Thought Picnic: Success, Suffering, and the System That Fails Both

The Illusion of Success

Sometimes, success appears to be a façade amid emotional turmoil, the vulnerabilities that are part of life's struggle that no one else sees. There is an assumption that if you have the means and cachet to buy anything, then you are suitably supplied to purchase your salvation.

Society simply does not recognise the struggle of the successful as legitimate. There is little sympathy for those who appear to have everything, and this dismissal creates a terrible sense of isolation in which high-achievers quickly learn that their struggles will not be taken seriously.

Misunderstanding Resilience

There is also a misguided understanding of resilience. Indeed, many of us do exhibit herculean feats of resilience against adversity, fighting storms of life that threaten to overwhelm us, but something inside refuses to give. Belief, faith, grit, or sheer guts: we are bowed but not broken, attacked but never defeated. We become the narrative of possibilities that once seemed insurmountable.

Yet this very resilience can become a trap. High-achievers are often driven by perfectionism, a relentless internal standard that demands excellence in all things. Mental illness does not respond to willpower or determination in the way that professional challenges do.

You cannot work harder to overcome depression. You cannot manoeuvre your way out of bipolar disorder. For someone whose identity is built on achievement and competence, seeking help feels like failure, an admission that you are not as capable as you believed yourself to be.

Recent Tragedies

Two stories in recent times have got me thinking that many mental health struggles are barely addressed or are given the stiff-upper-lip treatment of “you'll pull through as you always do”. We give just enough space not to interfere, and then the news drops: those stalwarts of stoicism, or what appeared to be that, have taken their own lives.

Robert Carradine, 71, died by hanging last week; he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I am in South Africa, and I have just read the news that Ian von Memerty, 61, who was Zimbabwe-born and a South African entertainer who hosted some popular television shows, had died by his own hand in Johannesburg. He had long written about the desire to take his own life.

The Reality Behind Success

None of this brings any comfort because these are successful men who had tasted the kinds of worldly success that many could not even dare to dream of, and yet it is their demons that have driven them beyond the edge of despair to suicide. The fact that these men are quite close to my age range also indicates that you probably do not grow out of the things that ail you.

Success often brings its own form of isolation. As you rise in your field, the pool of people who can truly understand your experience shrinks. Your old friends may feel the distance growing. Your new peers may be competitors rather than confidants.

The high-achiever becomes trapped in a gilded cage, surrounded by admirers but profoundly alone. This loneliness compounds mental health struggles, leaving fewer people to turn to, fewer spaces where vulnerability is possible, and fewer relationships where you are seen as a whole person rather than as your achievements.

There are also practical fears that make seeking help feel dangerous. Will your employer question your ability to perform? Will clients lose confidence in you? Will colleagues see you differently?

Despite progress in mental health awareness, significant stigma remains in professional environments. For high-achievers whose identities are deeply intertwined with their professional success, the risk feels existential.

When the System Fails You

Moreover, even when they overcome these barriers and seek help, they often find the available support inadequate for their specific needs. Therapists may struggle to understand the unique pressures of high achievement: the constant scrutiny, the isolation that comes with leadership, the weight of others' expectations.

The two times I have used therapy, because I presented none of the symptoms of depression, suicide, or a mental health crisis, it was felt I was trying to abuse the service. Yet, I had a compelling narrative. I was recovering from cancer, mounting debt meant I was about to lose my home, and my status was rock bottom.

Surely, with such a catastrophic change in life, I was a candidate for therapy. I guess because I had a modicum of coping mechanisms and I was too articulate for my situation, only shocking assertiveness could pierce into the needed support framework.

The scheduling demands of high-achievement careers often conflict with traditional therapy models, yet their chaotic schedules are often part of what is driving their mental health crisis.

Bridging the Gap

It is impossible to tell how much help, consideration, or support Carradine and von Memerty got through their struggles. For their survivors, bridging the gap between the sorrow they feel and appreciating the release that death brought to the suffering of their beloved ones is something you cannot begin to fathom.

Perhaps the most fundamental challenge is the myth of self-sufficiency that high-achievers internalise. They have succeeded through determination, intelligence, and hard work. This creates a belief that they should be able to handle anything, including their own mental health.

Cultural narratives about success emphasise individual agency and resilience, celebrating the self-made person who refused to give up or give in. These narratives leave little room for vulnerability, little space for acknowledging that sometimes, despite all your strength and capability, you need help.

A Personal Reflection

Even with my encounters with suicidal ideation, which I have written about as recently as a month ago, my only prayer still is never to be presented with no other option but to end it all. This is not said from any position of strength, ability, or capacity; rather, it is a recognition of human frailty and vulnerability. We are faced daily with a spectrum of mortality, but for the grace of God, there go we.

Addressing these challenges requires a fundamental shift in how we think about success and mental health. We need to recognise that achievement does not immunise against suffering, that success can indeed be part of what drives mental health crises rather than protecting against them. Until we can create space for high-achievers to be vulnerable, to admit to struggling, to seek help without fear of judgement or professional consequences, we will continue to lose talented, accomplished people to the silent epidemic of mental illness.

The deaths of people like Robert Carradine and Ian von Memerty should serve as a stark reminder that success is no protection against despair. The answer is that success and suffering are not opposites. They can, and often do, coexist. Recognising this uncomfortable truth is the first step towards ensuring that achievement does not become a prison from which the only escape seems to be death.

May their once-bothered souls rest in eternal peace.

Blog - Suicide When Academia Forgets Its Humanity (January 2026)

Blog - Thought Picnic: I think I need therapy (March 2011)

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

Finding Dignity at Zeitz MOCAA

Finding Kindness

Having done some shopping at Woolworths in the V&A Waterfront, I walked to Silo District past the Nelson Mandela Gateway to Robben Island to hail an Uber back home. The Friday evening rush hour, combined with the impending weekend, meant it was quite busy. However, leaving from this end of the V&A Waterfront cuts out a good deal of the traffic involved in exiting Cape Town.

I did not get an Uber for eight minutes, and when a driver was found, he was ten minutes away. Then he cancelled three minutes into my waiting time. Uber began looking for another driver, just as I realised, I had chosen this location to get me home on time, before getting caught in the traffic I might encounter if I had hailed a cab from the Breakwater end of the V&A Waterfront.

A Pressing Dilemma

It became a battle in my mind: should I wait for a cab or seek the use of facilities? The nearest one was about 250 metres away, up flights of steps that I am usually supported in navigating. But I was alone in town with two heavy bags of shopping and a walking cane I could not use if I needed to balance the load.

My better judgement intervened. I cancelled the Uber and decided to try my luck at the Zeitz MOCAA, the Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, which was behind me. As a total stranger, I would not have been able to just walk into any establishment to ask to use their toilets. Or maybe I have never really had the courage to. Besides the museum, there were two hotels nearby, but we had been fully paid-up members of the museum before COVID-19 struck, and I knew where the entrance was.

Navigating the Process

The first thing was to get my Just Can't Wait card up on my mobile phone, which was running out of battery. I had to put it on Power Saving mode to ensure I could at least call an Uber before it died. I showed the card to security at the door, requesting to use the toilets, and she directed me to reception.

At the reception desk, one of the staff took a picture of my Just Can't Wait card on the phone and then gave me directions to the toilets, which were in the basement. My explanation that I needed urgent use of a toilet because of a medical condition was sufficient.

As I walked to the lifts, another security guard stopped me. I believe he checks for entry tickets, and I did not have one. I explained my situation, and he even offered to have my shopping bags deposited at the check-in desk. But I did not have the time; I needed to be at the toilets immediately. Even the lifts were slow in arriving, but I was soon where I needed to be, as relief and gratitude welled up in me.

People Over Things

My experience with this organisation reminded me of the spirit of their Executive Director and Chief Curator, Madame Koyo Kouoh, who passed away last year after a recent cancer diagnosis, even as she was about to serve as the artistic director of the 2026 Venice Biennale. In the museum's tribute to her, she was remembered for her belief: "People are more important than things," and for quoting the African proverb, "If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together."

We live in communities shaped by experiences and circumstances. Some are so fleeting and yet significant in simply having empathy and understanding for invisible yet critical human vulnerabilities and responding to such encounters without question or judgement. People do not even have to have walked a long, hard mile in another's shoes. Even in South Africa, where basically no one knows of the Just Can't Wait card, a human story becomes the willingness to help rather than the fear of losing one's job.

Not that I want to remember what happened barely a month before, when I was refused the use of facilities with all the desperation written across my face, in my own Manchester, of all places. Thank you, Zeitz MOCAA, for simply being human. It meant a lot to me.

Blog - The Just Can't Wait Card Test

Zeitz MOCAA Staff Tribute to Koyo Kouoh

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

When Schedules Don't Matter: Between Flight Times and Body Times

Journey Times and Assumptions

Now that I think of it, these things should not be left to guesswork. The assumption I had, and the reality were different things, even when traversing time zones. How I could have missed that timing escapes me, especially for a journey I have made so many times. This time, I saw it plainly: the flight information stated 11h25, not the 10h30 I always had in my mind and when talking to people about it.

I am looking forward to a long journey watching Africa displayed before me as my kind of long-haul flight entertainment. As aeroplanes do not get given speeding tickets in the air, we did Amsterdam to Cape Town in 10h28. The scheduled duration and actual flight time rarely align, yet I still find myself calculating based on what I think I know rather than what the timetable actually says.

The More Immediate Concern

Before settling into my seat, though, there was a more pressing matter to address. Using the customer assistance service meant I was one of the first to board the aircraft, and I went to the toilets first before returning to my seat to check the journey duration. It was then that I noticed the discrepancy in flight times.

The flow is low and feels constricted. Whilst the urgency is pressing, the initiation starts late and the duration is long, much longer than usual. However, there are times when it suddenly seems to unclog with the greatest ease and relief. I have noticed this in the past couple of days, and it elevates concern.

The trouble with bladder plumbing, a consequence of prostate cancer and radiotherapy treatment, is one I cannot ignore, even if I seem to manage it well. Though on Saturday, as I walked back home, I found neither refuge nor respite, no place to flash my "Just Can't Wait " card. Consequently, I wet myself. The incontinence underwear was no match for the torrential release.

A Saving Grace

The cover of darkness and the length of my winter overcoat became my saving grace, concealing the wet patch on my bright red chinos and sparing me the shame and embarrassment. What a relief when I eventually got home.

The usual dearth of facilities for people with conditions like mine is something I navigate daily, but Saturday reminded me how fragile that management can be. We make assumptions about many things: flight times, the availability of toilets, our own bodies. Sometimes reality has other ideas.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

Thought Picnic: Are We Protecting Them or Ourselves?

Seeking Protection

I often reflect on interactions and conversations I have experienced. Sometimes it relates to what I have written, and I wonder if there were better ways to present my ideas or express myself.

These reflections are about how others see us or how we wish to be seen, and the circumstances that unintentionally create an impression different from what was intended, through omission or commission. As a result, we fail to represent ourselves as openly, honestly, and transparently as possible.

Even more problematic is the influence of assumptions that limit or constrain the image we project in others' minds. You vicariously suffer for assuming they cannot handle certain facts because of your perspective on their frame of reference or worldview. The question then becomes whether we are bravely protecting them or fearfully protecting ourselves.

Curb Your Loquacity

This causes us to steer clear of issues amid the complex mix of norms and differences that clash between inquiry and response. The direction of the conversation becomes less certain as we aim to conceal rather than reveal. It would have been better to directly tell the inquisitive to mind their own business rather than be teased into volunteering more than is comfortable.

Navigating the intersections of cultural settings is an art. In the broad spectrum of communication, knowing when to be cautious and disciplined enough to steer the conversation away from the curiosity of others cannot be an afterthought.

Yet, you cannot predict how a conversation might develop, and then you wonder how such exchanges in certain communities follow the same pattern of overly curious questions.

When Dame Anna Wintour appeared on The Rest Is Politics, beyond the lines of enquiry from her interviewers, her self-possession reflected discipline gained from responsibility, brand, and institution, shaping her responses. In the end, she was asked what Donald Trump would need to do to be invited back to the Met Gala. She paused, took a sip, and said, “Thank you for inviting me.”

Ideas from AI

I went on to ask AI, What are techniques for redirecting overly curious inquiries?

Drawing from your reflection on protecting oneself whilst maintaining composure, here are practical techniques for managing intrusive questions:

1. The Graceful Deflection

Acknowledge the question without answering it directly:

• "That's an interesting question, but what I find more relevant is..."
• "I appreciate your curiosity, though I'm more focused on..."
• "That's quite personal, but what I can share is..."

2. The Anna Wintour Pause

As you noted in your piece, sometimes the most powerful response is strategic silence followed by a polite exit:

• Pause deliberately
• Take a breath or sip
• Thank them and change the subject or conclude the exchange

This creates a boundary without confrontation.

3. The Gentle Boundary

State your limits with warmth but firmness:

• "I prefer to keep that private, but thank you for asking."
• "That's not something I discuss, I'm afraid."
• "I'd rather not go into that, if you don't mind."

4. The Question Reversal

Turn the inquiry back towards the questioner:

• "Why do you ask?"
• "What makes you curious about that?"
• "That's an unusual question—what's prompted it?"

This often reveals whether the question is innocent curiosity or something else, and sometimes makes people reconsider their intrusion.

5. The Humorous Redirect

Use light humour to deflect whilst maintaining rapport:

• "If I told you that, I'd have to kill you!" (with a smile)
• "Now that would be telling, wouldn't it?"
• "Ask me no secrets, I'll tell you no lies."

Humour must suit your personality and the relationship; otherwise it can seem defensive.

6. The Minimal Answer

Provide just enough information to be polite, then move on:

• Give a brief, surface-level response
• Don't elaborate or provide follow-up details
• Immediately ask a question about something else

7. The Honest "No"

Sometimes the most respectful approach is directness:

• "I'm not comfortable discussing that."
• "That's not something I'm willing to share."
• "I'd prefer not to answer that question."

This works best in relationships where mutual respect exists.

8. The Professional Shield

Reference external constraints or responsibilities:

• "I'm not at liberty to discuss that."
• "That's confidential, I'm afraid."
• "My position doesn't allow me to comment on that."

9. The Reframe

Answer a different question—the one you wish they'd asked:

• "What I think you're really asking is..."
• "The more important question might be..."
• "Let me put it this way instead..."

10. The Time Boundary

Defer without committing:

• "That's not something I can get into right now."
• "Perhaps another time."
• "Let me think about that." (with no intention of returning to it)

---

Developing Your Technique

As you noted in your reflection, navigating these moments requires:

Self-awareness: Know your boundaries before entering conversations where intrusive questions might arise.

Practice: These techniques become more natural with use. The first few times may feel awkward.

Cultural sensitivity: Different settings require different approaches. What works in a professional environment may not suit a family gathering.

Confidence: Your discomfort with a question is legitimate. You needn't justify your boundaries.

Reading the room: Assess the questioner's intent. Are they malicious, thoughtless, or genuinely interested? Your response can vary accordingly.

The key insight from your piece about Dame Anna Wintour is particularly relevant: her discipline came from responsibility, brand, and institution. Developing your own personal discipline around what you share and what you protect is equally important. It's not about being secretive; it's about being intentional with your vulnerability.

Remember, as you wisely observed, it's better to directly challenge the inquisitive than to be "teased into volunteering more than is comfortable." These techniques give you the tools to do exactly that, whilst maintaining grace and composure.

From arrest to rest

A necessary situation

To think it was exactly two months ago that I walked into the Christie Hospital to begin 20 sessions of hypofractionated radiotherapy to treat malignant prostate cancer.

Until then, I felt nothing apart from what the blood work told us that further investigation revealed. I could have had a year totally oblivious of a growth in a delicate part of my anatomy that could be a cause of serious illness and death.

All through treatment that happened over 4 weeks of weekdays, I barely slowed down activity, though, as fatigue and other issues took hold, I made adjustments.

A betraying voice

This was brought home to me when I attended a conference having apologised for my low energy levels affecting the strength of my voice. Most listeners would have wondered why a sick man is pushing himself so hard. One sought out the management to raise their concerns.

I preferred to have some occupation rather than a distraction; I was accommodated even as others suggested I take time off.

The voice rarely improved; it bears the hallmarks of extreme exhaustion, yet, it is my voice, my tool of expression, slightly battered by resonant. Let me not suggest that it is indefatigable because fatigue has a role in moderating the sound.

Giving due consideration

Radiotherapy is painless and by that reckoning may seem harmless too. The havoc it has wreaked on my waterworks is one I hope to put behind me, along with the urgency that hits me when I need to map a route that offers immediate use of conveniences or sit at home.

The other consideration is finding the strength to do the simple things. It is five weeks since the end of treatment. The cancer is blasted but the body is far from a good state of recovery.

The decision to embark on a journey for the opportunity to access love and care was attacked from many quarters as much as others saw the need for it.

I made a determination after realising I needed to give myself both the time and the rest to recover, not sitting alone in cold Manchester but in the warmth of Cape Town with Brian.

Accepting my vulnerability

The discomfort of being carted around airports in a wheelchair in the knowledge that I truly am not fit enough to do the things I did without concern, before September is that independent streak denying my vulnerability.

However, I know how having a Radar key to access disabled toilets has prevented me from wetting myself the many times I have been out. This is all temporary.

I will get better, fully regain my strength and vigour, and then receive the all-clear assessment in April. What I need to tell myself is I need both the time and the rest to get well. Without that, I arrest my recovery.

Black History Month - Reclaiming Narratives on Men's things

An invitation to talk

A few weeks ago, during my radiotherapy treatment, I was invited to attend a Black History Month event and a panel of discussants. This is something I would have willingly done, but I could not with the side effects I was experiencing guarantee I could attend, and sitting on a panel was ambitious at best.

When Saturday came, I felt I had the strength to grace the occasion. My view then was that they had a substantive panellist with me as an alternate. I sat in the back of the meeting room, nursing the issues of comfort and discomfort as the proceedings progressed. I had tacitly agreed to join the discussion if I had the energy, and my voice was amplified.

Let’s talk men’s things

The theme for Black History Month 2024 is “Reclaiming Narratives,” marking the shift towards recognising and correcting the narratives of Black history and culture. I do not think they expected the direction in which I thought to reclaim our narrative.

After my introduction, I raised the issue of black men being comfortable talking about “Men’s things”, their sexual health, primarily, prostate cancer, but testicular cancer and erectile dysfunction are such intimate issues too along with sexuality, that we should not feel emasculated when those topics are discussed as they matter to our health, wellbeing, life, and happiness.

Culturally, broaching this subject in many communities belies a loss of masculinity and vulnerability where we should be projecting strength. Yet, strength is in accepting the vicissitudes of our humanity, openly, honestly, and confidently creating the conversations that help others seek essential help to deal with issues long before nothing can be done for them.

Talking empowers us all

Part of me felt I had hijacked the conversation but the questions, interest, engagement, and feedback suggested it was a necessary topic to discuss as I took the time even with my waning voice to explain in sufficient detail the risk factors and the essential tests, along with signposting material they could read to gain knowledge about taking control of intimate health issues.

To that end, I compiled all the blogs I had written about Men’s things and Photons on the Prostate to continue the discussion from this blog. Men's things - Prostate Cancer blogs

The narrative we need to reclaim is black men boldly discussing men’s things and helping each other to achieve the best outcomes for our sexual health, supporting and strengthening each other through adversity and increasing the talent pool of advocacy out of interest or experience to give more black men the tools to live healthy and well.

Thought Picnic: Everybody who hurts can find healing too

R.E.M. - Everybody Hurts (Official HD Music Video)

In strength and weakness

I may have a listening ear, and to some, who are close to me, I have had outbursts. Much as I attempt every means of self-control and restraint, the dam can hold no more water and it bursts. I have to remember sometimes that I do not have the answers, the understanding, the knowledge, or the wisdom for certain situations.

Even where I appear to be wise, it is usually a gift of inspiration that I cherish a lot, how to put things in perspective, cutting out the unnecessary, the sentimental, the subjective, or just the emotional. Clinical is not always what people want to hear, but the truth is a salve better than the succour of false comfort that barely addresses the issue.

We all need somebody

Then, I wonder, what am I doing for myself? How am I healing and getting the rest I need to have the peace and comfort I desire? The quest for happiness caught in snatches of time, impeded sometimes by the insufficiency of means, yet powered by an irrepressible force of faith and hope, watered with love that thrives in all circumstances. In that alone, I feel blessed.

We bear many burdens, to many we have unlimited resources of strength in mind and character, our figurative and proverbial shoulders stretch like a mountain range, grounded in the core of the earth and found in the lofty reaches of the clouds, covered in snow to cool the heat of things upset and upturn lives in unimaginable ways. Life is not a simple story; we just make every moment count.

Everybody cries, everybody hurts, and everybody feels, all in different ways with myriad ways to express themselves in the things that affect them. The silence might be screaming so loud inside. The smiling might be weeping thunderstorms of distress and turmoil that the face hides in a veil of the indecipherable. What I hide under the finery of my appearance and apparel is a world of my own humanity and vulnerability that probably finds words of expression here.

Seeking to live the dreams

Then I want to find my own foxhole to burrow deep into to hide from the world for a while, to slip into a kind of hibernation of absence where the dreams that play are of the beauty of heaven, the joy of living well, of strength, facility, and immeasurable ability with the daring that blows the mind.

That also does not have to be just a dream, for the dream maker seeks to make those dreams come true beyond anything we have ever thought, wanted, sought, desired, seen, heard, or imagined possible.

I have always thought there is a better way, many times I scramble to find the door and fall on the way, but I will never relent in seeking to walk the path that the mighty have walked to tell better stories than those ever told before.

Lever whatever forever

Some broken hearts do mend

Sometimes, I am caught in introspection and think about what makes a day significant that I might not recall. As I stepped out of the bath this morning, after my shower, two things came to the fore.

The passage of a week and what might have been a 51^st birthday but sadly a posthumous one, and almost 15 years since he passed. You are reminded that there are people who for the time they were in your life, for good or bad, and no matter the length of time, you cannot forget.

Whilst I rarely now think of Christopher Clark and less so of what could have been, for the time that I knew him and the headiness of silly that I acquired in my dealings with him, I know how just the chemistry between people can disarm, that any reasonableness is lost to deep emotional connection.

Let yourself be human

On reflection, I wonder how I got caught out, yet I am glad I allowed myself to be vulnerable, to be a fool in love, to understand that sometimes I need to break away and protect my heart as some dealings reveal the depth of your fragility. You learn tough lessons about relationships and even think you will never let go again.

Never is a funny reaction, it is for that moment most of the time than forever. I rarely ever think in the never, because, if ever something else presents, what you sever out of never is not usually the lever to whatever happens in the ever beyond the present. Putting things behind you for the possibility of being surprised and offered the opportunity to do something new must be one amazing pleasure of life.

With life there must be a readiness to enjoy, to find and understand love, to have that fragile heart handled by such caring hands and to embrace the wonderful that many miss or never see. Any other questions and there are many that course through your mind like dodgem cars in an amusement park, you’ll find the answers to, along the way.

Thought Picnic: We are not as connected as we think we are

The tears for fears

It was a strange feeling of regret and partly self-pity that one would not normally admit to when I went through a list of 15 job roles that I somehow felt I could not apply for. This, for all sorts of reasons as I felt the warmth of tears welling up around my eyes. It has been a long while since I have cried for myself and I do wonder if there is any relief in it.

The fact is and I would point it out in its own paragraph, people are a lot more vulnerable than they say or present, they are not as alright as they seem, they are not as happy and cheerful as they appear, and they need a lot more than just checking up on to ascertain how they are.

Out-of-date interventions

Yet, it is the assumptions that people make about others that I can be painfully aware of, that torches with flames of anguish or something like it. When I think of the other day and there are many to consider, the day some prayers were prayed that I thought could have been so useful, so many months before they seemed desperate and even out-of-date for the suffering that has been endured, it leaves a sense of abandonment and unease, that one should do the best not to attend to.

The other other (written for effect) day was another who called to determine how one was getting on and the core of his advice was I should not lose my confidence. Heck! I could have done with that kind of encouragement six or months ago, how do you light a fire in ashes already dampened in a storm? Still, from the ashes, the phoenix rises or something to that effect.

These totally out-of-date interventions may seem productive but that touch at the heart of another reality, that we are not as connected with our friends and family as we assume we are. There is an unquantifiable distance in what we think are thriving relationships for which familiarity has replaced discerning and discernment to elicit the full truth. Maybe I help myself better through what I write for my speech has the sophistication of concealment that is both trained and curtailed.

How I feel lost

There are days I am probably entirely myself, as many consciences are quickly salved with the rudimentary as one battles with an Esau complex, wherein has one served up birthright for a pot of soup? The judgement on him was tough even as he did prosper in a way. One is left wondering about the vicissitudes of life, maybe a time to reflect in Ecclesiastes. Even the comfort I seek therein seems to elude me.

I often get asked that question that probably a sense of pride promptly denies, it does loom about and I refuse to countenance it, I refuse to give it any rein, which does not mean it doesn’t yap at my heels, every now and again. I want to believe and at the same time one is losing grip, there is apparently so much love out there as I wrestle in my mind about things present, things existential, and things beyond, that sleep will not repair.

As one would expect, there is someone somewhere who would read this and genuflect to feigned apoplexy with the opinion, “It seems he is giving up and losing hope.” Thank you for your very genuine concern, after that, what has changed? 

The battle is always in our minds, in our heads, in our dreams, and sometimes interfered with by reality, but it is one we dare to fight to win, and, on this score, I will wipe away the tears and look up because it is not over until it is done.

To the liberation of the lamb

Another uncommon narrative

Her black eyes are concealed behind the makeup that provides the window dressing for the terror that is the shop she calls home, a place that was supposedly built on the union of love that went awry for all sorts of reasons. That story told daily is one to which we are almost inured, the regularity and commonality obfuscate other realities that never find a voice to express.

Like a man, all too vulnerable met in the circumstance where intentions differ between a welcoming host and a predatory guest. Who would have thought of the consequence of that encounter? What you open your door to in altruism is sometimes not what visits to aspire, but to conspire. It is churned in the mind as a silent review of shame and embarrassment, for which you find quiet consolation in the tears that refuse to come.

Indecent assault allowed

It is a battle of conflicts and knowledge ignored, even if needs are there, a sacred trust was betrayed in the exploitation of opportunity. Such is the incomprehensibility of the scenario to the onlooker until caught in the web of the spider, the many older vulnerable men who are victims of the machinations of youth are not what makes the discussion at most times, it is one of those taboo subjects found in the secrecy and confessional of a therapy you fear to sit in.

Young is attractive, but as long as temptation is kept from ingress, it has no power to overwhelm. In naivety, all resistance is worn down with unrelenting persistence, an advantage is acquired and there emerges a submission to a violation of the person in the helplessness of the situation. Like sheep to the slaughter, it is a willing suspension of inhibition for the moment to just pass unheralded.

Gaslighted into culpability

Liberties, the liberties seized in the freedom to act with imposition and intrusion whilst afterwards defanging possible accusations with feigning innocence by gaslighting and asking if they have done wrong or they were bad, knowing the response would never be negative as the personal hurt is absorbed in victimhood that dare not lay a charge. The sacrificial lamb was on the altar lain, though interminable was the watch to when it was to be slain.

The lamb momentarily unbound rises to flee as the worshipper intones with incandescent incantation, “I’m not done yet.” The lamb bounds with hinds like a mountain goat, a hardy escape from the blade of slaughter, it is well asunder. The end of that is the end indeed.

Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth. [Romans 14:22b] Maybe happy is not the feeling one has, but the rest is where some consolation from the ordeal does come.

Something like death by interview

For I could not talk

Looking back at a career of over 34 years, I find that I have faced the full spectrum of interview experiences from being totally tongue-tied in a brain fog of stuttering stupidity that I have to apologise for wasting the interviewer’s time through impressing the quality and depth of my expertise, sometimes even being promoted to a more senior role during the interview, to being engaged just by reputation.

Today, I was caught at the wrong end of the situation, and it was not for the want of the interviewer trying his best to help me along. Then again, the interview technique is probably more an art than a science, there is no assured way of determining whether talent and fit can be deduced from a list of set questions. Each personality and way of expression is different.

Between how you do things and talking about what you have done before, you may be able to assess knowledge and experience, but if the interviewee loses confidence, there is no comeback for the interviewee to redress the situation, you are left crying over a dam of spilt milk.

Crippled by immobility

Early this afternoon, I attended one such interview that on the surface I should have aced as much of what was asked for should have been answered by remembering things that have acquired muscle memory in use, yet, I was a bumbling babbling mess, it could not wait for the whole ordeal to end.

Going over the questions in my mind, later on, the elements began to take form in the things I have done, the other things I know, the community support mechanisms available from where I have learnt much more to stand out, came to the fore, but that battle had been lost because it goes without saying that more articulate and probably better-prepared interviewees would go forward for consideration.

Losing the touch

For most of my last few jobs, I doubt I have had the requisite interview practice, many have been discussions on how I could bring my wealth of experience to the table, and others have been referrals from people who I have worked with in the past inviting me to new projects, another, just reading my profile on LinkedIn was enough to convince them they had the right man. Even I was shocked at the speed at which we went from introduction to can you start tomorrow?

Basically, I am not of the disposition of an elevator pinch proponent that in 5 minutes would win a deal, and neither would I affect to traipse the confines of a Dragon’s Den or Shark Tank programme to persuade investors to invest in a venture. I am not that sort of person.

In a number of instances, I have been asked to give a broad presentation on one of a number of topics, like one to be shown to someone in the C-suite, and then questions follow afterwards. I seem to be much better at that, but it is rarely an adopted interview technique.

Remember who you are

Essentially, I am quite introverted though could be forceful in giving direction for technical solutions, I could concede that I am hardly the best interview candidate, I might feature in the worst decile. I find some solace in this saying often credited to Albert Einstein, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

I am a fish, I belong in the water where my gills help me acquire life-sustaining oxygen, I was a fish out of water earlier and it was death by interview, no other words could say it better.

In the consolation of tears

Brimming with realisation

Almost a decade ago, I was walking towards the Weerwater in Almere, The Netherlands and I started to shed tears. In one moment, it dawned on me that I had survived cancer, been out of work for 18 months, lost my home of 10 and a half years, and was staying with a young Indian family, the only possession I had being my bed.

The tears were not one of pity or despair, just that I had all through my ordeal never thought of what I had been through, what I had suffered, and the toll on my mental and physical state, I had just kept going, taking each day as it came. Yet, I was in the mire of stagnation, I needed to shift something to get moving again.

Facing up to reality

My over 12-year sojourn in Holland had come to its natural end, and it was time to return home to the UK. This was against every advice or counsel of people around me, but I was convinced that phase of my life was over. It was necessary for me to find that time of release because I took hold of my vulnerability and humanity to begin to seek opportunity.

Then, I wrote to six friends, who in my mind’s eye I would have chosen to be my pallbearers as I was also too aware of my mortality considering what I had survived to tell them of my plans and what my wishes were if anything were to happen to me. I was being pragmatic and practical even if some thought I was giving up hope. What I had experienced was nothing like Job in the Bible but considering the catastrophic loss I had borne starting with my illness, I had my own story.

Things best left unsaid

There wasn’t much I could say to those who thought I was not putting up a fight or one who even said I needed a boot up my backside. I took what they had to say with grace, and not once did I suggest to them if only you knew from whence, I came to this adversity, you will fear misfortune and it happens to good people too, and I barely scraped the standard of good. I know good people who died from cancer that ravaged their bodies, robbed them of dignity, left them destitute and literally without hope in this world, I was spared, I had the good fortune, I was lucky, I was blessed, I am grateful.

And so, in the tenth year of my returning to the UK, I think about my departure from the Netherlands, the way things changed radically for me that within 6 days of my return, I was offered a job to go travelling Europe in my field of expertise. I have not returned to the community in which I found support, sometimes grudging, sometimes burdening. It was at a time of seismic change in that community too, I could not be that demanding. I am thankful for the ways in which they held me up from falling totally to the ground.

To thank them all

I constantly think about a long visit to the Netherlands, to see the consultant who took on the responsibility for my care, the friends who have kept in contact all this time, and just to see the places that gave me a sense of belonging and thriving in the Netherlands.

This all was set in motion from that afternoon when I found solace and consolation in my tears. At once, I was man and human, strong and weak, vulnerable and determined, never hopeless, just beginning to see where things can change for the better.

Thought Picnic: Letting vulnerability lead to love

No path is straight

I have shied away from reading manuals about issues that require a lot more tailoring to situations and circumstances than prescription as a panacea to an issue. Now, for instance, I take my medical prescriptions religiously, the only tailoring involved is the time of day when I take my medicine, it has to suit my life, my lifestyle, and my work, not impeding function, purpose, or energy to perform.

Then I look at things like my career, life-changing decisions, and love, none of which have followed a trajectory or even example, every path has been uniquely individual and maybe different, or where similarities can be seen, there are many other factors that challenge the premise of imitation. In many cases, other people’s lives do not follow a template of lists or processes, individuality is an often frowned upon characteristic in some cultures, deviating from a norm can lead to ostracism and hence it modulates the tendency to conform.

Mistakes as lesson notes

On the matter of love, sadly, I find no immediate example of close or distant relations of the generation before mine who have laid out a promise of anything near perfect, however, a study of their situations has informed the need and desire not to fall into the same mistakes they made.

If it is not the power dynamics of dominance and submission, controlling the means of provision, conformity to traditions, expectations and requirements of culture, transitional states of contrived convenience, imposition by reason of responsibilities especially after procreation, or infidelities condoned even in the face of humiliation and embarrassment of the other, love has had a stranger than believable meaning to the participants. In the longer term, they have separated, regretted, fought, alienated, castigated, abused, or neglected each other.

It is case of uneasy détente as their offspring negotiate the minefields of animosity if they can deftly avoid becoming the grass on which the elephants get to fight to complete exhaustion and rise again to continue where they left off.

Learning what we can do

This is where much learning has to begin, in understanding what love really is and how it is manifest to us. To many, love is a strange esoteric thing, made aspirational in fairy tales that suggest living happily ever after, the fiction of an ideal rarely close to real life. We are imperfect beings seeking a more perfect relationship with those we are attracted to whilst making allowances for the fact that nothing is ever completely done, there is a process of growth and nurturing that needs committing to, for enduring fulfilment.

We probably know how to show and give love, from a place of understanding or out of making amends for bad experiences that appeared to suggest love when it never was that. The past can have damaged people irreparably that they seek succour in anything, accepting everything believing there is some sort of security even as they endure the totally untenable when they should walk, if not flee from their abuser who either knows no better or sees that flawed dynamic as the best expression of themselves.

Love is a process

In another song we are told, ‘Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.’ That is easier said than done, for knowing love, loving oneself and then getting the love you truly deserve could take a lifetime of failures and processes of elimination, the unlearning of things, the relearning of other things, along with a schooling of life with all its vicissitudes of good and bad fortune.

With our built-in survivor’s instinct, we look for ways to thrive in all areas of endeavour, a sense of independence, responsibility, self-awareness, and self-control sometimes denies you some elements of your humanity as vulnerability, weakness, infirmity, weakness, or incapacity, which are all part of the human experience. The superhuman may have many admirers but no friends or confidantes as we put ourselves outside the reach of those who can genuinely appreciate us fully and help us when our strength is not full.

Letting your vulnerability help you love

That is the more difficult part of the expression of love, knowing how to use it, knowing when to let go, appreciating when to give way or let be, and most of all being able to let yourself be loved like you should, purely, wholly, fully, unconditionally, and magnificently. You have to accept your vulnerability to be there and resist the temptation to instruct or construct barriers masquerading as understanding the depth from which love is shown to you and how it is expressed in word and in deed.

Like with nature, we need to become good fertile and watered ground in which the seeds of love can be sown to reap a bountiful harvest of the heart in full glow of a fairy tale that can only exist in the imagination of others. I can only wonder if we have the ability to rewrite our love stories when given the opportunity to work at it.

Thought Picnic: In the struggle to resume as I

A fog in the head

It is strange that only recently I wrote about being stuck on the absence of desire, I concept that might well be quite seriously misunderstood when it is seen as physical rather than a head and consequently a mental health issue.

Blog - Thought Picnic: Stuck on the absence of desire

There is no doubt in my mind today that I do need therapy, there are knotty issues that are affecting my flow, I cannot seem to get a grip on several things that I would have thought a few months ago would have happened without any need for encouragement or inspiration. I really do feel somewhat stuck that something radical needs to happen.

The therapies I require

Indeed, some physical therapy can come in useful in the form of spa treatments and a sports massage, however, fundamentally, mental therapy would reach down into the depth of what seems to ail me, a few sessions of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, a professional helping me unravel the pall of infirmity that inhibits aspects of productivity and expression.

The catharsis of writing is not enough and though having a conversation with my best friend might have helped things a bit. In myself, my confidence is shaken and the kind of focus that appears as sure-footed maturity is not particular manifest. It is like I am at my most vulnerable when I need support and most misunderstood that places the burden of patience on others.

Seeing more of me

I have no idea of how much time I need to get back either to my old self or to arrive at a manifestly improved self, I am just taking each day as it comes, hoping that in the process things either fall into place or I find that essential support I need.

It is inauspicious that this is happening at a time when I am with my partner, and we have ahead of us some consequential plans. Oh, I can be quite moody if not boring, these are realities that probably need to be experienced and appreciated along with everything else people know about me. What I do not know is if my human frailties can find enough allowances in the frame of reference of those on whom I depend as much as they depend on me.

Then there is a responsibility that I bear in all this, the need for others to see the 'for worse' of me when they are distracted by the 'for better' at commitment, and feel deceived about all the components of my evidently fragile being and nature.

Thought Picnic: Stuck on the absence of desire

On a funny compass

The surfeit of blogs might deceptively suggest a liberal ability to express one’s feelings or find the form of words to capture some thought process succinctly, yet many should be careful that expression might also be concealment. A means of distracting attention from other issues that the principal is struggling with, just as it is easy to forget the humanity and vulnerability of people who appear to have mastered the art of communication.

Lately, I have found myself unable to express myself in a way that I should freely be able to, given the time, the place and the opportunity. The opportunity has been dictated by situations completely outside my control. Demands and requests are being made of me that I cannot find the will or the urge to fulfil.

Trying to get unstuck

At a point, one feels literally clogged up with no outlet to ease tension or frustration, it is not for the want of desire or passion, it seems one has been exhausted by a form of separation anxiety that has been difficult to remediate. Anyone else might think there is a simple fix, it is not working for me, and I am somewhat worried by its effect on another.

God knows I have been trying to rekindle that thing, if there was some emotional jumpstart, I might even try it. What will not do it is the sudden, the deliberate, the demanding, or the invasion. I hope I get out of my funk soon enough time. Besides that, and what is going on in my head and affecting my body in ways I cannot describe to any satisfaction, the heart is still glowing with the happiness and joy that presence brings. Bear with me even if everything cannot be understood at this time.