Tag: personal

  • A Long Drive With Me

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    I once heard that you’re never lonely if you like the person you’re alone with. Sounded simple enough, only to discover that most people I know don’t like who they are. Obviously that self-loathing or dislike is rarely displayed overtly, but that’s only if you don’t know what to look for. However, that’s beside the point. On a trip I undertook from Johannesburg to Cape Town yesterday by car, I found myself contemplating what it means to be just me, by myself, without distractions, or definitions, or perceptions to meet. It was interesting.

    I realised that the quiet moments are never quiet. What the mouth restrains the mind shouts out loud. My mind drifted to past relationships that I abandoned and relationships that abandoned me. But interestingly though, there was no bitterness attached to the memories. It was simply recollections of events that passed. Events that add to the compilation of moments that personify my life, but hardly ever defining moments. I gave up the ghost of the past a long time ago. It wasn’t difficult to do. I just stopped investing in it.

    So this journey by car, almost 14 hours straight, with no one but my thoughts and some nostalgic tunes to keep me company, allowed me moments of pause that is otherwise not possible in the daily clutter of life. It wasn’t a matter of leaving life behind, or trying to escape the race. It was more a moment intended to take a breath. A deep breath. Time to reflect, or not to reflect. Time to allow my mind to travel its own path without deliberation or purpose. It was then that a sobering realisation dawned on me. What was it that defined who I am today?

    Surprisingly, I found the radio or the music I had selected for the trip to be an intrusion quite often. In fact, so much so that even the sound of the icy wind howling outside proved to be a distraction when I turned down the audio. But the intrusion was not a harsh one. It wasn’t so because it resurrected unwanted memories or anything like that. Quite the contrary, it imposed on my quiet time with me. Those tunes and noises prompted a response. It demanded attention. I didn’t want that. I wanted time for solace. Time to reflect on whether the path I am travelling is a good one, or the path that I have travelled was in vain. It was time to take stock, but not deliberately so. Perhaps, all this simply prompted me towards considering whether or not there is purpose to being me.

    But even such considerations were not entirely the focus of my thoughts. There was no specific focus. That was the beauty of it. I had the soft nagging of deadlines in the back of my mind, but not loud enough to prevent me from stopping to find beauty in the gravel by the roadside. Beauty that is ignored because we’re always too busy with important things, like living up to expectations, or maintaining specific appearances. The bee at the side of the road didn’t care that no one was looking. In fact, after shoving my phone up close to capture the moment, it didn’t seem to care that I was looking either.

    But clichés aside, there is a more important truth to all this. A few wild flowers or straggling bees in an abandoned space is not what lent that space beauty. Nor did it detract from it. It simply was that way, independent of my appreciation of it. The fact that I found a moment to pause for long enough to admire and appreciate it in its natural state is what afforded me that moment of beauty. But such appreciation did not alter that scene in any way. Whether I appreciated it or not, it was still true to its nature. Perhaps in that is the life lesson I needed to take.

    Doing what I need to do, independent of affirmation or consequence, should not taint my intent behind doing it. The value or beauty that I choose to offer the world should not be based on how I want it to be received, or how it is appreciated or reciprocated. Instead, it should simply be an expression of me. An expression of the sum total of my life’s lessons that inform a more sincere offering without remuneration. But it still did not answer the question that begged a definition of who I am.

    I’ve always maintained a romantic notion that stated that I choose not to be defined. I think that ceased to be just a notion yesterday. In fact, probably a long time ago, but yesterday it became a conscious un-subscription from that notion. Definition by definition implies a final state. It implies a completed form, or a finite outcome. I am not yet final. I am not yet fully formed. I will never be fully formed and therefore will never subscribe to a specific definition. Except when I take my last breath. At that moment, and only at that moment, will the sum total of my life’s experiences declare my final definition, and only against that will I be judged.

    By those that consider the whole of me, I may be judged fairly. But by those that remain invested in only a single moment of time from a distant memory, they will only be able to judge an abstract moment of what I lived. Their fixation on me, and inadvertently on their own singular moments, will rob them of the beauty of the whole because they opted to remain defined from fear of the belief that they may not be able to exceed what they have already achieved. Some remain rooted in a moment that defined their insignificance, and the fear of discovering that they may be even less significant than that which prevented them from being more.

    The time I spent with me yesterday is time that is rarely experienced by most. Not because I am better, or more capable, but simply because the saturation of fear and self-loathing defines more souls than life itself ever did.

    I am me. And I am not yet complete. I am not a work in progress, nor am I a commodity for sale. And I am yet to be defined.

  • An Overdue Brain Dump

    I am who I am as a matter of consequence, not design. It is not the independent process of destiny that has defined me, but instead my interaction with it. My choices have allowed me to contribute towards my future rather than passively waiting to see what may come to pass. It is a reality that few share with me. Most are pacifists in their lives, but aggressors in the lives of others. We tend to over compensate for our weaknesses by projecting the reasons for our failures on those around us. At the core, it is this that prompts me to share my thoughts about the failings and successes of my life. However, as I am often reminded, you need a receptive heart to be able to communicate what you truly feel or think. The thoughts flow easier when you have that receptive audience. Otherwise the ramblings remain your own and the words create a veneer of the truth without ever revealing the truth itself.
    When I feel as if this endeavour is pointless, or that it does not add value, or that it is more self-indulgent than it is constructive, that is when I consider if it is a worthwhile use of my time and energy or would it be better for me to apply myself to something that will actually benefit others. To delete or not to delete. That thought crosses my mind often.
    Writing is therefore not my companion. It’s more a plea for sanity to prevail. My sanity to prevail. And when the probability of that happening seems slim or non-existent, I question the rationale behind using this avenue for that plea. It’s not as self-indulgent as it may appear. We all go through life appealing for our sanity to prevail, but we lose sight of exactly that fact. That it is our perception of sanity and not necessarily the sanity that the next person experiences. And so we grow aggressive or despondent in the process, depending on how stubborn or weak we choose to be.
    Gaining the credentials that are worshipped by the masses will make this endeavour significantly easier to pursue. The membership that is supposedly a reflection of intelligence. The token badge that is supposed to be a meaningful measure of our ability to regurgitate what we’re fed in a way that it is expected to be regurgitated, and if we regurgitate it correctly, then we get rewarded. If we apply a measure of independent thought or creativity beyond the predetermined tolerance level, we’re punished. So I don’t care for the credentials, and I’m ambivalent about soliciting the affirmation or validation of those that do have the credentials because the source of those credentials belong to the very system that I am critically opposed to.
    The true ambivalence comes in when I realise that it will be that much more difficult to make any significant progress without their endorsement in some form or another. I spurn that system. I believe it started out with good intent, but has morphed into an elitist club that suggests that you’re incompetent by default unless you have a membership badge that they deem authentic. The tokenism that accompanies it is exactly what I despise. So even though I agree that it will make the path easier, which I have often considered as an option, at this point my conviction on that subject doesn’t allow me to become part of the very system whose legitimacy I am challenging. I know, ambitious, but nonetheless, if I am going to be true to myself, then I need to find another way of being heard.
    Another consideration that often dogs my mind is the need to single out an area of thought leadership or influence and to focus on that rather than being so generalised in the breadth of topics that I tend to delve into. Do I contemplate the human condition, religion, emotions, or spirituality, or do I contemplate the whole?  I do not wish to single out only one area of influence, and I accept that this further adds to the risks of not being heard. But my life’s obsession has been exactly around how all that comes together seamlessly in our lives, and that we become somewhat dysfunctional when we try to pursue or view them individually. It is the whole that I hope to define more critically, and not just one of its components. That is why I deliberately weave in thoughts grounded in religious traditions that demonstrate its practical value beyond just its religious affiliations.
    I do not seek to understand others. They become easy for me to understand as I grow to know myself more intimately. Every observation I make is grounded in my observations of my own experiences, and how I related to the circumstances and challenges that I see others facing. And perhaps in that is the reasons why I needed, and continue to experience so many colourful events of betrayal in my life. It has given me a broader context from which to draw lessons compared to most people I know, or have met. By extrapolating the lessons I’ve learnt in those permutations of life that I experienced, it automatically gives me a knowledge base against which to develop those concepts and extend those principles into a much broader array of life experiences.
    So in short, my understanding of people is based on my innate need to pay attention to the details of my own failures. And perhaps in some small way therein lies the blessings of the challenges of my life. I do not spurn the knowledge that may be contained in individuals that have come through the system of tokenism. I spurn the system itself. So while I am against obtaining a membership badge for purposes of opening doors, I am always happy to expand my knowledge from whichever quarters may spawn it, including that contaminated system that is so blindly celebrated.
    I am by no means sufficient to myself. If I were, I would have no need for receptive hearts, nor will I need to engage with others in order to identify my own flaws in them. Do not try to define me. You will not be successful at such an attempt. I am anomalous. I take pride in my anomalous nature. I do not wish to constrain myself in line with traditional views of how we should be pigeon-holed by society. Despite how often I use the word, my emphasis is not on “I”. My focus instead is on ensuring that I do not give anyone any reason to believe that I am providing them with ‘academically derived’ perspectives, but instead, that I am relating my personal experiences to them and using that as the source against which they may find common ground relative to their own life experiences.
    The ultimate goal of this approach is to prove that each person, if only they are observant enough, carry with them the wisdom and insight that I hope to impart. So if anything, it should be empowering, rather than a distraction towards supposed self-centricity. In addition to that, it is also an admission that I do not believe that I am special beyond the average person, and that I am convinced that every person possesses the same capacity for observation and insight if only they remove the distractions that blind them from these truths.

  • In Search of Me

    Clearing out the clutter that had accumulated for more than ten years is a tiresome process. There is an ideal way to approach it, which if followed,  could be relatively painless. It simply requires a clear view of what you have,  an understanding of what you need to keep,  and a very good idea of what you want to do with it all. That is,  what needs to be discarded,  what needs to be saved,  and what would be worth repurposing. Reality dictates that chances are great we won’t have that clear view of what is there,  meaning we’ll often have surprising moments of ‘oh! That’s where it was!’ and other moments of ‘damn,  I didn’t need that reminder right now’.

    You guessed it. Life. It echoes in everything around us,  but very distinctly in cleaning house. There are moments when I find it difficult to remember who I am or what drives me to be me. In those moments I look around and struggle to focus on anything in particular. I become reactive rather than deliberate,  but habits formed over the years camouflage that void quite well. At moments like those I stop and reflect on where I’m at in my life and if there is still any semblance of familiarity with the path I had hoped to travel so many years before.

    Do I still have a higher calling that I hope to serve,  or am I just ticking boxes? As I work through the clutter in my mind I find it increasingly difficult to decide what needs to be kept and nurtured versus what should be discarded to create capacity for more fulfilling endeavours. It’s not as simple as it used to be. I can’t spurn the martyr or ridicule the complacent as easily as I did before. What used to be a consideration for me only is now a consideration of more than me. And so the landscape is littered with little troves, not necessarily treasurable, that hide important little details waiting to derail my efforts just as I gather momentum in my surge forward.

    Eventually the sorting and the methodical approach grows weary. The frustration rises with each realisation that the more time spent rediscovering or reordering myself is time that could have been spent living instead. There is a lot to do,  goals to accomplish,  and challenges to overcome. But here I am sorting through clutter in the hope that it will bring much needed clarity so that I can pursue those goals and challenges with a renewed passion. Eventually I do the equivalent of what my spring cleaning demanded. Compartmentalise. Making a decision on every item I come across at the time that I come across it is not yielding the results I need as fast as I need it. So instead,  I start boxing things into broad repositories of potential.

    The easiest decisions I make immediately. That which is inconsequential I discard immediately. But too many have amazing ‘what if’ moments attached to them. Those are the ones that trip me up. So I set them aside  and categorise them so that if nothing else,  I know where to find that part of me.

    The process is slow and tedious,  and I’m constantly reminding myself of the distractions along the way that created this clutter to begin with. Each moment of mindlessness exacted a cost of intense reflection. Again,  thoughts of life wasting away while I am reprocessing past moments in order to be more decisive in future ones. It’s a grudge purchase of note. The desire to want to proceed but knowing that a moment of recess is demanded instead. It’s a cycle that never ends. It only ever recedes for a few moments before availing itself again,  demanding a response even when we are confident that such reflection is not needed.

    The only comfort I can offer myself is that I accept that given what I knew then,  I would not have taken a different path. Rebuking myself for not knowing better was always nothing more than a pathetic attempt to feel self loathing in order to validate my need to feel like I deserved nothing better. I could never convince myself of that lie. Despite the grave and often colourful mistakes of my past, I know without doubt that I only deserve as much as I invest in the moment. The greater that investment, the sweeter the outcome, even if it does not yield the fruit that I may have hoped for. But the greater the investment, the less likely the chances that I will find myself one day reprocessing it in order to clear the clutter before being able to continue living.

    The apparent incoherence of this post is an accurate reflection of my trains of thought as I work through the clutter around me. My mind has never, and probably will never be free of noise, and so my only saving grace is to find a way to be functional in spite of it.

  • Defining Moments

    I’ve often mulled over the idea of one day listing the moments that I believe defined me in ways I often still don’t fully understand.

    The images that flash through my mind when I contemplate those defining moments are often not scenes of hope and happiness, but most often they’re scenes of struggles, pain, isolation, betrayal, and detachment. Being one of six siblings in a small house makes it easy to disappear into the clutter. Sibling rivalry never needed solicitation.

    Standing in the cold night air urinating into the flower bed in front of my uncle’s house when I was a scared little kid barely 6 years old, I remember staring across the road at the sight of my mother standing in tears under the carport of our house out of concern for my wellbeing. I was physically dragged by my collar and kicked out of the house for not being able to find something I didn’t lose. A lesson my father thought was very much needed in order to teach me not to forget my jacket outside after playing with my cousins; so he chose to hide it away until he was ready to stop teaching me that lesson. It worked. I’m anally responsible these days.

    Moments like those were numerous and such a harsh approach to establishing discipline was the norm. I often find myself resisting the inclination to apply similarly harsh measures in dealing with untoward behaviour from my children. It’s strange how easily we adopt the nature of those that reared us, despite having had distinctly distasteful moments at their hands. I was born with an inherent resilience that prevented me from seeking affirmation from others. I was odd and I didn’t give a damn, and for the most part I still don’t. I sat and browsed through encyclopaedias that showed me life in full colour while siblings, cousins, and friends played cricket in the streets of the township where we lived. I sometimes joined them, but it often ended in injury, so there was hardly ever much attraction for me to immerse myself into the sporting experiences that others seemed to live for. This, I realised later in life, was a source of much disappointment for my father. It didn’t deter me. For as long as I can remember, anyone attempting to coerce me into doing something I didn’t like or want for myself often departed frustrated and unfulfilled in their attempts to prevail over me, or the situation.

    My academic achievements at school were largely unnoticed and barely celebrated, until I lost total interest, slipped from the top of the grade to the bottom of the pile, and eventually dropped out of high school without anyone caring, including me. Girls wouldn’t talk to me and guys wouldn’t bully me because neither group knew what to expect in return. But those weren’t particularly defining moments for me.

    Being jailed for bogus charges of domestic violence and child abuse against my own children. Now that was a defining moment, especially since I was the one that called the police to stop the abuse meted out against me for years. My timing as always was impeccable. I chose to do that at a time when domestic violence against women was a priority for the South African justice system. Nonetheless, it spelt the end of a tumultuous relationship with a depraved soul that was diagnosed as having several severe mental disorders, when in fact all she cried for in the most destructive ways was security and affirmation from parents that made dysfunction look like an admirable next step in life. Unfortunately she projected her demons on me and found it therapeutic to win the favour of others by demonising me instead. It was during those four distasteful years that I lost the very few friends whose presence I always cherished in my life up to that point.

    Pacing around the courtyard of the holding cells at our local police station on the coldest night of winter that year left me even more detached. My pleas to the police officer for common sense to prevail echoing in my head while the nagging knowledge of having hardened criminals sleeping in the cell alongside me left little space for peace. But the moon looked distinctly beautiful that night as I watched it cross the sky through the metal grids that sealed the courtyard above the 20 foot high walls, just in case someone was able to climb up the sheer face of it. It was odd how the police officer that arrived on the scene appeared to be more traumatised than I was. I later discovered that he had presided over another arrest relating to domestic violence during which the alleged perpetrator hanged himself in the bathroom. No wonder the indignity I was afforded when I needed to use the bathroom that night before being taken away by the police. I still smile at the memories of standing in the holding cells below the courthouse and having random convicts coming over to me to tell me their stories of claimed innocence. I seem to attract the weirdest kind.

    Wintery nights seem to be the common thread in many defining moments. Years before, I was held at gunpoint by my previous wife while she went through yet another crazy mood swing demanding that I call the police to settle an argument or else she would shoot me with my gun while holding our daughter in my arms. You read that right. It didn’t make sense to me either, but such is the logic of a recovering drug addict. Again, the police were sympathetic towards her, while confiscating my firearm that she mishandled, and asked me to leave the house while entrusting my daughter into her care for the night. Amazing what the weaker sex can get away with.

    My naivety has been a loyal friend throughout my life, and still remains a bosom buddy if recent events are anything to go by. Many accuse me of gullibility, but I would rather live a life of being consciously naïve than to live suspiciously.

    I’ve had good moments, and even a few great ones. I’ve recoiled at the unexpected loss of loved ones, but always receded into a private space to grieve, rarely showing my pain to the world. It’s none of their business after all. The buoyancy of my spirit often mocks me because it leaves me confused about who is being fooled. Or perhaps no one is being fooled, and in fact this inherent resilience that I cannot lay claim to, but nonetheless do possess, perhaps this is what makes it possible for me to see the present moment for what it is rather than what it should be relative to the souring experiences of my past.

    The moments that have defined me are many, but their realisation and conscious recollection still largely eludes me. There is a strong undertone of changes blowing through my life right now. Profound changes that barely show in the normal light of day. Perhaps this is why my mind has been distracted to the point of mild dyslexia recently. My sub-conscious mind is pre-occupied with contemplating these changes, while my conscious mind knows nothing of it in the face of the routine that effortlessly persists.

    I still feel a need to define who I am, but I suspect that I may never fully achieve this goal in this lifetime. Life is…undefinable, and I remain a mystery to myself, and most often, to those around me as well.

  • Moving on

    There’s a difference between giving up and wanting to move on. Too many are shamed into staying because someone convinces them that moving on is giving up. Holding on to a bad experience, or a bad relationship is more reflective of a poor sense of self than it is of commitment. The zombies among us are those that feign loyalty while their true motivation is grounded in guilt. They’re the same ones that are bitter or angry, some passively so, but most aggressively so.

    Too many people I know live their lives committed to fulfilling the expectations of others instead of being true to themselves. Not only do they lack any sincere belief in their self-worth, but they lack any faith in the natural order of the universe. No, this is not a load of hogwash about supposed secrets that teach us that the universe gives us what we ask for. If it was that simple, we’d have world peace and beggars would indeed be riding Arabian stallions. The law of cause and effect is the universal order that we lose sight of too often.

    There is a fine line between making a choice out of commitment as opposed to making it out of conviction. Chances are, most that read this can barely tell the difference in their lives any longer. The more we focus on fulfilling the expectations of others, the more we convince ourselves that indeed that must be our purpose, and therefore our conviction in life. How we lie to ourselves to pacify our conscience when it nags at us asking what great purpose does our life serve. The most pacifying response is to convince ourselves that we lead a life of selfless service to others. So does a door mat.

    Service to others is not sacrificing yourself, but rather sacrificing your ego to allow them to view your vulnerability in a way that strengthens them. We draw comfort from knowing we can comfort. We draw strength from knowing we can protect. Yet we’re always in search of those weaker than us, or holding on to those needing our strength, rarely realising that there are others, significant others, that need to draw on our weaknesses so that they in turn can feel strong, significant, or worthy of providing comfort.

    Sometimes we stay because we don’t believe we’re deserving of better. Sometimes we stay because we hold a deep conviction that we are able to create something better. And sometimes we’re entirely oblivious as to why we stay because we’ve restrained ourselves from moving on for so long, that we’ve conditioned ourselves to believe that every reason to do so has been exhausted, and the only rational option that remains is to stay and draw strength from the morbid comfort of familiarity.

    There is a difference between giving up and wanting to move on. I choose to move on, not because I lack loyalty or commitment, but because I demand it as well. And when it is lacking, I refuse to accept that my self loathing should drive me to believe that I deserve nothing more. My greatest achievement in life has been to rid myself of the expectation of pleasing others. It came at a price. Often a very expensive price. But the liberation that it afforded me was and still is priceless. Living without feeling obliged, knowing that every act is one of choice and not obligation, knowing that every reciprocation is one of gratitude and not guilt, and knowing that favour is not my motivator but fulfilment is. That is what moving on has allowed me to achieve. The sweetness of being independent of man, but dependent on faith only. It has made me realise exactly how fickle I am, so that I find myself praying that others around me find the same comfort in faith, because fulfilment is evasive in their services to me. And so I pray that they also find comfort in moving on, even from me if needed, if that is what will give them the sweet taste of that most lonely of liberations.

  • Ties That Blind

    There are times when we’re so fixated on wanting to remove ourselves from a situation because we fear contaminating it, that we lose sight of the fact that our absence is in fact the greatest contamination of all. I find this most relevant in families, where our insecurity to fulfil our roles as role models leaves us receding and convincing ourselves that they’re better off without us. Unfortunately that insecurity rarely presents itself as that. More often than not it manifests itself as either selfishness or arrogance, both of which are simply defence mechanisms that we employ to prevent others from seeing our weakness.

    But it’s not about us as individuals. It never has been. The desire we all have to be part of something greater, or to be part of a wholesome social structure that is nurturing rather than destructive is what we undermine when we succumb to those insecurities. The most intriguing change in my life has been my need to recognise when I stopped being the nurtured and when I started being the nurturer. At some point I stopped being just the son, or cousin, and I started being the father, and the uncle. But it is my singular focus on needing to be nurtured that blinds me from realising that my nurturing is now dependent on being the nurturer.

    It all sounds so complicated, and it will complicate even further when I need to transition to being an elder, and not just the uncle or fatherly figure. But if I resist these changes in the rightful expectations that others have of me, I will be denying the next generation of the very essence of that which gave me a sense of community, family, and belonging. Sometimes it’s not being valued as an individual that gives us the comfort that we need to feel appreciated. Sometimes it’s simply that feeling of being part of a wholesome support structure that defines our self worth. Our innate need for significance is not only fed by recognition for our individual efforts, but more importantly it is fed by being part of something greater than us, and even more critical, having a pride of association with that belonging.

    And so I started contemplating these ties that blind us. It’s ties we maintain to who we were without realising that we have yet to embrace who we are, or who we aspire to be. It’s ties that hold us back in our belief that we have a right to take before we have a right to give. It’s that same sick mentality that convinces us that unless we’re responsible, we’re not accountable. Unless it is related to a responsibility we have over our own children or family members, then we’re not accountable for contributing towards the wellbeing of society at large. We forget that what strengths we have, others have as weaknesses, with the reverse being just as true. So when we stand arrogantly proclaiming that to each their own because we’re doing our bit and they must do theirs, we’re assuming that we’re superior to them in every way because we forget that they probably see similarly frustrating flaws in us.

    This is not an abstract notion. It’s not a philosophical debate either. It’s simply the realisation that if we act selfishly, we will deny the next generation the very security that now allows us the luxury to act selfishly. There is no such thing as a self-made man. We are shaped by society, and even when rejected by that same society, it is those that we surrounded ourselves with to find comfort in our rejection that formed the society from which we drew strength. I think the gravest delusion we suffer from is the assumption that we first need to receive before we can reciprocate. That’s the problem with this world. Everyone is waiting for everyone else, because the fear of rejection or insignificance is so great, that we’d rather demand it through obligation instead of earning that acceptance and inclusion through sacrifice.

    Worse still is the fact that the few that do sacrifice before they receive are most often the ones most trampled upon by the very same ones that cry foul when they are dealt a poor hand by life.

  • 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. 

  • Filled to the Brim

    Given my recent overload of pressure and work at the office, I found myself facing the realisation of what determines my capacity to deal with what is thrown at me each day. I found myself having conversations in my head about how I’ve had enough, how I’m not willing to put up with the crap any longer, and how this is all pointless. However, I couldn’t fend off this nagging feeling that that was just me setting limitations for myself. I was determining when it was enough, often long before it really was.

    There is a physical limitation that is also breached at some point which results in physical fatigue or exhaustion that simply makes it near impossible to function effectively. But the more I considered all this, the more I realised that I was setting a limitation for myself long before I arrived at that point of true physical exhaustion. It reminded me of a study by Dr Tim Noakes that confirms that our brain tells us that we’re tired long before we reach a state of being physically fatigued even though we are capable of much more. That poses a significant challenge to the perspectives that I’ve held on to for so long. I always assumed that being able to read my physical symptoms would be the surest way to make informed decisions about my emotional well being, but it turns out that it’s not as straight forward as that.

    And so I contemplated my current frustration with the on-going seemingly endless cycle of pressure that we’ve been under for more than a month now, and each time I felt like indulging myself with the defeatist proclamation of ‘I’ve had enough’, I knew that I was still capable of dealing with more. Funny how my attitude determined when enough was enough rather than any real physical or emotional constraints I was faced with. Through this painful exercise of working with some of the most amazingly inept resources I’ve ever had to contend with in my career, it has become obvious that what I am capable of is far from what I am tolerant of.

    I guess the focus needs to shift towards improving my tolerance and therefore my abilities to navigate around issues that challenge my tolerance levels, rather than to constantly focus on subject matter competence and relationship building. However, I suspect that this is really just scratching the surface of a bigger issue that lies beneath, that being the issue of self-worth, confidence, and emotional intelligence, each of which have a myriad of supporting issues as well. Yet again, a vicious cycle emerges. What remains clear though is the fact that I determine my capacity long before anyone else is able to push me beyond my own limits. This cup is far from full, although at times it serves my purposes to present myself as having reached a threshold that is reasonable to be considered a limitation of wits and patience for any reasonable person.

    Even in that there is little comfort, because in so doing, I am reminded that I am merely comparing myself to the mediocre, rather than striving to exceed such levels of complacency.