Never Take Access For Granted

Some things are truly harder to forget. I think about the time when I had to pack up and leave. I think about how I chose to do that alone, even though the reality was that I couldn’t really do it alone, entirely. I recall how that first trip with that first load felt like. I didn’t even feel how tired I really was, even on the drive back. My mind was stuck on a processing loop. I told myself I’d return a stronger man. Which was faulty thinking, because I was already that.

I have thought back to that moment a lot, how I’d isolated myself because I knew that if even one of those I loved(love) were with me in those moments then, I would’ve probably broken down. Which, I should have. The quicker you fall apart, the quicker you start to heal.

As time progressed though, I have thought of those moments for a whole different reason. I have thought of them as part of the price I had to pay for taking access for granted. You know that whole saying “you never really know what you got till it’s gone!?” Yeah, it was one of those. I couldn’t see it because I was in it.

My point being…!? Well, it is yours to decide. Just as long as you don’t take Access For-Granted.

My Cup Runneth Empty

I was at the shops this morning. Doing a quick milk and bread run, so to speak. So, because it was a quick in and out, I decide to hit up a local mini market of sorts. I pulled up right by the entrance, got out and walked in like a man on a mission. Milk was closest to my entrance so that simplified the path I’d be taking through the store. Oh it’s on.

I picked up the milk, and then started forgetting as I was remembering what else was needed. And yes, I went in with no shopping list to speak of, because – quick in and out. Anyway, from the milk I proceeded to a pack of snacks and walked over to the cookie section. Also known as the scrumptious section. I stared at them as though to allow my mind to remind me that “we are cutting down on enjoying the little(cookie shaped) things in life”.

My mind having successfully reminded me we were off to what, at the time, was the last item on the list – to get that bread. I walked up to the bread, didn’t have much of a stare down with the white-bread because the prior cookie-decision set the precedence that – better (non enjoyment of the little things) choices were being made this morning. So, I picked up the bread that best resembled me, colourly* speaking.

Mission success right!? Well, if you’re also a “It’s just a couple of things, I need no list” kind of being, then you already know. Yep, there was one more thing I’d forgotten to add to the mental list I’d made. So, I went on my little side-quest back to the dairy-section – yes, the very section I hit first upon my arrival at the store. Alas, I collected what I’d forgotten to remember but remembered not to forget. You must be wondering what it was, well, it was the great presidential spread – Rama.

So, at this point, it’s surely official mission success right!? Except, it isn’t. I mean unless the plan is to steal the items by not paying for them. Well, technically it still wouldn’t be mission success even then because I was still in the store. Granted, I was now closer to the exit, but still, not in the clear. Suffice to say, we not stealing anything these ends, so, it’s pay time.

Time to do the whole “which pay-point has the queue that’s moving fast” math. And so after adding it all up, the answer was really none was. So I proceeded to the till closest to me and which had one person at it because another, who was behind the one who was at the time about to pay, had just committed the “I moved to another line and the one I left started moving” sin. Except, they hadn’t. That one person who was about to make make payment had left their bank card in the car and they’d just sent their kid to fetch it and thus, the waiting game was afoot.

The kid returned with what seemed to be a sense of urgency enthusiasm to them, and the card – of course. And we were off, the teller began punching stuff into the register and then looked back at the lady(customer) to once again verify method of payment. The lady confirms and proceeds to insert her bank card into the machine. But, there’s a snag, she seems to have forgotten the pin to the card she’s using to pay. So, she informs the teller of this pay-point revelation and gently requests that her items be set-aside as she’ll need to step out and sort out the pin issue. Both parties were in agreement and the teller proceeds to request what is the second least favourite term (word) by those attempting to make payment – VOID. The first term (word) of course being the one depicted in the image above. At this point though, it’s my turn to attempt payment as the lady who had to step out had, well, stepped out.

Now, during this whole national crisis at this till, I’ve been in my head about the whole situation. See, if this is a just one or two years ago, I’m stepping up to that lady while informing the teller that I’d like to pay on the lady’s behalf. The lady would’ve most likely protested a bit, almost instinctively as I’d often experienced, but we would’ve both ended on the same page and amicably on our separate ways. See, the protest is instinctive because I think most of the time these kind of things catch us off guard and we may be reacting from a point of “I’m not a charity case / I can afford myself” and less from just “well, that’s just a kind gesture”. Which, for me, I’ve always strived to do so as the latter and never really as the former.

I digress, unfortunately that wasn’t the case this time. See, this time, I had to stand there and make peace with the fact that though I wanted to step in and assist, I couldn’t. Which to be honest, didn’t feel as bad as it has other times, because this time it at-least seemed as though it was a case of forgetfulness and not unaffordability. It did get me thinking a lot though, about how it feels to want to help where and when one can but not really being able to do so in a way that’s practical/matters at that particular moment or point in time. It feels disheartening to say the least, but so is the reality of being alive at times.

Ya’ll stay safe, blessed and with your bank card pins never far from memory.

*I misuse words and or grammar some most times, so I put (*) that next to instances that I can clearly identify as such to make myself feel better. Hope this makes you feel better about it too, unless of course you are part of the grammar police. If that’s the case, u’ll never tayik me alif copper!

Are You Running Free … !?

Or are you running scared, how you running!?

I like the idea that everything comes full circle. To me, it says that no part of (your) Life is wasted – if you won’t allow it to be.

One of the ways I have seen this play out more practically for me has been finding myself back at a place that I had, unintentionally, been at before. For example, one time back in College, I got lost whilst trying to make my way back home on foot. I was in an area that was very unfamiliar to me and ended up taking a right instead of a left. I ‘discovered’ an area that I’d never been to before, which I never really returned to till years later when I was employed. Fast forward a couple more years, I was there again for a friends engagement party. So, I was where I was supposed to be but not there when I was supposed to be. If you catch my dribble.

“”We either running free or running scared. How you running!?” These are words by the great comedian Paul Mooney. They stuck with since the first time I heard them. I have found a depth in them that made me confront how I myself was moving. Because though movement is good, but not all movement is the same. The reason we do things is important, because it helps to link things, accordingly, throughout our brief existence on this here third ‘ball‘ from the Sun. Fear is a valid reason, contextually, to do things/something, but I’d argue that it is far from being the best reason to do things.

I now look back on paths I did not take because of fearing that I was getting lost and realise that was not the cause. Those were off ramps that were (could’ve been) part of my journey, whether they panned out or not. I also do realise that not taking them can and has still allowed me to gain a lot of experience and knowledge that isn’t useless nor wasted. So still, no part of life is wasted. However, you get to do a lot more, and hopefully be a lot more fruitful, if you Run-Free and not run-scared.

I know that we all may not get to do things that set our souls afire, but we can decide to at the very least, do things that enable us to run free …

The Way Back

There I was, 1 am in the morning fighting off frustration with and or from things happening in my personal life and at the same time I’m trying to officially restart the journey back from kind of having my head buried in the sand. But, I’m having no luck with the attempt at a restart. Instead, I’m staring at a blank space where words should be. A space that was probably the birth of some of the things that are now dead and having to be resuscitated (my spirit included).

Like for most of us, or rather all of us, these past months have been 10 tons of sandbags on the back of a mule that had already exceeded it’s max capacity 10 bags prior. So this latest weight brought me down to my knees. Unfortunately, even while on my knees, the weight stays on ones’ neck because that’s just how gangster life is all day everyday. And so, to try stay sane and alive – I felt I needed to escape the only way I knew how and only way I had direct access to while on those knees – head buried in the sand.

Here’s the thing though, even while the head is still in there, you know the reality of what’s happening outside. Not only because you know life doesn’t stop, your head is buried in the sand but your body is not, and as a result, you are feeling everything that is happening to the body. Another thing is, you obviously know you can’t stay there forever right?! Okay, I mean you could, but then that tends to be more permanent – so often it isn’t really the best route to go if one kind of intends on making a return to participating amongst in the realities of the ones above the sand.

So, you know that, much like you time above the ground – your time in the sand is limited. But how do you return?! How do you come back to the same reality that chased you away in the first place. How do you return to the battle ground you fled from in a way that you are sure you will not have to flee again as you once did before?! How do you restart an engine that was barely functional before the hiatus with a starter that was also on its’ last legs long before you vanished.

Well, I don’t know the exact answer, what I do know is what I’m planning to do. That is rebuild that starter and triage that engine. I’m going to to do what my father had to do when he came back from Robben Island – and was under house arrest; with his first wife remarried; still facing the realities of an unjust system but with it now having both it’s boots on his neck – both metaphorically and literally (that’s how he ended up losing his ability to sing. I never heard my father sing, not because he was born like that but because of the then ‘legal’ injustice).

All in all, what I will and am doing, is what many before me have been, will be, and still are doing – and that is rebuilding. All is not lost for as long as my lungs have breath, hands and feet have strength and my mind still has energy.

On Borrowed Time

Time sure does fly, doesn’t it!? To think that February of 2019 was just about 5 years ago from now. No one, and I repeat, no one could have imagined that we would be here as we are. I mean, I’m sure we could have had some guesses that would have been close, but I doubt that we could have had anyone envision things as they are right now today. Obviously we will have a few delulus who will try convince us that they would and could have, all after the fact though. Don’t even bother trying to get them to tell you what 2029 will be like.

Saying all of that to say that we obviously don’t know much for certain when it comes to time and what happens and will happen as we continue to Life. There is a lot we can expect to happen, but even when that ‘lot’ does happen it rarely ever happens the way we expected. Life is a chess game and we are outclassed for most of it, until the bitter-sweet end. The best we can hope for is to prolong the game for as long as possible, which is never forever though. The mate comes due, sooner for some and later for others.

I have endeavored to be cognisant of how much of a privilege it is to be able to wake up each morning, no matter how benign one may think their individual existence to be. The truth is also that we can at times begin to take it for granted just as most of us did(do) in our earlier years of life. Back when we felt even more invincible whilst being totally clues to the reality of the flimsiness of life.

How at any moment, that light can be snuffed out by something as random and as simple as slipping and falling. We then go on to develop this entitlement and forgetfulness about the reality that we may lose this light just as quick as we gained it. We treat moments as things we can throw away. As though we have unlimited refills of them. As though they grow on trees. Well, that is until the harsh realities of life start knocking.

For some this may start at a young age but for most this does not seem to be the case. For most, the wake up call is often something akin to a train derailing. The head goes first, and all other carriages follow and proceed to pill up in a such a manner that it gets hard to know where to start after all is said and done.

Once we are there, the curse and blessing of knowledge takes full effect, we can’t un-know the true fragility of life once we have come to the true realisation of it. Time (Life) is neither friend nor foe. It is what we are each allocated at birth – we don’t get to decide the rate at which it passes, we get to decide what we make of each allocation.

And as Black-Widow would say to the Hulk, “hey big guy, sun’s getting real low…”

I know this to be the case for me. Well, I’m no mean-green-machine, and ‘know’ is also maybe a bit of a stretch. But, it’s no bigger stretch than the time that is left. Truth for me is, it doesn’t matter how much time one may get, I doubt it could ever feel like it’s more than enough. We are after all, truly pretty greedy at heart. So what is best to do is to be thankful for the little, which may then give a mighty meaning to even the mini-est of living.

So on this borrowed time, please take each “Hello” also as a yet to be heard “Goodbye”

Violinist Neighbourgoods Market | @NobleCoward_ZA

Thoughts On What’s Next …

I have had this obsession/fascination with most (all) things mechanical and or electronic for as long as I’ve been compulsively writing. I recall fusing a handheld electronic game with a portable FM stereo player because it just made sense to do so. I didn’t understand how no one had thought about that by then. Due to just working with mainly duct tape (with super glue here and there) and lack of the proper tools to put all that together it didn’t last long, but it worked long enough for me to pat myself on the back. This was in the early 2000s.

However, just like my writing, I never thought much of it because I figured that it was just something we all learnt to do as we grew up. I went from there to fixing one or two Hi-Fis that I could and all other house electronics that were either malfunctioning so badly that people didn’t mind letting me open them up or weren’t working at all. Nervousness typically kicked in when you had fixed the problem but wanted to make sure that you didn’t break anything as you were putting everything back together, said nervousness had been groomed by past experiences. From there, I went on to make a couple of my own speaker set ups with various enclosures.

Still, as the years went by, this seemed to fizzle out with the increasing complexities of the things I wanted to make & or fix. See the basic tools I had and my knowledge at the time only allowed me to go so far. So, naturally, to avoid the total demise of this mechanical/electronic passion, I moved my focus to bigger and bigger mechanical items, things like; printers, scanners, computers eventually ending up at cars (well, almost all things automotive). The older I got and the more information I got access to, the bigger my world expanded in that regard.

Once again, not taking it seriously I let all that slide and in the high school years I found myself pursuing other passions and putting those early obsessions on hold. I went on to pursue art and design with a desire to do woodwork, sadly that was being phased out as I was about to start grade 10. However, I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to work with some of the woodwork machinery before it got phased out as a subject choice.

All of these thoughts (and more) came flooding back as I thought about committing to studying further next year. The main struggle so far has been deciding which course I want to explore first among the various interests I’m still so keen on exploring. With the two main contenders being Mechanical Engineering and Creative Writing (they do seem to be worlds apart). It’s really a tough one for me though, because one is something I can’t help but do organically (I can’t stop writing, doesn’t really matter what I’m writing). The other one is something I’m still so fascinated by which will allow me to not only create more but also partake in almost all the fascinations and obsessions I have.

I want to do mechanical engineering because it’s a skill, it’s practical, and I feel as though it will allow me to do so much more and bring some many of my ideas to life. On the other hand, writing is the passion I’ve been yearning for while ignoring that I already had it. It’s that one thing that is so innate that I can’t recall a time it didn’t just come as naturally to me as it does now. I know I will do both over time, I just need to decide which hill I’m taking first.

STAY WOKE!

A part of me feels so betrayed while the other is taking it on the chin as I own up for the role my negligence played in what has been unfolding over the past 10 months. A hard hitting life lesson that’s just emphasised my theme for this year, the theme being “Stay Woke, Stay Alert” it’s expensive not to be. Guard yourself, guard your worth and guard your heart. It’s all up to you mta’sekhaya – kubi.

Forget Not Your Self-Worth

This was first posted on my Facebook account on the: 21 September 2016

For most of my formative years, my family (in conjunction with my faith) helped affirm my self-worth. Sounds easy enough in a family setting right?! Not so much, because (from the little that I’m able to recall) I didn’t really make it easy.

Family and Faith, those are just two of the things which sustained me when I was questioning the meaning of my very own existence (because, I tend to thoroughly apply — Question Everything). I hope I get the opportunity to share some of the findings which came (and still do come) from questioning one’s very own existence at a later stage of this lifing thing.

So back to the whole self-worth thing. My faith and family helped shape, not only how I viewed and still view myself, but also what I believed about myself. Which couldn’t have been an easy task because, having alluded to this before, I’m far from being an easy being overall. Anyway, my faith and family have been (are) part of the foundation on which I began building this house — my life / my existence = my overall experience. The foundation has been a solid one, despite some of my numerous self sabotage attempts, both intentionally and unintentionally. I was the one who, at the mercy of life’s happenings, started to not only question the point of my existence but also simultaneously devalue what it is that I bring/brought to anything. I gave in to the things that life threw at me and I let those things replace the two things that are essential to my foundation. I didn’t understand why things were starting to crumble till I was hit with the obvious realisation of what was causing the destruction. This soul, that’s currently stuffed into this (under the right light) handsome meatsuit.

As part of an ongoing Self-worth Reclaim Process (SRP), I decided, earlier this (that) morning, that I was going to wear the first pair of formal shoes ‘I’ ever paid for with earnings from one’s very own (hard) worked for remuneration. I chose these shoes because at the time of their purchase, self-doubt wasn’t really one of my core issues. At the time, my self-worth had its roots deeply planted into all the things that really mattered/matter in life. Said things that are defaults or even mandatory things to being alive.

I was scared at the time, not just of failure, but I was scared of missing any opportunities presented to me. I was more of the ‘Yes man’ that I’ve now come to miss. See, missing opportunities scared me because missing an opportunity meant I was still so scared of failure that I let it decide what I ought to do or not. Previously, it had gotten so bad that I was comfortable with it hindering even the best kind of progress in my life. Missing an opportunity meant I never really succeeded but I also never really failed because I never tried (which I have come to learn that in some instances that’s just another word for failing). I was still enjoying being in the unknown or the limbo of life though. This, for me, meant that I lived by only reacting to what was happening to and or around me. I was never creating and or making things happen. Lord knows he gave me the ability to make things happen.

The main lesson to share from that part of my life is to never allow subtractions to your self-worth, allow no recession to devalue the personal currency that is you — You are worth much more.

However, first and foremost, be worth much more to yourself!

In the words reverberated by the already legendary Kendrick Lamar
“I LOVE MYSELF” 

It All Makes Sense Now (okay maybe not all of it…)

I have written a lot of stuff over the period of my existence (which is now no-longer just a brief existence, years are piling up like crazy). Most of the content hasn’t been making as much sense as it does now. The content and ideas housed within the content is still the same, but the reason behind the content has incurred much more depth. I go back to stuff I wrote ages ago and I get a sense of happiness because the eyes and mind now gazing upon it are ones that understand what they didn’t when I first wrote it all. I thought I was just writing for the sake of writing, turns out I was writing because it’s coded into my very being. I can’t fully (yet) express how the speedily clicking of alphabet keys which go on to form words make my spirit feel. Since finding meaning for it and meaning behind it – writing feels a lot more magical than it did at first.

Experiences and life encounters have given new meaning to old content. It’s like having a retro perspective towards my own relatively old and naïve content.

I won’t dare go as far as declaring having found a meaning to life, but I have discovered that God really did give me a toolbox at birth that was meant to prepare and help get me through life. In it he made sure to include all the things I needed and or would come to need.

Imagine having felt like you’d just shot your last arrow, feeling like your quiver was empty and your enemies knew it too so they began to charge at you. Only to reach in and BAM! It hits you (NO, not a hit from your enemies) and you realise that the quiver you have … *drum roll and cinematic-pan-close-up to your warrior face*… is one with arrows that NEVER run out.