Dusty Runway

When we are younger it is easy to dream, to declare boldly who or what we will be once we grow up. For some reason growing up is a destination, a point in your life when the music starts playing and at that moment you are grown. This narrative leaves little room for diversions, life's setbacks and realities of hardcore living. You are expected to turn the switch on, get your life together at once, explicit or implied you too feel the pressure.  We follow the standards and expectations of society, of who we are supposed to be, what now, what next? We must step in line or automatically become the Blacksheep, the problem child who is now the problem adult. The reason for family or friends interventions disguised as concern for you when sometimes it is the egos of the people you are 'embarrassing'.  We strive to do more, be more and compare our journeys to others. Look at our peers who are seemingly thriving, doing much better than we are. We ask; Why am I not the...

Pursuing perfection, this elusive, seductive idea that convinces you, makes you believe you're close but never quite get there, never good enough, this ever-moving target. We've heard the saying, "We are born to be happy and not perfect" I despise this phrase, I loathe it! Not because happiness is not a priority. This phrase sits in a weird area of my brain. Where all the things that make absolute sense when processed slowly are but the brain refuses to grasp. The thing is, no matter how many times you hear these phrases and they resonate, a part of you will always rationalise why that saying is for others and not you. That the person who makes up these phrases must be lazy, lacks ambition and must relish mediocrity. If you have never thought of it like that, I have. Seeking perfection has left me self-deprecating and not in a cute way, in the real sense of the phrase. It has started conversations with self that belittle, undermine and disregard my achieve...

Taking the time to figure out who you are is important, most of us exist never bothering to truly “self define”. We use cues from our surroundings, messages, and hints from friends and family about who we are and who we ought to be. We never bother to consider alternatives of who we could be or consider that maybe, just maybe, the cues we have at our disposal are limited and could limit our own 'self-view' and how we go through life. If I were born elsewhere in the world would I believe this is the right way to exist and interact with the world? We just do, accept and repeat patterns set before us for others to do the same after us. We question those that dare to do differently and even project our own insecurities making us “haters”,  all because of our limited world view and limited “viable opportunities”. We question others strides and then proceed to belittle them so that our little minds can deal with the fact that we might just be “losers” when in fact we did not app...

W e spend much time defining ourselves by the things we dislike instead of the things we love, things that nourish our souls and give life to authentic smiles. I had never thought of it like that before one of my bosses pointed it out in conversation. I had an 'AHA-moment', then I thought about all the times I openly shared what I loathed about certain TV shows, musicians and other subjects that I would rather be dead than caught watching, listening or interacting with. This kind of loathing is ego-driven. It says I am better than you and you have poor taste instead of, "These are the things that make me and this is what I enjoy".  It got me thinking of the negativity we unconsciously put into the world. We are quick to disassociate with certain things but never quite share what we want to be associated with. We go around dismissing and snubbing certain things and people because we are "above it or them" far superior to being leagued with 'th...

Dear Life, why do some things have to be so ambiguous? Really, why? I do not understand, it is much more easier to deal with black or white, grey areas can be quite lead like for my precious soul to handle, and more so because grey areas are the human emotions or a reflection of their black or their white.  A glass half full versus half empty. Depending on convenience or how complex we make the situation to be in our own brain. We either add a dash of black to our white and work ourselves up unnecessarily or white to our black to cushion life’s blows.  Not everything is ever that simple, there are layers upon layers to some situations but there are instances where we end up in grey areas because we over complicate or at times attempt to over simplify things. Nothing is wrong with grey areas it is a good middle ground, really sucks though if one gets hung up in the grey area so much that one ends up stuck in a rut.  Sometimes all it takes is removing one's se...

You should date an illiterate girl -Charles Warnke Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in a film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her. Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale or the ev...

T hat kind of love the one that makes you wonder if it is humanly possible to love another beyond words can express so high up the heavens seem to close, so wide the world is not enough to contain it. The kind that overflows, the simple kind, the 'I don't care who says what kind of love' the kind that you just have to look in the eyes of the other to feel, the kind that lives in a simple touch. It is a different kind of love not based on any conditions or expectations just that the other person is there everyday all they have to do is wake up and that is enough. The kind of love a parent has for his or her child, the kind a shared by young lovers who've just found each other, the kind shared by a matured couple who have come to understand, appreciate each other and come to love more as the years go by, the kind shared by siblings and the kind shared between friends. It is the 'catch you smiling by yourself' when you think of the other person kind. The...

image from Matthew Stumpy  @gurustump.com There's a slight obsession with being "busy" and occupied these days, the idea of being up to something even when it is nothing at all makes one feel significant as though they are contributing to green peace or a worthy cause. Okay, maybe not that, but still, everyone is a hustler or a diva, dabbling in this and that all fingers and toes dipped in different pots. Social networks bios are testament to this, they read like entries into a contest which aims to crown someone with the most interesting titles and, and, and. It reminds me of primary school where our oral exams were about how our holidays went and boasting to each other of who had more fun and experienced the coolest activities, only this time it is grown folk going on about which pie/s their fingers have been in, some true and some pure fabrications. According to www.thefreedictionary.com "busy" means 1. Engaged in activity, 2. Sustaining much act...

Last night we gate crashed Zander Blom's  exhibition opening at the Stevenson gallery on Juta Braamfontein, so what...huh.. we had fun, drank some free wine, indulged in some beautiful art, chose our favourites, mingled with the beautiful people that were there and tried to figure out what  Blom was thinking. I'm no art connoisseur but those paintings had so much emotion embedded in them (just saying that) on the real though I loved the textures they popped..(the use of colour) wanted to feel the paintings but we were advised not to touch (wet paint). It was refreshing loved every moment. * MOSA KAISER, MAMELLO, SIBUSISO, LESEDI The exhibition runs from the 27/11/2011 till 06/12/2011 for more info click  here

T here are certain things that you do or don't do that people feel or rather expect you to be doing or not, and I don't know why but we always seem to blame it on society. "Society tells us this... and that..." which throws me off, is society not formed by individuals each one with his or her own psychological make up... each with his/her own life experiences. So then why do we either conform to what we think "Society" stipulates for us or spend much of our energy trying to go against the so called 'current' and at times to our own detriment. Most of the world greatest minds, leaders, artists, cut out their own patterns, they may have used the scissors’ that society handed to them or manufactured their own fact is they tried something different that set them apart from any other.   The deal is for some "societal stipulations / unwritten steps to follow" are good for some and exceedingly frustrating for some.  Good in a sense it guides, d...

"Cuz HE! ain't no different from you N SHE ! ain't no different from me So WE! got to live out our dreams Like the people on TV"