The centre of the world.  

It’s a funny concept, really, because on a planet with 8 billion people, the world’s attention never settles on any one event or thing for much more than a moment. Most of the time you would probably argue that the world’s attention is divided and scattered. It takes an historic moment, something really big, truly significant, to hone those 8 billion sets of eyes to one point. And to be there in person, to actually experience it for yourself is to be an eyewitness to history.

I met a guy who was on his OE in Europe in 1989 when he woke up one morning and heard maybe something was stirring. He hustled to a train and ended up with his photograph in the New York Times, tearing down the Berlin Wall.   

Truthfully, I can’t compete with that. But by the nature of my job, I guess I’ve been fortunate to witness some reasonably significant events, first hand.   

I sat there as Pope Francis addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations. I’ve seen Presidential inaugurations, Obama speaking on the mall. I was there in the room in 2016 when Donald Trump strode into a Philadelphia arena and formally accepted the Republican nomination for President of the United States.   

Something tells me that despite our geographic isolation, New Zealanders are good at sniffing out big historic moments. It could be a regal one – a royal wedding of a funeral? It can be a tragic event like witnessing the 9/11 attacks.   

Sport can be a good one. I saw Leo Messi score for Argentina at the opening game of the 2014 Football World Cup. That was special. And I was sitting on the finish line when Usain Bolt won the 100m at the Rio Olympic Games.   

Sometimes it takes luck. Sometimes it takes money. And sometimes it takes an exclusive kind of privilege that almost none of us will ever have.  

Take a papal conclave. There might be 1.4 billion Catholics on the planet, but only those cardinals who were in the room will ever truly know what it was like to be a part of that conclave. Just being outside in St Peters Square would be an incredible experience; the moment everyone saw the white smoke. But just imagine being inside. If you were to divide the number of followers worldwide by every man in that room, there are more than ten million Catholics for each individual cardinal. But only those cardinals will know what it’s like to be there in person, to see the votes tallied, to hear the new Pope choose a name. 

The world’s attention might have been focused on the Vatican, waiting for the smoke, but for this moment, only a tiny few were there. 133 eyewitnesses to a moment in history.