This is not about me, it’s about my grandchildren.

Freedom is the talk of the day, but no one knows how to deliver it.

Today the newspapers have been bombarding us with stories concerning freedom. We have new parties launching every second, telling us that they will liberate the people financially and socially and otherwise. 

Think of the born frees, these kids who were born post apartheid but does this mean they are free? I think they were born in a country that is no longer controlled by oppressors, and that's it. Some of these kids still wake up in the morning suffering as their grandparents did, some of these kids bask in luxury as did their grandparents. What I’m trying to say is that nothing has changed but the constitution and the colour of our flag. Granted it is a lot, but is it enough?

In our very own country we have people preying on the poor; they feed them lies and the perpetrators stand in front of everybody demanding money from them and if they do not comply, they use emotional blackmail to get what they want.

Our government sells us the dream of a better future and give us promises that they take forever to deliver (By the way we still waiting). We need freedom from all fronts like education, health, finance, safety and housing just to mention a few.

The born frees are not born free because they have to dream for a better future for themselves and they children, if one has to dream about a better future it means they have a shitty present right now.  What is unfortunate is that some of these kids won’t get far, they won’t fulfil their dreams.

I don’t mean to preach or annoy anyone by my redundant venting, but something needs to be done.

All this hard work we are putting in is not for me nor is it for you. It’s about our grand children, it’s about our future, and it’s about our freedom.

There is no shame in wanting more for yourself or for you country. That's how we become better, or am I wrong?

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Fear and Success

Someone told me fear is a lie,  fear is the one thing that holds us back from success. Everything you do is dependent on having fear or overcoming fear (that's my uncle by the way).

Right now i'm in a class with five girls and and I think one of them is really pretty, whenever she looks at me with her dark beautiful eyes my knees wobble and my tummy is filled with butterflies. I like the way her clothes wrap themselves around her body like a silk clothe hugging every inch of itself on her body. I like the way her hips move when she walks my way and I like the way her lips curl when she smiles. what i'm trying to say is that... I like how she looks at me and when she looks away when I catch her looking at me.

I don't speak to this girl, i'v never had a conversation with her asking her about herself, what she is into and what turns her on. I truly don't know her at all and every time I see her I have this burning desire to say hi and ask her name and maybe get her number (lame I know).

On the weekend I met another beauty that took my breath away. This beautiful girl knows who I am, we've had a conversation together, this beauty has me chasing after her like a Rainbow Lorikeet sitting on a fountain playing hard to get, its beautiful, and so is her existence. I have her number and I text her and she response to my messages, we see each other from time to time, and what I like about her is that we have a different relationship to everyone else because this relationship is about us and our own quirky adventures we have together.

BUT, someone in the back of my mind screaming: "Fear is a lie!"

Tomorrow is the first of May and in South Africa it is workers day, yet i'm terrified of being rejected by the true love of my life. All that I have worked for to get the opportunity to impress, and hopefully be rewarded might all slip away because I don't want to be rejected. The true love of my life will give me one shot at happiness, provided I'm good enough of course.

This is the meaning of my message, I like the first girl and I've never approached her and I've never had a real conversation with her. I adore the second girl I'm taking about in the second paragraph she makes me happy. The last girl i'm talking about is my dream, my potential career.

someone told me fear is a lie...

I wish that person could tell me what the cure for this lie is.

Take me to love.

I don’t have a TV in my house anymore, one of the reasons for that is because I moved houses. Where I live now is pretty good, student life, work and parties and a heck of a lot of fun.

I love being a student, this is the stage were one progresses from being a child to becoming a grown up. This is the stage were one is aiming to be taken seriously by his/her peers, parents, boss and eventually the rest of the world. This is the stage were we morph our dreams into reality, so therefore you would like people to see you as a grown up, a human being with substance.

I don’t have a TV because I like reading; I like it when there is peace and no unnecessary discourse between house mates. More importantly why I don’t want have a TV is the ridiculous ads they show on TV were they portray black people as unsophisticated and all we can comprehend is humour or exaggerated humour.

For some of you who don’t know, I am studying copywriting and if you know what that is, you probably thinking to yourself “huh? He should understand more than anybody why the ads look like this.” well I don’t understand… shoot me.

There is one channel in particular were they show black people in a ridiculous manner, all the characters in the ads are exaggerated and come across as humorous. Sometimes these ads don’t hold back, sometimes these ads insult the black people’s intelligence and that is very messed up.

I know what you thinking, “this guy has been quiet for so long and now that his writing he’s going to use race for inspiration… pathetic.” Bear with me and let me get my message across.

I’m not going to use that ‘our past made us like this card’ no.

Our past has got nothing to do with this blog post, but I am more concerned about our future. If there is a communication tool that is used to degrade another people's potential than that group of people have no hope in tomorrow. We need to be inspired, to always aim for the best and not for what is mediocre.

I’m an advertising student and when I see ads with black people being portrayed as idiots, I get very disappointed in the industry.

We need to be inspired as young and upcoming black students. All I ask for is inspiration from an industry I would like to work in one day and not just entertainment or insults.

I'm appreciating my love

A few things stand out in my life that I appreciate. Firstly I appreciate my family; I appreciate the opportunities I’ve been blessed with and I appreciate the country I live in. YES! I am proudly South African. With all our problems I am still proud to be a South African. Of course I’m not proud of our problems but we working on it.

Our sportsmen and sportswomen are the very reason why I gloat so much and why say I’m proudly South African. They are not given much to work with but at each and every event they do their best and they surprise the world by bringing back the gold. I’m proud of heroes and heroines like Oscar Pretorius, Caster Semenye, and Chad leclos just to name a few, even our rugby team wins when needed. It’s not much but my country and these heroes and heroines make me proud to be a South African.

There is one thing though that I don’t like that we do as South Africans. We focus (sometimes) our attention on athletes that have left the country and live in a different country and have taken up a different citizenship, we praise their abilities when we mention them on the radio and then we say he/she was born in South Africa with the most disgusting joy, man can fathom. I hate that we have to feel obliged to talk about them when they excel as if they are doing us a favour when they do well in their chosen field of play, even when they are playing against us and they do well, our loss is no longer disconcerting because we lost to a team that has players who were born in South Africa.

I say forget them as they have forgotten us, let’s focus our attention and our praises on the athletes that are making us proud, and encourage those who are trying to make us proud (including Bafana Bafana) to keep trying until they win.

I don’t think I’m asking for much. All I’m asking for is a little appreciation for what we have.

Is this real life?

The other day I went to go watch a movie and I was really inspired to express my view of what I thought of the movie. The movie was well written, the filming was good, the actors were even better and everything about the movie was well done, it was the total package... at least that's what I thought.

Most of us are looking for the silver lining in life, we always look for the positive in the negative, and a few days ago I realised I was probably one of the few people in the world who always looked for the positive in the negative.

Upon watching this AMAZING movie I slowly but surely started to realise that seeing the positive in the negative is very much overrated. The world is supposed to have negatives; the shoe is always going to drop when you have a good thing going. It’s like complimenting someone on their beauty and then when they open their mouth you are met with this overwhelming whiff of decayed fish from the fish market. Yes the shoe has to drop, this is life and life does not always have happy endings. I guess what i'm saying is that the ending of the movie SUCKED because it was a happy ending.

But lets look at things differently, let me ask you this question; what if your life did not have a happy beginning and you had a rough start to life, does this mean that you are almost going to have a happy ending? When you were born in poverty will you die rich? And if you answered yes how long will you enjoy your riches? I ask this question because the character had a rough start but ended up having a happy ending. 

I know for a lot of Africans this is not always the case, if you are born in poverty the chances of getting out are very slim, but look on the bright side there is a chance non-the less… right? 

But let’s not dwell on the negative, let’s focus on the positive for a little bit. We all have a shot at true love, we all can overcome the challenges we are faced with when we are backed up against the ropes, we all have the will and the drive to live and survive, all of us were born with the ability to be übermensch… but how do we release this potential?

But back to the movie, the ending of the movie was horrible and unrealistic; this is what I call 'romantic farce'. Its annoying because the movie touched on real issues and it delivered everything as if it was real, for the duration of the movie I was lost in this ever changing world of intrigue, I even thought this was how normal people lived their lives in other countries. But the ending reminded me that this is a movie.

This piece I’m writing is supposed to be short and concise, I don’t want to bore you, and waste your Precious time, but I do want to ask you this:  Does every cloud have a silver lining? 

The forgotten

As we grow older we all forget things, we tend to have this tendency to remember things that we interact with on a more regular basis. It’s a new year and some of us have resolutions to see through.

I know what you are thinking, “this guy is going to tell us what to do in the New Year, dam Alpheus  you are such a tired cliché”. If you are thinking that well let me enlightened on a little knowledge.

In the New Year we should remember the forgotten, or at least we should try to remember the forgotten for a day… or seven… every day.

Bear with me here. Try to think back and remember what is important and you might find that some, if not all that you have forgotten is the essence of your being, or the beginning of your being.

I’ll talk about myself to put things in perspective. When I was born (like most of us) I was born into the language of IsiZulu, this was the language my mother whispered into my ears every night and every morning when I was a little baby, she did this until I could understand the words and I could speak the words. She gave me meaning through a language and she gave me a name through this beautiful language. I say IsiZulu is beautiful because my mother was beautiful, she taught me the language and the language became beautiful because of my mother.

Before my mother’s beauty interferes with you trail of thought, let’s get back to want we are talking about.

As I grew up, I was unaware that I was slowly but surely forgetting my language, or at least I was forgetting the essence of the language. I was too preoccupied with what I thought was the future, the way forward for our country. I got distracted and I forgot… I forgot my mother’s whisper … I forgot the words.

I have realised this and I now see that the language I first came to understand is dying. There is no two way about it. I have come to understand a different language so well that I have ignored my own. Because I have ignored my language it has not progressed like the language I use every day. My language (because of me) has been stagnant and if I were to continue to ignore it, it would fade away into a distant memory. Unfortunately I’m not the only one who has forgotten their language in this wonderful and divers country of ours.

I’m appealing to everyone; don’t forget your mother’s whisper. Remember the fallen.