Keep on keeping on

The Gift of Today

"Yesterday's the past, tomorrow's the future, but today is a GIFT. That's why it's called the present." Bil Keane

The quote above in full or in part is usually credited to many people, though the consensus suggests it was originally by Bil Keane, who was a cartoonist. This gives life to the idea in a Yoruba saying “Ibi eré la tíí mọ òotọ́ ọ̀rọ̀.” This translated to, it is a play that you get to learn the truth. You wonder how a cartoonist might have come to write something so profound.

The gift of today is a moment of reflection on the journeys completed in the yesterdays of the past, the blessings that I remember today of goodness, mercy, and favour that nothing has been in vain, and the hope that tomorrow brings.

Holding back from doing

A poor anticipation of the future has sometimes impacted my reasoning for things of life and experience, the things I have held back from doing or considered too onerous because I felt such limitations of infirmity and uncertainty, now leave me amazed at how the passage of time has revealed that I need not have been apprehensive. I should have used the opportunity when presented to do what ability and facility offered.

Recently, it has been the spirit of perseverance and tenacity that has undergirded me even if through adversity you feel the pain as any semblance of winning or success seems even more distant as each day passes.

Yet, I had to keep believing and pressing forward using every help and support that I could access to get beyond the struggles that defined the recent past in the loss of confidence, the disappointments, the failures, the rejections, and the nearly-there situations that fell through.

Keep at it, keep on moving

At a conservative estimate, there have been over 600 applications from someone nearly 60 years old, a veteran of my industry who should be considering retirement, but still has the energy and passion for the career that has given me opportunities to walk into places I could never have imagined possible with the trajectory I took.

As you live, you have to continue living, striving to be the best you can be at what you do until those who will appreciate, honour, and respect you come your way and take you on. Having a long-term condition should not be definitive and the conclusion of ambition or goals. I have mostly resisted the tendency to accentuate any vulnerability in the face of the gifts of compelling ability that I possess.

Believe in yourself above all

Something in the example and the observation of my parents has given me that sense of self-esteem and even projection that is a grace in my life opening doors, hearts, and hands. I am blessed. You cannot faint, but you have to chart your own course, working at your own pace, avoiding the pressure of fulfilling the requirements of other apparently vested interests who usually mean well, but are not at particular times helpful.

Keep on doing what you know to do because you are the best at knowing yourself and what you can do. Stretch yourself as best you can to the challenge that presents and believe yourself enough to be up to the task either in the ability to do it or in the facility to find the wherewithal to succeed.

Remember to appreciate your journey

The history of yesterday bears in its passing the gift of today, and cherishing the gift of today prepares you for the mystery that offers the surprise of what that next gift is. 

Never forget those who have carried you on the journey that in its difficult and wilderness times did not falter or sway. The many promises others made but could not keep only come to show how much you had in store without believing in the arm of flesh that fails you when you need it most.

It should not be held against them, for as we know, human beings are of such limited resources and abilities, for me, Almighty God has sustained me and brought people and angels my way, too numerous to number. I am loved, in love, borne in love, and overwhelmed by love. This is my story, and this is my song.

Nothing stays the same, the glorious morning will eventually set the night on its way into the eternal past; the present gift of today lets you know that you have everything to go for, and by pressing on, you are getting on to winning too.

Volunteering my volition

By my volition

I attended a session yesterday which would form part of a 10-week programme in the hope that it would kickstart something that would help me recover much of the sense of wellness and well-being that I have been struggling to settle in.

Caught between funk and frustration, I sometimes wonder how much more is in the tank for the journey ahead. Even when I feel quite exhausted something spurs me on as doubts creep into my mind about what there is to learn about who one might become as these changes in circumstances remain unsavoury.

One is not without constant encouragement from my partner, my friend, and my mother, but the feeling of being carried in the winds of a storm is such that there is no indication of where one might land. Between the lifting and the landing, brutal encounters might ensue for which in the consciousness of the event one silently prays to survive and in landing, one hopes not to be too severely bruised.

Maybe even the storm is to shake things up a bit so that when peace comes to reign supreme in the calming and passing of the storm, a new wholeness redefines one's present continuous experience of nothing missing, nothing lacking, and nothing broken. I have to believe in something, fixing on what; seems to elude me.

Incubating blogs

This blog was written hours ago and unlike many other blogs that I publish as I finish writing, I did not feel I had finished the blog and at the same, I had no inclination to change any part of what had already been written. When I had another look, I added the last sentence in the penultimate paragraph preceding this one that explains my thinking.

Thought Picnic: Running on empty

The eyes can’t see

Almost two decades ago, I had a daring adventure that had me calling up a driving school with the aim of learning how to drive. Now, it was an unlikely prospect, but it was a demon I had to face up to. To prove to myself that I could be in control of such a vehicle which unlike a bicycle had control abstracted from direct interference.

In the back of my mind, I had another issue, I was concerned about my sight, I am short-sighted with the complication of astigmatism in one eye, which means I find it difficult to have stereo vision and by consequence, judging distance versus speed is a poorly developed skill.

I did not learn I had the astigmatic condition until I was in my 30s and it was only then that I had some corrective measures in my glasses, but the damage had been done as I learnt that this could have been corrected at childhood and it probably explains why I was so poor at tennis as a kid, I could never hit ball, because I could not anticipate as it bounced towards me.

Braking suddenly

However, the driving school tutor arrived at my door, I got in the car and we went through a few preliminary issues of concerns, intentions and safety. Critical to me was that we should not drive onto a major road, that we should only do the quiet streets of my neighbourhood. We had not driven 5 minutes when ahead of me, I saw a busy road and I slammed on the brakes.

This could have been my first accident with whiplash to boot, for unbeknownst to me, there was a fire engine behind us. I scolded the tutor for putting me in that situation and he scolded me back for stopping suddenly and endangering both of us. I was having none of it as I stepped out of the car to stop me lessons there and then.

He successfully calmed my nerves down, I got back in the car and we did another 6 days of driving, by which time, I did make it onto major roads, managed the three-point turn, but never fully mastered reversing into a parking space. I knew I could do it, but considering my limitations, I aborted that quest.

Running on empty

Now, consider one of those scenarios where you are travelling in a car on a long journey late at night and from the passenger’s seat, you notice the fuel gauge is reading to the left on E, 'Empty'. I am told it does not necessarily indicate an empty tank, there is some reserve fuel that could give you another few miles, one cannot say.

The thoughts begin to fill your mind with anxiety and trepidation, whether the car would suddenly stop in the middle of nowhere far from civilisation, maybe that light in the distance is a petrol station rather than a motel or a fast food joint, it could be that you get to the petrol station and you have no means to buy petrol, but we are getting ahead of ourselves, until then, you are running on empty.

Running on empty is a test of resilience, the demands of hope over possible disappointment coasting on despair, one is living dangerously in possibly what was an avoidable situation. We have all been there before, and if you have never had that experience ever, you probably have a perfect life, good for you.

Life after plenty

I have found myself running on empty at many stages of life, completely unaware of how much reserve fuel I have in time, in expectation, in hope and in realisation when I find, time, means and place to refill my tank and put aside the heretofore looming catastrophe.

At the time, you agonise between going at your own speed and reaching out for help, how from a life of individuality and independence do you seek assistance when you need it most? Something in the psyche fights against vulnerability defining you and in the process, you probably deny certain qualities of your humanity.

The need to show emotion, probably a moment to shed tears, finding a shoulder and readily leaning on it, meeting someone who not only listens but is able and ready to meet you at that very point of need.

For a better story

How we survive and thrive can sometimes be a mystery and there are times when people do forget that you are weak even when you seem to be strong, you have nothing much as you present a veneer of plenty, your apparent destitution will only be discovered through engagement and empathy. Running on empty is not the end of the journey even if it presages a sudden end to that journey.

I am thankful that there is some reserve, I do not know how much or for how long this journey would continue and might get to a petrol station and fill up before the car stops. Such is the feeling of a job seeker, the savings are drained, the bills pile up and privations come to the fore as you eke out subsistence from literally nothing. Running on empty is an experience in the hope it becomes a story told from a better standpoint very soon.

Opinion: How Zwarte Piet is a Subject of Culture, History, but Rarely Race

Some quaint traditions

A number of exchanges on Facebook regarding the Sinterklaas tradition which is the Low Countries' equivalent though contrived of Santa Claus had me rummaging through the memories of my almost 13 year sojourn in the Netherlands.

The topic concerned the helpers of Sinterklaas called Zwarte Piet (Black Pete). These are usually Caucasians with blackened faces in clothes of flamboyant contrasting colours somewhat modelled on the Moors as Sinterklaas is said to visit the Netherlands from Spain.

Much as I understand that the blackening of faces might present a culture shock to foreigners observing this tradition for the first time, it does not remotely pertain to outright racism apart from the general idea of a master-servant relationship between Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet.

Know your history

What bothers me is the tendency for certain people to arrogate to themselves either real or imagined histories of figures and traditions they have no affinity with and in the process they begin to personify the victim complex of those cultures.

On the broader issue of our humanity, we do recognise that we all have a responsibility to seek the institution and enforcement of broad human rights for freedoms and the pursuit of happiness.

However, it is also important that we recognise our core identities such that we do not appear to race ahead of the discussion that pertains to the rights of others in groups that we do not essentially belong due to many factors beyond race and residence.

Too diverse for colour to matter

My view of the black race is that it is just as diverse as any other race. Though we might have shared histories of oppression and indignities suffered through centuries, it is important that we recognise the differences in our history within the compendium of many histories in Africa, in the Caribbean, in North America, in South America and now recently in Europe.

Whilst centuries ago, Africans might have shared in the broader cruel history of slavery towards either the Middle East or the Americas, each destination developed a divergent history where the commonality of race is the only affinity between us after which we are all very different people.

In Africa, Blacks might people the Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone parts of Africa, but within those countries that make up these groupings, we are radically different in culture, tribe, tradition and histories that the artificially cobbled-together nations we belong to are mostly geographical expressions that we have learnt to live with.

How to join a struggle

We can identify with and join a struggle for the liberation of other oppressed members of our race, but we must be careful that in our identifying with a cause we do not lose our identity and history to complete assimilation, uprooted from the ancestry and moorings of who we are.

Other Africans joined together to fight Apartheid, but we fought as free people seeking the freedom of our brothers and sisters; we did not become South African and put ourselves under the influence of Apartheid to stand in the face of the shootings in Soweto.

Quite heterogeneous

In Britain, the tendency to see the black race as homogenous is dangerous. The majority Caucasian indigenous and growing foreign population though white, rarely identify that strongly along racial lines as Africans, African Americans, Caribbean or similar people of colour do.

They have their languages, culture, histories and strong identities linked to regions, customs, traditions and many other common traits that sets each grouping out as unique.

I sometimes fear that we coalesce and school together like fish on issues where we are essentially birds of a completely different feather.

Zwarte Piet is hardly the problem

It is why I could not countenance the apparent righteous indignation bordering on apoplectic rage, of African residents of England to Zwarte Piet. The debate is ongoing in the Netherlands about cultural and politically correct elements of retaining that aspect of the Sinterklaas culture.

It is healthy, interesting and robust, but it is nowhere near the zest for insurrection demonstrated by racial impostors from abroad, who might have found another roller coaster bandwagon to hitch a ride on.

We indeed must have debates about racism, racial equality, race relations, race history and probably revisit history for understanding, appreciation, recognition and reparation of wrongs of the past and present – I do not think that debate can be had with wrestling Zwarte Piet to the ground in either horseplay or mortal combat.

The fight for dignity is paramount beyond race, but we lose focus when we decide to take more offence on issues where our affinity with the people we presume are not liberated is tenuous at best.

Thought Picnic: Between healthy benefits and deathly demerits

Wherefore whereto

I find myself after a brief respite that has dealt with the pressing and immediate wondering again about what I need to do, what options I have and what possibilities are available to me in terms of the next role contractual or permanent without much of a clue.

The plans have been revisited, the profile rehashed, the strategy reviewed again and again without inkling as to whether I’ve got it wrong again or I should keep doing what I know how to do even more.

The constant graft

Daily, I put in requests to those who appear to need what I have to offer, a phone call, a form filled, permission granted, even telephone interview attended, but answers are long in coming and feedback literally has to be begged for – none of which keeps the confidence anywhere near where it ought to be, but the soldier trudges on thought swamp and enemy fire, ducking and diving – one must survive this war.

There is one preparation left that offers adventure, I will happily take if offered, it is what I love, being a Europhile beginning to have a love of the outdoors and looking to recapture a sense of youth with the new lease of life that accompanied my other adventure some 13 years before.

Keeping my head up

I cannot think too hard about what I don’t have, it will change nothing, though it never ceases to amaze me the many who pour into my bosom meeting immediate need that I want for the essential – God bless them all – it remains for me a story of lifelong gratitude that my privations have never been allowed to become desperately bereft of any hope or succour.

I am liked, I am loved, I am embraced, there is concern, some sorrow, some encouragement, some sympathy, even empathy – there be many that walk with me to pull me through all this – it will come good and I will do well – with that hope, despair will just have to find some other habitation, and that is fine with me.

Like I have just said to my good friend – you can only hold your breath for so long before the healthy benefits become deathly demerits. Then I smiled.

Thought Picnic: The Times Are Hard

A phone to make you look silly

Veering off the routine of being a hermit I wandered into the city centre to have my mobile phone sorted out. For a while, it was not connecting to Mobile Internet considering it is part of my package, but as I got to the shop, everything seemed to work fine, it left me looking rather silly.

After leaving the shop though, the connection was lost again, it took a complete shut down and restarting of the phone for the service to present any semblance of stability.

Disguises of begging hungry

That however, was not what caught my attention the most but the number of people in all sorts of costumes, fancy dress or masquerade gear looking regal, weird, scary or terrifying.

There must have been 15 of them, some even in pairs, all gesturing to tourist to pose for pictures with them for a token fee. At least 4 were dressed like the Grim Reaper complete with scythe and guttural voices to strike terror in kids and amusement in passers-by.

The competition for curious tourists willing to pose was fierce and keen, what was once an occasional novelty has now become a travesty with tourists literally being jostled, the subtext being, this a sophisticated begging, there are problems out there and it is exemplified in this rather innocuous entertainment.

The times are hard

The once generous safety-nets of social welfare are not as generous and hardly enough to meet daily needs. I would hate to think it is desperate, but the stark reality is only desperation would have driven people to clown around on main streets to eke out a living – God bless their souls.

If the competition was not stiff enough in terms of how bizarre you had to look to be attractive and attract custom, there was this singular lady with an accordion playing tunelessly but expecting a hand-out.

The one that took it to the next level of necessity being the mother of innovation was when I saw a dog posing with sunglasses – for a token amount, you could take a picture. The times are really hard.

Thought Picnic: I think I need therapy

The rough seas of life

Beneath this sometimes affable and suave exterior is a man, flesh and blood, emotional, sentimental, feeling and affected, much as he can be objective, logical, clinical and almost unaffected.

The battles that rage in the mind between the obvious circumstances and the crazy optimism waiting to erupt out to overwhelm the issues that encircle, you wonder.

You wonder do you have the strength to weather the storms; do you have the resolve to stand the test of the times?

These times have to be temporary or all hope is lost, but what length of time is enough for a man to endure?

The edges of time

Before the fears envelop you, that reinforcement rises from within like a niggling awaiting the time to persuade you that the fight is really in you and many a time you have met with seemingly dire situations and come through.

But the time that dulls the pain is also the time that chisels at those things that make you confident, able and extrovert in the things that make up your force of personality.

That is the time that you realise you might be vulnerable, the issue of mortality is in the background though every indication is one’s health is holding up really fine.

I think I need therapy

It was 11 years ago that I found that chatting to an occupational psychotherapist might just give some perspective on my situation which was assumed to be suffering a mid-life crisis 10 years early.

I think I need to chat to a professional, I need to get a lot of stuff off my chest, I need to talk, in other words, I need therapy – the question is …

South Africa: Malema, the glaring face of the worst of Africa's youth

Love the Boer

It was heartening to read this morning that the ANC had advised its members to refrain from singing [1] the liberation struggle song “Shoot the Boer”.

There was a time when the song was one to sing to enjoin the oppressed black people under the utterly repressive apartheid rule to rally to a cause beyond the peaceful struggle for majority rule.

If I heard an old man sing the song it would be a recollection of exploits but with the wisdom and gratitude for the fact that times have changed for a new kind of song asking the government to do more for its people - all of them.

No doubt this advice was particularly directed at the leader of the ANC Youth League, a controversial yob in leadership with populist rhetoric tailored to cultivate strife, animosity, discord, riot and division; in these times, the song is hateful, can incite to violence and is outrageously intemperate.

Roguish youth

Mr. Julius Malema [2] who is just 29 could have symbolised a bright future for the young South African but all he has been able to do is court controversy after controversy with brashness, recklessness and demagoguery.

His extreme views are unhealthy, unwholesome and atrocious, basically a mirror image of the worst of the oppressors that were on the other side of that struggle. However, a somewhat timid ANC leadership has been reticent about tackling the whippersnapper head on and calling him to order. Such an untrammelled attack dog can be useful for ulterior political ends by malevolent persons with influence, power and money.

Mr. Malema only last week arrogated the right to sing the liberation song though he was just 13 – hardly a liberation struggle veteran – when the Madiba assumed the presidency of South Africa and worked to reconcile and unite the peoples of South Africa - In Malema is a rabble rouser in manifestation not a man of vision and great ideas, a brute, if you ever saw one.

It is obvious that he sees no role model in the very revered Nelson Mandela as he was only last week being feted [3] by the Grand Despot of Africa – Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe – only an idiot would see any benefit accrued to Zimbabwe after those deplorable land seizures.

The need for better leaders

The youth of South Africa really have to decide once and for all the kind of person they would want to lead them, one that portends to align with history whilst being an idiot of the present or one that has qualities that unite, encourage and uplift all the people for greater expectations for the future.

Mr. Malema lacks all those good qualities by miles, he should begin to lack followership by the millions too.

What we have is an egotistical megalomaniac [4] in the making with despotic inclinations that would with heartless retribution silence any criticism no matter how constructive, fair or just – Africa needs none such any more and this example needs to be shorn of all its influence forthwith. Lest I forget, one song down, the machine gun song of President Zuma needs to go too.

Sources

[1] BBC News - South Africa's ANC stops singing 'Shoot the Boer'

[2] Julius Malema - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] Malema lauds Bob, says SA will copy Zim's land seizures - Times LIVE

[4] ANC's Julius Malema lashes out at 'misbehaving' BBC journalist | World news | The Guardian