Blog

  • Hout Bay, Cape Town

    My favourite spot at Hout Bay in the Western Cape. I used to drive out in the middle of the working day to spend a few hours under a tree overlooking this beautiful area. I miss it…especially with the clutter these days. I could use a few days under that tree, if not a month or two…

  • Resilience

    As resilient as I may feel at times, there are moments when it feels as if I’m about to crumble. Being an idealist is tiring. It raises expectations that the pragmatist in me convinces me is practically achievable, if only…and it’s that ‘if only’ that always sets me up for a whole lot of hurting. But occasionally, the ‘if only’ bit proves to be true and what I wish for actually materialises for a few brief moments, which only reaffirms the fragility, because the achievement of something I desire or yearn for is a subtle reminder that I have that much more that can be ripped away from me.

    I’m not used to having what I desire, just what I need. What I desire most right now is equally fragile, if not more so. I can’t give up wanting to have her in my life. She completes me, and even though the potential loss of her threatens to destroy me completely, every cell in my fatigued body refuses to give up on her. Which only makes me more fragile when I really need to be more strong. But I’m still optimistic. I have an expectation of happiness, even if my head feels hopeless, my heart will hear nothing of it.

  • Storm clouds over Johannesburg

    Given the writer’s block that seems to be plaguing me these days, which is usually a result of the absence of my key source of inspiration from my life, I decided to post a few photos that I took over the last few years…I have a particular weakness for sunrises and sunsets, so I hope whoever stumbles across my blog (yeah rite!) doesn’t think it morbid but instead appreciates the warmth, beauty and serenity that such a scene offers.

    
    
    
    
    

    Storm clouds gathering over Johannesburg, South Africa

        

  • Nostalgia

    I had time to waste today, so I took a drive through my o-o-o-ld neighbourghood. I was reminded of so much from my past, mostly from my childhood that it left me somewhat bewildered. There was a bitter-sweet after taste from the whole experience, because it somehow felt as if I had left my roots too early in life. I felt a strange yearning to want to be back there, but at the same time I realised that I wouldn’t belong either.

    In fact, it’s difficult to convince myself at present that I belong anywhere in particular. I have a home that I’m excessively grateful for, and family and a scattering of friends, but no place where I feel at peace. As is my nature, when driving through the old neighbourhood there was a strong sense of the potential outcomes of what may have been of my life had I stayed in that area, rather than just an innocent recollection of years and experiences gone by.

    I often wonder if the tone of my reflections these days is the early warning signs of a mid-life crisis about to strike. Maybe it’s just the same yearning I talk of so often to return my life to a simpler time when things made more sense, and everything didn’t depend on everything and everyone else. I’m too tired to do justice to these thoughts right now. Isn’t it strange how life seems like such a long and arduous struggle when we look at what we think may lie ahead, yet it’s a blink of an eye when we stop to notice how much has happened already? Time and health…definitely two of the most important things that we take for granted when we have it…I guess as long as I don’t enter my mid-life crisis wearing a pee-pot on my head and riding an obnoxiously loud and juvenile-looking motorcycle that forces real men to accessorise, I stand a chance of growing old with dignity, not so?

  • Selfless Love

    Does it exist? Is it even possible? When faced with the harrowing thought of having a loved one exposed to a real and present danger, it’s instinctive to want to just jump right in and save them. But what happens when that person is so deep into it that they themselves don’t even realise anymore that they’re in it? Is that the point at which your love for them is tested the most? Is it then that you’ll probably be faced with the difficult decision to make about whether or not you jump in to save them, or at least die trying?

    I’ve often wondered what drives this type of behaviour. Is there really something like a selfless action? The cynic in me suggests not, but the romantic in me is reminded of the movie ‘What Dreams May Come’ with Robin Williams and Annabella Sciora. But back to the cynic in me. Despite our best intentions, it’s always our deeper self that drives our actions. So what may appear on the surface as a selfless act, is in fact a selfish act because either way, if we’re not doing it for our own benefit, then we’re doing it because of our conscience. If it doesn’t affect our conscience and we have no benefit to be gained from it, then what would be our motivation to act on it?

    So whether we do something to please our friends, family or partners, it’s either motivated by guilt, love or a conscience, but always selfishly motivated, even though that selfishness is not always good or healthy for us. We act out of duty rather than conviction when the guilty martyr in us triumphs over our courage to be true to ourselves and just to our souls.

  • The Purpose of Life

    To be available to those that have a need to benefit from the resources that you have at your disposal so that their life’s trials may be lightened by the burdens of your own. Your ability to dispense of these benefits in a magnanimous and selfless manner is directly proportional to the perceived level of dignity and respect by which you’ll be addressed or received. Forming symbiotic relationships with those that have resources that serve your needs proportional to the resources you have to serve their needs is what would tend towards a healthy exchange of benefits and trials leading to procreation within the confines of wedlock…that’s of course only if you choose to maintain your dignity in the process. If not, it will lead to procreation out of wedlock, or perhaps no possibility of procreation at all if your choice is an unnatural relationship.

    So in a nutshell, using and being used if done with dignity and respect, will lead to an honourable and happy life. Maybe.

  • Flatline

    I feel so uninspired this morning. The sound of the birds was so beautiful on my way back from prayers that I actually stopped to record it in the hope of sharing it with someone special. Alas, technology has yet to move on in the MMS realm, so the limitation of 300kb for a voice clipping denied me the opportunity to share it at all. That’s probably when the un-inspirational feeling set in. For the first time in a long time (read a few weeks!) I walked through my front door wishing there was someone there waiting to welcome me home.

    There isn’t. My two daughters sleeping peacefully in their beds in the room, and emptiness…a vacant fully furnished space that I call home. That’s all that I can look forward to when I enter the house, not to say that I don’t appreciate the peace and quiet often enough…but there’s only so much peace and quiet that any soul needs. I’m so full of peace and quiet that the peace and quiet is starting to feel like clutter…

    Anyway, enough noise for this morning…maybe some sleep will ease the tension of my ongoing monologues. Is this the makings of a recluse? Probably!

  • Expectations

    We deserve more than to have to live up to the expectations of others, especially when their expectations fall far short of our abilities or aspirations. I often get so caught up in not wanting to disappoint not only those near and dear to me, but pretty much anyone that I have any respect for, that I lose myself in the process. My constant battle for significance, I believe, is what drives this insane behaviour.

    I once heard that we have three specific fears in life; the fear of feeling insignificant, the fear of being seen as stupid, and the fear of appearing incompetent. This drives almost all our behaviour, both negative and positive, especially our anger! However, it is my uninformed opinion that people with a high self-esteem (NOT narcissitic egotists!) are less prone to these fears influencing their overall behaviour because they have a well established confidence in their own ability to be good wholesome human beings without needing the affirmation of others at every turn.

    Some of us are fortunate enough to have been raised with this sense of self-worth as an inherent characteristic of our make-up, while others (including me) have had to establish it the hard way through years of ridicule and perseverence that eventually led us to a point where we realised quite unwittingly that chronically trying to please others will only lead to our destruction. And so we get to a point in our lives that can easily be labelled a ‘light bulb’ moment from which point forward the world has a new charm and attraction about it. Relationships take on a whole new dimension of enchantment, and complacency seems vile.

    But the struggle is never over, because snapping at my heels is a constant reminder that losing focus of my newly found ‘wisdom’ will send me tumbling head over heels down that dark path of self destruction where self-loathing and insecurity will overwhelm me, and I’ll be nothing but a lump of flesh and bones that simply exists but does not live, waiting for something good to happen to me by someone else’s terms. So instead I make more movies in my head, and surround myself with reminders of what a morbid existence I led before the moment of truth hit me. And I pray that this will suffice to keep me well grounded in the present moment so that the past ceases to hold any appeal or attraction for me.

    Note to self: These posts are getting too long and smug…keep it short and simple stupid!