full disclosure

I am becoming more and more acutely aware of something as I go through my daily life, experiencing the world, all its woes, its glories, its failures and its triumphs. And this thing that I am constantly being exposed to, constantly being reminded of, constantly seeing, feeling and experiencing is, in my framework, a bitter pill to not only have to swallow, but almost silently so. Now more than ever.
Now you might be asking what exactly it is that I am becoming aware of and after a whole paragraph of (hopefully) keeping you reading to get to the answer, I will finally and with a peculiar and almost unprecedented sense of pride, say:

I am not an African.

Yes, I can hear you all moaning and groaning, and I can almost hear in some familiar (and often familial) voices, the obvious comments, but the point that I am trying to make is slightly more profound, I can assure you.

I grew up and I have lived in various provinces in South Africa, almost every single province in South Africa, as someone dutifully pointed out to me just the other day. My father was a pastor and therefore we travelled around a lot. Most of these I can’t really remember, and it’s rather sad when you think that so much of your heritage and what has shaped you to be the person you are today, is lost beneath layers and layers of other information in the tiny vessel of memory we refer to as our brain. Remember this statement. It’s important for later.

This upbringing, this journey that has brought me to where I am now has often been a tough one. But in some small, insignificant way I have often comforted myself with the notion that I am a child of Africa. I have experienced the country side, I have experienced the cities. I played cricket on a dirt road outside my house, I have slept under the stars on a farm in the Free State. I went to an Afrikaans, mixed-race school, I went to a private English school. I studied at a liberal arts college and I finished high school at a proudly Afrikaans institution. Somewhere along the line I guess that I have seen myself as a ‘child of the new South Africa’. I was born in 1990, so therefore any memory I have left of my childhood would be post-1994 and, in my mind at least, that signifies my life being a part of our new democracy. Even though it’s not factually true, I have always considered myself to be as old as our democracy is. And that, that is the reason why I think I have such a deep respect and admiration for the people that have fought so hard to make this country the place it is today, with all the opportunities it can offer me.
I might also be stepping on some toes here, but really, what else is a blog for? I also didn’t think that I needed to be black to be an African. And I still don’t.

I am of the firm belief that being an African means being a child of the soil, growing up with the harsh African sun on your back, feeling the effects of drought on farmers, loving the great outdoors, protecting what is yours, fighting for what it is that you believe in. It means being patriotic, not being afraid to say where you were born and, of course, knowing the words (and the meaning) to ‘Nkosi Sikeleli Africa’. These are all things I know, things I have experienced, and journeys I have made. This is my country as much as it is anyone else’s.

And so now I ask you why today I don’t feel like an African.

My citizenship has not been revoked; my name is the same, my race, my skin-colour, all remains as it was and yet; something has changed.
Maybe it’s because I feel that after today; I don’t want to be an African.
And yes, maybe I am more melancholic today, but such is suited to the black garb that I have donned on this ‘Black Tuesday’.

For those of you not aware of the situation in my beloved South Africa, I suggest you Google ‘Black Tuesday’ or ‘SA Secrecy Bill’ to see what I am referring to. This blog is not going to be as informative as the many qualified sites out there will be.
Upon hearing that the bill was passed in the National Assembly today, I felt my heart sink and a stunted scream of pain escaped almost inaudibly from my lips. Not because the bill has yet been put in place, not because it has directly started affecting me. But like a teenager discovering for the first time that their parents aren’t flawless or like a parent discovering for the first time that their baby boy or girl had turned into someone they didn’t know, I felt a sudden mixture of rebellion and confusion. Somehow, and I’m not sure how just yet, but somehow the phrase: ‘’We stopped looking for monsters under our beds when we realized they were inside us.’’, fits in here so perfectly.
This fault, this flaw that I discovered today, this shaft that is hampering our progress as a young democracy, has somehow left me so detached from all that is this country and everything that Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu and Steve Biko fought for to achieve that I started to wonder whether the sacrifices of these individuals were at all necessary. I started to see more and more flaws, my eyes opened up to a whole new world.

As an artist we often deal with politics and one can almost say that all art is political. However, I have always sort of detached myself from that aspect as I felt that one needs to tell one’s own story and there was never an opportunity for me to tell my story; had I told another’s I would have felt like a hypocrite. And as much as I have always tried to stay on top of current affairs and have some idea about what is happening in this country as a whole, I have never really felt the need to get involved in politics. As a white male in SA today, I have never felt I had enough say or much leverage to say it. Somehow I had always managed to stay out of heated political discussions, because in my experience these tended to lead to very little actually being done. When voting day came, I cast my ‘’Democratic Alliance’’ vote proudly, but I never felt an urgency to do more. Until today, that is.

As is often the case with these enlightening moments, I immediately wanted to know more, before I could write this blog, and, although I did find out quite a lot, there is a lot more that I still want to know.
Today I read Lindiwe Mazibuko’s moving speech to parliament in which she proclaimed that the DA will not stop fighting this secrecy bill. The power of her words as she, young, black South African woman, faced an entire parliament of people far beyond her years moved me. She confronted them with words that said: ‘What will you, the Members on that side of the House, tell your grandchildren one day? I know you will tell them that you fought for freedom. But will you also tell them you helped to destroy it?’’. I also read that she had confronted someone about their use of the word ‘darkies’ in parliament and that his rebuttal was to call her a ‘coconut’ (brown on the outside, white on the inside). This exemplary child of Africa, a young black girl with a past that resembles that of most in South Africa, a young black girl with dignity who has carved her own way in the Democratic Alliance in as little as four years. This woman who now, not much older than I am, is standing in front of hundreds of men who have fought for this freedom that she has and is confronting them about the bad decisions they are about to make. This takes strength, character, dignity, respect and a lot of hard work. This, this is what I thought meant being an African.

I read an interesting article today where a reporter who was due to interview Ms Mazibuko, wanted to get a clear sense of what the everyman (or woman, in this case) thought of her. The reporter showed a picture of Lindiwe to her domestic worker whose response was: ‘DA. Bad.’ I heard that Ms Mazibuko can speak 4 official South African languages and has lived in suburban and rural South Africa. And just because she dares to oppose, as the DA’s national spokesperson, a government so inbred with their own propagandas, their own pride and their own misguided sense of power she is labelled as not being a ‘true African’ or being one of the enemy.

Therefore I think it’s important to assess one thing: Who is more African? The corrupt? Those who steal from the people to fund their own pockets? Those who are quick to jump on the ‘race-train’ whenever they are being held accountable? Those who keep their affairs a secret, because they know that it is not within the best interests of those they govern? Or is it those who stand up for what they believe in? Those who are prepared to fight an uphill-battle? Those who stand in the face of adversity and keep their head held high, because even if they don’t know where they are going, at least they know where they have been?
I would argue the latter.

Our generation, my generation, we’re always saying how we haven’t had anything worth fighting for. Well, this is basically being handed to us on a silver platter. The time of posting protesting status updates and protesting tweets is over. I think it’s safe to say that the government couldn’t care less about your 140 characters. There is no point in wearing black clothing anymore unless you’re wearing it whilst toyi-toying. Silent protest is a thing of the past. I think it’s time that the youth of this country rally up with the same amount of force that they did in 1965. The time has come that we start marching through the streets again, holding our heads high. The time has come for us to go out there and do something. And say something!

I was scrolling through my friends’ status updates on Facebook today and the general consensus is that my generation - of all races, colours and creeds – is ready to start fighting for this country. And so am I.
Speak up, speak out, and march, march till your feet bleed, march till you faint under this glorious African sun. Because that’s how you change a country, that’s how you get a government to listen. ‘’Nothing will change if you change nothing’’.

That is what I call being an African. It has nothing to do with skin. It has nothing to do with who was here first, which language you speak or which tribe you belong to. It has to do with an inherent urge to fight for what it is you love.

I feel, at this point, that it’s an appropriate time for me to directly address the ANC:

I am not an African, purely because you all call yourselves Africans. And if you are the barometer to which I should measure my African heritage, I want nothing of it.
I want to be a South African. I want to be a South African like Nelson Mandela, like Lindiwe Mazibuko, like Helen Zille, Ingrid Jonker and Ferial Haffajee. I want you to remember my name. I want you to see my face and be haunted by it. Because in the very near future it will come parading down the streets, joined by thousands of young South Africans refusing to sit back and watch you destroy what our forefathers fought so hard to build. Because I have feet and I will march them. I will march them till I feel that my legacy has been left and felt. I will not tell my grandchildren one day that I stood by and watched our beautiful young democracy being destroyed by an authoritarian government who themselves have turned into the very monster they fought so hard to conquer many years before.*
I am 21 years old, a child of South Africa, and I am not afraid to fight for what I believe in. And that makes me more of a South African than any of you.

I have now fully disclosed.

ANC, your move.



*October 19, 1977. South Africa’s Apartheid Government bans several newspapers for publishing news articles about the beating and murder of Steve Biko at the hands of police. The ANC protested this violently.
November 22, 2011. The ANC passes the Protection of Information Bill allowing the incarceration and banning of any entity that publicizes any information about the corrupt nature or actions of members of government.
The nation must know.

love?

Just wanted to share.
I thought it was beautiful.

Wise words from 'Dr Meredith Grey' in Grey's Anatomy.

<3

thought of you

This song is so beautiful, and I never thought that animation could drive me close to tears, but Ryan Woodward is obviously a genius.



To download the song, go here. It's called "World Spins Madly on" and it is by 'The Weepies'. (appropriate name, considering this song, methinks.)

I, being a drama major, love the symbolism used in this piece. The dancing is also exquisite, but mostly I love the attention to detail the artist has used to illustrate the muscular movements of the dancers.

Let me know what you think...

<3

polishing stars

In the profession I am in, I often get to shine. On stage, in the rehearsal room, in the music studio etc, and often one can forget that just because you are a bright star in the night sky, that you are not the only bright star. And often, in this profession, you find people who love to ramble on about all the things they are so great at, myself included occasionally (although I am trying to work on it). These people make it their mission to polish off their stars in front of the rest of the galaxy, so that it is their SHINE that illuminates the night sky.
There is, a very old myth about one of the biggest stars in the world, the Sun. Legend has it that the Sun was so full of himself and wanted so badly to shine brighter than any of the other stars that he eventually became the hot, molten ball of gas we know today. And even though the Sun has many great advantages to many life-forms, to this day, the Sun is the loneliest star in the whole heavenly realm. It shone so brightly that no other star could come near it ever again.
Now, as cool as it would be to be the Sun, metaphorically speaking, there is one specific star I would never want to have too far away.
It's my great privilege to introduce to you my dearest friend, Chloë Kiley. This girl is honestly one of the most talented people I have ever met and also my best friend in the whole world.
So, if there's one thing I can always say about myself, perhaps one good thing in a sea of flaws, is that when I love, I do love passionately. And when I am loyal, I am fiercely loyal. I once stopped going to lectures, because the lecturer had acted unjustly to a dear friend of mine. So yes, in that aspect, I am not too bad.
I decided to brag a little about my friend tonight, to polish off her star for her a bit, since I'm not sure she does it often enough. So this clip posted here in this blog is of my friend Chloë Kiley singing "The Wizard and I" from the musical 'Wicked'.

Please listen, share, comment and just enjoy.

Chlo, if you ever read this: I love you my "person".

The Wizard and I - Wicked by chloe.mairead

To hear more of Chloë's phenomenal voice, go to http://www.soundcloud.com/chloemairead

<3

the inexpressible

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."
Aldous Huxley

With each new post, this blog is becoming more about sharing and less introspective. I am not quite sure whether I like it. But, I suppose change is as good as a holiday.
Here are links to some songs that are on my playlist right now:

I will always love Ingrid Michaelson. Her music moves me.
This is "Keep Breathing".



And here is another: "Turn to Stone" also by her.



I also love Regina Spektor and this song "Eet" is weird and wonderful.



Lastly, as far as Regina Spektor goes: "Samson" is also beautiful.



Being a huge Grey's Anatomy Fan, I love http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Ram%C3%ADrez and her version of this song, "The Story" is one of my all-time favourites.



Enjoy... <3

"It was my 16th birthday - my mom and dad gave me my Goya classical guitar that day. I sat down, wrote this song, and I just knew that that was the only thing I could ever really do - write songs and sing them to people."
Stevie Nicks

let it be...

One of the most powerful scenes I have seen in a long time.
This remains one of my favourite songs of all time. It has such a transcendent quality that is even more so illuminated in this video with the use of the gospel choir.

I love the words: Let it Be.



It's so important to remember, isn't it ? We can so easily forget that: things go on.

And it's so interesting that in our times of trouble, we are not told to fight it, let it consume us, let ourselves become controlled by it, try to control it ourselves.
We are told to let it be.

I have decided that, if anything, I am going to let God work in and through my life as He sees fit.
And yes, perhaps I have let myself taken control of the steering wheel for a while, and perhaps I have lost sight of where I need to go, and somewhere along the line I have forgotten who is in charge of my life.
Stupidly, I thought it was me.

But, the events of the last couple of days have taught me this: Just let him take over. He's been doing it for thousands of years. He's got a lot more experience than you do.
And no, I still won't call myself religious, I won't even call myself 'spiritual'. I want to go as far as to say: I have such a special relationship with Him that it can't be put into a box. It can't be defined because attempting to define it will diminish it's prominence.

I had a conversation with a dear friend of mine, the other day in which she asked me whether I believe in God. I hesitated to answer, not because I was ashamed of what I believe in, but because so many things were running through my head.
She then said: "Well I don't believe in God. But, if you can prove to me that He exists, I will believe you - I am agnostic."
To which I replied, "I most definitely believe there is a God, but I think everyone on Earth is in for a big surprise one day. Because He is so different from everything you have read, everything you have heard and everything you've seen. I think a lot of people have tried to put God into a box and therefore His magnificence has been diluted and diminished. I don't know about you, but I can't wait to be surprised."

But in the meantime, maybe we should let it be, let it go, let the river run, let the wind blow, let the loose, let it wander.

<3

the shark and the boy

I am tired.
And I know I have said this before, but it applies again, and therefore I am most definitely going to say it again.

These past couple of days have been spent on improving my blog, it's user-friendliness and it's appearance. I have added some functions as some of you will have probably noticed. Not that I am at all convinced that many people read this. But after posting this, I have decided that this is going to be like my private online diary in which I can say absolutely anything. And if anyone should stumble upon it by accident, then that would be a bonus.
But I am going to tirelessly write what I think, what I feel, what I experience and how these experiences have touched me.

As I am typing this I am so very tired that the very action of my writing this blog is mainly to stay awake.
It's so interesting to me sometimes, when I think back on all the times when, as a child, I used to imagine how marvelous it would be to have a fast-paced busy life, chasing dreams, reaching goals, climbing to the top, no matter what. And while I still want these things, and while I still have enough ambition in me to want to climb that ladder, I have now started to realize that, occasionally, it is important to take one step back instead of rushing forward.
Then I read a quote on Pinterest, that basically read: Don't be so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.
That kind of stuck with me. I started thinking exactly how much of my day is 'living' and how much of my day attempts to 'make a living'. The ratios were extremely disproportionate. I got tired just thinking of the amount of time I spend working.
And just when the home stretch seemed too far, just when I thought I couldn't possibly get through another week without collapsing, I did.

André P Brink once wrote in his novel 'A Dry White Season': "We have yet to understand the subtleties of God's infinite grace." After I realized what this week is bringing, I was reminded of this powerful quote. Every time something happens to me that is in no way significant in the grand scheme of my life, I am reminded that it is often in the subtleties that the true grace lies. The phone call from a dear friend after a particularly lonely day, a cup of coffee with someone who doesn't need to ask to know how you are feeling, all-green traffic lights on the way home from work, promotional prices on essentials, especially when you are broke.
These subtleties, these little moments of grace in our day-to-day struggles, are often overlooked, but are important, to keep the pillars of our lives from crashing like the proverbial Samson's temple.
I started thinking after a while, exactly how many of us have a 'step-back' plan, as mentioned two paragraphs up. I compiled a mental list of all the business people I met, all the really successful ones, and I started to imagine what they consider to be their daily dose 'living'. It didn't take me very long to realize that a smart businessman is one who knows when to rest as well. Even God rested after six days of work. I started thinking of all the CEO's I know, the business owners, successful artists, performers and I realized that the most accomplished of these people were those who found time for 'making a life' as well as 'making a living'.

I am too busy making a living.
Merely, because I have neither the means nor the motive to take some time for myself. Always rushing to and fro, always somewhere else to go.
And occasionally, when I am bored, when I have exhausted all opportunities that the television can bring, I will surf the internet and read up on some interesting stories filled with bizarre people doing incredible things. I suppose, in a way, the internet has become the adventure book to my young boy.
That was when I stumbled across this story. Enal, a six-year old Indonesian boy, is swimming with his pet shark, and not because he has to, but because he wants to. I am going to quote from Cracked.com, who also ran a story on this boy:

"This is Enal. He swims with sharks. If you need more information than that, perhaps you should take a step back from the computer and contemplate how spoiled modern-day media has made you - that a boy gleefully riding a shark like a little Thai Aquaman is somehow not "enough" for you. But okay, fine, details: This image was not taken out of context, and it was not a once in a lifetime thing. Enal begins every single day by slapping on a pair of goggles, slipping into the penned area beneath the Indonesian fishing community he's a part of, grabbing the nearest shark by the tail, and then steering it around like a murderous jet-ski. There is no further purpose for this action - it's not training for anything, it's not a show for tourists - the only benefits that daily shark-wrangling provides Enal are a quick and energizing way to wake up, and presumably an unflappable sense of invulnerability that borders on madness."

"No further purpose for this action."
Wow.
How many of us can say that we do things like this all the time? How many of us can say that somewhere at some stage in the day we take 5 minutes to 'swim with sharks'? How many of us can say we take 10 minutes a month, to wake-up and 'swim with sharks', even though it has no purpose?
I know I can't.
Well, I couldn't.
Until this happened:
This week marks the beginning of another exciting journey for me in the form of a drama trip that we will be taking to a little town, named Nieu-Bethesda in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. I had completely forgotten about this trip in between my never-ending lifestyle. And boy, was I relieved when I remembered.
This will be my second visit there and for those who have never experienced the Karoo, Nieu-Bethesda is the place to do it. It's peace and tranquility is really only outweighed by the hospitality of its handful of inhabitants. No ATM's, no cellphone coverage, no credit card machines, very few cars. This is cultural, rural Karoo at its very best. Below are some pictures to generate some curiosity. These are pictures I took last year when we took the same drama trip.

Above: The Ganora Farm we stayed on for the duration of the trip.

Above: One of the many beautiful buildings to see in the picturesque town of Nieu-Bethesda

Above: The majestic rocks that form a part of this natural wonderland
All of the above pictures were taken with my very ordinary FujiFilm camera, so yes, the colours really are that vibrant.

My official 'step-back' is going to be this trip to the Karoo. Every morning I will climb rocks, lie in hammocks, eat too much, drink too much, sleep too much without any 'further purposes for these actions'. Because sometimes taking one step back is more important than rushing 2 steps forward. And yes, financially it is a burden for me since I will need to pay for the trip and miss out on valuable work-time, but you know what? Screw it.
This week I'm swimming with friggin' sharks .
Well, metaphorically, at least.

How do you plan on taking a step back this week ? Start by doing one thing.
And perhaps we can remember how it feels like to be Enal. To feel so much joy and happiness at doing something we love doing, that we can't help but show it on our faces.
Perhaps then, we will discover, not only the youthful exuberance that 'doing nothing' brings, but also the resulting endless energy to 'do something'.