“It’s not who you are underneath but what you do that defines you” Rachel from Batman Begins…

New addition to the list Doug, welcome to my views on the world, it initially was meant to be a forum where an idea or an event is put forward and any comments are made as and when you feel it necessary, the latter part of the sequence of events does not seem to be happening too much, but should you feel the need to respond to anything written here, please go to www.mondaymail.blogspot.com (definitely a generation X kid) or alternatively drop me an email. If at anytime you find this to be a waste of valuable inbox space (and I know how tight Standard Bank is on inbox space) please let me know and I will remove you or you could give me ideas on how to improve it.

Good morning all, I am very pleased that my misfortunes that I wrote about last week brought you great pleasure, for some reason I didn’t get any commentary on the main part of my email…

Hows this? Last week I am parking off about to catch a fat zzzz but in the process I am channel surfing to find the ideal channel to doze off to, Channel 72 wasn’t an option cos they were showing those damn Hom(i)es, anyway I managed to end up on Oprah and the first thing I heard was “He just not that into you”, hmmm interesting, lets listen… There is this guy, married (unhappily I assume) he has written a book about the tell tale signs that a guy is playing a woman. WHAT A FOOL!! Can he just not stay married, live in his lovely house with the picket fence in the burbs, drive his beige Volvo station wagon, and leave well alone. The id iot is just forking up the game of the players!! Women aren’t stupid, he says nothing new, we all know the signs, but when a guy says it and puts it in black and white, well all hopes are dispelled. That bootie call that hoped one day she would be the one….she gone, that lass you kept on the hook cos you just weren’t there yet, poof…gone!! I dunno!

Anyway the idea for this weekends email comes thanks to a good man (ladies…a great man ;-)) who goes by the name of Sean Rule. Sinn Fein, IRA, Northern Ireland, fighting deaths, Catholics v Protestants? What’s it all about? It took up most of the news time when I was growing up (along with the Middle east conflict). Well I did a bit of digging and here is what I came up with…

This fighting in Northern Ireland is not something that just sprung up. It’s a conflict that seems to have lasted for hundreds of years. From the literature I have read the fighting dates back to sometime in 1200’s. This fighting intensified in the 14th/15th century when the English created “The Pale” a big circle around Dublin which the English controlled, what this meant is that parts of Ireland were controlled by the English. Clearly this wasn’t kosher, I mean imagine u r living in your house and someone decides to come pitch a tent in your back yard…I don’t think you would be going out to his/her tent and offering them some soup and bread?! Anyway to complicate matters even more, during this time the Irish had more than one ‘king’ who controlled different areas of Ireland. To some extent, they worked together to fight against English rule, they even had the Spanish Armada coming to Ireland to lend a hand but the might of the English was just insurmountable and this resulted in the ‘Kings’ fleeing Ireland to mainland Europe.

King James was in control of Ireland at that time..1600. The English lords were on a mission to take over all the church lands in England, but the Catholics opposed this, King James was a Catholic and he opposed this too, clearly his tenor as king didn’t last too long and he was deposed and replaced by William of Orange a protestant from the Netherlands. As you can imagine, the Irish people were firmly behind their deposed king and the fighting continued…possibly the beginning of the classification of the conflict as a religious one. James and William met at the battle of the Boyne in 1690. William was victorious. Following this was the Battle of Limerick in which William was once again victorious. Ireland was under his rule. The protestant (English) power remained, Irish (catholic) oppression remained, worsened even…

After William came Oliver Cromwell, known by many as a monster because he would torture anyone who disagreed with him. From 1690 to 1790 nothing too exciting happened in the land in terms of conflict and uprising. In 1790 there were a number of uprisings that were intended to liberate Ireland from English rule…unlucky. England remained. During this time, the protestants in the North East part of Ireland flourished as a result of the industrial revolution, but the more conservative catholics in the south were ‘left behind’ farming and carrying on as normal. As a result of this, those in the North enjoyed their flourishing way of life and thus opposed Irish rule. In 1916, the Easter Sunday Uprising, a couple of irish patriots took over the General Post Office in Dublin and declared Ireland an independent country, for their efforts they were tried and hanged. Also in 1916, the IRA was formed, an army formed to fight against English rule. Between 1918 and 1921, England sent the Black and Tans to Ireland to suppress the IRA.

All these protests and uprising resulted in the formation of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in 1921. Ireland is made up of 4 counties, Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connaught (with Ulster being the northern most part). Northern Ireland was made up of 6 counties in Ulster, the other 3 namely Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal as well as Munster, Leinster and Connaugth made up the Republic of Ireland. Happy days and sad days blended in one. For many years many people fought…many lost their lives…for this beast called independence from England and that day had come, yet it was a bittersweet victory because, the land was still divided and not all of the land was liberated. This would pose a problem in time to come.

The Irish people in the area felt marginalized by the Englis in Northern Ireland, they felt their human rights were being infringed upon and inline with the civil rights movement in America. The movement spanned a period between 1963 and 1969, but on the 5th October 1968 the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (formed in 1967) staged its second march in Londonderry, a march which was banned by the minister of home affairs because it was deemed to be a political front of the IRA. It carried on. They marchers met the might of the law, protesters were beaten, police brutality was caught on camera and aired to the world. The police’s credibility faded. In the summer of 69, the unrest had deepened, riots erupted in Belfast, 5 catholics were killed and 1 protestant, troops were deployed but too few to do anything, that night many catholic homes were burnt in Bombay street.

Many more skirmishes occurred in the period following this, but I will draw your attention to Sunday, 30th Jan 1972, known by many as bloody Sunday. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association had organized an illegal march to oppose internment (detention) without trial. The IRA gave assurance that it would be a peaceful event. 10000 people descended on Creggan Estate to proceed to Guildhall Square in the centre of the city…the authorities thought No. They barricaded the entrance to the square, orders were to arrest as many of the rioters as possible, permission was requested at 4:07pm at 4:10pm the army opened fire on unarmed civilians, 30 minutes later 14 dead 13 injured. Ofcourse the authorities maintained they had been fired upon first. This event was also dubbed another Sharpville. An inquiry into the event was ordered by Tony Blair in 1998 exactly 26 years to the day, on the grounds of compelling new evidence. Bloody Sunday provided a catalyst for the recruitment of IRA supporters and the bombings ensued. In May 1972, the unionist parliament that governed Northern Ireland sat for the last time direct rule from Westminster was instituted, the English weren’t going nowhere, Catholics were more bleak. More unrest and violence until 1999 when the Northern Ireland Executive set up by the Belfast agreement took over the government. Direct rule was once again imposed between Feb and My 2000 cos of the difficulties over decommissioning… I guess that’s where it leaves us now. There seems to be some degree of peace in the area, either that or the media people have gotten bored of covering the conflict. Lets hope it stays like this.

If you didn’t know well now u know.

Birthdays this week

25th Elmar and Poms
26th Gina
27th Mike Rea and Courtney
28th Folks 32nd anniversary, Jele, Reidar,
29th Sheya,
30th Eddie T. O. Maravanyika and Will Lee

“it’s the province of kn owledge to speak, it’s the privilege of wisdom to listen” Christine Lane

Maximum respect and a good weekend

Midway through July, been working at the bank for 8 months, feels just like yesterday, its absolutely insane how this year is flying by. Quite rude of me not to welcome a few people who have been added to the list, Dave, Chris, Craig, Graeme, Sanet and Ann. Guys welcome to our weekly mailing community, if at any time you don’t feel as if you are getting any value from this email, please drop me a line and I will remove you from the list, if at any time you have any comments or wish to read some of the older emails (dating to 2002 I think, cos that’s when my mate Charl told me I could get a website) please go to www.mondaymail.blogspot.com

Another week, but what a week I must add, I think I have had 2 of my most embarrassing moments of my whole entire existence this week. Cos you guys are my tjommies (mates) I will share these moments with you, it also protects me from being blackmail, cos all my dirty laundry is out there ;-)

So on Friday nite (the Friday before last) I am in Joburg, its late in the evening/early Saturday morning, I haven’t been to my folks house as yet so I need to wait for my youngest brother to finish what he’s doing before I can head home otherwise I will have to wake the old folks. Anyway so I have a fat chat with my lady friend and she reckons no I must come and visit her, I say to her sister are you crazy, you stay at home, with your folks, your old man has a gun, I haven’t met them properly yet and I must pull in, NEVA! Well I get convinced, pops in hospital getting ready for a shoulder operation, mom is fast asleep with grand ma on the other side of the house, its like 1 am and there is no way in hell that ma will come to my room she has never ever done so. So I am convinced, and after all I have to lurk till 2am anyway till my bro gets home. So I pull in, we are lurking, mind you its been a long day we missioned to the Mount Grace for a strategy session, and I had had a few pots at Newscafe and Sudada, so I was poked. I duly fell asleep, but my peaceful rest was rudely interrupted by the sound of an alarm being deactivated, I wake up Thash, I ask her whats that? She says, you are going crazy I cant hear a thing, I hear footsteps at this time I am just praying that its her brother…unlucky…her door is flung open and this is followed by a shrill screech for a good couple of seconds, mother standing in the doorway in shock, did I feel like a loser…schoolboy stuff I tell u! now all I want to do is high tail out of there, cos the mother is fuming but Thash forgets about me in terms of opening the gate so I’m parking off in my car in the driveway and I cant go inside to say howz about opening the gate? As embarrassing as it was, we got plenty laughs out of it…That’s the kind of things memories are made of…

The second most embarrassing thing happened yesterday. A few months ago I had a dental procedure done. This required the dentist to extract one of my front teeth due to trauma which resulted in the bone being degenerate, during this procedure he found a cyst in my gum which made matters interesting…2 operations interesting. The dentist needed the wound to set before he could insert the implant, so he had just fastened my tooth there with some sort of cement. Well earlier in the day I noticed that my tooth is moving around so I called for the dentist and I get told sorree for me the dentist is out of town for 3 weeks, I couldn’t mission too far cos our big boss Ben Kruger is in town and we are having a workshop and not everyone gets an opportunity to attend and if you do you don’t want to miss it, and to top it all off it was a bi tch and moan session, my favourite. So I think to myself, ag this thing will hold at least till tomorrow. We get into the workshop, I pour a drink,I take a sip, and ooohh noooo, its out, I raced out of that place like a shot, sellotape, prestick anything no joy, so I run to the dentists room, fortunately for me the dental assistant was there and we made a plan with filling material. What a mess…I lived to tell the tale, and that’s the kinda sh it that memories are made of

Anyway this weeks email…what is the one thing that stops us from being all we can be? Yip that’s right FEAR! Fear of failure, fear of rejection, there are other fears as well which translate into phobias, but that’s another level of fear.

Fear, potentially such a powerful emotion, an emotion that could bring out the best in us, yet us as humans tend to get fixated on the negative aspects. Fear should generally spring our as-ses into gear, produce some endorphins etc. get us working at or near our full potential if not beyond it, but what do we do? We start to worry, I can’t fail, I can’t lose, I can’t be seen with that person, what will happen if I fail, lose, what if s/he rejects me, what a loser I will be? What will my parents think, what will my friends think oh dear…enter panic…enter loss of focus…enter paralysis…exit enjoying the journey to the end goal.

I speak from experience. I was always petrified of failing an exam, not being in the top 10 in the class (hey some of us like to be there abouts but not there because once you are the best there is only one way and that’s down, and every one expects you to always be the best, knowing you can is generally good enough…well that’s my story and I am sticking to it;-) I digress…), afraid to lose the tennis match whatever, so what do we end up doing, particularly in sport, we focus so much on winning that we forget to play with reckless abandon, we get overly cautious and what happens we inhibit our talents, perform in an artificial way and we end up screw ing up even worse than we would have had we just let rip, we kind of become prisoners to our fear.

Instead of studying to understand so you can apply it better, all we are thinking about is I cant fail, sheesh what a loser I will be, and my folks will be so disappointed, all I want is that damn 50%. Or, damnit that school cant beat us we have to win at all cost. I remember at varsity I plugged honours, at the time I felt like such a loser, but in the end, I will be honest and say the second time around I felt I had a greater understanding of what I was trying to study (that feeling soon dissipated after I got my results), instead of studying to get the marks to pass, I learnt that perhaps moving to Joburg was a better option for my articles, which it was, I spent an extra year in the fairest Cape which was a ripper, I even managed to get paid to study, saved enough cash to put down half the purchase price of my brand new Polo. Through screw ing up we learn many a lesson. What’s the saying… when you lose don’t lose the lesson.

I have quite a few regrets in my life that ‘haunt’ me till this day, okay maybe haunt is a strong word, but I think about what could have been if only I had, and that’s a horrible place to be. Rejection, you wont be the first nor will you be the last, lunge, what’s the worst that could happen, she says no thanks, or the project doesn’t work out as you had planned, take it on the chin and move on. I cant think of anything worse than what if I, cos the moment is lost, forever most probably

Not everything is for everyone…its always better to have tried and failed than fail to try…

Does death petrify you? Answer me this then…what is the only thing we are certain about in this life…other than that damn tax man, we will all die some day, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but we will, so whats the use in fearing the unknown and forgetting about fully experiencing the known, the present, this life we live? Fear of the unknown shouldn’t hold us back, because we don’t know what is out there, who knows it could be the best experience of our lives, wanna make a move, town, job, country, try something new, go for it, and if it doesn’t work out, oh well…

S/he is different from me, why fear or hate them, get to know them, ur life will be the richer for it, if not you can at least experience first hand the basis of your fears.

I’ve always been scared shaiteless about failing, losing, rejection, just not being good enough, but I guess with age you realize that what really matters is that you give all you could and enjoyed the process, what more can you ask for? The right results will always prevail.

Birthdays
18th Tata Madiba
22nd Mich Watson
“Man must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind him to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and a mystery” – HG Wells

A few quotes…
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear not absence of fear – Mark Twain

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one – Elbert Hubbard

Fear is a question: what are you afraid of, and why? Just as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, your fears are a treasure hose of self-knowledge if you explore them – Marilyn Ferguson

On that note I end off, have a great week, maximum respect

Y