Recently I seem to have been doing a lot of soul searching about my political beliefs.

I believe your thoughts on this depend very much on your opinion of what human nature is, and how highly you prioritise what’s best for you as an individual over what’s best for a country.

I think that when you start debating benefits and who gets what of the tax dollar, it is very difficult to hold the discussion about what the most unlucky in our society should get when you honestly have no comprehension of how far removed their life is from yours. Isn’t there a saying about imagining yourself being born at the bottom of the heap and wondering if you would still hold firm to your beliefs? It would be better for me to pay less tax (especially the $70 I have to pay in late fines for filing my GST return on Monday instead of Wednesday), but I think I would rather other people have that money.

I now realise though, that when you have a system with loopholes, most people exploit them. But I don’t put that down to human nature, I put it down to culture.

I liked John Key’s response to the drama about MPs taking their partners on trips: It’s not illegal but be aware this is an open government, your actions will be made public and you have to be prepared to defend them.

I wonder if we took that attitude across a range of other things, and I don’t mean the traditional ‘dole bludger’ argument. I think it would be fascinating what changes you’d see to the way people acted if it was up for the scrutiny of others. Totally impossible (unless there is a web 3.0 that sorts it out).

I know someone who has claimed he will stay on the dole until the government addresses climate change. This makes my blood boil, but I imagine he’s 100% convinced he’s not only doing what’s best for himself, but what’s best for the country. I find it both fascinating and totally confusing how we are all so unique we can have such different views on the same thing. Is it human nature to convince yourself that despite evidence to the contrary that you are a good person doing good deeds?

So how do we solve the problem of making the world/New Zealand a better place to be? Is that actually what we want or do we want to make it a better place for our individual selves? Is making it better for one group, always making it worse for another? I wonder, deep down how much we even care about that other group. There is still huge and unjustified poverty, yet I have money in my bank account that I spend on clothes instead of feeding those people. I don’t even justify it, I just conveniently avoid confronting myself too much. I wonder if that should be borderline criminal. It would be if those people were on my doorstep.

I had a conversation with a smart guy the other day about our most pressing issue. I said the environment, he said ‘you wouldn’t say that if you were going to lose your job tomorrow.’ Is STILL thinking that in the big picture, I’d still vote the environment, uncaring, or is it pragmatically caring or is it just some idealistic rubbish that can’t possibly be fixed in a functioning society as we know it?

Sometimes I’m just grateful that my opinion doesn’t count too high. There is a lot of pressure on the people making these decisions, and it’s much easier commenting from afar than being the guy standing there with a pen, signing a new law. I don’t think I have the stamina, this is the sort of state I get myself into when I think about who I’m going to vote for in a couple of years time…