Tag: Life

  • I Don’t Belong Here

    I don’t belong here. I belong in another place from another time. A time when struggles were filled with purpose, and a place where life was lived. My struggles these days seem hinged on survival, existence, garnished with a side portion of indulgence to keep the angst at bay. The fulfilment of purpose escapes me. I don’t see new opportunities any longer, I only see patterns and statistics. Everything has become painfully predictable taunting me with the doubts of what may have been inevitable, or what may have been a self-fulfilled prophecy.

    I look at the future and it appears to be a fractured reflection of the past. I see the faces around me that look to me for support and assurance, but all I can provide is dependability in its place. Optimism is tainted with reality. Hearing of the news of a fellow blogger (potentially) having committed suicide this week further deflated me. Seeing someone struggle with the same questions of purpose and sincerity, action and desire, life and death, suddenly succumbing to the despair of it all emphasises the gravity of what it is that I contemplate even when I’m dreaming.

    Everything is ephemeral, except reality. There is little that can bring comfort to a jaded soul. No, not jaded, tarnished and tainted. A soul that has found itself in the throes of realising that its life’s struggles have amounted to nought, and then some. This world was made for respite. I need to remind myself that this world was made for respite, not justice. I forget that at the times I need to remember it most. Respite, not justice.

    I need to trust in order to find reason to persevere, all the while knowing that such trust harbours nothing but betrayal. The cycles are almost perfectly formed. It’s only the players that keep changing. We embellish the distractions with superficial meaning trying to convince ourselves that it’s not the same routine. It always is.

     

  • That Hyper Acidity Demon

    I’ve been struggling with hyper-acidity for a few years now. Like most illnesses, I prefer to take the holistic approach to addressing it rather than the instant gratification approach that calls for pills and reckless abandon in modern medicine. So over the years, I observed various tendencies within myself that seem to trigger the acidity spikes that often feel like a butcher’s hook has been inserted in my abdomen from below and is being pulled downwards with enough force that threatens to disembowel me. So I thought I’d share a few pointers about what has and hasn’t worked for me.

    Early on, I visited the doctor to identify the cause of the pain in my stomach. They immediately suspected an ulcer and promptly placed me on medication for this. So I received a standard dose of Nexium and was given some Gaviscon to go with it. It didn’t work. So I went back to the doctor to see what could be the problem. This time, because of the intensity of the pain and discomfort (tmi warning) and because of the fact that my stool was starting to get a mucose texture to it, I was given a double dose of antibiotics (i.e. two different antibiotics simultaneously) over a two week period, including a double dose of Nexium for a month. It didn’t work. The next step suggested by the doctor was a gastroscopy. The idea of having a tube shoved down my throat didn’t appeal to me, so I politely declined and set out trying to understand this issue more holistically.

    After a chance meeting with an iridologist at a local pharmacy, I discovered a homoeopathic tea that relieved the symptoms within 2 or 3 days, literally! Unfortunately, as fate would have it, that pharmacy closed down and the tea that was made as a family remedy by that lady disappeared along with it. But I recalled seeing that fennel was one of the active ingredients in that tea, so I got myself some fennel tea to try to deal with the discomfort of the acidity. I also came across a book by Louise L. Hay that provides insights into the association between emotional or mental state, and our physical state. This suggested that acidity was caused by an excessive need to please others. It made perfect sense because at the time, I was going through an absolutely troubling time in my marriage, which affected my work performance, which left me desperately trying to appease both my wife, my boss, and my colleagues at the same time. However, I just saw it as stress before that point, but after reading what Louise had to say, I narrowed it down to that effort to appease. Also worth noting is that with the stress, my caffeine intake increased substantially because I was struggling to sleep and needed an energy boost more often than not. So energy drinks and filtered coffee became my staple diet which only made matters worse.

    So I started adjusting my mindset to get more perspective on what was happening. I realised that trying to appease was never sustainable, so I started accepting my limitations in pleasing others or meeting their expectations, and slowly but surely it reduced the intensity of the acidity. But the damage had been done, so I was now predisposed to hyper-acidity because my love for orange juice suddenly became my worst enemy.

    To cut a long story short, after many years of finding ways to deal with hyper-acidity without invasive medical treatment, I’ve found that the following works well for me.

    1. Having peanut butter on toast with tea. For some reason, I’ve found that the caffeine in tea doesn’t affect my acidity, whereas coffee nails it almost immediately. Drinking filter coffee is like committing harakiri.
    2. I’m using a probiotic called Probiflora with 4 strains of bacteria. There’s one with 9 strains as well, but I’m hoping I’ll never need that one. It seems to help neutralise the stomach acids by just taking one each day as needed.
    3. I completely avoid Gaviscon and similar antacids. I do use fruit salts from time to time (a local brand called ENO works exceptionally well) which seems effective at alleviating the acid build up after an overly indulgent meal.
    4. Hyper-acidity usually makes me feel bloated and generally lethargic because of the other symptoms that it invokes, so I’ve found that taking a good (preferably natural) source of digestive enzymes usually helps alleviate the bloatedness as well.
    5. Fennel tea also works well, or rooibos tea, if you have access to that, to alleviate the bloated feeling that acidity causes. It’s particularly effective to maintain the health of your digestive system when under stress.
    6. I avoid sugar completely, and I avoid acidic fruit juices completely. The sugar is simply because after getting used to the taste of natural non-radiarised honey, I can’t stand the artificial sweetness that sugar offers.
    7. When my acid really spikes, I stay away from tomatoes, white flour products and cheeses, including acidic fruits like oranges, naartjies, pineapples and most berries, especially strawberries.
    8. Most importantly, I remind myself that my objective in life is not to please people, but simply to do right by them. If they’re not happy with me, and I’m being true to myself in the process, then I accept that I cannot make them happy and maintain as amicable a relationship as is warranted, or politely part ways if needed.

    I hope that helps, because I see many people suffering with massive discomfort from hyper-acidity these days, and more often than not, they’re either on chronic medication or insane diets which is even more difficult to stick to because hyper-acidity often makes me feel hungry more often than not, which results in horrible weight gain, which nails my self-image, which increases my stress levels and perpetuates that vicious cycle. Hopefully this post will spare someone the torment of that vicious cycle.

  • Perhaps…

    Farting against thunder. That’s often the sum total of my state of mind these days. For a moment today I felt as if sharing my thoughts on this and other blogs of mine was in fact perpetuating the whispers of insignificance that taunt me. It’s an insane cycle. Needing an outlet, not necessarily creative or emotional, but just something to release the noise, make space for the clutter to fall into an open space so that I might be able to look for clues on how to unravel it all.

    I sometimes feel repulsed by what I write. At other times, I’m repulsed by the fact that I write at all. I wonder if all my efforts at unlocking the logic behind the ridiculous labels is in fact me denying that those labels actually apply to me. Perhaps I have a mental disorder but my arrogance and obstinacy prevents me from acknowledging it. Perhaps my views on what is or is not good in this world is in fact tainted with a sense of idealism that is unachievable.

    I shy away from debates that used to impassion me. I look at others and recede believing that my attempts at getting them to understand, or appreciate, or simply entertain an alternate view is futile. I seem prone to taking up lost causes as if doing so may spur on some global reawakening about something simple that seems pivotal to the resurrection of old school values that I cling to so dearly. Perhaps I only cling to them out of fear of not being able to embrace the new? Perhaps I’m not farting at all against the thunder. Perhaps the thunder is in fact the clutter in my head, seeing chaos where only randomness exists, and seeking order where none is possible.

    Perhaps the days of my sanity are numbered. Perhaps the purpose of life that always seemed so poignantly obvious to me was in fact a figment of my own imagination. A conjured ruse of a troubled teenager’s aspirations lacking in substance and form, with a life breathed into it from the seat of desperation that wrestles within my soul. Perhaps I was feigning sanity all along.

  • South Africa, A Nation Under Siege

    We had a security incident at our home tonight. It was literally a minute before midnight when I was prodded out of bed by the sound of the siren for the electric fencing screaming. In typical fashion, I loitered, somewhat from being disorientated because I was in a deep sleep, and partially because it takes me some time to completely snap into crisis mode. I slowly worked through the process of switching on the outside lights, then getting my firearm out of the safe, and then making my way to the security gate that separates our bedrooms from the main living area of the house. In between I vaguely recall going to the bathroom first before finally making my way over to the back of the house to see what was happening.

    When I pushed my curtains back, I saw an owl that could easily have been almost two feet tall standing on the parapet of the outside room. I shone the torch straight at it, and it looked at me as if I was wrong for having electric fence. I suspected that the owl had tried to sit on the top strand of the fence but caused the two strands to short circuit because of its weight, resulting in the screeching siren in the middle of the night. But this is South Africa, so you’re an idiot that’s just asking for it if you don’t make sure that all is relatively safe before you step into your own back yard at that time of the night. So I waited patiently for the security company to send out a response vehicle before venturing outside. Unfortunately, due to a poor installation by a fly-by-night contractor who was an ex-cop, my control unit for the electric fence is located in the outside room with no direct access from inside the house. It’s also not wired up to the main alarm system, which means it gets armed and disarmed independently.

    A long 20 minutes later the security company arrived by which time the alarm had been screeching for almost half an hour. I expected to receive a call from the neighbours, but no such thing happened. Not even a light was switched on. But, this is South Africa, so we’re either immune to the sound of house alarms in the middle of the night, or we’re too afraid to get involved for fear of our lives.

    I did the walkabout around the house with the armed response guy and confirmed that the top strands had shorted. We sorted it out, I reset the electric fence, and it was back to being armed and ready to irritate again. Throughout this ordeal, my mother paced restlessly in her room in the cottage in my back yard, while my wife who is an American ex-pat got her first taste of the anxiety that South Africans have grown accustomed to. If it wasn’t for the two of them, I would not have given a second thought to the incident, but realising how it affected them reminded me of exactly what hell South Africans deal with on a daily basis. However, because there’s a constant threat to our safety, we’ve grown accustomed to living at a heightened level of stress and fear.

    At that moment, when the vulnerability showed on my wife’s face, something inside me cursed deeply. It cursed the corrupt government, the inept officials that lead the police force, and it cursed the arrogance of the likes of Nathi Mthetwa and his fallen comrades who were unceremoniously dismissed from their posts after finally being exposed as the corrupt thieves that they are. The average South African burns a significant portion of their monthly income on security related services and equipment just to feel ok, not safe. High walls, electric fence, armed response, firearms (if you’re fortunate enough to have been granted a license), satellite tracking, anti smash and grab window tinting, security spikes, security gates, and the list goes on. Until recently, even those inept police officers were getting their police stations guarded by private security companies, yet we have an arrogant minister and president that believes that South Africa is safe!

    I don’t quite care about the political correctness of this article, but under apartheid, at least we knew what we were dealing with. There was a sense of community and a sense of real safety in our neighbourhoods. The most drastic measures we ever had to take was to setup neighbourhood watch groups, and then also, it was manned by the teenage boys of the area because the threat was mainly to property and not to persons. The crime associated with property theft has grown increasingly violent and sadistic since 1994, and news reports on a daily basis proves that criminals are not only getting more creative in their efforts to terrorise people, but are also getting more brazen in their attacks on both private individuals and police officers alike. And all the while our incompetent minister continues wreaking of arrogance and incompetence, while proclaiming that the police are winning the fight against crime.

    Too many South Africans have grown complacent, and are still so stuck in the past that they fail to see the country rolling downhill as a dung ball gathering mass until it settles as a heap of manure at the bottom of the hill of progress, with a finely inscribed label made of the most extravagant materials saying ‘Failed State’. I hate what the ANC has done to this country, and every person that heaps unrestrained praise on the ANC-led government for how they’ve pulverised this country into a stink-hole of morbidity needs to have their IQ retested so that we can find a spot for them in a suitable institution. Hopefully for them funding for that institution won’t be cut because of yet another scandal of untold billions of rands having been squandered or simply unaccounted for.

    This is not what we protested for in 1976, nor what we protested for in 1984. This is not what I aspired to have as my quality of life in this country when I got my first job and started paying my taxes. We give idiots a soap box to spew racial filth disguised as affirmative action and then cry when we see senseless crimes being perpetrated. We’re focusing on rewriting history by spending billions on establishing monuments and renaming roads, highways and cities while law and order is having to be upheld by the citizens and private security industries of this country at the expense of the ordinary South African who still gets taxed on those security measures that are needed because government is not doing its job to protect its citizens. It’s ludicrous!

    There are exceptions to every rule, and that is what is shameful about South Africa. The exceptions are all that’s left in the offices of public service while the norm is to deploy overpaid fat cat cadres to do the jobs of real public servants. While I’m fully aware and I acknowledge the presence of some level of competence in the public offices of this country, without which we would have arrived at the bottom of that proverbial hill already, but just because we have a semblance of competence in isolated areas of government in no way provides justification for the continued presence in office of a largely corrupt and incompetent government. We need change and we need it soon, and waiting for people with weak zips and dripping shower heads to provide that change is tantamount to signing your own death warrant. They’re too incompetent to even run their personal affairs with dignity, so how on earth are they ever going to be capable of maintaining the dignity of the ordinary South African?

  • Self-imposed humiliation is more palatable than suffering humiliation at the hands of others

  • Parenting Gone Wrong

    This is an interaction I had with someone on my Tumblr blog. It touches on the destructive relationships that some parents have with their children. It’s something quite close to home for me, so I thought I’d share it here as well. The content that is bold is my opinion that I shared on the issues being raised. 

    What if a person has a sort-of narcissistic mother? And what if she has disliked the child since the child was young (but loved the child’s younger sibling), and still blames the child (even when the child is now an adult) for everything? So in her heart and mind, her child is the one with problems, the one who is the cause of all pain in her life.

    Narcissistic mothers are more common than you would imagine. I can’t count the number of mothers I’ve seen in my own experiences that openly and aggressively compete with their daughters (usually the eldest daughter if there’s more than one). It’s disturbing to say the least, and not uncommon to find them choosing a favourite between their children.

    What if the reason for the mother having bad feelings towards her child is the child’s fault for not having enough sabr?

    While that is a distinct possibility, given the rest of the scenarios presented below, that sounds almost like Stockholm Syndrome where the victim starts to sympathise with the aggressor’s position and sees them as justified in their actions.

    Let’s say once the child was an adult, they went back to try and fix things and create a relationship with the mother again. But the mother continued to emotionally condemn and hurt the person, but that the person tried to have sabr, and limited their visits with their mother just to keep the peace. What if one time, the person had to stay with the mother for over 5 days due to a specific circumstance. What if during this time, no matter how quiet the person tried to stay, the mother became increasingly irritated and angry with them and started saying horrible things. (And the sibling of the person took the mothers side also, saying that they don’t want that person in their lives anymore – there must be something wrong with the person then, right, and not the mother?)

    I disagree. It doesn’t necessarily imply that there is something wrong with the person. What it does suggest is that the mother has some issues relating to an association with the person in question. In other words, the mother could have been at a difficult time in her life when she gave conceived and/or gave birth to the child that is being pushed aside. As a result, especially in younger mothers, it’s not uncommon for them to project their own disappointments about life on the unborn or newborn child because it makes it easy for them to project their failures on the child instead of accepting responsibility for the choices they made. E.g. So if the mother had aspirations of building a career or having a certain amount of social freedom at that point in her life, and she ended up having an unplanned baby, in her weakness to acknowledge her own contribution to that situation, she would blame the baby for robbing her off those aspirations, and that blame, when nurtured for long enough, could become really toxic in their relationship in later years.

    Then what if the mother physically hurt the person in anger- as if they were a small child again- and what if this time the person just had enough and finally snapped, reacting back to the mother?
    Isn’t it the fault of that person for not having enough sabr with the situation? And now because of that, the mother is angry and holds an even bigger grudge than before and has now disowned that person from the family completely.
    So…. in Allah’s eyes, isn’t the person to blame, since the mother should always be respected and not shown anger towards?

    The person was bound to snap at some point, because as human beings, we have an inherent need for reciprocation, appreciation or gratitude. Our efforts must yield some beneficial results at some point or else we’re bound to snap out of anger at feeling incompetent or insignificant in the situation we’re trying to resolve. While being disrespectful towards a parent can never be condoned, I don’t believe there is anything wrong in maintaining a healthy distance in order to discourage a situation from arising that would lead to such disrespect becoming unavoidable. Islam is holistic in its approach to everything, and therefore, in this situation, the mother would need to fulfil her duties and responsibilities in order to enjoy the benefits of the elevated position that Islam affords her. In this case, the mother would always find a reason to justify her view about the merits and qualities of the person in question because she would need that to avoid taking accountability for her own actions that led up to the toxic situation between the two of them.

    And how would it work out on the day of judgement? Because ultimately it’s her word against the child’s and from the importance of the relationship with the mother in Islam, doesn’t that mean that the child of the mother has no chance on the day of judgement to enter Jannah? No matter how much the person repents, ultimately, isn’t it the word of the mother against theirs?

    I don’t think the Day of Judgement will be about one person’s word against another’s because all our deeds are clearly recorded. Our own bodies will act as witnesses against us, so no one’s opinion will carry weight on that day. Allah will judge fairly between the two, and we will not be held accountable for those situations that are out of our control. We will only be accountable for that which we could have done but didn’t do, within reasonable limits. 

    Of course Allah knows best, but I’m just wondering.

    P.s. At the same time though, the mother is a practicing Muslim, a kind and generous person in general. So it’s very confusing for the child, they wonder if it really is them with the problem, since the mother is a good person and practicing Muslim in general. So if that’s the case, does the child have any chance of entering Jannah, since the only time the mother becomes abusive and angry like this is when they are around. Therefore, there must be something wrong with that particular child of the mother’s, right?

    Again, it’s not necessarily due to a fault on the part of the child. Some parents, for whatever reason, just take a natural dislike and develop a very competitive relationship with their child/children. There’s nothing any child can do to change that because the one with the predominant power and influence is the parent. Until the child attains a level of independence and success as an adult, it’s hardly likely that the parent will see them differently. Even then, the parent could choose to continue seeing the child’s success as a result of their sacrifices rather than acknowledging their child’s efforts to make a good life for themselves. So the best is to just recognise the constraints and dynamics of the relationship for what it is, and take the needed steps to avoid further contention.

    This reminds me of the incident between the Prophet (SAW) and Wahshi, the man that killed Hamzah (RA). After asking him for an explanation of what happened, Rasulullah (SAW) forgave him and asked him never to show him his face again. The reason I’m reminded of this incident is because a similar theme could play out here. The person could accept that the current circumstances are just not conducive towards a healthy relationship with the parent, and so should avoid unnecessary contact without severing family ties. Insha-Allah in time, the absence and independent growth on both sides may lead to a thawing of the ice in the relationship and result in mutual respect developing, Ameen. 

    P.S. It’s normal for the favourite child to be sympathetic towards the parent’s views, until they reach an age of maturity where they are able to view the relationship more objectively.

  • Is this the real life…

    I’ve been faced with a daunting realisation these last few days. Perhaps I’m not so average after all. I’m not better, nor am I worse, but I’m starting to realise that I’m probably just fundamentally different. This may sound like a romantic notion to some, but to me this is potentially life altering. The reason it has such an impact on me is because it calls to question every observation or piece of advice that I ever offered anyone. If my disposition and point of departure is so significantly different from most others, it means that my criticisms and insights are distinctly biased and potentially useless for most of the people that I ever engage with.

    These are troubling thoughts for someone that has found much comfort in being able to offer advice to others so that they may avoid the mistakes that I’ve made. But this realisation now suggests that my mistakes are not likely to be repeated by others because I am not part of the normal crowd. I guess in many ways I’ve been resisting this realisation all my life. I’ve thought of myself as normal but different. Now I just think I’m different, and I’m not sure I grasp the concept of normal at all. I doubt I ever did.

    My ability to detach my emotions from reason is a quirk not appreciated by most. It helps in times of crisis, but it causes me to look distinctly uninterested and often annoyed when others are freaking out while I fail to see a reason to freak out just yet. Given that most people don’t live in true crisis mode all the time, it makes this skill of mine somewhat tedious to deal with. And surrounding myself with people that are in fact living in crisis mode continually will just drain the last drop of optimism from my gut. So I guess I’m in limbo.

    Silence is the only comfort I seem to enjoy these days. Everything else demands a presence of mind and a demand of my attention that has become quite an effort. I’m distracted most of the time with thoughts of…everything. What was, what is, what might be, what might not be, what could have been, what should have been, what I’m glad hasn’t been, and it goes on. It goes on painfully and tediously. But through it all I’ve managed to remain somewhat functional and able to offer some purpose in my presence. The more I experience, the more jaded is my response to life.

    Is this what a mid-life crisis feels like? No, it can’t be. If it were, it would negate the realisation that prompted this post to begin with. I look at others my age and I struggle to relate to their frame of mind. In some ways I relate to the mind set of those 15 years my junior, but I find myself at odds with how they approach their sense of purpose in  life. I’m disjointed from society, from the community, and often from my family. But I’ve been revelling in that disjointedness until now under the misconception of it having been a valuable skill that allowed me to view the world with a fresh perspective.

    Who was I fooling all this time? I’m cynically jaded. There is no fresh perspectives for a jaded one. Suddenly Bohemian Rhapsody is mocking me.

  • Society’s Slaves

    People in general will see you as they fear themselves to be, but those with good hearts will see you as they aspire to be. Having been on the receiving end of significant criticism recently, I almost forgot to remind myself of that age old wisdom that says that your actions define who you are, not who I am. And so the same applies with your comments and your criticism.

    It’s rare to find people who criticise sincerely, but more importantly, it’s even more rare to find people who criticise from an informed perspective. Our penchant to want to be proven true about something insightful often leads many to offer their uninformed opinions cloaked in bookish bombast (I’ve always loved that phrase that I know will make people think me to be even more pretentious than before). The truth is, our search for significance drives us towards less than admirable behaviour more often than we’d care to acknowledge, and often even more than we would realise.

    I probably am guilty of much of the pretentiousness that I am accused of, but the truth is, I don’t care since it’s mostly with a deliberate intent. While reflecting on all the criticism that I’ve received lately most of which was subtle and not as overtly obvious as it was intended, I had to remind myself that my inclination to contradict the mainstream is not an adult fetish but rather a trait that has accompanied me and served me well my entirely life. Of course, that is entirely subjective given that many would probably classify me as a recluse, but the truth is, this same attitude of mine is what has seen me through many life threatening and life altering experiences, a fraction of which has literally caused many others to crumble under the sheer burden of it.

    So it’s unlikely that I will choose to change my approach to life, and people any time in the near future, if ever. People have proven to be inconsistent, just like me, because the same way I doubt myself so often, so do they. I guess the burden of being inherently introspective and somewhat socially averse (not to be mistaken for anti-social!) is that it inevitably paints a target on my back that makes me fair game for those seeking to pacify themselves about their own shortcomings and prejudices. But that has had no influence in dissuading me before, and I don’t intend to give it much credence now either.