Rosy Angels

Human interaction is a crazy thing. Last week I was lying on my floor thinking about an unattainable rose and the world was all doom and gloom with a hint of inspiration. Armed with my blind inspiration I went through this week doing everything I can to get my rose and all of a sudden a new development came to the fore. My rose is human, she has all sorts of crap going on in her life too. She's cut up about school and she has just realised that she still has a crush on some dude she's not seen for two years and well yeah, she has all this stuff happening and here I come marching along singing sad songs as if I'm the only party involved. Sheesh! You'd think I'd take some time to think outside the box. I've been approaching this whole courting thing in a very clinical way for two years of my life. I spent some time today speaking with S. and hearing her out and she was down in the doldrums. She's off shopping to cheer herself up. I'm pretty chuffed by this new realisation that I'm dealing with someone who's a bundle of emotions, thoughts and things just like I am and I have no clue where this post is going because I have no clue what's going on in my head now... so I think I'd just better end this off now before I lose my head and start going on about my thoughts about Amy Winehouse crying on the kitchen floor.

Meet Mr Lear

I've been paying attention in my English lectures of late (eccentric lecturers do help) and I came across a queer fellow in my poetry anthology. His name is Mr Lear and I'm pretty sure he's a mad man whose spent half his life in some imaginary country of his own making. Because he's a weird guy I thought it would be nice to give him a mention.

How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear

How pleasant to know Mr. Lear,
Who has written such volumes of stuff.
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
But a few find him pleasant enough.

His mind is concrete and fastidious,
His nose is remarkably big;
His visage is more or less hideous,
His beard it resembles a wig.

He has ears, and two eyes, and ten fingers,
(Leastways if you reckon two thumbs);
He used to be one of the singers,
But now he is one of the dumbs.

He sits in a beautiful parlour,
With hundreds of books on the wall;
He drinks a great deal of marsala,
But never gets tipsy at all.

He has many friends, laymen and clerical,
Old Foss is the name of his cat;
His body is perfectly spherical,
He weareth a runcible hat.

When he walks in waterproof white,
The children run after him so!
Calling out, "He's gone out in his night- Gown,
that crazy old Englishman, oh!"

He weeps by the side of the ocean,
He weeps on the top of the hill;
He purchases pancakes and lotion,
And chocolate shrimps from the mill.

He reads, but he does not speak, Spanish,
He cannot abide ginger beer;
Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish,
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!

Inferiority Complex

For the last two weeks I have been watching the news (I rarely watch the news) and the usual has been happening in South Africa; people being killed, power cuts and corruption in politics. What did catch my attention, though, was how much people are blaming stuff on racism. Some kid walked into an informal settlement (inhabited by black people) some time ago and went on a shooting spree. Now there's something on the news about some university video showing white students urinating in the black staff members' food. In the midst of all of this someone made an interesting comment. If a black guy shoots a white guy it's a crime and if a white guy shoots a black guy it's a racially motivated attack. Obviously there are many instances of racism in the country. There are racist people from all races in South Africa. I know this because I have met black people who are racist towards white people or Indian people or coloured people and so on.

Throughout the world there's a perception that Caucasian people are always the racist party in any situation. Asian people, black people, Arab people and so on all seem to have been discriminated against by Caucasians in some way or the other. What I want to focus on, though, is the inferiority complex some black South Africans have. In the South African context I can only comment on the behaviour I notice in black people (as I am black myself). There's a subconscious belief amongst black people that they are inferior to white people. They'll never admit to it but it's there. I always hear black people speaking about other black people "who think they're white" and by "white" they mean the other guy thinks he's better than they are. When a white man makes an offensive comment, that's in no way racist, to a black man it will be interpreted as "black people are stupid" instead of "you are stupid". I find this inferiority complex to be juvenile but it's responsible for many of the issues we face in South Africa. Some black people will not even bother uplifting themselves because they believe that they can't function in a white man's world. Criminals have no qualms about robbing a white person because they think white people are filthy rich and it's in their genes to be rich. So a black guy can kill a white dude and still feel like the victim of some unfair law of the universe when he gets arrested. The dangerous thing is that there are people in power who think like this.

I say look, a whole lot of stuff has been done wrong in the past by all parties concerned. We are in the present now and we can either move forward and let go of ridiculous beliefs or have a reversal of apartheid where the black government is the tyrant. We can all go in 100-year cycles taking turns being the oppressor.

I Crave a Rose

But he that dares not grasp the thorn

Should never crave the rose.- Anne Brontё, “The Narrow Way”

I was just thinking last night, lying on the floor, that there's a rose I sorely crave but the thorns look very brutal. I'm super scared of picking this particular rose. My emotions are doing all they can to keep me from reaching for it because they are trying to 'protect' me from immediate pain, but what they lack is the foresight to know that if I managed to pick the rose the pain would be worth it. Then there's also the ultimate fear of reaching for the rose and failing to get it, not reaching gives the delusional sense of "I could still do it if I wanted" whereas reaching and failing is final - you are forever cut off from the rose. So in the end it boils down to faith in all that I have learned and have seen to be true to make that leap in the dark.

Pray for me.

I just walked away from a conversation of which the closing theme was self-improvement, the improvement of oneself and the improvement of others where we can. I know a dude who is, by my judgment, socially awkward. One of the reasons for this social awkwardness, I suspect, is his overprotective family. I'm awkward in many social settings but overall I'm confident enough to hold my own. For all I know I'm mistaken about this dude and he is perfectly happy with his situation and maybe his family has valid reasons for shielding him from society. Tomorrow I might be meeting up with him and my goodbuddy, Dean, and I are going to ask him how feels about his life and take it from there. So before taking up our hero capes and dashing to this dude's rescue we have to get our facts straight – there's no point in saving someone who doesn't need saving.

It's true what they say about one heading into the real world when you graduate from High School. This is my third year having completed High School and life has been rough and exciting all at the same time. University is like a real life simulation where you get all the hard knocks but with some cushioning. I admit that I'm a slow learner and that in the last two years I could have done more than I have in all the areas of my life. One important thing I did learn, and my God knows I'm still learning it, is that the choices you make have consequences and life does not let you run away from having to deal with your consequences. You decide to skip class and you miss a lesson or you go to class and sleep through the lecture, whatever you do there is consequence to be dealt with at the end of the day. I know people who never show up for classes and they still get better marks than I do because even though they're not on campus they're sitting at home grinding whilst I'm on campus playing with the ducks after class.

I want to be wealthy enough by age forty to buy a castle (blatantly assuming I'll be around for so long) and while I'm building my kingdom I want to live it up like a madman who's been told that he has only a few hours of life left. I want to fill my life with people who are a joy to be around; intelligent people, funny people and people who squeeze the life out of you every time they see you. I want to have meaningful relations with my family, as crazy as they are and I want to make life easier and more enjoyable for them. The great thing about family is that one has nothing in common with them but you still love them something fierce regardless. All-in-all I want to spend my life living it up like a madman who has been told that he has a few hours left to live. The best examples of the lifestyle I want to live can be found in Dean Koontz's books. His characters are given lemons (in the form of gun totting clowns sometimes) and using very charming devices they make lemonade (sometimes in the form of miracle babies).

In order to achieve this I must make choices of which the consequence is the lifestyle I crave.

But he that dares not grasp the thorn
Should never crave the rose.
- Anne Brontё, “The Narrow Way”

More Dualities

I was just going through my blogroll when I spotted this post on Brian Lee's blog. I remember reading it some time last year and I guess he and I are on the same page about this fascinating topic. Even he's latest post about the dilemma of artists, touches on principles of duality.

The Purge

The Purge

My goodbuddy, Dean, and I have this crazy running joke, that I half suspect is not a joke at times, about me kidnapping people and keeping them in my cupboard because they're just so charming, funny or cute. As a result my imaginary cupboard is full of people who I can't remember why I liked in the first place. If you've ever wanted a pet as a small child your parents probably gave you a long lecture on what a big responsibility it is to keep a pet. I'm the kid who forgot to feed and water his pets – or in my case cupboard people. I have all these people in my life I've anchored certain emotions to and as a result I find myself worrying about a string of people who wouldn't save me if I was drowning in a puddle in the street. This is very taxing on my emotions as you can imagine. Thus with the aid of super thick Domestos toilet cleaner I'm ridding my cupboard of all these nasty skeletons in my life. I'm taking a leaf from Lupe Fiasco and I'm just going through life like “kick, push ... kick, push...”.

Just letting go is such a wonderful feeling. Go ahead and give it a bash.

Asylum

Two weeks of madness and the dust has finally settled. I'm battered and weary from constant battle, but I've survived to tell the bloody tale. I've spent so much time in queues that I'm considering changing my name to Don Queueote. From a distance the University of Johannesburg Auckland Park, Kingsway campus looks like a serene place inhabited by sane people when in actuality it's a disorganized mad house run by scholars who have absolutely no practical intelligence. Being sent from pillar to post and back to pillar again is about as much fun as having your tooth pulled out with pliers. Amazingly enough this time around it wasn't even my fault for being indecisive about the subjects I want to take for the year. I stood in a queue for hours registering my subjects only to be told that my major subject, Linguistics & Literary Theory, can't be registered because there's an exam clash with Latin. This didn't surprise me at all, it happens to me every year and so I told the guy to register it anyway because the Latin Department will have to let me write their exam on another date. He then proceeded to give me a lengthy lecture about how he does things by the book and that I'll have to go to the Department of Humanities to sort my self out. A few days later I discovered that this injustice was not committed against me alone but against a few hundred others as well. Armed with a very sharp pen and a Humanities Department form I was ready to tackle the Herculean tasks that lay ahead. By my side was the funniest and craziest companion anyone can ask for under such conditions, a girl everyone ends up calling Danny, who thought up the most gruesome ways that we should go about 'disposing' of certain staff members of the Humanities Department. Another bonus was that she lives on campus and was willing to run off and buy us drinks and grab some food from her room. During her periodic absence I seduced first year girls in the queue by poking them and acting as an ambassador for the university whose task it was to welcome new students by giving them hugs. A few minutes later Danny and I decided to bid our new queue friends adieu because we thought ourselves too cool for queues. Luckily enough we spotted a friend of mine, Super Sleuth, in front of the queue and we managed to get ourselves front row 'stands' by bribing people with candy. After a few minutes of poking strangers and sticking our tongues out at the poor saps we were told that we don't need to be in the queue because “we'll sort you guys out by Friday”. I wanted to scream “redrum, redrum!” and run around stabbing people with my pen.

Now here I am on a Monday morning all rested up and good to go at it again. Wish me luck. The queue at the bookshop looks horrendous....

Dualities

It's been sometime since I've posted on this blog (varsity's been bogging me down with some actual work!) but I'm back and there's a phenonomenon I've noticed that I'd like to share with you guys. I have a friend who is six feet deep into socionics and he just happens to be one of the few people whose psychological profile is extreme, thus he will serve as a brilliant test bunny for my observation. I've scanned through socionics and I'm a layman of the science so please bear with my very shallow insights. I'm very fascinated by dualities because they seem to be cropping up everywhere I look these days. I was reading a book on antimatter which is the dual for matter and it seems that for everything in the universe there is a dual - black and white, ying and yang. Back to my extreme friend. He's a guy who does everything to the point of obsession or he simply doesn't do it at all. He's extremely masculine and rational. Now the girl that he's into is all girly girl and very emotional. My psychological profile is murkier, I'm more of an emotional kind of guy and overall my characteristics aren't that extreme. The interesting thing is that the girls I'm drawn to are just as fuzzy as I am when it comes to their make-up, but fuzzy in a way that perfectly complements my fuzziness. So duality occurs even on less clear-cut levels. I'm still reading Jung but when I'm done I'm definately going to read more into dualities so I can eleborate for you guys. Consider this to be an introduction of sorts. I'll even get my friend to leave a detailed comment on his understanding of the concept of dualities (which is greater than mine).

Prey Review

I had just fixed some guy’s PC when I started fiddling around some by installing game demo’s to see how the machine would perform under some strain. I installed the Prey demo and whilst I was playing it I got very nostalgic. I played the whole game some time last year and it was one of those lovely things that appear quite unexpectedly. With the gaming industry moving at such a furious pace Prey is considered old now but it’s still a brilliant way to spend ten hours.

My thoughts on the game are as follows:

Prey kicks off with you being introduced to Tommy, the man whose moccasins you fill throughout the game, in a bathroom mirror. Tommy is a Cherokee Indian who doesn't believe in all that tribal mumbo jumbo his grandfather's always trying to feed him. All he wants to do is take his girlfriend and leave the resort where they live for greener pastures. From the onset you learn that Tommy is not only a motor mechanic, but that he's also a motor mouth who whines about anything and everything. After you bash two troublesome drunks over the head with a wrench the game begins in earnest. Blue lights appear out of the sky and a few chaotic minutes later you find yourself inside the bio-mechanical belly of a gigantic alien vessel armed with a wrench that's still dripping blood and brain matter. What follows is you leading Tommy on an adventure that can only be summed up as surreal and at the best times it's almost epic. Powered by ID's Doom 3 engine the graphics do a stunning job of portraying your bio-mechanical surroundings (walking through the ship's organic openings is quite disturbing). The story is very straightforward: make your way through the ship killing anything in your path, using an arsenal of alien weapons, as you try to save your girlfriend. That you get to save the world in the process doesn't hurt either. Prey's X factor, though, lies in the way in which it brings innovation to the FPS genre. The game is very linear; you walk into a room and clear it of any enemies and/or solve a puzzle. Add portals that transport you all over the ship, gravity switches that turn your world upside-down, and gravity walkways that allow you to walk on the ceiling to the mix and the game doesn't feel linear at all. After Tommy dies (yes, you read right) all that mumbo jumbo spiritual stuff proves to be quite useful in resurrecting our hero, and he comes back with the ability to spirit walk which allows him to leave his body and walk through force fields and solve puzzles. In spirit mode you have access to a spirit bow which allows you to fill your unsuspecting enemies with spirit arrows. The puzzles in the game can become frustrating at times but once you solve a puzzle you slap yourself on the forehead thinking how could I miss that. The best feature in the game is that when you die your spirit is transported to a mini-level where you collect souls until you're transported back into your body at the exact moment you died. Prey is a wonderful game and the little touches in the game make it really special. The game is very system friendly, an entry level gaming PC will get you through just fine.

Score: 90/100
A very down-the-rabbit-hole experience
Charles Siboto