We are afraid of the wrong things

FEAR!!! That infamous little word that has the ability to take our breath away, tie our tongues and serve as a deterrent to the great unknown. Safety and security of our world always preferred.

We learn about fear throughout our life journey- whether by experiencing traumatic events ourselves or even seeing fear in others. We are a nation (humanity even) where fear has been carefully instilled into our very being. Everyday we read papers, watch news, TV or movies all expressing fear in some form or another. We fear failure, rejection, being alone, intimacy, “what the people might say”, death and ultimately life.

I often think that fear often stems from our belief in the norm… the realities we create… our beliefs about life – ultimately a collection of what we have been taught, our experiences and what the media would like us to believe what life is all about. The happily-ever-after syndrome where people are perfect and don’t make mistakes. Stepping out of this reality becomes the unthinkable.

Yet what happens when we decide to lift this veil, take-off the blinkers and venture into the unknown? What happens when we actually do those things we think we cannot do? What happens when we stare our fears in the face?

For every fear conquered we gain strength, courage and confidence we thought we never had. I truly believe that we think about security more than we think about opportunity. I truly believe that people are often afraid to live and unleash their own potential. By being too afraid to live and experience, we may never have invented the telephone, electricity, heck we may never have been able to fly.

In our world of dynamic change, experience is our best teacher. And learning from experience means experiencing the consequences of your thoughts and actions, something many of us would rather not face. If we had no unpleasant consequences for our actions, how could we possibly learn and attain higher levels of understanding?

So to face our fears, we need to stop being both the sheep and sheep dog of the “norm”. Yes we are a part of society, but society is nothing but the sum total of our thoughts and feelings… a reflection of our attitudes. By expressing our uniqueness of view and lifestyle, even if it differs from the norm, we cease to be the sheep. By allowing everyone else to do the same, without fear of being ridiculed or condemned for the crime of being different, we cease to be the sheep dog. By creating an environment where free will and choice is respected, we create an environment where we are free to live, and not afraid of life.

Pickled traditions

Fish, onions, spices and hot cross buns in one sentence would only make a whole lotta sense to the Capetonian. With Good Friday just behind us, I’m sure many have fond memories of a long weekend with yellow fingers. Digging into pickled fish over Easter is certainly a unique Capetonian tradition upheld since … er ..er … time immemorial it seems.

As tradition has it, the scurrying for ingredients and careful preparation start well before Good Friday … the earlier the better cos as we all know … good pickled fish needs its own me-time. Getting back to time immemorial, ever wonder how the tradition got going in the first place?

Since pickled fish is commonly known as being a Cape Malay dish, I think it’s safe to assume the tradition’s origin could be as old as say 350 years… or somewhere there around. Here I’m thinking of the 1600 – 1700 time period where slaves from many countries were brought to a new strange world, bringing with them their own unique traditions.

Since food and comfort love holding hands… I picture a slave with fond memories of his last meal as a free person. His world is dramatically turned upside down as he gets chained, dumped in a ship and transported to an unknown world where he is to face unimaginable challenges. Unfamiliar and threatening is what his world becomes. Aiding a meek sense of comfort, the slave finds solace in remembering home. And there is no better way to remember home than with home-cooked (traditional) food. For the slave this may have meant adjusting ethnic recipes to include ingredients found in their new strange world. And to South Africa is born a most unique cuisine, the result of a combination of many cultural groups including African, Indian, Malaysian, Dutch. Aren’t we lucky people?? Think you could get this combination anywhere else in the world? I doubt America’s Soul Food is any competition.

So today we still enjoy our rich heritage of unique cuisine… bobotie, chutney, koeksisters, milk tart, potjiekos, mashonzha (mopani worms), umngqusho (stamp mielies, sugar beans etc), vetkoek, boerewors, tripe and many more can be celebrated by every South African as a result of our pickled traditions.

Koeksister Mentality

I’ve been raving about the Koeksister mentality for a little while now. I may even have changed my thinking around it- but no doubt…. The Koeksister Mentality exists people.

Definition: Koeksister Mentality (subjective): – stunted thinking found in people who are too lazy to take responsibility for themselves.

I read some article a little while ago reporting results of men who are victims of domestic abuse (wifie or partner bitchslaps the dude). The report broke it down to the various races and found that coloured men in South Africa have the highest rates of being victims of domestic abuse. Not just that, they faaaaaaar outweigh other races and these are just the reported cases. So how did we get here?

My philosophy attributed the cause to the mommy’s boy-syndrome, commonly found in local communities. Mommy and daddy spoils dude rotten, giving them almost anything they wish at the drop of a hat. Why? “Cos my boy will carry the family name” of course… the family legacy if you will. And well, I’m sure a host of other reasons. Problem. Dude grows up, starts a family of his own, but mommy and daddy is still around to catch you if you fall. Problem. When is dude going to learn to take responsibility for himself? Pressure mounts as responsibilities add up. At some point, mommy and daddy may leave you to your devices. Eventually, with the lack of proper coping mechanisms and/or life skills, it just becomes easier to resort to alcohol, drugs and affairs when things don’t exactly go your way. Jeez, apparently life can be tough.

Close knit families are both great and often a curse. Yes, I can understand parents wanting to give their kids the best. At some point though, they’ll need to make their own decisions and learn to take responsibility should they wish to survive the big bad world.

In my dealings with various cultures, particularly from other African counties, I found that often these communities consider it the norm to send kids to boarding school. I think this is a great societal model. Kids learn to take responsibility for themselves outside the confines of the comfortable and secure surroundings that mommy and daddy’s home offers.

Often we find refugees, coming from unimaginable circumstances, arriving with practically nothing, and within no time they’re either employed or have created some means of making a living and providing for themselves and their families. And locals contend “they’re stealing our jobs”. Paleeez.

So the Koeksister Mentality sits back… waiting patiently for that promised opportunity to miraculously come their way. Gets retrenched, sits at home and expects wifie to fulfil all household chores, care for the kids and bring in the dough. The result, she’s waking up and resorts to bitchslapping the dude out of frustration. Yes yes – it’s a generalisation, my grossly subjective view and is not the case in all circumstances. However, I do feel I’m onto something here, particularly where coloured communities are concerned.

Problem with the Koeksister Mentality is that kids are reared to sustain the family it seems, as opposed to being reared for the world, taking an active role in it and fending for themselves. And, in this regard, the Koeksister Mentality does not exclusively apply to the dudes, but includes women too- thus anyone too lazy to take responsibility for themselves. Also, blaming your circumstances is nothing but a cheap copout. Parents always do the best with whatever they have available to them in terms of knowledge and resources. By now, you should be old enough to think for yourself and at least attempt to make the best of your circumstances.

Yes, life can be tough, but with the abundant opportunities out there - the Koeksister Mentality can only hold you back if you allow it to.

The Bin Brigade

It’s Tuesday morning 8.30ish. Gathering the last bits of trash around the flat. Rush off to the bins before the truck arrives. Only to find the customary and colourful Bin Brigade beating me to it… as usual.

To say it irks me would be putting it mildly. Somebody carefully filtering though my trash for bits and pieces of fortune. A day or two earlier I was cleaning out old paper work and threw away some ancient ID photos. This particular Tuesday, chief of the Bin Brigade stops me before getting to the car to ask whether I “know this lady?”. Oh why didn’t I tear the damn thing up before dumping it??! A few weeks earlier I caught the chief merrily reading my 2000-something appointment diary.

These little scenarios got me thinking on some things… should I be taking extra care when dumping my dirt? For heavens sake its dirt… empty containers… ash… peels and the science experiments from my fridge. What puzzled me more though was the religious gathering of the Bin Brigade and their mechanics. How do they know when bin day is in the various areas? I mean… do they keep a little diary…. “hmmm Tuesday Wysteria Lane…. Wednesday Daisy Avenue”.

To investigate the phenomenon – I engaged Henry, my former homeless acquaintance who now tenders the flat-block garden and stuff. Henry explained that Bin Brigades are territorial groups (well he obviously didn’t use the words Bin Brigade – but you get my drift). “When you sleep in a particular area , you just get to know when bin day is or hear it from someone. And beware your soul if you go scratching in another area’s bins where others operate ”.

Henry’s version is that most of the Bin Brigade comes from good homes, have left due to all sorts of circumstances and sleep in the streets when they have no pace else to go. Scratching in bins becomes a “means of survival” as all sorts of “useful” goodies come out of our bins.

Eish! my trash a means of survival?! A sad but true fact it seems. And after exploiting our bins and the remains are carted away to the dump, another Brigade finds their way there for further filtering of treasures.
It’s distressing that people resort to such measures as a means a survival in this day and age. So yes, we could create more soup kitchens or involve restaurants where the problem of food is concerned, but how do we go about tackling the problem and not just the symptom? How can we prevent people from landing up on the streets to begin with? Would better social welfare systems be tackling the problem or the symptom?

I’m not so sure about the answers here and think the solution lies somewhere between education and social welfare systems. Either way, we have to seriously think about doing something to eradicate the Bin Brigade or take better care when throwing out the trash.

Fish falling from the sky...

… reminds me of the unexplained mysteries of our world. I believe realities are often scarier than fiction and often kept under wraps from minds incapable of perceiving it all.

Billions are spent on figuring out some of the greatest mysteries…. Egyptian Pyramids, Secrets of the Ancient Mayan culture, UFO sightings, Atlantis, Bermuda Triangle, the unseen world etc etc. Well these are just some of the most popular mysteries out there people quickly identify with.

But what about those not-so-often heard about mysteries. Those never read about mysteries. Our own personal mysteries we’re too afraid to share.

So I’ll be bold and share a little mystery of my own. Some months ago I decided to go and see a “homeopath” that a friend discovered and referred. Let’s just call him Dr., well that’s what I call him. So Dr. is of Indian origin, has been on Cape Town a few months now and already his work is keeping him rather busy. I mentioned “homeopath” as it’s a sort of natural medicine that he practices. Although, as it turns out, it’s much more than natural medicine he appears to practice. To another patient, I in turn referred to him, he explained that he holds a 6-year qualification which constitutes a combination of modern medicine and a traditional medicine known as Unani.

So- what was so amazing or mysterious about it all? I’ll cut the corners of lengthy explanations and take you to the day I went for my first consultation.

I sat next to Dr. on a chair, he only asked my age. I emphasise.... he only asked my age – that’s it. He then proceeded to feel my pulse.... for about 10 to 15 minutes. The remainder of the consultation, I’m afraid to say, I sat with an open jaw trying to fathom how this man could know certain things about me. He told me about problems of my past.... way past like childhood past. He could tell me I had a little operation a few months earlier (this beyond shocked me to say the least). He even mentioned problems with my previous marriage (and I didn’t share the fact that I was married prior to then). He accurately confirmed little symptoms I had which I hadn’t paid much attention to until then. And well, quite a few more shocking things that could only be known to me.

What amazed me was that Dr. was 99% accurate with all his assertions and all this from feeling my pulse and asking my age. How all this could be possible still astounds me.

In his broken English, he kindly explained my physical problems and the causes thereof. He then prescribed a particular diet and requested certain ingredients for my medicine. Ingredients consisted of an array of nuts and honey in specific proportions. Medicine turned out to be a paste I was required to down a teaspoon of everyday.

I may not know or understand the ins and outs of Dr.’s methods, but I certainly have felt a major improvement in my health. The first indication of which was when people close to me physically noticed the difference. And just about everyone else I know (or have subsequently referred) reports a similar experience with Dr.

The mysteries of our world, big and small, are truly amazing, whether we’re able to understand them or not. Increasingly, science and technology tries to elucidate the miraculous and theories are often swallowed whole in the absence of a better explanation.

Fish falling from the sky, a sporadic fact of nature, may then be better left unexplained than diluting its mystery with random theories.

What is the colour of the wind?

The colour you decide to paint with of course.

An uncontrollable force that sweeps up happiness, sorrows and hopes, travels to another region, delivering its colours only to be transformed again and again along its journey.

Winds carry: the hopes of sailors with spices; the pain of death and destruction spread by wildfires; the birth of a unique flower far away from its origin; and the hot-air balloon’s anticipation that you will call 0800…

We go along our humdrums, working hard to make that living and whatever else the everyday may include… often forgetting the why-ness of it all. Yes I need to eat and pay bills, but is this all I have to live for? I think we often times lose sight of the colourful journey along these humdrums. Thus the why-ness carries with it our love, life, sorrows, happiness and the hope of better tomorrows.

So an unexpected yellow wind comes along and provides just the right amount of inspiration to remember a lost dream (hint hint). Shortly thereafter, the pink wind arrived reminding you of the playfulness you so used to love (hint hint). The orange wind brought with it the warmth of real hugs (not the plastic ones) you often dished out to loved ones. Then the black wind arrived, bringing with it the pain of your mother’s departure (another hint?).

To feel is to truly live- good and bad emotions that only come because they were sent, because there just may be something you missed along your journey whilst concentrating on the humdrum. You cannot run away from this wind, for it will find you and deliver the colour it was sent with. The choice is yours…. send it on as if it never arrived (continue on your humdrum) or feel it and repaint in the colour that suits you.

We receive and paint all colours of the wind before sending it on its everlasting journey. Who knows what colour might peak its head today and who knows what colour you may choose to paint, if at all. Since somewhere…. in some unknown place … someone will surely take delivery of the colour of your wind.

If I were the boss

Well… what you mean if??… Yes… that’s more like it… WHEN!!

So when I’m the boss, I would certainly lead by example, “walk the talk” if you will. I honestly believe nothing is more motivating and infectious than good energy and vision seen at work. Conversely, nothing is more off-putting than some d@^%#s sitting on the top floor, giving orders he knows little about him/herself. Too arrogant to listen to suggestions from down below cos heaven forbid- these people might actually be onto something. After all, the business is running itself- "we have good systems in place". Tragically, many strategic decisions these days are often limited to who to include in the next 4-ball…hmmm?

With over 10 years of working experience myself- I’ve had my fair share of bosses and have come to appreciate those rare Granny Smiths among the worm infested beauties … surprise surprise when you bite into the inside! Playing the role will only get you that far dude.

Being the boss is certainly no easy task- taking on enormous responsibilities and bearing the risks that goes along with decisions. It commands discipline, commitment, good vision and intentions, then translating that into action – a vital ingredient.

With the lack of respectable role models in mind, in my humble opinion, is leading by example not the only way to lead?