UnderRated

Faith
Not the commercial garbage but the real makoya. You know it, that feeling religions can’t peddle and thieves can’t supply. In truth, faith is unbelievable. It brings to light the inconceivable and empowers the inconsolable victim. Faith cannot be justified, measured or moved. It is that ever-resilient, always-growing force of energy. It is in thinking, doing, seeing and believing.
Faith is an inside job. Outside sources only serve to re-enforce.

Independence
We are so used to belonging that we’ve become attached to others. We have to be connected to someone all the time, whether it’s digital, plutonic or just outright make-believe. We can no longer be the majority of one. We seek acknowledgment, acceptance and confirmation from those we know and those we don’t know. Independence is that single voice that searches for no acknowledgment, requires no acceptance and finds no pride in confirmation. It is your own voice. Find it. Keep it.

Life Lessons
One of nature’s laws reveals a pattern of teaching rooted in a patience that borders on the obsessive. Mother Nature’s teachings are repeated and revealed in the most obvious places. That’s why there’s no ‘dummies handbook’ on life. Because any idiot can live, you just have to wing it most times anyhow. If we start by paying more attention to ourselves and the things around us, the patterns will be certain to jump out and bite.

Moments of Silence
In quiet we can have the most ridiculous conversations with our inside selves. Many times the electricity in my head tells the fire in my heart things that it doesn’t want the soul to know. So, give yourself a minute, an hour or a day… one of you might like it.

Reality
Every damn thing is so damn virtual all the damn time. We now have more virtual friends than real ones, not that we’re good to those ones either. Instead of talking behind their backs, we talk in exclusive group chats while they’re in the room. How mature. Reality, on the other hand, lies beyond cell phone reception and wi-fi.

Namaste

7 Rules Of Design

When I'm not pretending I know everything, I'm making little designs to illustrate this point to people.

7 Rules of Design

1. Forget. Before you start with any project, remember to forget everything (except your name). Forget what you don’t know about design and forget what you do know. Forget what works and what doesn’t. Forget the rules and limitations of the program or instrument you are using, because the next step requires you to ignore any thing you have been taught before.

2. Make stuff up. Lie, if you must, to yourself and to others. As soon as you forget what you are capable of, nothing is impossible. When you disregard what you can do with what you have, you begin to think outside of where certain instruments limit you. Be absurd in your lies. Make up things that can’t possibly be true or shouldn’t make sense.

3. Think. Sometimes, it’s not the size of the idea that matters but, the idea itself. Don’t over-invest your efforts in a big idea that is hollow while you have another that only needs your attention to grow.

4. Depth, get it. All things have depth. All matter, non-matter and everything else has depth. So, go beyond the surface of any idea and swim in the deep end.

5. Break into little pieces. Push your idea off the edge and watch to see where and how the pieces fall. Do this many times.

6. Move On. Move with where the idea takes you. This might not be moving with the idea, in fact most times you end up with another concept that is nowhere near your starting idea. So…

7. Don’t get attached. Don’t be selfish. Ideas are nomads, so share your ideas. Give them away to open space for new ones.

Namaste

When Jesus Comes

When Jesus comes,
the Christians say:
there’ll be redemption on that day.
With fires to fan the flames of hell,
and floods to quell the thirst of man.

Too long the self-elect have waited
too long have they defended…
this privatised heaven
in a system that’s long been one-ended.

And so we wait,
from this to the next.
Passing our days with hopes for direct contact…
Praying for that divine moment.
What the peddlers call…
the God-Component.

With our pitchforks and assegais made sharp,
the second start will find us at the ready…
for the spoils of a war we’ve been fighting;
rewards for all the wrongs we’ve been righting.

We needed salvation, and so we bought it.
Broke their backs with our tooth and nail for it…
for the justification promised on this day,
For the jealous leadership of one way.

When Jesus comes,
the Christians say:
there’ll be redemption on that day.
With fires to ignite the spark of man,
and waters to quench the thirst of hell.

Namaste

Salt To Find The Wound

The greatest sacrifice We, as today’s youth, make is to settle for the liquors of success when the waters of true happiness call. The promised land remains a promise that will never be realised as the dreamers among us refuse to wake from our slumber.

We are now clawing away at a consumerist eden instead of making our way to Zion.

All for the sake of materialism, worthless cash and false ownership. But then again, few of us see it as such. Instead we call this surface democracy our freedom and hold onto it tighter than a newborn suckling on a nipple.

We don’t want to look at each other in the eye and be straight about things. We’d much rather pretend that the world smells of coffee and roses and that flowers bloom all year long. Our assumed imperfection is an excuse to corrupt and destroy everything we touch. We look instead at each other’s shoes, rather than our souls. We look to clothes rather than our actions and we remain entranced by the brilliance of our minds rather than the wonders of our hearts. We play by the rules, although we ought to break them all. We speak when we ought to listen and we obey without question.

This is not one person, it is not even most people. It is all of us. Were this not the case, the world would not be as it is. But pointing to the peak won’t get us there, we must start walking.

Bless the children, o lord
who in their wisdom question
while we, like lemmings, accept.

Bless the man, o redeemer
when found wanting
gives more than he ever will take.


Bless the woman, o maker
whose many desires
lead her to serve above all others.

And bless the dead as well
for the living mourn all their days
only to rejoice in their demise.

Namaste

Go West

There’s little point in denying the general direction that the world seems to have taken. And in doing so; abandoning one’s own way for a more popular and unclear way of life, many of us are easily and effortlessly manipulated, led astray, duped and pawned.

I find even less sense, though, in mourning the loss of a familiarity for its own sake. And so we are now likened to caged hamsters on treadmills and lambs to the slaughter. We are then the beasts being raised, herded, branded, recorded, sold and consumed.

We are thus allowed to live. Allowed to breed and allowed to move forward.

But now we are going West; to the lands of the free and brave. To the bastards of revolution that became slave traders to free slaves. Onward to the whores of liberation whose mothers suckled the serpent that bit the nipple which fed it.

With our bags packed and sanities betrayed we are fast adopting the child of no sense. But, of course, let us not call a spade a spade. The traditions, norms, beliefs, ideologies, discourses and structures in place have so far done most people no favours. In fact this current State of affairs has robbed blindly many people of not just their livelihoods and freedoms but, of their identities as well.
Because, you see, who we are alone is who we are together.

But then again, if the one burgled does not recognise, acknowledge or report the burglary, then the burglar has committed no crime. And when the burglary is obvious to all? Then the burgling law-maker will call the crime a tax. Voila!
Our kind of liberation reminds me a little of organized crime. No doubt, a little messy at times but, this is a messy business.

But people aren’t hamsters trapped in a steady sprint to no place in particular, nor are they livestock for general consumption.

Then again, people have taken an active, almost admirable, role in their own duping. One might wonder what will happen when questions are asked by individuals, not their representatives. What will happen once all directions are explored, where East, South, North, Here and Not Here aren’t walled off?

Will you still go west?

Namaste

The House of Self Governance

Self-governance, holding one’s own life in one’s own hands, is a real step in the direction of legitimate freedom. Not this watered-down ration of state-chosen freedoms that all governance offers to the people it claims to govern. All forms of governance trade some freedoms for others. Each barters for a hold on the people by promising to open more windows in the house while keeping the doors locked.

This is the nature of all government, be it democratic, communist, socialist, republican, liberal, secular or capitalist. All governance seeks power through control, and that is control of large groups of people. Nations are in the business of trading people, resources, influence and services.

What was once a solution, or rather an alternative, to the problem of human expansion, evolution, ingenuity and control, remains plaster that covers many cracks though failing to stop the crumbling. And so governments are now spending much of their efforts plugging holes in the cement instead of finding the real solutions to the real problems.

In a world like ours; where change is always now and each bright morning will lead us all into night, we have to remain aware. Aware of our progression, influence, effect, disruption and evolution. We have to find the light within our own souls, lest the torch in our hand dies out.

Freedom is not a collective concept where a single way of life is determined to be suitable for the bulk of the people in a given space. Freedom is personal. It is found in all life and in all manners of life being lived. It is not the popular discourse or the ruling stereotype or code of governance. It is choice.

Freedom can’t then be one thing. It is specific to every being. Freedom is believing in something different, living different and choosing different. It is made manifest in our thoughts, words and deeds. Freedom is left in the marks we leave behind; marks of progress, science, light and death.

And it is only when individuals are free that communities and nations can be free. A culture that measures, rations and manipulates the freedoms of the people is one that enslaves its people and seeks to employ a system, corrosive to the people and world around them, beneficial only to the culprit.

A free world, then, cannot be a place where people’s freedoms are taken, traded, rationed, stolen or suppressed. Real freedom does not exist in degrees or classes.

Namaste

The Prayer

Let the avalanche of bad tides wash over me
like the endless brook over the pebble.
So that the pebble may say,
Even the softest current leaves a trace.

I pray for the wisdom to know
knowledge is the pebble, not the brook.

I wait for the steely grip of cold ends
as blades of grass await the dawn.
The anticipation of a new day
matched only by its beginning.

I pray for the wisdom to see
the morning from within the night.

Crumble the mountains so they may fall on me
like pellets of stone and lead.
With only the shrapnel of shattered bone
to find light’s string of thread.

I pray for the wisdom to trust
simple pleasures to be most divine.

I pray.

Namaste

Afrikanism : Just Add Water.

Sometimes we ought to think less, not more.
Sometimes we ought to do peace, not war.

A history of violence does not permit Us to continue bashing our heads in. At least, common sense should thus dictate. I’ve been told that We, Afrikans, are a pretty formidable bunch. Our history is garnished with the mass graves of brutal warfare and religious massacres. There’s been tribal cleansing and nameless other equally senseless acts. We have this.
The art, architecture, science, technology, governance and all other parts of human interest were the most advanced for a very long time. The mathematicians, philosophers, academics and tacticians were at the top of their game. This is a history with magic, mystery, mastery and lore. We have this too.
We’ve had our losses and our fair share of wins. Ours is a generous history. But we have forgotten this.

Indeed, we have thought best to get caught in the immediate past. The time has come for Us to step back and see the bigger picture.

Here, South Africans talk like Afrika is foreign. This is beyond odd. In Zimbabwe we have made a mockery of the economy. In Ghana We are forgetting ourselves. And We have ignored Sudan. All over this place We have paralysed each other with invisible lines that become borders. We have criminalised Ubuntu and legalized bullying. Our way of life is not just forgotten, it is forgiven as well. We have found nothing the matter to think ourselves savage and primitive. These history books that are the syllabus are peppered with lies and laced with inconsistencies. This current way of life is like a drug. It is dilapidating and addictive. Again, common sense calls to us;

Just because many people are doing it doesn’t mean you should.
Just because everything is told to you does not exempt you from thinking.

This is being said over and over again: We need Afrikan solutions. Indeed we do, but talking it won’t change a thing.

No other people seem to have forgotten themselves more than the Afrikan. We treat each other like visitors in our own home. In fact, even visitors are known to hold the door for the next. There’s a particular camaraderie at work. We don’t have this. At least not anymore. We have neglected one another and adopted xenophobia instead. We have traded our chains and shackles for debt and false patriotism. How ridiculous this household must look from the outside. And like the common playground bully, we victimise others as we battle with self-loathing.

In Afrika, one hand washes the other.

This has all been at the heart of being an Afrikan. The Afrikan language has always been one of Love. Not hatred. The language of signs we communicated with was simple. A single image, a letter, could point to a myriad of concepts and in a particular sequence became poetry or a thesis. We did not bar human ingenuity with laws, clauses and copyrights. This too is collecting dust somewhere in a past we call barbaric.
Haters, those who would negate anything and everything, argue that the old ways are no match for these times. And so we should employ impractical solutions to the problems we face. Is this because others are doing it too? Smells childish to me.

In hating ourselves, as that is what we’ve proven by killing each other, we have not only learnt to despise our history, but have also sought to erase it completely.

Know your story.

Namaste