Tag: me

  • My life is not a linear process. I live not in a box, nor in a pigeon hole. And I most certainly don’t base my self-worth on how well I appease those around me. I was born rebellious, but resolute. At times my resolve has earned me affection, but most times it has earned me scorn. Nonetheless, it is my resolve and I resolve to always be true to my principles, even though I may have betrayed them in the past. It was an emotionally expensive experience I needed to acquire, because in its absence I was misled to believe that people are worth the sacrifice of principles. They’re not. One sacrifice of such gravity will always beget another. There is no appeasing the egos of others, and only those that are self-obsessed will stand idly by watching you compromise that which you hold dear with their only interest being your fulfilment of their fancies. So I resolve not to succumb to such dictates, because it has only ever left me wanting, and never fulfilled. Standing true to my principles may have left me standing alone, but it has never left me stirring in search of peace.

  • Sometimes I share details of personal struggles with strangers because I need the release, and other times I do so because I hope that they may avoid the pitfalls that I experienced. Nonetheless, the shedding of my veil of privacy is always sincere. More often than not I restrain myself because even I find it hard to swallow the volume of colourful experiences that I’ve had to endure. And when I place myself in the position of the recipient, I can only imagine how quickly they reach a point when they question the voracity of what I’m saying.

    I guess I have yet to figure out the human psyche, especially within the context of interpersonal relationships. I can sense the anguish or regret, hope or passion and even optimism in the words of strangers, but I can never foresee being discarded. That always takes me by surprise. Every single time. Perhaps it’s representative of an over-inflated ego or sense of self. That would be a contradiction of note, given my grave insecurities about my ability to contribute positively in a manner that may be well-received. 

    Hasn’t happened yet. Perhaps I’m plagued by both ingratitude and delusion. A fatal combination for one who desires to connect with others on a human level. I guess my latest experiences just reaffirms my hesitance to want to reduce the story of my life to a book. 

  • Do you ever look at yourself?

    cynicallyjade:

    Do you ever look at yourself endearingly? At least long enough until you realise that you need to dismiss your thoughts because it sets fire to a desire to want to be consumed, physically and emotionally…but more physically? Ever look at yourself endearingly and wish that someone would see you through your own eyes, instead of theirs? Do you ever wish that someone would want you to give them what you so much yearn to give of yourself? Do you sometimes block out the noise, let go of the inhibitions, close your eyes and see yourself as beautiful? 

    Or is narcissism a prerequisite for such acceptance of self? I sometimes focus so much on trying to understand or appreciate how others see me, that I fail to notice myself. I look at myself so often through the eyes of others that I eventually find myself looking at myself through the same jaundiced view that is tainted with their broken dreams. I make myself the victim of their disappointments simply because I allow myself to be viewed with the defensive cynicism that life has taught them. 

    This is how I lost myself to the world, and now I wait to be found because my insecurity won’t allow me to believe in me unless another tainted soul believes in me first. 

    So relevant right now.

  • Life

    I feel somewhat weepy today. Strange though, because I have no real reason to feel this way. No, this is not my feminine side showing, it’s my human side. At times the accumulation of life’s struggles creeps up on me without warning, and it’s when things are going well that I realise how bad it was before. It’s a strange sort of weightiness that I feel. I don’t feel weighed down, but I don’t feel lightened of my burdens either. 

    My endeavours to simplify my life have been somewhat fruitful, but the emptiness of space alongside me in bed still leaves me reaching out for something that isn’t there more often than I should. That’s probably the cause of my self-imposed insomnia, especially on Sunday evenings. Despite knowing that I will fall asleep the moment I lay my head down, I resist it with everything in me until I’m literally ready to pass out at my laptop before I begrudgingly drag myself over to the bed.

    At times the exhaustion at that point is so bad that I find myself slithering into place trying to shrug the blanket over me, because I barely have the energy to move my arms. But it’s all not lost, I guess. Outside of these moments I still feel resolute in my naivety, and my optimism still persists. One thing I have resolved never to do is assume that it can’t get any worse. I’ve made that mistake too often before. It can always get worse. 

    If nothing else, the lessons of my life, thus far, have taught me that even when it seems like the darkness is going to overcome me completely, it always only ever took a single split second of light to change that. The trick now is to remember that the next split second could be the one when that light will pierce through the morbidity and pain. It reminds me of so many defining moments in my life. Moments when everything seemed consistently headed in one direction, and in a split second, it all changed. The moment I received that phone call when my first wife died. The moment I received that phone call that I got a job after being out of work for seven months and having made the last payment of my mortgage from my credit card. 

    There is no guarantee what the next split second brings, but because I’m often a creature of probability more than possibility, I easily forget those defining moments in my life, because innately I’m a statistician by nature. And the statistics prove that the trends of my life are mostly mediocre and blandly predictable, rather than unpredictably beautiful. But that’s because I tend to have a jaundiced memory that holds on to those experiences that caused me the most pain rather than those that caused the greatest elation. As ungrateful as that may seem, it makes perfect sense.

    By design, I seek to protect myself from harm and pain, not happiness and joyful laughter. So it’s inevitable that I would be cautioned before I am encouraged. Perhaps that’s why it requires courage and effort to make a life beautiful, because it requires fighting against the very nature that I despise within me. 

  • The Theme of My Life

    The theme of my life has been one of misunderstandings and assumptions about who I am and what I stand for, especially by those closest to me. So it’s little, or in fact no surprise that I am constantly misconstrued in my intentions or efforts to achieve positive outcomes in my engagements with many.

    I don’t subscribe to the stereotypical views of life or spirituality, and I question what most assume to be obvious. In this questioning I’m often seen as arrogant, difficult, uninformed, illiterate and even pompous. Regardless of extended efforts to establish understanding and context, the negative assumptions persist. And this, if nothing else, has been the core of my struggle in a hostile world. 

    I don’t refer to myself as anomalous because of any romantic notions that I harbour about my individuality. Being anomalous is not a pleasant place to be. It is often received harshly or responded to cruelly, simply because most don’t know how to deal with what is uncommon, or more commonly considered weird. That is me. And that has been the theme of my life. If current trends are anything to go by, then such shall remain the themes of my life for the rest of my days.

    I have ceased to live with expectations for a long time now. Expectations from others has been the cause of the greatest pain with the deepest wounds incurred by betrayal. Not always betrayals of trust, but most often betrayals of expectations. But I continue to live with hope, because hopelessness never appealed to me no matter how many feeble attempts I’ve made to embrace it. But this same hope causes me to believe in others more than they believe in themselves. I see potential where others see futility, and for this I have been scorned too often.

    I maintain the insane notion that I have something positive to contribute, and from this belief I derive hope that I may yet prove to be beneficial to a course greater than my own existence. I have very little that I hope to achieve on a personal front, for personal gain, but there’s much to be achieved on a human scale. Whether I will ever be accepted for the humanity that resides within me is yet to be seen. Right now, I see a waning moon and a setting sun, and while each offers its own serenity in the cycle of life, they both prove to be an unsettling reminder that the darkness will reach me soon, as it will us all. 

    The image of the pendulum’s arc swinging across the horizon of my life continues to grow stronger by the day. It’s brush against this ephemeral existence continues to provide perspective on my insignificance relative to the universe. Yet the ego will not be silenced into complacency. 

  • I am an anomaly

    I am anomalous by design

    But fragile by nature

    Harsh to the touch

    But soft to the embrace

    Gentle to the meek

    But arrogant to the fake

    I am disdainfully naive

    But endearingly innocent

    Absent when wanting

    But ever present when needed

    I am anomalous

    I am me

  • …my parents had split up after a very long and disruptive marriage. They came from two different worlds. My father wanted to please his mother, and my mother wanted to please her father. Their commitment to these ideals made them stick it out for almost 28 years give or take a few years. That’s more than just a few of my lifetimes which in some ways is impressive by most counts, but in other ways it’s sad beyond belief. Being a family of six kids, plus my eldest brother that passed away when he was a precious six months old, and another miscarriage, it was a miracle that the stress and strain of all that responsibility, a low income, and a lack of real interaction between my parents allowed them to persevere for as long as they did.

    They were both admirable in many ways. My mother was always striving, and still continues to strive to improve the quality of her life and of her family’s. She never backed down from a challenge to supplement my father’s income by doing more than her fair share of work from home. My father worked as a warehouse supervisor for a leading clothing wholesaler at the time. This in itself had its perks because we would often end up wearing the sample items of lines that they never brought into the South African market which automatically allowed us to be fashionably dressed at the lowest price. However, not all the clothing samples were fashionable, and not having much choice in what we were given to wear, it was sometimes embarrassing to be seen in some of the clothes that we received. But the important thing is that we were always neatly dressed and never went hungry. So despite my anger and disappointment at some of the events in my life relating to my parents or my relationship with my father, that is something that I’ll always be eternally grateful for.

    Excerpt from Ramblings of a Madman. The book I never wrote.

  • Looking for Inspiration

    I once walked into a yard that sold raw materials like natural stone and treated timber that I was looking at for a DIY project I had feeble intentions of building. When the owner approached me, I simply smiled and said, “I’m just looking for inspiration.” He laughed and walked away. I often set out wanting to do something, having an idea, or sometimes just a concept in my head, and then letting it dwell in the back of my mind waiting for inspiration to strike. Sometimes, it comes from nowhere, but recently, it hardly comes at all.

    I’ve enjoyed only bursts of energy and enthusiasm recently, with the days in between being real challenges. This afternoon I set back and wondered how many others become complacent about their misery by convincing themselves that if anyone else had been contending with what they have to deal with, they’d fall to pieces or kill themselves. I’m guilty of the same self-destructive smugness. I look at the problems of a teenager reeling from the betrayal of lustful love threatening never to love again, and wanting to destroy herself and everyone in the process, and I smile. That same smug smile that leads to me forgetting how relative everything is. Just because I’ve endured more in quantity doesn’t imply that the intensity of my agony was any greater than hers. 

    But I need this insensitive comparison to make myself feel better about my own self-loathing. I sway from being convinced that I deserve nothing better to knowing that I’m just too amazing to be discovered by mediocre meddlers. But that’s really what many people are. Meddlers. They meddle in various aspects of their lives, looking for inspiration, but never committing to anything because they’re waiting for someone to appreciate them first. The excess we commit in our natural disposition as social beings is in our penchant for wanting to feel loved before we love, being appreciated before we express gratitude, or receiving before we consider giving. 

    I heard someone say today that a veil exists between this world and heaven. I think that our struggles, our principled endeavours and our consistent striving towards our noble ambitions is what tears away at that veil. If you don’t believe in heaven, then consider that veil to be all that prevents you from achieving your utopian ideals, whatever they may be. My search for inspiration will never abate. But it will be more joyous if accompanied by one that cools my eyes, but warms my spirit. So I wait patiently, living with conviction, but no expectations, only hope that some day soon my garment will arrive in all her splendour to finally caress the dreams I so painstakingly nurture to keep the jaded me at bay.