Why does everything have to be bigger . . and why is that assumed to be better?

What is wrong with what we have? What is wrong with small?

Bigger means MAGA, Trump, Muldoon. That is not Hawke’s Bay.

Bigger is outsized egos devoid of empathy.

Bigger is bloated cities, teeming with countless millions, swathed in endless acres of concrete and asphalt.

Bigger is ten lane highways, jammed with traffic pumping pollution, lost wasted hours of going nowhere.

Bigger is only seeing a giant kauri or matai in a forest.

But a forest is not only tall trees. A forest is a community of trillions of creatures and life forms.

Liverworts, mosses, tiny insects, bacteria and moulds. Most of them are microscopic, beyond the limits of our sight. But none the less important. And all equally beautiful and awe-inspiring.

Together they form a community which makes up the mosaic of life.

The big trees depend on them and they depend on the trees. Importance bears no relation to size.

So let’s look at our communities and value everyone in them.

Let’s stop the human obsession with self importance — accept that we are just another part of that mosaic.

Let’s forget thinking big—let’s think SMALL and above all, connected . . interdependent.