We don't have to show ourselves off like a dog in a competition. We're Shireroth the great.
No, the reason why we're not in on the expo is that nobody here has the time, will or imagination to put in the effort to meet the high standard of the works in there so far. No, we don't have to show ourselves off. Gralus didn't have to either, and neither did Batavia. How strange that they ended up there anyway!
That's OK though, really. Remember Erik's star metaphor (maybe it should be called a parable by now?): Some stars burn bright blue and exhaust themselves quickly, some shimmer red for hundreds of billions of years, but they're all stars anyway, and they're all beautiful. I'm happy in a slowly changing, long-lived Shireroth, and it's fine with me that we don't spend much effort on an expo that will be archived and forgotten in a month anyway. I just wish people didn't have such an...
attitude about it. We're not special. The reason we're still around is that we're a bit more stubborn than most other nations. If other micronations are gastrotrichs, then we hardly have a claim to call ourselves more than a flatworm, and we're definitely swimming in the same sea.
No-one should be without a parasol, Sirocco.