Is this thing on?

A luta continua

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 11:38:23 +0200

The South African public has become appallingly desensitised to some of the worst atrocities known to mankind that I fear for where we as a people are headed. Where is the moral compass pointing to? – this said with the hope we still (if we ever) have one.

The women’s rights marches and protests in India prompted a great deal of soul searching for some South Africans. It has become commonplace in this beautiful country to hear of the most horrific abuses to women, children, the disabled and the elderly that even some don’t make it to print or if they do, most do not bat an eyelid.

Whose problem is this? Who is at fault? We cannot perpetually blame governments past and present for failings of such monumental proportion. The failure of the moral fibre of this country, the brutal tearing apart and ripping to shreds of the moral fabric which we want to seem to care for, but never act on should be blamed on people like me and people like you. People who walk down the street and simply watch as a woman is harassed at a bus station for wearing a short skirt. People who quickly turn the page of the newspaper away from yet another “depressing” rape story because it is too early in the morning. People who quickly scroll down the webpage when a women’s rights message pops up. People who peak and hope but never do. Dreamers, not doers. Do we really have to wait until it comes closer to home for us to care? I can assure you, according to statistics it is much closer than one would like to or hope to think.

Surely as a nation, we have to bash down the doors of government and of anyone who can help and tell them enough is enough. Even a small bit is too much. Any at all is deplorable. Society should not have to wait for someone to listen. If need be, make them listen. Those in power are elected as the representatives of the people and should ensure that the people are satisfied with their current way of life. Should we not expect more?

The phrase “A luta Continua” is often said referring to politics and is all too popular at such gatherings. However, South Africa is not fighting for political liberation nor being held hostage by some racist regime now. It is being held ransom by its own sons. The price of payment being its daughters’ dignity and innocence, its elders who thought the dawn finally had come and the defenceless whom the constitution beautifully written vows to protect. The struggle continues. I do believe a time is coming, and I do hope soon, when more men and women take up arms against the mental enemy of oppression. We live in a free country. It is about time we live freely. Until then, aluta continua vitória é certa.

Going, going, gone...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:43:29 +0200

Goodbyes are goodbyes. No one really likes them, everyone has to go through them. The degree of how smooth or horrible the goodbye is depends on the emotional investment that one has in the relationship. One can be immensely vested in that bond whether it be friendship, romance or even at work, and when the time comes to an end this can be a rather harrowing and generally unpleasant experience to say the least. On the other hand, one can have a can full of gas and a fistful of matches at the ready to burn a bridge.

The thing I have had to accept about goodbye’s are just as Benjamin Disraeli said on change: Goodbye’s are constant, goodbye’s are inevitable. At any given point in life there is someone entering your life and there is someone in the process of leaving. The goodbye can be dragged out for months or can happen in an hour, but the inevitability of the event remains. You can fight for something and prolong the stay, but nothing is forever (so I’m told). When I see a goodbye on the horizon, I tend to draw back from the person. My best friend was leaving town and I drew back. It wasn’t personal, I just don’t cope with such events very well. Each to his bizarre own I presume.

I’ve had my fair share of goodbyes. Forced and chosen. I’m not quick to walk away from someone whom I hold dear because they are very few as is. Yet, if needed, after much consideration I will make the tough decision and turn my back. Why? Because I have seen the failure of relationships due to the cowardly act of “trying to work it out”. I’m not saying give up, I’m saying know your bounds and limits. Know you. Know that you can appreciate what was without spoiling the memory by keeping what is. It takes a lot of strength to say goodbye and mean it. To burn a bridge and only look back because you enjoy the lights the fire made. The choice is up to you.

Are you smarter than a 5th grader?

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 12:22:24 +0200

You cannot put a price tag on intelligence. You cannot value knowledge. You cannot create wisdom. Yet, no matter how many of these little saying we can invent so as to push the point across that your brain is an invaluable asset, we still belittle so many people because of an abstract measuring system that betrays so much. What this means is that people can surprise you in so many different and unexpected ways. Intelligence is attractive. Intelligence, however, is not a concrete term. I believe that there is not one set rubric by which to measure the intelligence capacity of a person.

I believe in accepting the fact that everyone is given their own set of talents, and through them they have their worth. No, this does not mean that I will tell my children that they can be whatever they want. However, I will encourage them to do as many different things and experiment as much as possible. If my daughter wants to walk on the moon then by all means possible she shall. By doing all this, they will find something they are passionate about and that they are good at and this will be where they grow their intelligence.

At birth, you cannot say if one child will be president and the other a plumber. More so, despite how much we want to say one of these roles is more important than the other, they cannot exist in absence of one. If they did, the figurative and literal shit will hit the fan. It is with this simple truth that one has to appreciate their own intelligence and never to denigrate that of another. Because ultimately, you never know when the president will need a plumber or the plumber need a president.

She asked

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:54:48 +0300

She asked of my heart
   and why it beats low
I said there is none
   it moved far away

She asked where is my heart
   and when it shall return
I said it is in a small box
   in the town of Birmingham

She asked to have my heart
   or at least what was left
I said open your hand
   out poured shards of glass

She asked why my heart
   has been crushed and torn
I said don’t blame the past
   it was ripped by my own hands

vrayray: “I can see that you’ve got love to give you just can’t...

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 02:28:55 +0300

vrayray:

“I can see that you’ve got love to give you just can’t seem to give any of it to me”

Jax Panik ft. Neon Don

Chaos in perfection

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 19:31:04 +0300

Chaos in perfection

Currently in Chile, a volcano is erupting. This picture should...

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 19:29:56 +0300

Currently in Chile, a volcano is erupting. This picture should be called beautiful distruction

My reasons to smile and live. I love my family

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 04:54:30 +0300

My reasons to smile and live. I love my family

Don’t jump off the edge hoping to fly, when you know very...

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 04:41:00 +0300

Don’t jump off the edge hoping to fly, when you know very well you have no wings…

Haha joke’s on you!

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 02:40:59 +0300

Haha joke’s on you!

Learn to find beauty in negative spaces. You will be surprised just how much light is in a...

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 02:36:45 +0300

Learn to find beauty in negative spaces. You will be surprised just how much light is in a shadow…

Sometimes beauty can easily be missed. There is so much that we...

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 19:13:00 +0300

Sometimes beauty can easily be missed. There is so much that we see and take in but don’t really understand or realise its sheer elegance.

I'm Back

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 15:21:33 +0300

Ok, it has been quite a long moment of silence on my part. Partly being to the fact that I’ve been busy but more so that I’ve been on a self destructive course around my own personal universe. Reaching for the unattainable, settling for the mediocre and embracing self loathing. Oh well, I have a few more months of bonafide teenage angst and I might as well experience. I’ve somewhat made peace with the fact that for the majority of the time I’m a miserable sod who forces smile.

However, I do not intend on spreading such feelings and I am intent on getting rid of them entirely. Starting now, I will look to the east on a morning. With the rising sun there is hope. I have always believed that and I will never stop.

I don’t say things like, “this is my time” or “watch out world!”… No. I will simply say I am back, and for the life of me I hope I am better.

Lost

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 21:24:13 +0200

I have to admit. I am lost. Truly, utterly and incomprehensibly lost….

For most of my life, I’ve been comfortable with myself. I relish the comforts of solitude. It is a habitat which I feel safe and familiar with. But of late, after so much going on in my life I have lost touch with me. The me that I learned to care for. To love. I’m slowly slipping into a place that I know will be near impossible to come back from. And with this fact I am terrified. I have seen mere glimpses of me in this state and it is a sight I would wish on no person.

Someone help me find me…

Look

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 14:09:26 +0200

Even as the world seems as it is crumbling, look to the east and you will see the sun rise. It always does. All may fail but dawn never does.

Options

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 19:12:08 +0200

At this exact moment in time, as I write, I have two options available to me. Option one: I pretend to be strong and that I am coping with this immense pain in my heart, in my soul, that is constantly clawing out of what is left of me. Option two: I admit that I hurt. Not defeat, but that I am broken, wounded. I admit that I am human and that I feel.

This is not the first time I’ve been confronted by these two options. I think that both can be beneficial and detrimental depending when chosen. Sometimes the right choice is to stay strong, keep up that fort, because of the unknown that may occur if you flounder. Yet sometimes, acceptance that there is pain and there is a wound brings the beginning of potential healing to that wound

Right now, my head says that I should put on the facade of strength. That people should not see what I’m going through. Yet my heart, struggling to beat with what feels like the weight of the world bearing down on it, pleads with me that it cannot take any more. I should admut that the pain is there, it is real.

There are many ways that people deal with death. The way I used to do it is by not dealing at all. I just tended to hold in and move one. But right now I can’t move, I’m bursting at the seams and I’m losing grasp on things. When someone whom you spent so much time and shared so many pleasant memories with is not there anymore, you tend to realise and understand that there is no easy way. The pain will be there whether you choose to acknowledge it today or two years later. Pain never leaves until fully felt.

I can’t offer cliches such as I’m taking oone day at a time. I’m just struggling to breath and I don’t know whether the sun will rise tomorrow. But I know that my friend, with all the wisdom that was bestowed in him will under no circumstances want me to waste my life. Mourn. Yes, mourn. Cry, be angry, scream; feel. For that is the way that you can realise that person’s immense mark that was made on your life. But never waste your life, because that person whom you so dearly love would not want that.

Now, I can say I’m hurting. I have a wound in my soul and a weight on my heart. I’m battling constant night. But for the love of my friend I will survive. For Kagiso, I may sum up all by saying that for strangers he was nothing, for superficial observers less than nothing. But for those who had known him all their lives in the intimacy of close relationship, he was genuinely good and truly great.

Learning how to play guitar is hard and your fingers get sore Tom Ford is a fashion genius. But Paul...

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 23:55:06 +0200

Learning how to play guitar is hard and your fingers get sore

Tom Ford is a fashion genius. But Paul Smith is a god.

Vlado make good sneakers, not as good as Supra

Being random is fun! I should do it more often. I should also blog more often

I want it

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 11:17:00 +0200

“What do you want?” I cannot count how many times I’ve heard that being said to me. The answer is not “you” or “I don’t know”. The most accurate answer is “everything”. I want it all…

I want her, the love, the happiness, the life. Yes I’m selfish. I’ve been brought up in a self orientated world where I fit perfectly in with that aspect. Yet, in the search of ‘all’ I realise that attaining such has to be done with the help of others. Love yourself, but love others. Be happy in solitude but find bliss in companionship. No man is an island, bridge the gap.

There is no such thing as having everything because there is no such thing as perfection. But when you come so close to excellence that everything else pales in comparison, that is when you have all.

Surely

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:39:17 +0200

Surely the world can agree
That she is a sight to see
Shame the amazing
Rise above angelic
She is the girl for me

We lost our minds long ago

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 17:45:30 +0200

We lost our minds long ago when we forgot how to smile
when we banished angels to imagination
and never wished upon stars

We lost our minds long ago when walls were built around hearts
The neighbours became ‘others’ unknown by name
Friends now ranked in order of potential gain

We lost our minds long ago when we forgot how to live
when life wasn’t about me, but what I can give

We lost our minds long ago, but still there is hope
And I believe that it will stay
Unless we lose our souls