“The world is beautiful, but has a disease called man" - Friedrich Nietzsche

"To dream anything that you want to dream. That's the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do. That is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed." - Bernard Edmonds

"I cried because I had no shoes, then I met a man who had no feet." - Anonymous quotes

I sure hope the sun is shining in your life. If not I hope that it is at least shining outside your window, there is just something about sunshine that brings out excitement and joy in people, the sun has been quite prevalent in the Cape the past few days and people’s moods seem to be displaying this, this summer is going to be silly here, I can feel it. I’ve gotta be honest, the sun has been shining half mast in my life lately. Work has been pretty taxing of late, but I guess that’s what happens when you work with too many clever people ;-) then I guess its only fair to tell u that mi Mrs and me are no more, a whole 9 months and 1 day we lasted, best and longest innings by me if I do say so myself, Kevin Pietersen would have been proud. Great lass…but when the distance factor and FOLKS are involved…need I say more…or maybe I was just an A SS. Interesting times I tell u, but its those times that you learn that you are really living.

My mail this week will most probably be all over the place, cos I have plenty thoughts in my head and I got plenty to say. I am not trying to prescribe how you should think, but just merely sharing what I am thinking. Hopefully you will share some of your thoughts too

A friend of mine is getting married pretty soon, and the excitement and the stress its an absolute rollercoaster. But his situation and mine I guess has had me thinking quite a bit and sparked off plenty an interesting debate of late…Dealing with folks telling him which aunt and uncle and cousin to invite and how the whole proceeding should unravel itself and which church to get married in cos she is a different denomination to him and we all know how hollier than thou Catholics are to the rest of the Christian folk…it fascinates me how we in society cling to some things so whole heartedly, yet in our lives selectively follow its rules. I will cite a few examples, X claims to be the most Christian of us all, but let Y do something to annoy them and it will take an eternity for X to forgive Y, I am sure in the Bible there is a passage of forgiving someone 77 times 7 times (basically means endlessly), this same X will practice pre-marital sex, but not want to do something else because his/her religion is his/her life mmmm :-/ (confused face). Then there is the situation where you let your kids hang with kids from different walks of life, but when they decide to enter into a relationship, you are like mmm not with those kind cos they are this that and the next and what will the rest of the family think. Maybe I am a bit dof.

Is it right for your parents to prescribe your life to you? That’s a bit of a tough one, but then again I am not a parent, but I am a child of 2 styling folks, bless them. I don’t know so much. Yes they brought you into this world, raised you, took you to school so you could think for yourself, learn about and mix with people from different walks of life, assuming you were us fortunate as those of us who grew up in the eastern cape J, but the funny thing is when you start to think for yourself and your thinking is not in line with those of our elders, it tends to raise a few eyebrows. A good friend of mine and I were having a conversation about this on Friday nite, about how our generation, the generation x’s are prisoners of our parents prejudices. You see the man is pretty smitten over a lass who is not of the same race as he (yes he’s black that’s y its an issue J), but her old man is totally against their relationship because of that fact and to me that is absolutely ludicrous in this day and age, but that’s my belief.

In days gone by building strong communities to fight off extinction was important because that’s what it was all about, a sign of a nations power was how many battles it could win and how many armies they could conquer and lands it could annex, but such is not the case no more, well not from where I sit. But now for an American and his Russian mail order bride to wed is big business as is the marriage of a Senegalese and an Ivorian, so what is it about this racial divide that makes it such a huge canyon to cross?

Our parents were brought up to believe something and that something worked in days gone by and they try and pass it on to us. A lot of our parents in South Africa were brought up to believe apartheid was alright, it must have been because no one stood up to say it was wrong until now, but right now the rules of the past just wont fly. Kinda like say interracial/cultural/religious relationships and I could be wrong, so comments please.

Here’s my thinking on the topic. In the past relationships were about protecting the bloodline, keeping the nobility line flowing, there was no chance of ever becoming high class through just hard work, you had to be born high class or it was sorreee for u, but nowadays through hard work, luck or whatever your means, anyone can be high class. But then what about our cultural heritage, and trust you me I have the highest respect for culture of any sort, but lets be honest with the advent of the global economy and TV a lot of our cultures aren’t all that prevalent, I am not saying it’s a good thing, its just the truth.

I am of the old school the school that respects its elders and appreciates advice etc. but boss, tell me something I don’t fundamentally agree with, I will challenge you, until you convince me otherwise, I call it learning, others might see it as otherwise, but eh tomayto…tomarto. On Saturday I was having a great discussion with my folks and they were on about how I am of a system etc. you see my folks are getting on and I think they would like a grand child or two (legitimately ofcourse before they get too old), y they weren’t speakin to my 2 older sisters only they know, maybe cos I was the only one doing cross border raids, anyway I digress, they were basically hinting about the fact that ideally they would want me to settle with a Ghanaian lass, I questioned them on this and asked why? Their answer is well its because its your people and that they know of many cross border raids that have failed. To which I said, so then why didn’t you leave me in a village with my people, so I would merely be exposed to my people? To which they answered…mmmm. I then said to them that there are many local border raids that you and I both know of that are in tatters too, in this life we live a lot of what we experience is primarily through the luck of the draw, yes you have the ability to influence your luck but I honestly believe that a royal being involved with a commoner has as much a chance of working as does a relationship between 2 royals, if the individuals are right. Yes fair enough, if you are cut from the same cloth it makes it slightly easier to relate, interact etc. but eh what says a German and an Israeli aren’t cut from the same cloth even though it was made in two different countries…mkaaay bad example, but u know what I am getting at? I mean my folks brought me up to be a good person, respect my elders, go to school so you can learn and be able to fend for yourself and make yourself a better person, kept driving us to do better, any of this sound familiar? But I didn’t grow up in your house now did I? Fundamentally we are all the same

As much as I believe in tradition and all (imagine an All Black game without the haka, what!), but I believe we have to learn to apply reason in much of our thinking and practices rather than what went on in the past. I am a born Ghanaian and I am proud of that, the black star is going to 2006 and I am elated, I am an Ashanti through birth and my flat head and that is something that I will never deny, but I can’t go around professing that the way of the Ashanti is the right way, firstly cos I don’t follow many of the practices of the tribe and to be honest other than the fact that I can speak the languge, have one of our symbols tattooed on my arm, the link is very faded.

This whole division in our society (and greed) is the root of a lot if not all of our world’s problems I tell you. And I guess it has been since time in memorial. This email I guess follows on to us and our prejudices and it really and truly bothers me how we as humans go out of our way to limit ourselves and I guess I cant change it but if even just one person thinks what I say makes sense or convinces me otherwise well I guess I would be a better person for it tomorrow.

In the past a woman would be carrying the groceries in both hands and a baby on her back, is that right, should it go on right now just because its what used to happen, mmm? In the past people used to think the world was flat…

On that note let me be out, its way past the witching hour, you all be good now and think logically about things and not just do because that’s how it was.

Birthdays
13th Maud
14th Kyle Mallen and Will Mapham
15th Kuhle

Sheesh I had this whole email researched about the history of weddings and all but I think I went on a bit of a tangent, but this was off the cuff, if I find some time this week I will drop you all another mail, don’t eva knock my commitment to educating the masses 00:16 on Tuesday morning, yes I have no life J

Respect!