deterioration of the fight or flight response

How do birds do it? Fly thousands of miles halfway across the world and still find their mark? And come back again in spring when it's nice and warm. Wildebeest? How do penguins do it? They live in the snowy mountains. Everything's white and looks like everything else. How do they figure out where home is? How can they tell they're going in the right direction? And how do they never get lost along the way? And the very first time, how do they know they've arrived, never having been where they're going before?

When you can't see the future, when you don't know what dreams may come, when you're not sure whether or not this was supposed to be The One for you - how do you know when it's time to stop fighting and let go? I don't want to be that guy ten years later looking back wondering if I threw away a lifetime of happiness over a stubborn disposition. But I also don't want to be that guy who turns the other cheek and says "Please, slap me again." I like to think when I have a stand to make, I'll be able to get the courage to make it. And for the rest of my life I'll be able to live with my choices. But it's just so damn hard without knowing.

Two things I know about myself that I didn't a year ago: I'm not chauvinistic, but I do like to be made to feel like I'm in charge. I hate it when people don't make sense. I hate it when something's so obvious to me but other people can't seem to see it. I hate everything that's not rooted in logic (so naturally I love my blog). And two, I'm a needy person. And I'm not as strong lonely as I thought I was. When I fall for someone, I fall hard. Hard. So in a sense, I'm just like everyone else. I'm really not the superman I thought I was.

So I'm at that point now. We got into a fight, repeatedly. The same fight. And if you ask me, what's at the root of it all is respect and compromise. I feel I keep bending over backwards, and she doesn't meet me halfway. She feels I'm rude and I don't respect her or treat her like a queen. We've been here before. And we got through it every time. But I think we got through it because I was always willing to extend an unconditional olive branch. I think I give and I give and I give, and I don't know if I can live like that for the rest of my life. It's supposed to be a cycle, is it not? Now you give, now you receive. If it just keeps being one-sided, I think one of the people will lose themselves. And maybe some people are fine with that-personalities differ, right? But not me. The third thing I know about myself, and have always suspected, is that I have to be allowed to BE me. I've won too many times at too many things in the past to doubt myself.

I saw an episode on one of my all-times (One Tree Hill) where Andy and Lucas' mum were breaking up. He was moving back to Australia coz Dan got him deported, and she wouldn't go with him even though she seemingly didn't have a reason not to. So as he walks out the final time she's like, "Andy, I love you, you know." And he goes, "I know, Karen. But somehow that just doesn't seem to be enough." And he walked away. Right now, I know where I wanna go with this girl. I just don't know how to get there. Or if it's worth it anymore to even try. I need help.

END

remember to call at my grave

"Being black is not a matter of skin pigmentation. Being black is a reflection of a mental attitude." Steve Biko

A lot of things changed for me when I moved here. Two things, however, stood out more than anything else: how rooted in their culture the black people here are, and how sensitive the issue of race is. 

The latter I totally didn't understand. I looked around and saw people in their 20's, people who don't have the same story Mandela has, or even Raymond Suttner, decry apartheid and how the white person ruined their lives, and I belittled in my mind these people, because from where I stood, they were just using past injustices as an excuse to be mediocre. They weren't old enough to see the worst of what apartheid did. By 1990 they were maybe 3 or 4. They shouldn't know about apartheid. Yes it happened, but it happened a hundred years ago and it happened to different people. I heard black people complain about how the ANC (the "black" party) was no longer doing anything for them, but come elections, they still automatically vote ANC. And I stupidly thought, if you know the DA (a "white" party) would do do a better job, why not vote them in? This interracial animosity I sensed everywhere was totally unfounded, I thought.

I've seen enough now to know the error of my ways. How naive I was. I couldn't possibly have been wrong on more levels.

As I've looked at the history, through a combination of stories from the older ones amongst us, visits to the Apartheid Museum, and countless documentaries on TV, I've started to find that the fundamental mistake I made was to judge a situation I had no insight into, and to judge it through my very narrow scope. I have started to realise that there isn't a limit to how much damage mentally oppression can cause someone. When you grow up and everyone around you tells you you won't amount to much, that you'll never be any better than you currently are, that you can't rise above a certain level, that you're systemically inferior and not worthy of a good life, I guess you believe it. Those limitations become the fabric of your thought. Your glass ceiling becomes a granite wall. You stop dreaming. There's not many things in the world more damaging than seeing your life stolen from under you and being completely powerless to do anything about it. 

One of the pictures I saw at the Apartheid Museum that killed me was of a train station, with I think a train waiting, and there was a whole bunch of black people standing on the one side crowding, obviously looking for transport, but because the station was marked "FOR WHITES ONLY" there was nothing they could do but stand out in the cold. And the caption read something like, despite the fact that there weren't any fences or police presence enforcing segregation at the station, those black people could not even conceive of crossing over to go into the train waiting. That's how strongly imbued into their minds the apartheid system was. The fences were now in the minds of the black people, there didn't need to be any physical ones.

And this is the thing that made me least qualified to judge - I've never had that feeling of being trapped within my own mind. Being shackled by invisible chains. The kind you can't break not because you really can't, but because you don't know that you can. I grew up believing I could have it all. I grew up with that sense of entitlement. My parents made sure they were there every step of the way, supporting me, making me feel like I was superman. To some measure I've seen people's hard work pay off for them. I've even seen a determined people change their government just because they came together. The black people of South Africa, they didn't have that for a very long time. Steve Biko said the most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.

When I was growing up, I read about Rosa Parks refusing to stand up for a white person on a bus. And to me that was literally all she did. It sounded simple enough. I didn't get what all the hoo-hah was about. But I realise now that to the people that know, there aren't enough words to describe the symbolism, the empowerment, that came from such a basic act. And from a natural act like Nelson Mandela unconditionally forgiving his former oppressors after 27 years in jail. I am beginning to understand now why he is such a legend. Not just because he forgave, but because of WHO he forgave. There's a phrase that plays in a loop at the Apartheid Museum, a recording from the conclusion of the Rivonia Trial, at which Mandela and his cohorts were to be found guilty of treason and possibly sentenced to death. I have not been able to get this line out of my mind since I heard it.

I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for, and to see realised. But my Lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

And so I don't judge anymore. I don't judge because I cannot possibly understand. I don't judge because I've never been through what the people in SA went through. On the contrary, I marvel sometimes at how grounded it's made them. At how fiercely strong they've grown to be in the face of such adversity. At how being black has to them become something much more than just the skin color it is to me. If I can learn that from the, I will leave here having become a much better person than I came in.

Sarah Britten is a modern-day writer of note, and she wrote a story recently that covers just this subject. She said, "...we seem incapable of resolving conflict without resorting to racist generalisations. Somehow, if we see bad behaviour, we immediately attribute it to race rather than a failure of character; every time somebody behaves like a total doos [dumbass], the entire premise of post-apartheid South Africa goes on trial..." The first time I read it I agreed completely. I felt as though she had read my mind. But when I think about it, I'm not so sure anymore. Maybe race keeps coming up, and will continue to keep coming up, because it's just that big a deal. Maybe it keeps coming up because those wounds just run that deep.

END

what comes after the blues?

Do you ever get the sense you've been down this road before? When you watch TV does that hot new show feel played out? Like you've seen everything there is to see? Been everywhere there is to go? Done every vacation that exists? Like nothing can take your breathe away anymore? Like no matter how astounding technology gets, the glass ceiling's already broken and it's never gonna be as great as it was that first time?

When I was eleven, we left our small-town roots for the first time and went to celebrate Christmas in the big city. Nairobi. I was in awe of everything I saw. I looked around and saw lights going round and round in endless circle. I saw the public Christmas tree in the middle of the city and I'd never seen such a big one before. I saw the skyscrapers and as my eyes followed them all the way up there to infinity I wondered who built them so tall, and how they stood up there, and how come the wind didn't blow them left and right like it did trees. Billboards. Malls. Housing estates with multiple phases. Supermarkets three floors big. Fast food joints. Clubs and cinemas. Traffic lights. More people on the streets than I'd ever seen in my life. I drank it all in with glee. And then later I moved there and all that became the fabric my life was made of. I didn't notice any of it anymore.

And then I turned 22 just as my team and I won a national competition that meant my team and me were gonna go to New York. The greatest city in the world. The one that never sleeps. The heart of the land of opportunity. And just like that I became 11 again. Times Square. Subways. McDonald's. Broadway. Brooklyn. Yellow cabs. One-way streets. $1 hotdogs from food carts on the streets. Pizza so large you eat it in slices. The Blade Runner, Remastered. Radio Shack (I actually bought my first mp3 player, a Sansa, there). Our hotel was actually in Manhattan. 891, Amsterdam Avenue. It's one of those things I'm just never gonna forget. It was like I'd died and gone to heaven.

And then four years later they told me I was moving to Johannesburg. I still remember my first experience landing here. Never mind that I wasn't a child anymore. I oohh-ed and aaahh-ed as we drove past the widest roads I'd seen yet, stacked neatly one on top of the other. Wide open spaces. Not a spec of dust in sight. Even the flower beds around compounds seemed not to contain any soil. They brought me to Sandton Central. And I got out and started walking around and admiring everything I saw. Swanky low-rise complexes. Large, pane-only windows. Trees interspersed so casually and so perfectly with the modern development the whole city looks from above like it's in a forest. Harley Davidson. Sports cars randomly driving past on the road like it ain't a thing. Hot water taps that actually had hot water flowing from them. Street lights that worked. And made the N1 look like a stairway to heaven as it receded into the horizon in the calm of night.

The first time at anything is always the greatest. Because your imagination gets stretched. Because you're seeing something completely new. Something much like a miracle. Something akin to poetry in its wonder and magic. Because you become like a child again. Every other time I've gone to new places (and there have been a few) I've seen it, how everything looks like I've been there before. I get excited for two minutes and then it's back to business as usual. It's a little scary, actually, thinking about how I'm gradually less and less impressed by new experiences. How it progressively takes more and more to get my attention. How I don't worship at the throne of Apple as much as I used to.

How fleeting life all is.

END

don't dream it's over

What do you choose when you have to choose between doing what you love and doing what works just to bring the bacon home?

I've been lucky on very many fronts through my life. But what I think is one of the biggest ways I've been blest is I've never had an eclectic passion that was shared by maybe three other people in Herzegovina. Everything I've loved doing has been something you can make a sustainable living out of. I've never had to choose to do a job just because I was getting paid to do it. Granted, it's still quite early in my life relatively, but I like the path I'm on. If the trajectory goes on this way, in 15 years I'll still love what I'll be doing.

The same cannot be said for certain people in my life.

I know a guy who loved music. Loved it with all his heart. He worked hard and cultivated great skill at it. He had natural talent so  it was never very difficult for him. He could write music. He could play any instrument you gave him. He could accompany any song by ear, never having heard it before. He wanted nothing but to do it for the rest of his life. But alas, he was born in the wrong country, at the wrong time, perhaps with the wrong vision. See he saw a world where all he would have to do would be to play what he loves playing, and every other piece of his life would fall in its rightful place. But that's not the way life goes.

And so he made some bad choices. Took some wrong turns. Got involved with the wrong kinds of people. Lied and cheated his way to hide misstep after misstep. Used and discarded anyone that wasn't wise to his act. Alienated the two people that loved him more than anyone else in the world. But through all this, the music was never touched. The music stayed constant. The music was always his beacon back to the light. It was always the moment when he really came alive. One day, his house of cards came crumbling down. Everything he had done, or not done, became clear. And he had nothing left to fall back on. The talent, as it rapidly became apparent, was just not enough. Passion wasn't the be all end all he'd been led [perhaps by the movies] to believe.

So he had to make a choice. Continue to follow his heart [to destruction], or follow the well beaten path. Go to school like everyone else. Get an education like everyone else. Get a job, like everyone else. I heard how broken he was by the time he came to this realization. How resigned he seemed. Like life didn't mean anything anymore. Dreams are powerful things, everyone says. But no one ever thinks about how dire the effect is of having to lose one. We only know of how powerful they are when they come true.

When you turn on the TV, or you watch movies, or you read magazines, all you hear about is how Justin Bieber's mum posted random videos on Youtube that Scooter Braun just happened to watch. Or how Mark Zuckerberg was just goofing around in his dorm when he ended up with a 800 million member juggernaut called Facebook. Or how Barack Obama really just wanted to make his community a better place, and he became the most powerful man in the world. No one ever tells you that for every one person like that, there's a million others who've tried and failed. A million others who were sometimes just a little better, only in the wrong place. A million others who were broken by life. Who lost hope along the way. Who somewhat paved the way for these ones who would come later to succeed. Who die just a little inside every time they have to look and see what could have been.

No one ever tells you how it kills the people that love them to watch them self destruct like this.

Anyway, he's now at the beginning of this new path. He's gone back to the drawing board and he's starting over again. Making practical choices this time. Doing everything by the book, hopefully. Maybe this time around, the fates will smile on him and he'll succeed. I hope so. With all my heart I hope so.

Remember when you were still a kid?  When storks delivered the babies and passions weren't so strong ...when recess was too short and life was too long...when decisions came easily without the need to belong...when friendships were un-broken...when right was right, and wrong was wrong...when bad things didn't happen...when the fun went on forever and never left a broken heart...when dreams were un-shattered and worries were few? But we had to go and grow up. Growing up is about losing things. It's about leaving things behind. It's kinda sad, really, when you think about it. Because one's never as alive as they are when they're young. The hardest thing about growing up is that you always have to do what's right; even if it means breaking someone's heart, including your own.

END

hurts like heaven

When you love someone, you wanna be there for them. You wanna be that rock they lean on. You want it to be you they think about when they get up in the morning, and when they go to sleep at night. You want to look up and see their face all the time. You find out what it means when Elton John sang about one heart beating in two separate lives. You never want to say goodbye. You never want to do anything else. You never want to see anyone else. You ask yourself what things you can do to make the time between you longer. You try to be things you've never been just so they can think of you as Superman. You do crazy things like get a fridge so you've got a place to stick all those photos of both of you. You rearrange your entire house. You stay up all night listening to Katie Melua sing about piano keys being a million colors in your mind. You learn to love the music they love. You change every little thing about you that you promised yourself you'd never change just to be a better partner to them. You compromise. You learn a new language.

When you love someone, they're a part of you. They become who you are.

And sometimes when you're the luckiest person in the world, you get all of that back from them. Or you hit a brick wall. Sometimes you hear not now. Sometimes there's not that perfect meeting of minds. Sometimes it's the spring of hope, sometimes it's the winter of despair. Sometimes you want more than they can give. Sometimes you're in paradise, sometimes you're hurtling down Dante's Inferno. Sometimes you stare at a bottle of Panadol wondering how much it would take to overdose.  Somtimes you don't want to go to sleep, because reality feels so much better than a dream. Sometimes you wish you could live forever just so you'd always feel the way you do, sometimes you wish forever could be severed by the sharp knife of a short life. Sometimes you stand in the rain and let it wash down you to see if it will wash away the pain with it.

But it's the most bittersweet pain. Because it's during those, the bleakest moments, that you realise just how great love is. When you're blasting through the sad songs, when you don't have words to describe how broken up you are, you remember the day you two met. And you remember the first time you knew you were meant to be. And you think about that time you skipped home like a baby, happy. It's when the person drives you nuts, and when you can't stand to be around them, or when you're so hurt so bad you don't think you'll ever come back from it, that you realise just how worth all of it they are. Tolstoy said you get gold not by growing it but by washing away from it all that is not gold. These moments show you everything that's not love, and in so doing, enable you to appreciate even more, cherish even further, love even deeper. You realise just how right Shakespeare was:

Love is not love, which alters when it alteration finds.
It is an ever fixed mark, that looks on tempests, 
and is never shaken.
Love alters not with Time's brief hours, or weeks
but bears it out, even to the edge of doom.

And so you write them a little message telling them you'll love them for a thousand more years, and then you go to sleep and wait to see what tomorrow will bring. Hoping that whatever it be, there'll be two of you, facing it together.

END

as time goes by

Albert Camus once wrote, "You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you continue looking for the meaning of life."

So then how are we supposed to know we're happy if we don't know what happy looks like? And how are we supposed to know that if we don't look for the meaning of happiness? Or maybe this is what they meant when they said ignorance is bliss, that not knowing IS what happiness is? Anyway.

My life's changed so massively in the last three months, I can't even begin to explain. Some awesome, some not so much. I went from a place in my job where I was beginning to get uncertain what exactly I was going to show for all my work at the end of the year, coz my company is all about tangible results not really effort, to now actually having a few projects I can talk about. I went from being that guy in the department everyone was glad to have around because of my smart mouth to that guy who was always the scapegoat whenever anything went wrong because of my smart mouth (this was more coz of one person, but it's one of those things like that tiny hole in the bottom that sank the Titanic). I went from not knowing what to do with my Saturdays to now wishing there was three extra hours everyday because I just can't cram everything within the current time. I went from being that guy who was so fanatical about fitness I'd go to the gym at 9PM to being the guy who wouldn't even go on half-day weekdays because I think life's already tough enough. I went from being the guy who'd read a book a week to being the guy who's started 5 different books and not finished one of them because I don't seem to put as much stock in reading any more. I went from just getting by to being the happiest person in the world to being the saddest person in the world, and then did it all again the following week. And yes, as with all things of this nature, it all started with a girl.

I've learned that living takes so much more effort than we think it does, or should. And that if we don't exert that effort now, we're going to wake up when we're forty and wonder where the last 20 years went. I've learned that with someone to lean on, it's not that hard to get back up every single time you fall. I've learned that music and time really can make everything look better again. I've learned that fatherhood doesn't come naturally; not everyone's cut out to be one. I've learned that women are strong, stronger than us, I think. They can survive anything, they can face down life's hardest storms better than we can, but before they decide what color belt they'd like to buy, a whole bunch of kids have usually cleared high school. I've learned that taking the high road's not always the easiest thing, and, besides motherhood, may be the most thankless job in the world.

And I've learned that happiness really only does happen one day at a time. When I look back in 10 years, I probably won't be able to tell when exactly it all turned around for me, but I will know that for last 10 years, I've been happy. So I'm taking it as it comes. I'm not over-thinking everything. I've stopped looking gift horses in the mouth. I'm accepting all the little victories prima facie and overcoming minor hurdles one after the other and letting it all build up to one big (hopefully positive) picture. As I get older, I'm finding more and more that there's never a crisis that's still a crisis tomorrow. Maturity then must really be about recognising when it's tomorrow already and it's time to move on.

So I'm making this promise to myself

To think only the best, to work only for the best, 
and to expect only the best. 
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others 
as you are about your own. 

To forget the mistakes of the past 
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side 
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.

I'm going to try and be like Albert Camus. I'm going to just live and let live.

END

the film did not go round

I wonder how princesses used to be able to tell when a frog was just a frog and when it was going to turn into a handsome prince. Because surely it must be unhealthy to just kiss frogs randomly and hope for the best, no? In fact, I know it is. Because I think I just kissed one, and it didn't turn into a beautiful princess. Or it did but preferred another prince. Either way, this story doesn't have a happy ending. 

How does it happen that a guy misreads a girl so deeply? Like they're not just on different pages, they're not even reading the same book? Why aren't all people made the same way, that if they do one thing they all do it with the same intention? Why are feelings so hard to turn off when it counts, when the stakes are really high, so to speak; and easy when it doesn't? Why would two people be perfectly matched in EVERY little way except the one that matters the most? And these people who tell us to wear our hearts on our sleeves, have they really ever had their hearts broken? And why does the freaking sun come up at 4??? These are some of the things that run through my mind these days.

I met a girl. I didn't like her at first, because we met and then didn't again for a while. But then the next time I did. I think I fell for her. Hard. And I thought she felt the same way. We exchanged numbers. We watched stupid ads on youtube. We sat and talked deep into the night. We went out and stargazed. I showed her my life and she showed me the township she grew up in. I made her listen to the music in my heart and she made me listen to the music in hers. I cheered her on when she was in the exam room and she cheered me on when I was in the firing room. We went for pizza. We had Krushers. We played around with doors with chain locks. We saw a film. We unpacked our pasts to each other. We were ourselves around each other. We were happy together, we were sad together. We shared our dreams with each other. We sat next to each other in front of the fire heater. We held hands. We gave each other little presents. We thought about each other when something amazing happened and we weren't together. We made each other laugh. We had inside jokes. We shared poetry. We debated accents and philosophies. We built each other up. We took pictures of each other, with each other. We connected. We slept. We woke up late. We made plans.

It was all like walking through a field of hopes and dreams. I told my friends about her, she told her friends about me. It was like we were made for each other.

Only we weren't. Or apparently I wasn't made for her. It's like I've lost something I never really had. It's literally like when you take a picture with an old camera, and the shutter clicks so you know the picture's been taken, but the film does not go round so it ends up not being recorded.

I heard this on TV once, that perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically to those who hardly think about us in return. While it's not fair to say the one I gave mine to hardly thinks about me, it damn near feels that way.

There's lots of stuff we endure as human beings. This awareness that we have been blessed with, I think it is both our greatest gift and our worst curse. Because of it rejection's gotta be the hardest thing we ever have to go through; because we know not just what it's like when we're going through it, but what it would have been like had we not been rejected. And it's not just me that thinks that. 30 million owners of Adele's record agree with me.

Michael Jordan had a lot to say about life. And rightly so, he led a pretty amazing one. He says he became who he was because for every shot he made he missed a hundred others, and yet he kept on shooting. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, he said. And I ate it all up. I judged everyone who let opportunities pass them by because they were too afraid to try. I belittled people who weren't willing to risk it all. Asked them derisively what their last thought would be if they got hit by a bus the next day. But now I think different. Now, I'm thinking: when you've only got one shot to take, and you take it and you miss, what's the difference?

If you're one of those people that looks for a silver lining everywhere, here's the one in this situation: I'm writing again... Or at least I hope I am.

END

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.

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