threshold for meaningful life achievements?

Or is "more than you will ever do" one of those comments best ignored and certainly not worth worrying about; a hurtful little phrase tossed off in the moment. Don't we all achieve things of great significance every day as long we try to be good parents/citizens/humans? At the end of the day isn't that enough to be going on with; to feel okay about ourselves? After all, we can't all be Winston, can we?