Tag: ramblings

  • Disordered Minds – follow up

    The speech that I wrote for my niece seemed to have fared well. She received full marks and was asked to present herself and her speech to the regional head of department from the Department of Education in South Africa. She received more positive feedback from the HoD as well. 

    Earlier this week, she came to me again for advice, but this time it was about a poster she needed to compile for an Afrikaans assignment regarding social decay, or something like that. For some reason, I’m still the first person she seems to think of whenever topics of this nature come up. But the part that tickled me most about it was that she took the following quote from my original post, translated it into Afrikaans and reused it on her poster. The quote was:

    “Of all the things we take for granted in life, our power of choice is probably the most abused gift we’ll ever receive.”

    Then she looked at me and said that it was the quote that “I got from that Cynically Jaded guy”. She still doesn’t know that I am that guy. 🙂

  • I just deleted about 30 posts from my blog. Many of them left me feeling self-indulgent and some were associated with a plagiarist that I was once again naive enough to trust. I loved some of the content, but I couldn’t in good conscience keep it published on my blog knowing that it was part of an elaborate scheme of deception, regardless of the motivation.

    Betrayal is my weakness. More accurately, being betrayed is what deflates me more than any other experience in the world. I sometimes despise my old school values. It places a burden on me akin to juggling hot coals in my hands. It forces me to accept the wickedness in others, and constantly challenges me to suppress my ego in my efforts to accept and forgive, so that I can gather my strength to move on again.

    I sometimes feel a strong desire to lash out and discard decorum in my efforts to expose the bullshit of the callous players that toy with the emotions and compassion of others. I never do, because I’m painfully aware of the reality that this world celebrates aggressors and tyrants and humiliates victims.

    I needed to recalibrate my blog so that it is a reflection of me, and not of what I would like others to see in me. This is my ventlet to criticise the world for its bullshit and double standards. I smile sadly at the thought of those that find reason to lie about losing a loved one in order to gain attention, juxtaposed with the news that six family members died in a car crash under excessively tragic circumstances.

    Society has a low self-esteem, and it’s reflected in the actions of the weakest amongst us. The attention-seekers, of which there is no scarcity, often succumb to self-pity and self-loathing, then express such emotions to a public audience, who inevitably pour out their affections in the hope of raising the spirits of one they identify with so easily, all the while dismissing the nagging realisation that they feel a sense of purpose only when they’re extending a hand to one they see as lesser than themselves. It’s easier to earn significance in that manner rather than to establish your worth through selfless fulfilment of your duty to society.

    We have more consumers than we have contributors to the collective wholesomeness of society. The contributors are fighting the debilitating symptoms of compassion fatigue, while the consumers do nothing but cry foul and wait impatiently for their lot to be improved by someone else.

  • There are times when the cowardly vagueness of some really threatens to unsettle me, but I quickly restrain myself with the knowledge that those that play for an audience will rarely engage in private. I believe that the true measure of our character is not determined by how we engage with others, but rather what thoughts and actions we entertain when we find ourselves alone, without an audience to appease. Everything else is a show, or an act, or both. Sometimes deliberately, but most times not. When we’re surrounded by others, no matter how intimately they may know us, there is always a barrier between who we are, and who we want them to believe we are. This is simply the innate nature of the human spirit that seeks to protect itself before it expresses itself. Accepting this truth allows me to master that which deludes others, while denying it allows me to delude myself whilst others achieve mastery over me.

  • Timely Rambles

    I’m tired of taking photos of places that I visit in the hope of sharing it with others in abstract. It never completes the moment. Worse still, I never feel fulfilled in having shared it, because after the click of the shutter, I’m still standing there alone with the camera.

    Business trips used to have a specific appeal for me in the past. It provided some sort of affirmation about my significance. Someone was willing to pay for my indulgence because they valued what I had to offer. That’s how it felt before. Now it feels like a chore. An obligation that needs to be fulfilled, and despite the apparent prestige of the function I fulfill at times, it doesn’t provide the comfort that I need nor does it fill the void of purpose in my life.

    It scares me when I see young people dedicating their lives to academic and professional pursuits with little or no focus on wholesome endeavours. They’re so excited about carving their niche into a world that will never fully accept them, and will only ever affirm them as long as they have something to contribute. Once they’ve passed their shelf life, they’ll be put out to pasture like everyone else in this consumption-based world, and if they haven’t secured a truly meaningful relationship by that time, it will erase the successes they enjoyed and the true meaning of ‘ephemeral’ will finally be revealed to them.

    Recently I’ve been obsessed with the realisation of how short life is when I reflect on the lives I’ve already lived. The future that awaits seems too short to achieve what I had hoped to achieve in life while the purpose of life is changing hues almost constantly these days. The swaying pendulum is catching up with me, and I sometimes feel as if it will not carry me in its swing but instead it will cut me off at the knees providing final confirmation that time was never on my side to begin with.

    Time sniggers at me. It was never a welcoming friend, but rather a saluting foe. It always pretended to be giving me more all the time, but instead it has been taking away from my treasures. But because it seemed like an inexhaustible supply, I assumed its source was other than my own vault. I was deluded. It was  feeding me from my own resources, and upon each indulgence it was my own store that was being depleted even though I assumed that that was the intended use of this scarce commodity.

    I now think of years as hours, if not minutes. What used to seem like a long 365 days is now simply a changing of the seasons without respite. The ground hogs are laughing while we’re distracting ourselves with our self-importance. Life is slipping away while I look on helplessly.

  • There was never an absence of criticism, or name calling. I was always the butt end of taunts and mockery and isolated, not by choice. If it wasn’t my slim physique that was being ridiculed, it was my nose for being too big, or my hair for being styled strangely, or my teeth for being crooked. I maintained amicable relations with most in my family, but my elder brother despised me for as long as I can remember. So trying to find something to be positive about in life was never an easy task. If I asked for a second helping of food I would be verbally abused. If I spent time with the very few friends I had from school, I would be ostracised for not having time for the family, and therefore deliberately excluded from family activities when I got home.

    I recall times when I walked through the streets at night until very late, listening to the laughter and noises from the homes in the neighbourhood of families and friends doing what families and friends do. It was alien to me. The reason I was walking the streets at that time of the night when I was in my very early teens, if that old even, was because for reasons that I can’t recall, I did not accompany my family to a visit to some or other extended family. As a result I had to loiter outside until they returned because I was locked out of the house. One night I was literally kicked out of the house when I was barely 6 or 7 years old. He grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and sent me flying out the front door to go searching for a jacket that he had hidden away to teach me a lesson for forgetting to take it in the house when I was done playing. It worked. I never forgot that lesson.

    Excerpt from the book I never wrote

    Ramblings of a Madman

  • By all accounts, I am indeed a madman. I have desires and yearnings that appear to be normal but reflect a weakness of spirit that is pitiful. I have been painfully tutored about the nature of people, yet my belief in their inherent goodness and potential wholesomeness remains strong.

    A wise physicist once said that the definition of insanity is repeating the same behaviour and expecting a different result. So by definition, I am a madman. I see and experience the hypocrisy of the closet sincerests among us, yet I continue to believe that there is an inherent goodness that lurks beneath. Not only do I believe it, I plan on it, I count on it and I expect it.

    There are exceptions of course. But here’s the coup de grace of it all. In believing in this flawed human spirit, and in living a naively misguided life, my reputation has been tainted because of good intentions associated with bad outcomes. And these exceptions that I admire and appreciate so much would rarely feel inclined to be acquainted with the likes of such a tainted soul. From afar I’ll continue to desire and yearn, but I dare not step close enough to tarnish them with the putrefaction of a decaying soul.

  • Ramblings

    I have so many thoughts racing through my mind tonight. I regret the tone that my blog has taken recently because it has made me far too aware of the presence of others that read my posts. I regret indulging myself so much in the opinions and praises of others. I feel shallow and insincere in any efforts to write anything meaningful in order to feel some release from the cacophony of restlessness that keeps echoing in my head.

    I visited my aunt in hospital tonight. I’m usually a very composed person even in the face of extreme trauma, but tonight I found myself actively subduing the tears and the lump in my throat when my uncle explained to me how he had to lie to his ailing wife to convince her to remain in hospital a little longer so that they may be able to find out what is causing her excessively high fevers.

    Her condition has been worsening by the day for the last few weeks without any indication of the underlying cause, and her appearance is a far cry from how I remember her to be. It reminded me of my late grandfather that also pleaded with his family to take him home when he was rushed to hospital for a lung infection. He was 93. All he wanted to do was die peacefully at his home, in his bed, but out of sincere care his family failed to see what was really happening and instead insisted on keeping him in hospital. He died in a cold ward without any of the simple comforts he had grown to appreciate in his humble surroundings at home. Truly humble surroundings because he was a simple man. A man that literally gave his fortunes of wealth to his siblings in order to establish them in life before he made a comfortable home for himself and his own family. He died a poor man, while his siblings owned half the town. Literally.

    At some point I wish we would stop and listen to what people want rather than what we want for them. At some point I wish others would stop to listen to what I want instead of what they want for me. This post makes no sense, nor does it offer any comfort from the thoughts that plague me tonight. At times like this I find myself easily annoyed by the games people play in their pathetic efforts to appease others. Sad games of lies and deception, mostly to themselves just so that they don’t have to face the disappointment of their parents or significant others. We find it so easy to lie, and even easier to justify it. But we spurn anyone that lies to us even though their motivations are not very different from our own.

    It all reminds me of two quotes. The first is that we cannot awaken someone that is pretending to be asleep. The second is from Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

    To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
    To the last syllable of recorded time,
    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
    The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
    Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
    And then is heard no more: it is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.

    I pray I never become that pathetic shadow that is oblivious to the purpose of my existence, strutting like I own the world and fretting as if I am being persecuted whenever I don’t get my way. I will not be that idiot that takes it all for granted in the name of optimism that tomorrow is another day, and I need to give myself a break. Tomorrow is not another day. Tomorrow is simply today again, only with less time than I had yesterday, never being able to achieve what I needed to achieve today, because I’m still trying to achieve what I should have achieved yesterday.

  • That Last Fateful Encounter

    I’m suddenly reminded of her again. The gentle ticking of her heart and her husky soft voice. Yes, the ticking of her heart. I knew it so well by then, and I missed it for a long time before that, the way I miss it now. Her infectious smile always remained infectious. Even through the pain of life and the heartache of my insensitivity.

    Our passionately tumultuous marriage ended because of an idealistic notion that I refused to let go of. Such is the curse of Hollywood. Even worse is the curse of a childhood that left me emotionally unavailable for the better part of my adult life. After falling in love and marrying according to the cultural traditions, we seemed like the couple most likely to succeed. We were often compared to Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser in Mad About You. We really got along that well.

    At some point, out of sheer paranoia and morbidity, I was convinced that if I didn’t end the marriage, I would lose not only my wife, but also the best friend I had up to that point in my life and the thought scared me. I behaved foolishly. But there was no turning back. Our friendship did survive, but it was always a stark reminder of my stupidity rather than the true comfort that it offered me before I lost my presence of mind.

    Years later, after a lengthy time apart, we made contact again. I just ended another insane chapter in my life, and she was as cheerful as always. She had her flaws, but I always loved her enough to only ever remember her romantically. And still do. Only this time, when we talked, there was a serious under tone that she tried hard to hide, and I knew better than to pry or make a fuss of it. She didn’t like people fussing about the seriousness of life. 

    I had been unemployed for a few months by that time and was still looking for work. We went for coffee a few times and eventually watched a movie together called John Q. It was a movie about a little kid that needed a heart transplant, and one of the final scenes was the graphic detail of the surgeon inserting the donor heart into the little boy’s chest cavity and tapping it to get it going. I could feel her heart sink at the sight of it. It was too close to home for her given her numerous open heart operations that left her with the artificial valve whose ticking I grew so fond of. 

    She just smiled as always and assured me that she was perfectly fine when we left the cinema that night. She was due for another blood test. Something she did at least every two weeks to monitor the thickness of her blood so that the valve wouldn’t clog up and cease. I could usually tell the thickness based on the sound of the valve. She insisted that I take her for the test, even though it was routine for her to get her family’s chauffeur to drive her to these fortnightly appointments. I was caught up in job interviews and she refused to go with anyone else. I told her that I was due for an interview the next day, to which she looked down and said that she knew I was going to get the job because I always got the job if I got the interview. I just laughed it off. 

    The next day I landed a job in Saudi Arabia for a one year contract, and I’ll never forget her response. For the first time since our divorce a few years before, she broke down in tears and pleaded with me not to go. She told me that she lost me once before and now that I was finally back, I was leaving her again. I couldn’t understand it, but I didn’t have much of a choice either. I needed the job. 

    She fell ill the following evening without me knowing. Due to a twist of fate, her regular doctor was not available, and some reckless bastard attended to her instead. He downplayed her symptoms of her chest infection and prescribed some medication without considering her heart condition which landed her in hospital, still unknown to me. 

    I needed to leave within days for the urgent assignment in Saudi, and had planned to fly out on the Thursday evening after the interview. On Thursday morning I delayed my flight plans at the last minute because I just didn’t feel comfortable making the trip that day. So I postponed my flight to Saturday instead. On Thursday evening at just after 19h00, around the time my original flight was scheduled to depart, I received a phone call. She had died. Her heart finally gave up, and just like that, she was gone. No long distance phone calls from Saudi as I had planned, or special trips to visit her. Everything was suddenly pointless. And I didn’t even see it coming.

    I broke down for the first time in my life, despite having lost other close family members before. I was always composed. But not this time. When I heard those words on the phone I felt weak and my knees almost gave way under me. I sat on the nearest thing I could find. She was gone and I didn’t know how to deal with it.

    Her funeral was held that same evening according to Islamic rites and customs. It was a cold winter night, and her family that had despised me since our divorce embraced me hesitantly when I saw them. I stood in the cemetery and watched in disbelief as they lowered her into her grave, and the most striking memory of that evening was the sight of tears dripping from the face of her nephew as he knelt over in the halo of the flood light that lit up the proceedings in the darkness of the graveyard. 

    Two days later I left for Saudi. Alone. And the months that followed saw one of the greatest depressions of my life set in. It was truly the winter of my discontent.