Hawaiʻi doesn’t need a gondola.

Hawaiʻi doesn’t need to be the Asia-Pacific center for stadium sports.

Hawaiʻi isn’t going to be the next Hollywood. (Besides, Hollywood has its own troubles.)

Hawaiʻi doesn’t need outlet malls, chain restaurants, escape rooms or Trader Joe’s.

(If Hawaiʻi had a Trader Joe’s, kamaʻāina would not know what to bring to the office after trips to the continent.)

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It’s crazy that there are “water parks” with slides and pools built like an entertainment venue in Hawaiʻi, home of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

Those things are for places like Las Vegas, where there’s no ocean, no skiing, no ancient ruins to visit and just a lot of sand.

Hawaiʻi is beautiful. It doesn’t need to get dressed up in rouge and spangles and imported attractions.

Why doesn’t Hawaiʻi ever believe that Hawaiʻi is enough? It’s freakin’ HAWAIʻI!

This state has such a self-esteem problem.

I should be more specific. The part of Hawaiʻi that is controlled by Western capitalism and the need to constantly re-invent oneself to keep up with changing values, that part is always trying to find a new angle.

Over the decades, discussion of “progress” in these islands has made it seem like Hawaiʻi has to try harder to keep up with big cities around the world. It’s as though there’s an underlying belief that Hawaiʻi is the ugly underdog, devoid of personality and pizazz, a lost and lonely loser willing to change anything about themselves for just a bit of attention and affection.

But the real Hawaiʻi — the ancient mountains, the winds that have names, the verdure and wisdom of the forests — that Hawaiʻi has no identity crisis. That Hawaiʻi is solid.

I feel like I’ve written this before in other forms.

I feel like I could write this every year for the rest of my life.

New stuff keeps coming up, new gimmicks, new marketing concepts, really expensive stuff meant to lure visitors, draw investors and diversify Hawaiʻi’s economy while still leaning hard on tourism, of course. Tourism is always king. Tourists must be seduced into coming to Hawaiʻi by increasing levels of novelty and stardust, as though soft-sand beaches, double rainbows and kalua pig for breakfast isnʻt enough.

Ever since the cheesy but watchable “Hawaii Five-0” in the 1970s, there has been this starry-eyed dream of making Hawaiʻi the hub of film and television. What we’ve actually seen is that the industry tends to be feast-or-famine here, and while there were times when there have been waves of film and television projects of various artistic merit being shot here, there inevitably comes a period of nothing happening.

Haven’t we learned that the entertainment business is not stable enough to sustain a chunk of Hawaiʻi’s economy? Even Hollywood is struggling. But no, Hawaiʻi will chase after every Disney pipe dream, every indy film, and every dopey series that washes up in the islands and, like an ever-hopeful ingenue, be so sure that the next one is the one that’s going to make us all rich.

Back in the 1980s, what was left of the Big 5 sugar companies started talking about growing “nutraceuticals,” plants with healing properties, as part of an agriculture/visitor industry plan to make Hawaiʻi a hub of medical tourism and a wellness destination. That amounted to a lot of aspirational talk and very little action.

We’ve gone through phases of trying to be a wedding destination, a convention destination, a golf destination, a high-end luxury destination, a family-friendly destination, Japan’s favorite vacation spot, an exotic tropical adventure and a place with every American cultural convenience, but unconnected to the U.S. continent so it feels kinda foreign.

If Hawaiʻi could just focus on being the best, cleanest, safest, friendliest Hawaiʻi it can be, wouldn’t everybody be happier and better off?

That doesn’t mean Hawaiʻi can’t have nice things. It doesn’t mean that people here can’t aspire to have the best or to provide great educational, vocational and career opportunities for their children.

It does mean putting Hawaiʻi first and not being in constant service of the volatile tourism industry and the changing fads of what fashionable travelers want to portray themselves doing on their social media accounts.

But yeah, Hawaiʻi definitely doesn’t need a gondola, because after that, what’s next? Manufactured snow so that tourists can ski in paradise all year round? Space tourism? Hosting the Super Bowl? 

One can only imagine what new ideas will pop up in the future. Probably things much more grandiose and out-of-place than any we’ve seen so far.