When walking on a Coromandel beach one day, dog and I discovered a toy library.  It was just by some steps leading down to the beach.  Someone had built a big open wooden box - maybe 1.5 metre square - in which were a collection of mostly plastic beach toys.  Like diggers.  And graders.  And trucks.  Probably spades and buckets and all sorts of other things too.  

There were some words painted by the box.  "Beach Toy Library" it said.  Then there were the instructions: "Borrow - Play - Return".  I loved the instructions.  Three words.  Oh, that everything in life could be explained in three words!  Keep it simple, keep it happy, keep it uncomplicated.

I mean you could imagine some committee member of the Beach Toy Library association worried about the number of toys not being returned to the box and thinking that some admonishing or guilting words should be included.  But others on the committee prevailed with a gentler approach: 'If a toy didn't find its way back, then we just put the word out for more toys'.

Not that there was necessarily a committee or association.  I imagine a couple of neighbours getting together over a summer BBQ and thinking a toy library was a good idea, sounding out others, convincing the local Council of it, putting the word out for underused toys, and then just letting it roll.  Little or no money, management, or fuss.

The great thing about toy libraries is that they have the capacity to teach children (and adults) about the merits of sharing.  Not everything good or enjoyable in life has to be bought and owned.  Indeed when you reach the 'three-score-and-some-more' end of life most of the good and enjoyable things in life are not bought or owned.

But when you're young, and that little digger gives you so much pleasure, it is hard to leave it behind at a beach box.  For you might want to play with it more.  And it might not be there when you next go to the beach. Or the next time Sally over the road might have got to the box before you and now is playing with it.  And you're not.  And you might have to be patient.  Or you take the grader from the box and go and play with Sally instead, and maybe she'll play with the grader some and you'll get to play with the digger some, or maybe not.

Its the art of living really: patience, letting go, playing nicely with others, realising that we don't have to possess everything in order to experience happiness.  And learning that a lot of fun is found when we do things together, sharing what we have, and borrowing.

Those of us of the 'three-score-and-some-more' age group remember growing up when sharing between neighbours was the norm.  Probably because shops weren't open in the hours they're open now.  Or that were fewer of them, and further away.  Or because we didn't hop in our cars so often.  Or maybe it was because we'd learnt it was a nice, neighbourly thing, to share.

It happened invariably in the weekend.  There was a knock or a holler at the back door.  (In our neighbourhood the front door was for strangers and salesman, everyone else went round the back). At the back door there would be Joan or Jim asking to borrow a pound of butter or a water-blaster.  

When you think about it, water-blasters are one of those things that you should buy in order to share.  For no one, I hope, is going to use a water-blaster every weekend.

And when Joan or Jim came to borrow something there would invariably be some chat.  'How's it going?' kind of chat.  The kind of chat where news is shared and neighbours can learn that so-and-so needs a little help, or a lot of help, and we can help.

I know we can't turn the clock back.  And there were some things about those days that weren't so good.  But there were also some lessons from back then about sharing that could do with being remembered.  

As I write this its the start of election season and I'm thinking about taxation.  Which is kind of a compulsory form of sharing where those who have more contribute more in order that our ethos of a supportive community is empowered and maintained.  Well, that's the ideal.  

So tax is not just about having a 'social safety net', caring for the vulnerable, or giving someone a helping hand.  And its not about punishing someone for good fortune, or for working long hours, or because others see them as wealthy.  At best tax is about empowering a whole community by championing good ideas - like building that beach box for the toys, and supporting good processes and policies where all the neighbourhoods that make up our society can be safe, healthy, supportive, and enhancing of the paradise that Aotearoa is and can be.  It's about sharing and caring.  And to that end I'd gladly pay a little more.

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