You don’t have to finish what you start. If we did finish every little thing that we started, the consequences would be dire. Some of us would be trapped in horrible relationships (some of us are, but don’t confuse stupidity with some kind of strange rule), some of us would be stuck in dead-end jobs (once again, stupidity), and some of us would finish writing their half-arsed e-book.

Yes, that last one was a little too specific wasn’t it? That’s because I’m referring to myself. 6000 words in and I’m hating it. I hate the storyline, I hate the characters, I hate the fact that it has no sense of humour. I hate the fact that it’s mediocre science fiction. I hate my half-finished e-book. The beauty is, I don’t have to finish it. I can abandon it. That’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to toss it to the wind and start a new one. A funny one. With funny stories and arbitrary situations. It will be wonderful.

So, going back to those of us caught in dead-end relationships and other dead-end things. Why? The reality is that when you end something that’s going nowhere, you open up an opportunity to go anywhere. A brand new door is thrown open and you can go anywhere and do anything you want. Pretty intimidating huh? I guess that’s why we sometimes run back to the thing that we hate, because having that kind of freedom is scary.

I tell you what though, if you get that freedom, run with it. Even if it’s a bit scary, just stick with it. That whole story about endless possibilities? It’s true.

“If you go to bed with a demon, don’t expect to wake up with an angel.”

That is what someone said to me the other day. I think it means that people don’t change. When you first hear it, it makes sense. It only takes a few more seconds of thought to realise that it isn’t true at all. People DO change. So why the hell does a saying like that even exist? I know, because someone, somewhere was disappointed by someone else. Well sad times for that wanker, right?

We’ve grown addicted to stupid little sayings that make us feel good inside. I’ll bet that when the person who said that was done saying it, they felt incredibly clever. Feelings are not always an accurate reflection of reality though. You may feel clever, but you may also be the dumbest fuck that ever walked the earth. Your feeling has nothing to do with reality. I think it’s time we threw away our little books filled with quotable quotes. Or, perhaps it’s time we actually read them and analysed the garbage that we’re being fed.

Here’s what I know. Life is chaotic. People are unpredictable. You never know how any situation is going to turn out. Instead of trying to apply some kind of mediocre, bumper-sticker philosophy to your life, just live it. Give people a chance, give situations a chance, go with the moment. Everything around you is dynamic and changing. I know it’s part of the human mindset to try and categorize and put things in boxes, but stop doing that. You’re going to end up living life through a letterbox. Nobody wants that.

Oh, and stop being a worthless sack of shit. Nobody wants that either.

Ah, my pretties, I have been ignoring you haven’t I? I apologize, I’ve just been awfully busy, emphasis on the word awfully. I have very little to show for all my busy-ness. There are no wondrous works of creativity, no rhymes or words of wisdom, just the utterly ball-aching mundane work that comes with existence.

I am lying through my teeth of course. I’ve spent the last week or two thinking of some rather brilliant ways to improve my existence and I’ve even started implementing some of these ideas (with a little help from my friends). I still feel like I am neglecting a very important aspect of my life though. I know this because while I should feel absolutely and entirely satisfied and happy, I do not. I feel itchy on the inside. It is a bit bothersome. What to do? Take stock? Be grateful? I have, I am. Be positive? I try.

Sometimes, trying is all you have. Trying and failing. I fail far more times than I succeed. I fail to be good. I let people down, I hurt the people I care about. All I ask is that people bare with me, because I’m trying. When I fail, it is because I tried, not because I sat in a corner being pathetic.

Why keep trying? Because it’s really all I have, my attempts. If I stop, I’ll get bored and throw myself off a cliff. That’s the truth. You can paint a thousand pictures, write a thousand stories, but the only real masterpiece worth spending any time on is yourself. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, pull your head out of your ass and do something.

As for my itchy insides, I’ll have to try and figure out what that’s all about. How interesting.

Right, are you sitting down? Take a deep breath. Think about the last three times you’ve been truly happy in the last three months. Not content, not fairly alright, I’m talking about the little moments where you’ve been absolutely and completely happy. Right, got it? What were you doing? Write that down. Are you doing that thing every day? If you’re not, ask yourself why. Why can’t you? List the reasons. Are they good ones? Cross off any reasons to do with money. Cross of any reasons to do with education. What’s left? If there’s nothing left, there should be nothing stopping you. Money? That just needs you to think strategically. Learning? That just needs you to buckle down and study. Is it time? If you were truly happy doing that one thing, then stop doing something else that makes you unhappy and do that one thing more. So what is really holding you back? Are you scared? Scared of failure? Bad news: you’re failing already. You might as well fail spectacularly. Doing what you’re doing now is a little pathetic isn’t it? Being paralyzed by fear is the worst way to fail. Losing everything because you pursued a passion? The best way to fail. But you won’t fail. It’s what makes you happy. You’ll be good at it.

There are a lot of things in life that you can change. More than you would like to accept. Accepting that you can change your destiny is overwhelming. All the power is yours. Your future lies in your hands. What are you going to do about it? Look at yourself. Forget what others think, forget about the world’s opinion. You are millions of cells all connected together to fulfil an amazing purpose, a purpose that you can decide. Don’t let yourself down. Let go of fear. You are intelligent, you can do this.

Yay, let’s blog about death!

Serious face. I went to watch a stand-up comedy show last night. Really hilarious. They covered the usual stuff: relationships, sex, politics, a bit of religion. But here’s the thing, one guy tried to make death funny. He succeeded, which is a really great accomplishment, but there was a bit of an undercurrent of fear in the audience. The laughter was a little nervous. I still take my hat off to that guy, I didst lol fervently.

Me, I know a bit about death. In the last two years, I’ve buried four friends. Well, I mean, I didn’t bury them. They died and somebody else buried them. It would be weird if I just randomly went around burying my friends, right?

Anyway, the first time someone you’re close to dies, it’s a bit of a shock. You wonder if you’ll ever recover. But time is this weird thing. It makes you forget. Not the person, just the sore part of your heart. The bit that got hurt. Time does heal. But then someone else will go and die and you end up feeling sore all over again. Each time it happens though, the scab gets thicker. I’m a little sad to say that when I was faced with the recent death of a friend I just felt a little melancholy.

So what does this all mean? Well, we’re just here for a little bit. We’re not here forever. I don’t know what happens when we die but I kind of like to think that we get to be close to the people we love. I like to think that we get to watch over them, that we get to share their trials and tribulations. I think that would be a beautiful thing. But like I said, who knows. I’m losing the point a bit here. Um, oh yes. We’re here for only a little bit. So do things. Do a lot of things. Do the things you’ve always wanted to do. You don’t get a second go at this. And love, my word, love. Love as much as you can. Don’t be scared of getting broken and hurt, because time, it does heal like I said. Just smash into love like it’s an ice cold swimming pool. If you don’t suffer from some kind of spontaneous heart attack, you’ll be refreshed and you’ll discover it’s fun (as long as you do it right).

Most of all, be good. Be as good as you can, be the best. I think it’s important to make your life count. Make other people’s lives better.

Right, that’s my two cents on life and death and stuff.

I haven’t written in a while and for this I apologise. More to myself than to you, but regardless, here it is : a sorry. Take it if you like, leave it if you don’t.

I’ve just been quietly melancholic. Dazed by existentialism if you will. I’ve been longing to feel special, set apart, somewhat wondrous. I haven’t felt that lately. Alas, at this point someone with an obvious weight problem will step forward, squeeze my cheek (preferably one on my face) and say, “But you are special.”

Thank you. These are simply feelings and feelings as we all know are not based on fact. Having said that, these feelings do tend to block the creative pipe. So, I’ll write something and in the process I’ll hopefully get some mental plumbing done.

A Blog You Should Read
It may seem like I’m a hermit, a complete shut-in, socially inept, nervous and sweaty in public, a wastrel. This is all perfectly true. My one and only salvation is that I do have a friend that drags me out to places. These outings force me to bathe and put on a happy face. I don’t blog about the places he takes me because he does that already. While he never really mentions me, just know that I am ever-present. My role is that of sidekick, purely supporting. While he wanders around meeting people and such, I sit at a table somewhere nursing a beer. Occasionally I’ll speak when spoken to, but usually I keep my charismatic banter to myself. Go read his blog. We go to really cool places, we meet cool people, we see cool things.

A Band You Should Listen To
Despite going out and watching bands a lot, I am still taken by American and British music more than I am by South African. Sorry South Africa. The latest band I’m loving is Kodaline. Go have a listen. Great music videos too.

A Book You Shouldn’t Read
The Dalai Llama’s Cat (these guys say it’s good, but they lie). What a steaming pile of you know what. I’m all for the esoteric, but if you’re going to write like an overly sentimental shit-head, you can fuck right off. Maybe I’m just jaded. At this moment in time I’m trying to get through the seventh and final book of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. It’s been a bit of a slog, but I am a little bit emotionally invested in the characters now, so while the story has deteriorated over the last few books, I have to see how this ends. Yes, Tim Ferris says you don’t have to finish what you start if the thing you’re doing sucks, but hey Tim, I’ve been reading this crap for two years and I’m 500 pages away from being free of it forever.

I’m A Hipster
No I’m not. I own a record player and I can play the banjo and I listen to bands you’ve never heard of. So fucking what? I don’t wear those glasses (because I have perfect vision), and I don’t have a beard (because my beard grows out ginger and I’d rather have society reject me based on principle than beard colour), and I don’t dress like a trendy lumberjack (I dress like a really down-and-out alcoholic). Don’t ever call me a hipster. Those guys are sheep-like wankers. Fuck them.

A Creative Issue
A little project I’ve been working on (in my mind) for the last few years is a grandiose graphic novel. I am close to the solution: how to create the perfect workflow. In fact, the solution is probably just one Google search away. Instead of just doing it, I’m blogging instead. Procrastinate much? Jesus. Anyway.

In Conclusion
Thank you for reading my drivel. Have a lovely weekend. I shall write something more meaningful soon, I promise.

If you Photoshop it, it doesn’t look so shit.

Hello,

The mall culture. It grates me to even use the words ‘mall’ and ‘culture’ in the same sentence. You see, I don’t mind malls. I have a use for them. I go to the coffee shop and bum some free wi-fi. Then I hit the bookshop and it’s all over in an hour. Thing is, Johannesburg (the city in which I live), has developed this bizarre mall culture. Basically, Jo’burgers are spending vast amounts of their free time wandering around malls like mindless zombies.

Fortunately there is a man with a vision who intends to rescue us from this pathetic charade we call a life. That man is Mongezi Mtati. Better known as, well, Mongezi Mtati. His mission: to show us troll-like mall dwellers that there is an entire world outside of boutique stores and evil corporate chain stores.

Go join the Social Jozi Facebook page. Participate in the events, become a happier person. I can honestly say that there are a stack of beautiful spots around Johannesburg, perfect for hiking or even just a lazy afternoon. There are plenty of interesting things to do. And no, going to the fucking market doesn’t count you sack of shit. I’m talking about non-consumer type stuff.

I would like to take this opportunity to haul out my soapbox and just gently remind you that life is not about what you own or what you wear, it’s about what you do. It’s how you treat other people, the way you love them, and the way you make sacrifices for them. Going to the mall like some kind of chronic mall addict does not make you awesome. Spending time with people doing fun activities that will broaden your horizons does go a long way.

So that’s it. Go out and explore your city, it’s not actually the crime-ridden shithole you think it is. Spend time with people you love (or at least like), and do cool things that help you bond.

Go like the page.

Bye.