Need not bother about a hat

Travelling lighter than usual

When I stepped out of my home with 3 suitcases and many other things just a day over 3 weeks ago, I had the feeling I had forgotten something, but had no time to think of what it might be.

There was an Uber cab waiting to convey me to the airport and for the strain of trying to travel light, which I rarely do even as I worked hard at accomplishing that goal with much sleeplessly tired effort, I had for my early flight not slept overnight.

Wherever I laid that hat

On getting to the airport, I retrieved a trolley with difficulty, had my suitcases loaded on and made for the terminal when I realised what I had forgotten my hat, my straw grass hat which works well for the summer days, though it might have been useless for the winter days of Cape Town.

What I could not decide on was whether I had left my hat on the rack at home or in the Uber cab. I had the good feeling it was at home, that in my apparent rush to leave at the witching hour of just after 3:00 AM, I had left home quite unusually without a head covering.

It could have bothered me if I did forget the hat in the cab, but it was one of those instances where I felt either way, I’ll deal with it when I get back. On occasion, I had the feeling to order a replacement because I got the hat about 7 years ago and it was ordered on Amazon from Germany. A voice whispered in me, not to jump to that conclusion.

It really did not matter

Having the choice of asking my house sitter to check and confirm whether my hat was on hat rack did occur to me, but I left it at that. I had another 7 or 8 hats in my baggage for my destination, the world was not going to end because of a straw hat.

When I returned last Tuesday, it was not the first thing I checked as that was not on my mind, one of my other hats was already adorning my bald head. As I took it off to hang on the hat rack, I noticed the straw hat. It was at home, all along.

It is funny how the foregoing might have served as an introduction to a piece about how we bother ourselves about little things and overcompensate to remediate for certain failings or inadequacies. In fact, I did see a few straw hats in Cape Town, I just ignored the draw to try any of them on. I was having a good time and that is all that mattered.

Thought Picnic: Knowing where you are from where you imagine you are

Cool this thing down

I remember attending an interview decades ago for a role that honestly paid peanuts with the European Space Agency, it was nothing as promising as if I were invited to work or even do an internship at NASA, the two men in weather-worn suits probably blasted too many times by solar flares and moon dust posed questions to which I responded earnestly and knowledgeably, but I somehow did not impress them.

When the agency got back to me, the report was, I was too laid back, I think I saw that more as a compliment than a criticism, my thinking was, if I was involved in putting a rocket under someone to send them out to space, we need cool heads, not hotheads. In fact, I take pride in being professionally laid back and that does not mean being lazy.

Easy on the busy

I just do not like to be carried away by the clamour and the tumult that surrounds issues, problems, or emergencies at work. We need to be able to stand back to see what is going on, gather our thoughts and methodically approach the issue. After applying ourselves for a full day at work, I would rather we return early the next day after a good break with fresh heads and ideas, beavering away overnight is the stuff of diminishing returns. Lots of activity and no achievement.

It is probably a temperament thing, usually observed at work, but applicable to other areas of my life, I can anticipate, but I do not fret; I could be concerned, but refrain from worrying; when it seems, a situation is getting too much, I would go to bed instead and sleep it over. The things I can control I apply myself to, and the things I at the time am clueless about, I can accept as my contemporaneous incapacity or infirmity, if things change for the better, that is fine, otherwise, we move on.

You are where you are

I guess the way I view things is only to cross the bridge when I am at the bridge, if I am still on the journey to the bridge, there might be circumstances where, in encounter or in realisation, the bridge is just one option out of many to choose from, in which case, it might be easier to ford, to swim, or to ferry, you might even avoid having to cross any obstacle to your destination. You have to know where you are from where you imagine or fear you are.

We are given the moment with all the vicissitudes of life and uncertainty to already deal with, success and progress with that particular moment can determine how well the rest of your journey goes. Like in the game of chess, much as you can think 10 moves ahead, you cannot play the 10 moves in a go.

Be ready and able to change tack

You have to play your move and your opponent play theirs, their move might not have been accounted for in your analysis and then you have to recalibrate the whole strategy you have towards winning the game in which you might well get beaten, no matter how good your imagined 10 moves ahead were.

This applies to many things in life, for the preparation, anticipation, and orderliness in the things we have planned, we need to make allowances for sudden or progressive alterations that could be quite impactful and outside our control. This is not to say we are then helpless against fate, not by the kind of intellect, initiative, and intuitiveness that we have been gifted, we are adaptable, applying ourselves with a good understanding of when a scalpel, a blade, a knife, or a sword is needed.

That is a skill that comes from learning, experience, expertise, mentoring, or just sheer luck, it does not matter, we keep living because we are living and, in the process, write a better story of how we have lived. Selah!

Having no fear of missing out

Powering down and resetting goals

I get distracted, something like losing a sense of direction or some focus, it is unsettling and upsetting, but I know it is momentary, it would pass. I have learnt not to try and force things because it only yields frustration, the kind that dogs you with the feeling that certain things you could have done did not get done, all in the wake of procrastination.

Yet, in these times where there is no social activity apart from that which you create in another form of distraction to give your mind that time to rest and recalibrate to matters better absorbing, you might also get some sleep. Like I have written before, this s no time to be driven or set inordinately ambitious goals because of the availability of time, it is a better time for a complete power down and reset.

The world is going nowhere

I think like this because the world is also at a standstill, even in Formula 1 racing, if you took a pitstop, somewhere behind the leader, you probably do not expect to come out ahead, only better equipped to catch up. There is no fear of missing out [FOMO], the world is not running away.

I am learning new things, both for my career and in self-development, all at an easy pace, using the leverage of my curiosity to get beyond the immediate and exploring further to obtain enlightenment.

It goes without saying that the greatest distraction that affects me the most is the desire to somewhere with someone, in the eagerness and expectations, we harbour, we know it would be soon. I can live with that because hope is a good thing, it keeps you looking forward and looking up, who I care for will soon be in my embrace, it is a comforting and peaceful thought.

Thought Picnic: Making a retreat of the lockdown

Opening up from a lockdown

You begin to realise that what you see and experience becomes a matter of perspective and how you decide to relate to it. Looking around my bijoux apartment, everything seems so ordinary and mundane that a lockdown can pile on you in claustrophobic and mentally debilitating ways.

The lull in activities around the world could suggest that the world is not necessarily moving along without you. There is no rat race to enter, no bandwagon to join, though the routine gainful employment offers can be a welcome distraction. I have worked from home many times and worked remotely too.

With that thought in mind, I wonder how co-working environments would have to be reconfigured for the post-pandemic era when social distancing becomes the norm rather than the exception. The earnings of that industry per square foot might suffer. They are suffering now.

Retreating to change

Anyway, at the suggestion of Elizabeth Gilbert, maybe I should see this time as one of a retreat, I do not have to hold vigil, pretend I am in rehab, create a kibbutz, become monastic, or visit an ashram. I just have to make a contentment of peace and relaxation around me without exerting myself to anything. I can read, I can watch, I can learn, yet not stress myself whilst finding myself. It is possible and I will not beat myself up about it either.

Blog - Thought Picnic: I will remain curious and work on it

My friend who I have not seen in over a week used to come round to help around the house, especially from the time I fell ill in January. I did rise to get the rubbish out along with the recyclable things, it felt strange that I had not done it in a while.

Scrubbing to remember

Yesterday, I found the muscle to push a Brillo Pad around the electrical plates of my hob cooker, the collage of caked overspills from cooking from every shade of brown to black needed removal after my sister in the States could not ignore the state of my stove. Today, I got the leg of lamb that I bought on Tuesday out of the fridge and cooked it. The overspill will be seen to, as the stove cools down.

Amid all this, my lover and I constrained by many things work hard communicating our affection for each other in anticipation of this whole situation moving on and creating the opportunity for us to meet up again. It was exactly a year ago that we met up in Johannesburg for the second time and took a flight to Cape Town for an 18-day holiday together. Gosh! I miss my man.

Thought Picnic: In the open and broad light of day

I know I did

The last thing I did was send a message via WhatsApp and I shut down the phone to conserve battery power. Soon after, rather than put the mobile phone in my belt holster, I put it in my bag, I also switched off my Samsung Galaxy Tab and my mobile wireless dongle– I vividly remember all that, in that order.

Whenever I put my mobile phone in my bag, it always goes into the upper zippered compartment in the bag, it is the same place where my pill box and dongle goes.

But it’s not there

As I left one place for another close to midnight, I looked in my bag and somehow, I could not find my mobile phone, my mind raced ahead of my reality – I had lost it, and with that, it defined what I could see and what I could not – I earnestly believed I had lost my phone on the second and third time of checking. I was literally driven to distraction, well almost.

Now, impulsively, I could have returned to where I was to ask if anyone had handed in my phone, but I decided it could wait, but that wait almost made the night look like it would never end.

Wait for the morning

I knew there was nothing I could do until the morning, but I had to have a plan of action, return to the venue to ask about my phone, report it lost, engage the remote control antitheft facility to locate it if it gets switched on, have a picture taken of the person using it and send a message that I be contacted immediately before performing a remote wipe of the data.

Then again, I was ahead of myself, there is too much data on that phone for me to scrub it just like that, besides, it is my most reliable point of contact in these times of transition apart from the second interview I have scheduled for Thursday – mitigation, contingency, recovery and near panic – well, not really.

I tried to scheme what I needed to do and after having made out my plan to go out first thing in the morning to ask about my phone, I did everything to switch off from the bother and got on with other activities using my handy gadget that harbours the demons that haunt me constantly – the self-destruct button – a rational fatalism and much else.

Your spirit speaks

As the dawn broke, just as I reached for my bag, a voice in my head said, your phone is with you whilst another jocularly said, Fat Chance!

In the open light of day, as I considered unpacking my bag for one last time, the first thing I picked out of the upper zippered compartment was my mobile phone.

This clearly illustrates how our minds can becloud our reality leading us to believe something completely different from the truth despite the fact that the recollection of past events were as vivid as anyone could have them, I knew I put the phone in the bag, I could not think of how it could have slipped out – but there.

A switch for the mind

Besides, whilst this was another test of how I handle situations, I have been informed by experience again that I should trust my judgement a bit more, especially where I can recollect to minute detail what I did before.

More importantly, what you just need to time, maybe a clear head, maybe just absence from the situation or a wait until the dawn – usually that means you are tackling the problem with a fresh mind and all that exacting preoccupation of the mind and plans – We need a switch for that thing called the mind.

Thought Picnic: Step Away

Break the cycle

Stepping away is sometimes the best way to get a new perspective to solving a problem, at least that is what I have learnt time and again when met with thorny issues.

There comes a time when you are caught in the cycle of thinking the same way of tackling a problem that the ideas proffered almost seem like clutching at straws for survivor defying common-sense and logic as proposal after proposal is given to take the issue from simply implausible to a looming impossibility.

It’s a challenge, not a nail

The times we have gathered to hammer at the problem to the point that everything looks like a nail, exhausted out of pressures to perform and resolve with the obstinacy that takes to the fore as if sending a print job to the office LaserJet printer more than once will eventually create the pressure to force the clearing of a paper jam – Alas, a printer does not work like a sink drain, the wisdom of the plunger will not apply.

Whereas, I have been more pragmatic, indeed, a serious problem needs a prompt solution, a thorny problem however needs a clear understanding as to the reasons for the problem before one can begin to craft a solution, either temporary or progressively deployed towards a permanent one.

You don’t have to tackle the obvious

I remember one situation where our network was invaded by a malicious worm that basically stopped our ability to continue a deployment. My boss was particular that the deployment kept to schedule, but I knew that without curtailing the worm which effectively compromised systems before protection kicked it, there was no way we could continue deployments, in fact, no deployment was possible.

In the end, though unbeknownst to my boss, what we had to do was novel, put in a step at the very beginning of the deployment process that removed the worm from vulnerable systems and in so doing so we protected the systems enough to complete the deployments and install a more managed process of handling malware.

Basically, whilst the immediate issue to my boss was fulfilling quotas for deployment, the solution was primarily in focusing on curtailing the spread of the worm and eventually eradicating the menace.

Cool heads, brisk action

Once, I was away on holiday and my colleagues were worked almost to exhaustion to manage a virus outbreak, a situation I tried to monitor whilst I was away.

Strangely, when I returned, a colleague suggested, if I was around, the situation might have been handled with calmer heads and probably better – I guess in times of chaos, having a cool head when everyone appears to be running around like headless chickens is one of the ways to make things happen when things don’t seem to be happening at all.

I might look laidback, if only you knew the computations going on in my head and the way I would prefer people on the case for more than 8 hours left and got some rest to return the next day with fresh eyes, fresh ideas and new thinking – the world will not end and since it is not a heart-and-lung machine critical to life, then no one will die because we are being methodically measured in unravelling a conundrum.