almost everything i wish i'd said the last time i saw you

Yesterday I heard some very disturbing stories about some people I'm supposed to care about. They make it so hard, and they keep me up nights so many times. I wish you could turn off love and it stays that way. But I have decided I will not get involved. If these people want to drive themselves into the ground, fine. We all grow old, don't we? We all suffer the consequences of our actions, don't we? At some point, you've gotta let go and let God deal with it, right?

I was trolling round the internet at the airport and I came across this verse by Holley Gerth. I really don't think I need to say anything more

Oh, we may not go to war.
But we fight…
for relationships
for dreams

We battle…
against illness
against discouragement

I think of you staring at the screen, perhaps feeling your strength is small.
Oh, yes, I know what that’s like.
But victory isn’t up to us.
And those words you sometimes hear?
“You’re not worth fighting for.”
They’re a lie. Nothing more.

This is the truth from the heart of One who calls you His own:
You are loved.
You are worth fighting for.
You are even worth dying for.

So go into your day, strong friend, knowing that nothing can defeat you.
You’ve already won.

END

every song tells a story

So I must be moving up in the world, coz I went to the orchestra and I found it very interesting. And this time, not in the least bit because this conductor was one of the more flamboyant ones - I swear he was jigging it up so much on stage you'd a thought it was a waltz recital instead. But he was also a hundred years old so I guess by then you have enough moral authority that you can do whatever you want and no one's gonna think it odd. It reminded me of this guy they brought to our half-annual office event in February, calls himself The Silent Conductor.

Basically he gave everyone a different kind of percussion instrument (pipes that when hit produce a different pitched sound based on color) and then he'd demonstrate what he wants the reds to do, they do it and he shows the blues something else then the greens something else and so on. Then occasionally he'd change the rhythm for one color, and before we knew it, we were making music. Not a single word uttered. Not a single rehearsal gone through. We just came in, followed the leader, and made beautiful music. Steve just such energy, brought such zest to the stage, you couldn't help but be blown away and chime along. Even the naysayers and skeptics, after waiting around for about 10 minutes and seeing everyone else get into the grove, decided to join in.

We were apparently supposed to draw these deep parallels between our company and an orchestra and the conductor and the lead team. There was a debrief session immediately after Steve finished just to make sure we had. See a company is exactly like an orchestra - the different people doing different things are like the members of the orchestra playing different instruments. They read off different scores and even play at different times, sometimes together, sometimes solos, but in the grand scheme of things, it's one song that we the audience are listening to. Just like in our company - different people from different departments doing different things but in the end all putting out the same brilliant products. All touching lives, improving life. And that should have made us start functioning together better as teams.

Anyway, I was just struck by the simplicity of this Silent Conductor. He's built an entire career out of the simplest of things - little straw pipes that produce different sounds when struck. And he doesn't need to appear like a sage because he doesn't actually say anything. You guys come to the conclusions he wants all by yourselves. Now that's what I call brilliance.

END

face down in the right town

In the space of about two weeks, the two weeks just before I came to Switzerland, three things happened to me that stood out more than anything else. Well, one other thing happened but that's the subject of a whole other story: the person I was living with and me went on collision course because of something completely stupid but since we're both hard heads it became a deep-seated issue and I ended up feeling like I was being driven out so I left his house. So for about a day I was homeless again. But I digress.

So there I was, standing outside San Burners waiting for my takeaway to be brought, late one evening on my way home when suddenly a little girl comes up to me begging. So obviously I throw her out, coz that's our natural reaction. But this time I kept observing her, and every person who walked up or down she approached, and like clockwork they all sent her away. No exceptions. But everytime someone new came through she was right there begging for a shilling or whatever. All this rejection, I can't even begin to imagine what it does to someone's psyche. Because this was about 8 o'clock and I'm guessing she'd been doing this all day. And since she was about seven maybe she'd been there for like two years. And I'm thinking I start to doubt myself when I hear No just once. Imagine what it must be like when it becomes the fabric your life's made of.

And then some other day I was too early for my pickup, so as I stood there waiting for him to come one of those guys who pushes carts came and somehow decided to rest just in front of the stop I was standing at. His shoes were full of holes, as were the rest of his clothes. He was of course dirty and generally dishevelled, and he was sweating like crazy and panting. Obviously beard unshaved and looking whitish. He was not young. Then his cap fell. And it fell into a puddle of dirty water right next to him. He bent down and picked it up and put it on, mud and everything, as though it was completely normal. And I couldn't help thinking he must have had other dreams at a certain point in his life. Does he have a family? Is there anyone he goes home to? If he were to fall sick, would anyone support him? Judging from the way he looked scary and everything he could just as easily have chosen a life of crime. Might even have paid off better than his current job. But no, here he was trying to make a living whichever way he could find to. He heaved, sighed for like ever, and then picked up his cart full of furniture and went trudging along up the hill. And I swear my heart went with him.

And then yesterday I get a Facebook message from a guy who used to be my friend in primary school but who I literally hadn't seen since I left about 13 years ago. He'd found me on there and we became friends and so he sent that message. Would I be able to help him find a job? Any kind. Due to lack of fees and many other things (I think I heard at some point that their father died, and I'd never actually seen a mother at their place now I think about it) he had only managed to do a marketing diploma after high school, and now it was proving impossible to get placed anywhere. And without anyone to support him or whatever I guess bills were mounting. Now, I'm almost at the very bottom of the foodchain in my company, regardless how glamarous my job sometimes seems, so obviously there's completely nothing I can do except maybe forward job postings I come across. But somehow I doubt that will make him sleep any better at night.

In each of those instances my heart bled for these people. And it's not like any of those scenes was related to the other, it's all just random stuff I notice as I go about my days. Except that each of them brought out vividly a certain harsh reality: but for a twist of fate, I could very easily have been any one of them. I'm not saying I'm better than them, and God knows I haven't done anything particularly deserving of all this grace, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about how blest I am. And guilty also, because I know it shouldn't take me seeing how much worse things could get to thank the Lord for being good to me. But if no one's really perfect then I guess this is one of my imperfections - taking things for granted. Anyway, no matter how I got here, I'm here and I'm completely grateful to God for all He's done for me.

Counted your blessings lately, and thanked Him for them? You should. You never know what tomorrow's gonna bring.

END

in between days

Wondering whether I should actually do an elaborate plan for the next five years of my life. We're at that point at work where you set your goals for the next six months and evaluate progress against the ones you did last six months. See the thing about setting these goals, and making all these plans, especially the longterm five-year ones, is that you always go assuming that the current landscape will carry into the future. Even if you anticipate change, that anticipation is always based within the confines of what we've seen today, due that inherent inability we all have: none of us can predict the future. So what if the changes are so drastic they render all our plans worthless?

When we were growing up, there used to be all these people (teachers mostly) who'd imbue us with line after line after textbook line going something like "Failing to plan is planning to fail," or "Expect the best but plan for the worst," or my personal favorite "Planning is bringing the future into the present so you can do something about it now." The general vein was always this: if you want to be successful, you must plan ahead. But no one ever went so far as to define what they meant by "ahead." Should you plan what you'll be doing tomorrow afternoon? Over the weekend? Next month? Or who you will be five years from now. See even when we were in school, despite choosing subjects and courses and stuff based on what we thought we wanted to become, I don't think we were really working towards a plan. We were just following the well-beaten path. Our lives were never abstract. You get born. Go to school, primary, secondary, uni (where there's a whole JAB whose job is to assign courses to people), and then look for a job. So now that part is over for me. The next part is a little more uncharted, and yes I do get a lot of advice and everything on what I should do next, but it's always something figurative like be the best you you can be.

And while there's obviously something to be said for planning, what about creativity? Innovation? Openness to opportunity, whatever it may be? "Great achievement has no roadmap." went someone on an episode of The West Wing. You'll be surprised how many things were invented as a by the way. Fleming discovered penicillin by accident when he was studying certain bacteria. Mozart and Franz Joseph Haydn didn't study the classics; they created them. A guy takes his dog out for a walk, notices blackjack stuck onto the dog's clothes and his trousers, takes a closer look, and out comes Velcro. All the way till gravity, and the Archimedes principle (all that guy had to do was take a bath - imagine that). These people did not go out looking for those opportunities. All they did was kept an open mind. And opened their eyes to the world around them. Why don't we live like that any more? It clearly worked for them. But not us, no. We all need to know where we're headed and how it'll benefit us, and we need to know it now.

Henry David Thoreau, having lived in seclusion for a bunch of years in order to discover the true meaning of life (as a sort of declaration of independence), came back and wrote that "... the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation." It appears we've become enslaved by the processes we've created ourselves, and now we can't break free because it's become a vicious cycle. "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans," goes that Simple Plan song. If only we could just live one day to the next, and not feel guilty about it, and let discovery be an end to itself...

END

nothing left to say but goodbye

The story of the prodigal son is a story of rebellion. It's the story of the son who rejected his father's upbringing. Went off on his own and led a wild life of adventure and anarchy. Did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Squandered everything, literally, spiritually, physically. When faced with failure and despair, he came back home, willing to do whatever to win back his father's favor. Here's the thing - in that story, he never at any point lost it. All he needed to do, as he found out, was come back and say he was sorry. And he'd have been taken back. This was in a parable. The father in the story was God. So I think it's safe to assume that if a thing like this ever happened in real life as described, two things would not happen: the father, being human, might be just a little less gracious; the prodigal son's not gonna be humble enough to realize when he's failed that he can come back and grovel.

Ever wondered what happens to a person to make them become a victim (in their head) of everything that happens to them? I have. Why would someone who could very easily have had it all, someone who did almost have it all, suddenly just stalk back and tell everyone who loved them to leave them alone. Someone who's old enough that this is not just ADD. Why would they go ahead and conclude that everyone's so ashamed of them it would be better if it was just assumed they didn't exist at all. If you were a parent, is there a tipping point? What would you do if that person was your child? If you'd done everything you thought possible, said everything you could think about, given and broken ultimatum after ultimatum, and still nothing. You know how they keep telling us love conquers all-is there be a time span after which we can conclude love has failed? 

"Asiyefunzwa na mamaye hufunzwa na ulimwengu" is a saying that I think is targeted at the mothers (teach your children) just as much as it's targeted at the kids (accept your mother's teachings). Just the mere fact that it exists should be evidence that any part of that system could fail.

Apparently, human cells regenerate once every seven years. Sorta like snakes shedding their skin. So when we say stuff like "People don't change," it must drive these scientists crazy. Because we're always changing in the most basic of ways. At any moment, we could suddenly be a whole new man. Like at any moment, we could have a whole fresh set of options, and second chances. Primal regeneration, however, has nothing to do with how we harness those chances. That needs to come from us. It needs to be a concious decision. And it needs to be made each and every day, for the rest of our lives.

So to this prodigal son, I'm at world's end. There's this guy who says that struggles and disappointments may be what keeps us going. That maybe we all need to mess up so we can step up. I sincerely hope that's true, and that it'll happen for you. Everything I wanna say has been said so eloquently by Sidewalk Prophets:

Last time we spoke,
You said you were hurting,
And I felt your pain in my heart,
I want to tell you,
That I keep on praying,
Love will find you where you are,
I know cause I've already been there,
So please hear these simple truths,


Be strong in the Lord and,
Never give up hope,
You're going to do great things,
I already know,
God's got His hand on you so,
Don't live life in fear,
Forgive and forget,
But don't forget why you're here,
Take your time and pray,
These are the words I would say

END

long road out of eden

I'm back.

This was how Michael Jordan, the greatest b-ball player the world had ever know, relaunched his career in basketball around 1995 after a 2-year leave of absence to pursue other interests. In 2010, LeBron James went and held a press conference just to tell people he was changing teams, and backed it up with a twitter page, aptly named KingJames. Michael Jordan did it in two words, on his way to the court, after a two-year absence, and LeBron James tried to hold the world hostage with live conferences and twitter pages and shizznit. Anyway, I digress.

The Hope Diamond was the single-most famous gemstone in the history of gemstones. Back in the mid-1900's it came under the possession of a diamond merchant called Harry Winston. He was later convinced by one of the Smithsonian's curators to donate it for a national gem collection. When he did, the most sought-after, famous diamond in the world, he posted it through regular US Mail. And it arrived. The point is, sometimes there's something to be said for hiding things in plain sight. This is why the blog's always had my name, and why it's referenced on my facebook, and every other site I'm listed on. However, the machine sorta broke down last year, and more people who know me than I'm comfortable with started reading it, so with time it became harder for me to be honest on here, so it's become that much harder to write, period. Which might be why I went underground. 

But like I said, hopefully, I'm back.

And I'm moving. To SA. It's always been part of the longterm plan that at some point I'd go live there, I just didn't expect it to happen so soon. I'd personally slated it for June/July later in the year, after I've had much more time to settle down. I can't say I don't relish a good challenge, who wouldn't? The news just came a little suddenly is all. So now I have two weeks to tone down 25 years worth of a living and wrap it all up in a suitcase and uproot myself to a whole new land. Where I know not one soul. Among people who're admittedly not the friendliest in the world.

So parts of me can't wait to go, I've always wanted to live in the first world, and this appears to be the closest I'll get for a while. And part of me can't believe how much I'm being asked to leave behind. You never realise how big a part of your life stuff is till you lose it. Now I gather I'm going to have to try much harder if I'm going to make it down there. We used to chant a line when I was in primary school that did not mean anything to me back then. I just thought of it now and it's a completely loaded line. "If it is to be, it's up to me."

Babe Ruth was a baseball player in the early 1900's. He's the guy Associated Press named the greatest athlete of the 20th Century. This was the thing about him: he didn't just hit the ball, like all other great baseball players. He'd actually tell you where he was gonna hit the home run beforehand, and he'd hit it there regardless how the pitcher tried to twist it. You don't see focus like that very often. I wish it was that easy in life. I've clearly got a long road ahead of me. If destiny's really not the life we're given to live, but rather the path we choose for ourselves, then all I'm asking for is wisdom to make the right choices, and strength to follow through.

END

the take over, the break's over

If I were to strictly classify my job right now, it would fall under marketing. And previously I was in finance. There's this girl who came to a party with us last month whose dream was to go to the Olympics. Since she was 4. And she finally made it to the last ones in was it Beijing(?) Despite having broken a leg when she was 17 - she's my age. Now, I love this job, even though I've only done it for two months, but I'm wondering if I can say there's anything I've ever wanted to do that I've wanted that steadfastly. When I was a child it was engineering coz that's what my father does, and then I grew up and started reading Fortune and it became investment banker despite the fact that I didn't even know what that was - believe it or not I actually liked the suits back then - and then I started watching The Practice when I moved to Nairobi and I fell in love with law. That must be the longest dream I've had, coz all the way till uni I consistently wanted to be a lawyer and to argue facts and to bang the table when neither the facts nor the law were on my side. As if that wasn't enough, The West Wing came and took over my life a little later and then I go check and guess what all those brilliant people did in uni (except for the president who's an economist) - law. So anyway, I got convinced to change my dream at some point to finance and ended up doing Commerce. And the rest is, so far, history.

So here I am creating brands and shaping product strategy (or something close to that). Starting over is sometimes scary, sometimes a huge risk, sometimes a harbinger to a doomed existence. It wasn't any of those things for me (I guess coz I'm blest...), but it was a completely new beginning. I have to think of myself as a fresh hire now. I have to ask at least a thousand questions, and have to start working out a whole new balance between my [already scanty] life and my work. When people are thinking about what legacy they want to leave behind, they're usually all about one specific thing. There's always one thing they want to stand out, one thing they can be identified by. But I'm thinking no, me I when I'm remembered, I wanna be remembered for all the different accomplishments. I want all of them to be grand, of course, but I want them to be equally grand. And I want them to be various. And it won't matter if they're all work-related.

On the subject of work-life balance, we had lunch with our regional GM day before yesterday. Brilliant guy, btw. Has been with the company for about 20 years. That is A LONG time. Anyway, so we ask him if he'd say he's made any sacrifices in terms of personal life, family on his way up. And he's like no. You spend all your life either studying (first half) or working (second half). Nine, ten hours a day. So anyone who thinks work is not life is crazy. There is no such thing as work/life balance if you're doing something you love to do - they are one and the same thing. I almost died - you know those things people say and they leave you dumbfounded, ya, that was me. I had never thought of it that way, but I completely agree with him. Him and Placido Domingo both. Steinway & Sons is a company that makes designer pianos out of hardwood that cost as much as a small Samoan island. They print a quarterly magazine with updates for people who've bought Steinway in the past. So I got one of them and inside they had a spread with Placido in sideview facing down with a sort of pensive look, holding the conductor's baton, light from the lectern illuminating his face. 

And underneath his picture, the text "Apparently, time off is reserved for those who consider their careers as work." I wouldn't call myself a workaholic per se, but I'd say that I've got love for what I'm doing. I'd even go further and say that right now, I think my career is my life. And I'm happy.

END

you gotta go there to come back

Had an interesting talk recently with this friend I ran into on the streets on my way to work. Apparently at some point she just up and decided to get serious with God, and she completely changed her life over. Stopped doing the things she used to do, you know, like rave, changed her music, now reads the Bible for fun et al. I dono if this makes me come across as psycho, but I've always been envious of people like that. You know, people who've been to the other side. People who had an (for lack of a better word) illustrious childhood. I've always felt in my mind that those people make better Christians than, say, someone who's always been brought up with Christian values. Someone like me. Because those people know the difference. They have a direct frame of reference between how their life is now and how it was then, and they can tell exactly what it is that was missing before they really got saved.

You know the way astronomers are always telling us how the earth goes round once every day and revolves round the sun once every year, but we never feel as though it's moving. The reason is it's been moving ever since we were born, so we don't know any different. It's like when you've been in the dark for a long time and then you suddenly came into the light, I think you're better placed to see how the light changes your life than someone who's always been in said light. For us, guys like that, it must partly be a case of familiarity breeding contempt, that we can never seem to have the fire that new converts have [well, at least I don't think I do]. Things that to me have become routine tasks like prayer and meditation, still hold that magic touch to these [new] people. They still do it because they want to do it, not coz they're used to, or coz they think they should. It's not a chore to them. So I think results to them come easier than they do to the rest of us - they still have that purity of mind.

When photographers want to make an object stand out better when composing a scene, one of the things they do is turn up the contrast. I think that's what I'm [and others like me are] lacking: contrast. I don't really know what it's like to not be who I've always been. I can't really point to the void the Holy Spirit fills in my life once I accept him, coz I've never been consciously aware of it. This other friend put it very philosophically: those who are forgiven much tend to love more [which is actually in the Bible]. I don't feel as though I've been forgiven that much, because other than the original sin I can't point to any other major misdemeanors [nevermind that there's no big or small sin]. I was born when my parents weren't saved, but they converted when I was four, so I've never known any other life.

I don't even know what kind of wishful thinking this is - basically it's like I want to have lived on the dark side so that when I met Christ I could see what's changed. I guess it would be much easier for me to just pray that He reveals His presence in my life every now and again in not-every-day ways. Just so I know He's still there and all this good stuff isn't happening to me just because. And so I can identify clearly where in my life He fits. Maybe then it will be much easier for me to put Him first, which is where He should be. And it'll be easier for me to maintain the moral high ground I've theoretically built over the years. This speaker at church last Sunday said that was the only difference between us and the rest of the world - everything else you achieve you can do so in a worldly fashion, but the morality, that one you need God for, and that's what will set us apart. Being salt to the earth is not easy, and it's even harder when you don't know how to describe the feeling. I'm supposed to be the salt of the earth, so ya, I guess I'm asking for a deeper understanding.

END

city of blinding lights

When I went to NY that time in 2007, everything used to awestrike me. Even the carpeting on the ground. The clean and one-way streets. The food cart at the corner selling one dollar hotdogs for 80 cents. The downstairs pizza place that's individually owned but delivers and has a website for ordering online. The houses where someone upstairs needs to buzz you in so you can get through the front porch. The 5-floor waterfall running down the inside of Trump Tower. The Museum of Modern Art, and just Fifth Avenue stores in general. The subways. My Hostelling International room. Their flushing system (trust me, it's vastly different than ours). And the fact that they're so impressed we can even speak English they give us whatever we ask for (at least the people I met). I thought I'd never feel that way again. I thought it was only coz I was still [young and] impressionable. I was not right.

Johannesburg is a large city. I looked up some stats and turns out it's actually the largest non-coastal city. In the world! It shares square miles with Los Angeles as it is. It's the financial capital of South Africa, and maybe even of Africa given SA's muscle here. It's spic. It's span. It's vast. And it's a little slice of heaven. But in all fairness I hardly ventured out of Sandton. 

Sandton is the "it" suburb of Jo'burg. I think you can actually refer to it as a first world neighborhood. The roads are pristine. The traffic lights and public system in general work as they should, and people obey the law. The highway patrol are polite and there's an actual system of tickets so traffic offences aren't blown up to be more than they are - nuisances. Traffic jams move coz all the roads that matter are at least three lanes wide, with overpasses and underpasses as appropriate, and road markings showing you which lane goes where. Not a single roundabout in sight, or even a Vitz. There are official Aston Martin and Porsche dealerships, so it's safe to conclude the average person living in Sandton is rich. Every brand in the country is represented here, so if you live in Sandton chances are your office is also there, and you never need to go anywhere else. Except maybe to Gold Reef City in the mid-south which is a pretty excellent park and gamespot. And it's right next to Soccer City, although that's more a landmark now that the World Cup is over. Or to Woodmead where there's a Woodmead Auto who are the people who sell Lamborghinis if that's the sort of thing that tickles your fancy. New, of course! The street lighting is so comprehensive you can basically go anywhere at any time, but most places don't stay open past 11, with the exception of those McDonald's drive-thru's.

Sandton City is a mall complex that includes itself and the world-famous Nelson Mandela Square (which has that 20-foot statue of him in its center and a singing waterfall. As in the water rises, and as it falls back to the ground it falls in a pattern that creates music. Yes, believe it!) Inside Sandton City, unless you're looking for cheap bargains, there's nothing you won't find. There's two hypers that stock all home shopping goods. There's two Apple stores, and one of them has Geniuses inside it. There's a Digital Planet that sells authentic Beats by Dre headphones for the cost of a semester of uni. There's an entire floor dedicated to couture - LVMH, Chanel, Dior, Oscar de la Renta, Emporio Armani, Versace et al. The entire level 1 basement is taken up by this humongous cinema that has screens the size of football stadiums - 11 of them. There's every food joint you could be looking for, then there's one in the terrace on Nelson Mandela Square just next door that serves pork ribs in sweet and sour sauce with garnish, fries and veggies for R120 that will change your life! Semi-open air. With ambience to kill for. Right next to the singing fountain.

Morningside is one of the hoods in Sandton, which is itself one of the hoods in Jo'burg. Its main road is called Rivonia, and that's the road on which you'll find everything you want in Morningside. That's also where my hotel is. It's 10 minutes driving away from Sandton City, and 15 minutes away from the airport via the 160kph-without-flinching bullet train called the Gautrain. That ride is the ride of a lifetime, FYI! Across the road from my hotel there's a Harley Davidson dealership, where it's one of the employment requirements that a person have a goatee, moustache that stretches out, at least two tattoos, muscles, and those cowboy boots with spikes and stars at both ends. And tight-fitting jeans made of real demin - the original Levi's. And dark aviator sun glasses. Texas accents are an added advantage. Either that, or that's their official dress code, coz everyone who works there fits that description. One of those Harley bikes costs about as much a small child, so broke @$$es need not apply, it says on the door. [ok, not really, but ya, they're not cheap]

About 15-20kms out of Sandton on the N1 - the main road that goes to Pretoria - near Soweto in a neighbourhood called Ormonde, there's the Gold Reef City. It has the largest Ferris wheel I have ever seen, and each seat on it is shaped like a giant soccer ball. It's got a water slide that extends so high it's about 2-3 kilometers sliding down, but it's open so the chill factor is a little reduced. It's flanked by its own five star hotel that looks as though it was made out of gold, which is actually possibly the case because that used to be the epicenter of the gold mining trade until it became uneconomical to do it anymore, then it was converted into a park. It also houses the Apartheid Museum which is pretty monumental for a country like SA. And about a very small and light stone's throw away, in all of its glass-and-curvy glory, stands Soccer City. The stadium that put Africa on the map. When you drive through Gold Reef City at night (at that time almost nothing's still open - except maybe the casino which does not admit under-18's), you look up and you see the moon and the stars and then you look to your left and you see Soccer City glowing and it's like a celestial body has fallen down to earth.

Towards the east of Sandton (but still North of the entire city), there's an exclusive golfing estate with housing units inside it called Dainfern. Trump would be proud. It's so large and exclusive it's got it's own address system all inside it - Cortona Drive. The security checks before you're admitted into Dainfern take about 10 minutes, so you better believe if you're carrying molotov cocktails in the trunk they're gonna be found. If you come in and you're a resident there you have your own entrance where you wave your door key and the gate lets you in. The houses are huge. They're double-story, but judging by their height they should have 3 floors. That means high ceilings. Chandeliers as tall as fern trees. The living area (without distinct walls and doors i dono if you can actually call places rooms) alone has 7 bulbs. The small circular kind that are usually depressed into the roof. They can be dimmed for ambience. There's motion detectors in every room. The entire ground floor around the living area is literally made of glass, and the house has sliding doors as standard both to the front and the backyard. There's of course an Infinity pool in the back, heated and internally lit. There's a built-in barbecue grill just outside the dining area - South Africans like meat (a running joke is that they typically eat meals wholy composed of beef, with a little chicken on the side). It comes with a wired surround system and flat panel TV. Different furnishings for the living room than for the dining. Wholy fitted kitchen. Open plan partitions. And a dog. A terrier. Just for the hell of it :) This is where my boss lives. And that's who I want to become.

There's a neighbourhood west of Sandton called Westcliff where the average house is R30 million. Not coz it's palatial and on 17 acres of land or anything grand like that, no. They're actually bungalows on about a half acre each. But they're R30 million just because. So the who's who know there's no riff-raff mixing in with them. It's for Fortune-500-type old money people. People who sip English tea and play squash on Sunday afternoon and watch the Discovery Channel and CNN and attend theater and are thrilled by 6-day golf games. And serve their guests Dom Perignon coz they probably have a wine cellar downstairs in the basement. Whose children do weird things like music theory in college. Where everyone has a private security guard outside their compound 24/7 in addition to Cobbs Rescue (which is for them what kina BM Security are to us). 

Like I said, Jo'burg is a huge city. It's a beautiful city. I've been impressed at each and every turn, bar none. Conclusion: those people who say money can't buy everything probably don't live in Sandton.

END

life in a glass house

They say the life unexamined may not be worth living. But then the life too closely examined may not be lived at all!

So I got this new job, as by now I'm sure you know. And now they're shipping me off down south for two weeks, training. Anyway, I called this friend of mine up about an unrelated matter, and it came up and he had all these questions. Apparently, it has been a while since we last met and there's all these things we don't know about each other, starting with that he was mugged, and I left my old job. So he went and created a checklist, things I've done since last year. And we started going through it ticking off things one by one. Wow, it was a lot of stuff, as it turns out.

And that's even before you count the new horizon that's just opened up. I started last week, but so far it's just been reading manuals, getting oriented and feeling out of place coz it's a really close-knit office and everyone's got all this history (also I'm gonna be like the only person here in my department - everyone else works in SA). Perhaps I should also ask myself these questions my friend was asking? I went bowling with people from my old job during the week, like a sort of farewell. Then today another one was wedding so I also got to meet a few other ex-colleagues. Gotta say, a bunch of them looked happy still, and I know for a fact life has really improved for them since I've been gone (read upto 50pc increases in salaries). But I still don't think I made the wrong choice moving.

It's a whole new field, so I'm like an empty pitcher of water, just waiting to be filled up. The first thing my new local boss told me when I got in is that there they depend on a culture of trust between employer and employee. Trust that when given a task, it'll be done when you say it will be, or when required. Trust that meetings scheduled for 10 will start at 10. Trust that when you have to cut out early, you really do, and you're not just taking advantage of the freedom. Trust that when you charge an expense to the company credit card, you made sure it was business-related first. In other words, you're expected to deliver, and you're given a lot of autonomy. I swear, he was saying all these things, and all I was hearing was music. Sweet, beautiful music. [oh, ya, in case it was missed somewhere in there, I get a company credit card. With an obscenely large limit].

You could say I'm well on the way to making it. So my friend then moves to the next item on his checklist of me - girlfriend? Huh. Now he's got me thinking about relationships. Do I need someone to hold my hand? Do I need someone to share my joys and sorrows with? Do I need someone to hold me together when I come apart at the seams? Do I need someone looking closely at me, watching over my every step, and asking me all the questions that will [in Anderson Cooper's words] keep me honest? I'm drawing a blank, so let's just say I'll know when I get there. However, I've heard this before, and I agree "...The most challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone who loves the you you love, well, that's just fabulous." 

I'm leaving for SA on Monday, which is very exciting. So obviously for now, I think it's enough that I have the promise of a new job. What's it offering, you ask? The world. Only the world.

END