Yes, we're the Great Complainers

I read the news today, oh boy, and immediately felt a song coming on (with a nod to The Platters).

Oh yes - we're the great complainers,

We do the whingeing so well,

We complain as such,

Over nothing much,

As long as there's someone to tell.

We are a nation of grumblers and whingers. There's always too much of this or too little of that. We mutter if people earn too little and we mutter even more darkly when people are seen to be earning too much. We moan about the rubbish on TV but watch a lot of it to give ourselves something to whinge about rather than turning it off. We plant tall poppies then cut them down when they start to flower and bloom.

We like a bit of schadenfreude. No, this is not a German strudel but a Teutonic word that means "enjoying the misfortunes of others". If schadenfreude was an Olympic event, NZ would get the silver every time just behind the world champions, Britain. Perhaps the loss of an Empire knocked their equilibrium but what is our excuse? We complain when it rains, we complain when it pours, we complain when it's hot, windy or too dry - it all turns the whingers weathervane. A friend was unhappy with the weather forecast and went looking for a better one. He was joking but nevertheless it illustrates our reluctance to accept things as they are and just get on with it.

I have even heard people complain that north is no longer where it should be, the moon has lost its glow.

We complain we are too faraway from the world then whinge when the world wants to come and see us.

We complain because we only have tacky little celebrities but gleefully watch as their attempts to live life in the limelight come disastrously unglued.

If the cat sat on the mat we'd complain about that and be calling for a commission of inquiry to investigate how the cat got there, check if there is a mat sitting regulation and if not write a cat and mat policy document that would run to 2000 pages - with references.

The cat and the mat would be found to have overseas owners and we would crank out a tune on the xenophobe just to check it was still in tune with the zeitgeist.

The other side of complaining is that nobody is guilty of anything anymore. Exhibit A: A Minister bungles the education portfolio - that was somebody else's fault - we must find out who it was and get rid of them, it means paying them huge sums of money to go away. Exhibit B: Solid Energy's coal all going up in smoke - that was somebody else's fault - I think they tried to blame the weather or was that the cricket?

There is always another spin of the sorry-go-round or a turn on the blame-ethon machine to divert attention away from some massive errors of judgment.

NZ has been a nuclear free zone - why not declare the nation a whinge-free zone (WFZ) and find that piece of number eight wire people are always going on about and use it to prod people into action. I do worry that as a nation perhaps we have become so good at complaining and whinging that we have become victims of our own success.

Terry Sarten is a writer, musician and social worker who has just realised this column has been one long complaint. Feedback email: tgs@inspire.net.nz