Morning Girls and Boys, trust the light that shines within is shining bright, bringing forth a feeling of contentment or the desire to strive to make tomorrow a better day.

I guess today is another day just like yesterday, with its challenges and rewards! A pinch of salt a coke and a smile, that’s what the doc ordered, cos hey, no matter what life dishes out, its how u take it in your mind that determines how it actually is, u no the saying if you mind then it doesn’t matter!

Enuff of the attempt at philosophy… or maybe not….

Sometimes I sit down and think…The world’s a pretty f ucked up place, life is pretty harsh too. It’s just so sad that the least fortunate in terms of material wealth are always the ones that seem to have the rug pulled out from under them time and time again, and they are the ones that just get the big fat boiled egg!!

There are the domestic workers and farm labourers who at the sound of a sparrow’s f art have to be up and about, sort out their home crud, whatever food for the family for the day, trek plenty km’s to get to public transport, sit in some dilapidated old jalopy with a maniac driver, (who also needs to drive like he does because if he doesn’t drop off his load and fetch another, he cant feed his family), your life is at risk every meter of the way because the taxi driver does not have the cash to fix his brakes and as a result uses cardboard etc. You get to work, and you as one person has to sort out a mess of a house, have to eat out of your special metal cup and plate (you are good enough to cook the meals, clean the house clean, the god damn crockery, but woe betide if you eat from them….all this for a mere what? R80/day if you are lucky, then you have to get to stepping once again, catch public transport, mission again home, clean up your home, sort out food for the family then back to sleep. Enter tomorrow…oh damn, its piss ing down with rain…oh well sorry for u, no such thing as sick leave so u best gets ur a ss to work.

Same thing for migrant labourers on the mines etc. Every day underground could be your last, every day is spent mining rocks and gold worth huge cash, have any of you ever been in a mine shaft? I have, and its K AK down there corridors are narrow, roofs are so low, air is thin, rocks look heavy…the work is hectically dangerous, inspite of all the precautions taken, any given day could be your last, is there any compensation in terms of danger pay…danger what??!! Bra if u get a 5 % increase they are doing you a favour, but then we have the fat cats in the boardrooms, one persons increase alone could cover the salaries of many if not all the mineworkers yearly wages and then some…

Enter Hurricane this that and the next, where does it hit, Cuba, Haiti, Carribean Islands, yes and Miami, but those peeps living in Miami have some sort of insurance to cover their speed boat or holiday house etc. or at least have alternative places to go to, so they can evacuate. Not the not so well to do, they barely have much, already living in squalor (clearly my interpretation, because to them this is most probably the best place on earth) the hand of God, deals them another blow and washes all their worldly possessions down the river literally! All they have now is that UN Truck that hopefully comes with supplies that may last you a day 2 days a week…if you are not robbed of it. It’s a mess there and the media footage is so sad!!

Then I see a story on Carte Blanche on Sunday, they showed footage of the massacre in Rwanda, Congo, the refugee camps etc. And it’s only the ones who have very little that have to flee for their lives, the ones who have very little in terms of worldly possessions that have to dodge the bullets, live in the cra py refugee camps, the ones that have very little in terms of worldly possessions those that are at the mercy of the Gods and governments when it comes to disease, infections etc.

But the funny thing though is that in these not so well to do communities, you generally find the spirit of community and humanity, they always have much time to help you if you require assistance, there are of course the odd bad apples, but in these communities people are generally happy and friendly, they are generally not in the news for suicide or drug abuse (maybe alcohol abuse to some extent). Their problems are more real, like where is my family’s next meal coming from? and ours when am I ever getting that damn 6-series convertible….

Birthdays

21st Moo
23rd Si Black
24th Vaughan
26th Tommie
28th John K
29th Eve

Quotes
Though I am grateful for the blessings of wealth, it hasn't changed who I am. My feet are still on the ground. I'm just wearing better shoes. – Oprah Winfrey

I care for riches, to make giftsTo friends, or lead a sick man back to healthWith ease and plenty. Else small aid is wealthFor daily gladness; once a man be doneWith hunger, rich and poor are all as one. - Euipides

The company of just and righteous men is better than wealth and a rich estate. - Euripides

Another edition over and out, for comments http://mondaymail.blogspot.com/

Nuff respect

Y

Just as I was getting back on form, I lose my way. Apologies for last week, but for my sins I was sent to Cape Town for a week to work, sigh, it’s a tough life but it has to be lived by someone I guess. Actually I joke, it wasn’t all fun and games this week, I was supposed to be off on Friday but sorry for me, I had to work. Anyway, hey the company footed the bill for an extra day, so as the saying goes….every cloud…..

New addition to the list…bro Kwaku, welcome to the electronic age…finally!! This week’s topic basically just asked to be written, freaky shaite I tell you. Has it ever happened that you are thinking of or about to call someone and ring ring, they either call or show up at ur doorstep? Have u been pondering something for a long while and you switch on the telly and they have the solution for you, or you open a book and there is the answer? U have been thinking blue or red and you venture outside and the first car you see is blue, every person is wearing blue etc? If you are like me you’d smile, think freaky shaite and write it off to coincidence…or is it really. For some reason I had this conversation at 2 different times with 2 pretty close mates whilst shooting the breeze this weekend. And I feces you not, Dave and I were driving to an area called Blouberg, which is currently experiencing horrific traffic congestions to and from Cape Town, so we were discussing the merits of having a ferry that would cut across from Blouberg to Cape Town to alleviate the traffic pressures and come the Sunday times front page….Ferry set for Cape Town (or something like that), it was an article about a hovercraft ferry which is in the pipelines to run from Blouberg area to the waterfront daily… another similar incident happened on Friday, for some reason we were talking about my crazy “Coolio” hairstyle I used to sport in my youth and I whipped out my drivers licence to show someone, and within an hour later we saw a guy with the exact hairstyle, and in all honesty I don’t think I have ever seen anyone with that hairstyle at least not in the last 4/5 years! And that wasn’t all, I was in town having breakfast with Campbell and I saw a whole bunch of arty type students walking around and I was wondering if I would see my friend Lauren who is in advertising school somewhere, and as we were walking back to the car guess whose car comes hurtling around the corner? That was a ripper!!

Well there is a term for this for of ‘coincidence’ and its termed synchronized swimming…eish sorry, I think the real name is synchronicity. It is a term coined by a Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, who was at one stage a colleague of Sigmund Freud, but broke away from Freudian psychoanalysis over the issue of the unconscious mind. Jung was a believer in astrology, spiritualism, telepathy, telekinesis, clairvoyance and ESP, and I think his beliefs may have clashed with those of Freud’s.

Synchronicities are people, places or events that your soul attracts into your life for one reason or another. This means that there are really no accidents, which would make sense, if you are of the belief that everything happens for a reason. Most of these reasons that your soul attracts beings or objects into your life is to offer you an opportunity to learn lessons which I guess are mostly about spiritual growth and your purpose on this earth. I say spiritual growth and not mental or any other growth, because a lot of these incidents just don’t make logical sense, but over time and through taking a step back you tend to see the lesson or find meaning in the incident…or not J

“synchronicity can be defined as a non-causal but meaningful relationship between events or states of mind within the human psyche and events in the outside world. More simply, we could call it the experiences of “meaningful coincidence”. We have all had experiences that we intuitively recognize as meaningful, though we could be hard pressed to explain them in rational terms. In fact, these “meaningful coincidences” are not coincidences at all but spontaneous realizations of the underlying interconnectedness of all things within the universe.” Laurence Boldt – Tao of abundance

Our lives are filled with coincidences, but it is up to you and your soul to give meaning to these coincidences. At work, at home, at school, at gym, in the bar, the world is offering you and your soul many lessons, but it’s up to us to open our minds and our souls to receive these lessons. De Ja Vu, dreams etc. are all forms of our subconscious mind interacting with our conscious mind.

Next time you bump into someone you haven’t seen in a while or have an experience that fills you with some sort of awe, take time to speak to the person or embrace the experience, you never know what you may learn.

Birthdays
13th Maud
14th Kyle and Will Mapham
15th Kuhle
18th Chetan and Thuli
21st Shareen

Quotes
I like coincidences. They make me wonder about destiny, and whether free will is an illusion or just a matter of perspective. They let me speculate on the idea of some master plan that, from time to time, we're allowed to see out of the corner of our eye. - Chuck

Coincidences are spiritual puns. – GK Chesterton

That’s it for this week, nuff respect

Y

“Why does Monday, come before Tuesday, Why do summers start in June Why do winters come too soon….
Why does Wednesday come after Tuesday, Why do flowers come in May Why springtime go away…
Tell me why, Tell me why…” 3T

Happy spring day to the masses out there, and to those in the Northern Hemisphere, sorry for u!! cos right here its gonna be a bright, btright, bright sunshiny day. 3 additions to the mailing list, Mandea, Priscilla and Lil bro Poks, if at anytime you feel this mail to be getting too much for you, please holler at me and I’ll take you off, Mandea, you are well aware of this function having previously exercised it J

I would sincerely like to thank all of you who responded to the last mail I sent, yes fair enuff it wasn’t deep etc. etc. but hey Rome wasn’t built in one day!

I find myself thinking a lot nowadays about very arbitrary things but things that form a significant part of our everyday living, hence why I started the mail with the extract from 3T’s song why… Some of theses questions definitely have answers, answers that I don’t have, but answers that I hope to have…for example:
This language that we write who came up with it and decided on the words like why is the background of this word document called white? How did it all begin was s/he just chillin one day and decided I’m bored let me come up with a new language.
How come there are so many different languages?
Why are there so many different religions?
Why are there so many different races mixed race people we can work out how they came about but the rest are soo far apart?
Why cant I understand what birds say, sing, chirp? Do birds understand each other? Same goes for all other animals…
Why do we have countries and different nationalities, why cant I just up and go wherever I feel like going on this earth if I can find the means to? Yeah yeah, capitalism, and the developed impracticality of having one big nation of the world, but why do we have to segregate people? How much strife would be alleviated then, or would there be?
Why does it look like the sky is blue (browny grey in Jo’burg) but in reality space is black I think (never been out to space) some argue that it’s because of the suns rays and the reflection/refraction of the colours of the spectrum, but the sun is still shines when you leave the earth’s atmosphere, but could it be that its power is just not as great?
Why does the sea look blue, when infact if u grab a test tube full of the water its relatively clear, is it a reflection of the sky? Or is the sky a reflection of the sea? Or neither…
Watching people dancing, is such a funny thing, sit back and watch people shaking what their mommas gave em in tune with a beat (well some), but this is fun…

It’s a fascinating thing this life thing and all its elements.

Speaking of life, I went to a little gathering yesterday. At this gathering, the co ordinator raises a random topic 4 guys who have never met before have to give their views on it. One of the topics raised is when are u alive, when do you start living. Some said when you become conscious and responsible for your actions. My thoughts on this matter is life begins from say when u r 3 or 4 yrs old, u know when you are conscious of your actions, when you are told not to do something and you do it anyway to get a reaction. Your actions, inactions and the reactions of your caretakers, assist in moulding you into the person you are now and the person you are to become in the future. Clapping your friends that come and visit you cos you are bored and in turn catching a fat one from the folks…that’s living.Climbing the louvers to get that puzzle that your mother said you shouldn’t touch, breaking all the louvers, hurting yourself and getting bliksemed thereafter, that’s living. Riding a skateboard down sissons street and catching a speed wobble and a huge wipe out and then trying to act all tough and hide your grazes and scars from your folks, cos they said don’t ride down that busy road, that’s living. Having mates that you go visit speak the utmost load of shaite about everything…that’s living. Having this one guy or girl on ur mind every day at school but not doing anything about it cos u think u know his/her opinion is of you, even though that doesn’t seem like its living, it is living. Getting full or half colours at school, getting to university or wherever else you get to and meeting new people, having fun, having conflicts, etc…yip that’s right that’s living. Getting a job, loving it then hating it, that’s living. Having a boy/girlfriend, loving him or her then drifting apart, that’s living. Buying a car styling initially, then it gets smashed, stolen, or just konks out…all living. Finding God as your parents or peers have directed you, or finding your own personal God as you have found them, finding something to believe in…that’s all living.

Ya I know its about enough now, but all I am trying to highlight here is there will be hard times there will be schweet times when everything just seems to be going your way. Enjoy all those moments, both good and bad, particularly the bad because through enjoying the bad times you realize how fortunate you are to ever experience the good times and that will also assist in appreciating the good times even more. Every experience in this life in my belief is all a step in the realization of self and as daft and as durr as the saying may be…’what doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger!’

A few quotes…

"To live is to suffer, but to survive, well, that's to find meaning in the suffering" –DMX

"We each walk the path/that we've chosen" –DMX

"I believe that everything that you do bad comes back to you. So everything that I do that's bad, I'm going to suffer from it. But in my mind, I believe what I'm doing is right. So I feel like I'm going to heaven" -2PAC

"All I want from you is what you are" - Paula Abdul
“First I'm gonna crawl, then I'm gonna walk Then I'm gonna stand, then I'm gonna talk But I gotta learn in order to teach Then I gotta burn in order to reach
…You gots to live life to the fullest …Everyday we live and learn, take it step-by-step
We create our own path until there's no life left” Extracts from DMX’s song

Birthdays
30th Aug Benjamin
Sometime in August Baba
2nd Sept Gavin
3rd Sept John C
4th Sept Alani
5th Sept Smangi
6th Sept Thalitha
10th Sept Leon
13th Sept Maud
14th Sept Kyle/ Will
15th Sept Kuhle

Note the extended list, just incase I don’t make next weeks mail, to the above mentioned and anyone else who I may not have mentioned, happy birthday to u all, hope u have blessed days and may your years ahead be all that you make it!!

Big love to Pete and Carla, who have decided to take their relationship to another level, very happy for you guys, after spending some time with you at the digs last year and in the states this year, you guys are definitely there, may it be a thrilling and fulfilling journey!!

Anyway I am out for now, comments so more than welcome, either to me to be forwarded to all or http://mondaymail.blogspot.com

Much peace, love and happiness to u all