Tag: me

  • Nostalgic Recollections

    I spent the better part of my youth in an Indian township south of Johannesburg, so this feeling of community and familiarity with your neighbours was something that I enjoyed well into my twenties. I miss those days a lot and still find myself struggling to find ways to bring back some of that old school wholesomeness. Despite being withdrawn and reclusive as a person, I always had a sense of belonging to something bigger than just my family, even though I may not have played an active role in the community. Some of my best times of my life were when we moved out of my father’s house into a rented place in another part of the township. We had less and ate the most modest meals but we felt liberated in many ways.

    This newfound sense of freedom was reflected in our lifestyles. We suddenly went from being a highly stressed and restrained bunch, to a group that had boundless energy and time for fun and laughter. For the first time ever we felt like a really close knit family. We played volley ball several nights a week after a hard day’s slog, we braai’d more often than our doctor’s would have advised, and we actively participated in each other’s lives. This was very different from our days in the family home when my parents were still together. My father was often angry and tired, and he suffered from unexplained blackouts. Years later I discovered that the medication he was on to reduce the blackouts also had mood altering effects, and I can’t help but wonder if he wouldn’t have been a very different man if he didn’t take that medication.

    His blackouts were suspected to be the result of repeated blows to the head that were sustained when he was playing goalkeeper for the local football team. He also got into more scuffles than most people, and I suspect that some of his anger he didn’t even understand himself. There would be days when he’d be completely delightful, entertaining and fatherly. But those were unfortunately rare occasions. He often seemed easily overcome with the burden of having a big family on a small income. He was a strict disciplinarian with his own family, but seemed to have a very different approach to my cousins. I tried, and still try to understand a lot of his actions because as always, my idealism leads me to believe that no human being is deliberately angry or vicious or malicious, no matter how much they even try to convince themselves that that is who they are.

    The more we choose to be that way, the more we’re finding ways to hide the uneasiness of not knowing why we are that way, until eventually we stop questioning or trying to change and we accept it as being our destiny. I don’t believe destiny works that way. Destiny doesn’t dictate our character or personality or choices in life. Destiny, for me, is only the culmination of events that we have no direct and complete influence over. Everything else is subject to the limited free will that we’ve been given. I believe that how we choose to respond to the events that destiny throws at us determines our success or failure as individuals and as human beings. When we give in to the destructive influences that tempt us to take the easy way out, we end up selling ourselves short and losing a part of our soul that will always be extremely difficult to rediscover.

    I don’t think my father found enough motivation around him to want to be better than what he was. He was a very intelligent man, but he had no one that seemed to believe in him. There was never a shortage of people to judge him or criticise him, but I don’t recall ever seeing anyone that showed a genuine interest in what made him the angry man that he was. I often think that only when I truly appreciate the influence that my father had on my life, and only when I achieve a reasonable understanding of what made him the person that he was, will I be able to progress in my own life as a better person, father and human being.

    An extract from that book I never wrote. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. Somehow it feels as if I’m growing closer to the point where the words will bleed easily from my fingers the moment I resolve to do it. I hope that happens soon because I desperately need a ventlet from all the noise right now. 

  • If Wishes Were Horses…

    I was reminded of that old proverb tonight. If wishes were horses, beggars would be riders. That’s how it often feels for me in life. Fortunately these bouts of wishing for what never was usually subsides within minutes, and rarely does it ever extend into hours or days. But that I wish or yearn for beginnings that were not intended for my life is something I can’t deny. Most of all, I often find myself wishing that I had sources of wisdom to draw on as I progressed through my years and my life experiences.

    Becoming an adult in a harsh world is difficult enough without such guidance. Finding your way amidst the jeers and ridicule of many while maintaining a single-minded focus on what you aspire to be is enough to try the tenacity of an angel. But I’m no angel, and fortunately the realisation of that struggle only hit me much later in life, well beyond that exhausting stage which made it somewhat more bearable. Perhaps that is the blessing of being oblivious at times.

    However, such struggles are never to be presented in single item purchases. They always seem to come in bulk purchases. Reflecting on those early years seems almost as if I had an idyllic existence at the time if I were to compare it to what was to follow. Painful lessons were learnt in my efforts to become a husband, and later a father. I’ve often felt twinges of remorse and guilt at the thought of the pain unleashed on others during those years of growth, but my saving grace is the knowledge that whatever I did, I did sincerely and out of genuine conviction for what I believed to be the right thing to do at the time. That’s all we can expect from anyone, isn’t it?

    Behaving maliciously is a sign of an infinitely more troubled soul than mine and I shudder at the thought, so as long as I don’t stoop to such levels, I guess I can take comfort in the fact that I am not truly jaded or bitter yet. The cynicism though, is open for debate. The wisdom accumulated through years of unaided struggles can easily be wasted if we’re quick to assume that we were being punished, rather than being educated. Without such trials, mediocrity and fragility would have taken me in a sweeping motion to a place that would have seen me dependent and needy of support structures reserved for the frail of heart, and timid of mind. Yet from a young age the innate resilience of my spirit kept me going. It has always been a sense of resilience that I could never take credit for. I did not sow it, nor did I nurture it. In fact, it nurtured me.

    And now, after all these experiences that have shaped me into who I am today, I still feel lacking. I wonder if the weight of being independently resilient with nothing more than faith to rely on will eventually wear away at my resolve and render me brittle and fragile at a time when the weight of this life just becomes overwhelmingly burdensome. Faith must remain my companion if I hope to survive this ordeal of life with any measure of dignity that may remain. My greatest fear is that at some point I may be faced with the harsh reality that perhaps I got it wrong all these years. Perhaps after all my resolve, my self-proclaimed philosophies of life, and death, and my supposedly informed perspectives of what makes us human, and what gives life purpose, perhaps at some point I will be disemboweled by the truth of what was, and the realisation of how far off the mark I was. And suddenly, the reality of death and the purpose of life will seem like a story very different to the one I just lived, with barely a breath left in me to try again.

  • Reflections

    I’ve been wanting to write a post for a while now, but recently I’ve been wondering how much of what I write is still reflective of what I need to express? At times my blog reminds me of the cries of a frustrated nobody that is pleading for sanity to prevail, but there is no one around to hear those pleas. I miss taking the time to ramble about my quirks and my observations, and it shows in the level of clutter that I carry with me these days. The clutter distracts me from the point of unrelated conversations and often ends with me responding on issues that would otherwise not even interest me.

    I need to return to that place of indulgence where my thoughts flow from clutter to fingertips without prompting, and my mental clarity restores without effort. Those moments of reflection are often the first to be sacrificed when the clutter becomes overwhelming. However, although seemingly counter-intuitive, it’s exactly those moments of reflection that should enjoy priority as the clutter increases. I can’t help my nature as much as I should, hence I find myself prone to responding to the inane urgencies of the day while often being distracted from the important. I suspect this trait alone firmly establishes me as one of the masses.

    Being one of the masses, and increasingly realising exactly how common I am, further creates doubt in my mind about whether or not I have anything meaningful to share. Even just discussing or mentioning that thought leaves me feeling as if it’s a cloaked attempt at soliciting pity or affirmation. It isn’t. I never doubt that there is a greater purpose that I am able to fulfil, but my ability to identify it and apply myself towards its fulfilment is always elusive because of the clutter.

    This is an incomplete post, which is reflective of the incomplete thought process that spawned it. 

  • A Brain Dump

    I’ve been struggling to focus on almost anything recently. I’ve been plagued with thoughts of ‘what next’ for a long time now. While I still have a lot of passion for what I do, my passion for doing it with the people that I do is fast fading. I’ve always managed to find avenues to express myself creatively in my work, regardless of how mundane the task at hand may seem. That hasn’t changed, but I’m finding it increasingly difficult to find the patience to convince others that there is a better way to do things.

    I’m usually the one that questions the status quo while others revere it because it is a tried and tested way to do things. When people tell me about the tried and tested ways they’re familiar with, all I hear is ‘it is my safe haven, my comfort zone, my sphere of influence, so don’t you dare try to change it!’. It’s ridiculous how people can define their worth by something they achieved or were party to several years ago and still hold on to the residual glory of it all. I despise myself when I find myself doing something in 10 steps when I can do it in 8. And then I despise myself for not being able to do it in less than 8 steps, even though everyone else around me is still content with 10 steps.

    Ok, maybe ‘despise’ is a strong word to use, but the restlessness I feel inside me is not much less than the same contempt that environmentalists feel for those that don’t recycle. I’m not lazy, but I hate to apply a certain amount of effort to something when I know that I can get away with less. This frees me up to do so much more with the energy that would otherwise have been wasted. And as the days go by, my energy levels appear to be dwindling. There is much that I should be doing that I’m not even thinking about right now. This is probably the slide into that place of lethargy that sucks the life out of us before we reach a ripe age, and as aware as I am of it, I seem to be helpless in jolting myself out of it.

    Actually, I’m not helpless. I never have been. I guess this morbidity that overshadows me right now is bringing out the dramatist in me. There is a lot that I have going for myself, but I guess sometimes the uphill drag of the ball and chain can wear us down when we least expect it. Sometimes I wish I had this go-to guru that I could refer to in my life. That’s never been the case for me, which is probably why I second-guess myself so often. I often find myself wondering if things really are as uncomplicated as I see them relative to the overbearing complexity that most people seem to invite into their lives, or am I really just missing the point because I’ve always had a somewhat skewed sense of reality?

    Recently I’ve found myself contemplating what it would have been like for me if I had a meaningful role model that I could look up to and turn to for advice each time I was faced with a life altering decision, but just as soon as the thought tugs at my sentimentality, I feel that annoying realisation surfacing again. That realisation that had it been any other way I probably would not be as effective at what I do as I am today. In a recent discussion with a friend she mentioned that her pursuit of academic studies did more than just give her the foundation on which she hopes to launch her career. She said it made her feel safe because she knew she could rely on test scores and other such outcomes that would give her the affirmation and comfort that she needed to feel like she was on the right track.

    I’ve never looked for that, and I don’t know why. But in many ways I’ve also been fortunate in not having had my thinking moulded by any institutions or scholars because I was never exposed to such structures. The downside was that it felt extremely burdensome at times, but the upside which far outweighs that is the fact that I’ve never listened to anyone else when they imposed their limitations on me. I wouldn’t quite call myself a free spirit, nor would I ever consider myself to be a rebel. In fact, I’m not sure how I would define myself if I ever found a need to, and perhaps in that I’ve found much liberation and space to breathe. I’ve always been keenly aware of the perceptions that others have of me, but somehow I don’t ever recall applying myself to gain their favour despite knowing that they found much reason to ridicule me.

    I’ve often said that the resilience that I’ve demonstrated throughout my life was never something I could honestly lay claim to. It was inherent in me for as long as I can remember. Perhaps that resilience itself was only a symptom of something more. Perhaps it is a state that is acquired when we don’t try to live up to the expectations of others, and instead maintain a singular focus on the logic and purpose that would drive us to act. Perhaps my obstinacy in not succumbing to the expectations of the social structures that I despise is in fact my strength. Perhaps it isn’t.

    This road seems to be quite weary of late, but I’m not yet ready to take the path most traveled. Even if I wanted to, it would mean that I would need to have a desire to aspire to the ideals of the group whose path I would wish to choose for myself, and such a group I have yet to meet. I’m an old soul that yearns for the wholesomeness of a simple life, but am conflicted by my need to change the world into something slightly less despicable.

  • Composed Insanity

    It’s been a long time since I’ve felt any sense of composure about me. I constantly feel as if I’m on the edge of finding that elusive balance, but each time I flirt with that notion I find myself immersed in yet another challenge or another initiative that is almost always self-imposed. Despite this, I’m not at odds with myself or my life even though it sounds or feels like I am at times. There appears to be a subtle but important difference that has emerged in the way I deal with adversity these days. On many previous occasions I resolved to be principled before being strategic, always assuming that the one negated the other, and as a result I found myself jobless on two occasions, and divorced on three.

    But I now seem to have an awkward balance between principles and strategy. Awkward because it doesn’t feel like something I’m ready to embrace just yet, even though I know that it’s better than the absolutist approach I adopted before. There’s a tinge of insanity that always lurks just beneath the surface spawned by the absence of fatherly guidance in my life. My life has never been garnished with a healthy dose of mentors, coaches, or the wisdom of an older generation directly passed down to me. At every major intersection I found myself standing alone and trying to decipher the road signs without the help of a guide or manual, with only an innate sense of spirituality and resilience that has been my companion throughout my life, and a keen sense of observation that helped me to glean some wisdom from the actions of the elders that I was sometimes exposed to.

    It’s difficult to explain, but the reality is that I’ve never had the benefit of a father, or a fatherly figure to refer to in times of growth or opportunity that threatened to launch me into a new phase of my life, even though I had a father until well into my adult years. My emergence from teenage naivety into my early adult years was driven by passion and purpose, with a burdensome sense of responsibility guiding my choices, always using the rights that others had over me as my guiding lights. Doing right by them always enjoyed a priority higher than satisfying my own needs, but in that I’ve found much fulfilment and resolve, as well as inspiration.

    It still didn’t make the difficult decisions any easier, or the mistakes any less grave. I wrought destruction at times when I thought I was acting selflessly, but in fact my idealism misguided me to the point of stupidity, resulting in much regret. The regret always set me back a couple of years at a time whenever the consequences of my idealism overwhelmed my sense of purpose which always extinguished any sense of passion that may have been left in me. It’s these same feelings of anxiousness and restlessness that inspired the never-to-be-delivered letter that I once wrote to my daughters.

    I pray that you never will understand some of what I’m going through, some of what I feel, or some of what I think…because to understand you would need to experience what I’ve experienced. And I wouldn’t want you to feel the pain and the anguish that I’ve felt that made me feel, see and think the way I do. Although it’s the same pain and anguish that has given me this appreciation for life, for a smile on a stranger’s face, or for the chirping of the birds. My wish is for you to learn from my experiences and the experiences of others because there’s so much more to life than the opportunity to make your own mistakes.

    The only way you can cheat time is to learn from the accumulated wisdom of generations past. But if you insist on learning it all yourself, know that you’ll never learn more than anyone who has lived only a single lifetime without any wisdom to draw on. Know that your pain and your anguish will be unnecessary, and know that your life would only ever be half-lived, if even that. So instead I pray that you are able to cheat time, acquire a wisdom beyond what you may inherit, and give your children more than what you had to cheat time with. And if you do this, know that you have achieved more than any human being can be expected to achieve in a single lifetime. This is the only path to immortality that I know.

    I wonder if they’ll ever appreciate the sentiments and sincerity in that should they ever come across it at an age when it may hold some relevance in their lives. But this is not a post about them, or what I yearn for them. It’s a post about the insanity that, being a constant in my life, allows me a sense of composure that robs me of rest, or ease. I find myself unable to remain still for long enough to appreciate the peace that exists at the tips of my fingers. That peace, that composure, is out of reach. The soul that guides the outstretched fingers remains distracted by the noise and the clutter of trying to live a life well lived, finding only turbulence and upheaval in a world full of people desperate to find silence. I’m not so unique in my desire to acquire what everyone else wants, but the path that each of us travel to arrive at this restless point is so vastly different that comparing notes would always be a futile exercise.

     

  • Of Narcissism and Doubt

    There is a dose of narcissism that is required if I am ever going to embark on writing that book about my rambles. I’ve despised such indulgences throughout my life because I’ve always felt like enough is never achieved to warrant such smugness or arrogance. I’ve been called all that and much more, but the opinions of others were usually just enough cause for brief moments of reflection and nothing more. Rarely did the condescension of others ever drag my spirit down. I was always very focused on dragging it down myself, so there was never room for others to get in on the action in that regard.

    Writing that book may prove to be the final release of all the clutter that contaminates my head space. However, it could also be the cause of even more clutter accumulating. I’m struggling to understand what my reason to write it will be. Will I write it because I believe I have a story worth sharing, or perspectives that are unique and potentially enlightening, or would I simply be writing it to finally secure the affirmation from the world that always seems to elude me?

    I still believe that what doesn’t break you only makes you more brittle. There is a point that we all reach in life, some sooner than others, where the trials and the struggles wear you down to a point where even the most basic of decisions becomes burdensome. When that happens to me, I’m reminded of how brittle I’ve become when faced with circumstances that echo the angst of the past. Trying to decide on whether or not to proceed with this book is akin to choosing to resurrect the tumultuous emotions that ripped through me each time I found myself staring insanity in the face. That insanity was not a reflection of my own state of mind, but rather the mindlessness of the troubled souls that I attracted far too often in my life.

    Every morbid joke I made about seeing the ugly side of ugly, or having more life in my years than most have years in their lives, and so much more all seem to taunt me now knowing that recalling all those lessons that informed my ramblings will test my resolve and my character, the outcome of which is anything but predictable. My book will not be a simple story, if a story at all. Perhaps it will be a collection of torment presented in a bouquet of beautiful words that bring life to the lie that this is a beautiful world as long as the words we use to describe it make it so.

    Pain will always remain what it is, regardless of whether we remember it or not. A life of selfless sacrifice does not always yield beauty. There are times, many times, when the sacrifices of others are simply the stepping stones of the self-obsessed. All this morbidity and sobriety does little towards guiding my decision about this book. Perhaps it’s not about the book at all. Perhaps it’s simply a symbol of my resistance towards acknowledging the gravity of the experiences of my life. Perhaps, writing that book will finally bring to the fore the crippling realisation that the beauty that I always pursued never existed to begin with, and the ugliness I saw in the souls of some was not just their veneer but in fact it was the essence of who they were. If that be true, I don’t think I want to contemplate what that may say about me.

  • A Self-Indulgent Reflection

    I have a  tendency to over commit. It’s a recent change in my personality, although many would probably accuse me of doing it for most of my life. I’m often seen as the guy that rarely says no, but my recent spate of over commitment is not a result of wishing to please, or trying to earn brownie points. Instead, it seems to be driven by a realisation that life is short.

    I know, that must sound weird, but when I mentioned this to someone recently, they looked visibly moved at the realisation of it, which almost visibly moved me. The realisation was a simple one although it suddenly feels as if the true gravity of it only dawned on me when I said it out loud. When I look back on my life it seems like a million things happened in the blink of an eye, yet when I look ahead, I often delude myself into believing that there’s much time remaining. But that’s the obvious part. Taking that moment to reflect on the million things that I’ve done relative to the million things that I would like to achieve, I suddenly realised that having the skills and resources to contribute towards courses that are infinitely larger than my own life almost demands that I make the contribution.

    It’s difficult to articulate, but the truth is, I’ve spent the better part of my life daydreaming about how I will be able to influence change on a global scale, but always feeling meek when I realise that I can barely influence it in my own life. That daydream is not so far fetched any longer. The occasional burst of interest by random strangers in thoughts that I share, and then seeing those thoughts shared with their circles, and even paraphrased in their own writing soon thereafter suddenly kindles that flame of hope that perhaps it is possible to influence that change that I wish to see in the world. For once, I’m not limited to the prejudices of the circles that I grew up in. I can, and do, finally engage in a circle of beings well beyond the bigotry of the society that spawned me.

    This must sound awfully clichéd but it’s true. I find when I engage with those around me and I share, without restraint or fear of ridicule, my true sentiments on what makes life worth living, or what makes death inviting, I get a very different response when compared with the times that I speak cautiously from fear of ridicule, or worse, dismissal. I’ve also realised that when I gave up the inclination to seek affirmation about what I think or what I do, I found a sense of empowerment within me that dwarfed any fears I previously had of interacting in a social setting. I went from being shy and introverted, to being bold, controversial, and able to address gatherings or strangers about topics I’m passionate about with barely any preparation or support at all.

    My old self always nags me to be cautious, and not to over indulge in the support or affirmation that I may receive at times, but a stronger more convincing voice in me denies the right of such doubt to be heard. I’ve stopped hiding behind diplomacy and political correctness, because the very hint of insincerity nauseates me. I’ve been on the receiving end of too many callous tongues that sought to subdue me rather than inspire me, almost always cloaked with the false pretences of wanting to protect or guide me. But the opinions of others holds no sway these days, because I’ve accepted (for some time now) that they just don’t get me, and never did. But I get them. I get them well, because while they were manipulating and soliciting popularity, I watched them closely, observing the doubts and the fears behind the bravado and the bullshit, and now when their opinions don’t matter any longer, I find it easy to use that knowledge of their weaknesses to cut through their defences and disarm them with the sharpest observations that leave them struggling to find their composure.

    It felt amazingly empowering at  first, but now it just feels normal. The realisation that most people are actors living out someone else’s fantasies and fads makes it easy to see people for what they are. Unfortunately more often than not, they’re not much to behold at all, except the few with substance that is.

  • Happy Damned Birthday

    Birthdays have always been an ominous occasion for me. I can never find a reason to celebrate because of the stark reminders carried by such a milestone. I’m certainly a glass-half-empty kind of person when it comes to this, probably because my glass full of life just got emptier at the passing of yet another year.

    I’ve been obsessed with this image of a long curve or arc that symbolises time stretching inversely across the horizon with only the very tip of its apex brushing the soil. And that single moment of its brushing represents my entire lifetime in the context of the universe, making me realise exactly how insignificant my existence really is.

    And this is not even close to my birthday, which incidentally has ceased to hold any significance for me, be it joyous or otherwise. It really has faded into just another day, because it has never changed the condition of my life in any way except to serve as a reminder that I’m supposed to take a moment to benchmark my life against others that have grovelled for as long as I have.

    We’re all beggars. Some just more dignified than others. Who is not begging for happiness or contentment, wealth or comfort, companionship and fame? At our weaker moments we morbidly acknowledge this, but when the memory of pain subsides, such realisations are discarded in favour of feelings of false elation. Forgetfulness is probably our greatest gift and mercy. Imagine the pain of a life that bore the intensity of the memories of every moment of distress or destitution?

    Oh yes, birthdays…I hate those. It’s supposed to signify the passing of another year, when in fact it’s just the passing of yet another day. Just another day, with more significance attached to it than anyone could ever justify. How I despise the feeble-minded that define themselves by such whimsical milestones!

    (This is something I wrote a year ago, and remains true today as well…)