Shawshank Redemption

I’m in jail. (So what if it’s ACed and I get biryani?!).

My son’s on the other side of a screen… a weekly visit.

Pop pops a question - searching for hope (for myself i.e., he has plenty) .

“Son, what do you miss most about me?”

He’s 8, a kinesthetic learner. He fiddles, ticks, shifts.

Suddenly, he stops looks me straight in the eye and says: “Everything.”

His hands begin moving again all over the place, as he tries to show what he means.

Then, he stops again, and says: “I miss all of you.”

And he’s gone.

Open wound

Wrote a ditty for a little missy,
She wasn’t impressed and said:

Too much blood, too much pain,
Find hope, laugh again…

Had it all, I say,
In buckets and spades,
Then cashed it in for a spin.

Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll,
It all seemed so cool.
Took it to the limit,
Played the perfect fool.

Got off the ride, paid the ticket price,
Stupor wore off,
Time to take stock.

People destroyed – check.
Self contorted – check.
Health destroyed – check.
Reality distorted – check.

Suffer the rule: did the crime, do the time

My life is now an open wound.

You're in the Army Now

I had a brief fling with discipline as sergeant with the Army division of the National Cadet Corp in school.

The commanding officer was a man whose full force I felt on the cheek of my face only once.

It was enough to wake me up and remind me that life is about more than the mores.

Butt, barrel, bayonet, brasso, beret… matter.

Most of all, family, nation and your platoon are worth dying for.

Maybe he should have slapped me a few more times.

For Harold Sir from St Vincent’s High School, usually, once was enough.

Thank-you, Sir.

Olympic musings

Is it just me, or are athletes winning medals at London 2012 breaking down in tears more than any Olympics I have seen before?

I have a feeling the global state of affairs right now – totally screwed – is responsible.

The Olympics have come at a time when the world was badly in need of a pep-up.

Economy, environment, morality, life - all in the toilet.

So, the Olympics do give much hope.

Not just to us watching, but to those competing as well.

Cue the tears.

For a telling post on Michael Phelps from Beijing 2008, click here: http://www.ninety9words.blogspot.com/2008/08/lezak-can-phelp-it.html

My world, Brand calls it

So you win some and you’re winsome.
Then, it’s all a bit ‘Shameless’ and you’re Frank the Plank.
Got a call from Russell Brand. This is how he called it:
“What I’ve learnt, to my cost, is that people will put up with all manner of bad behaviour so long as you’re giving them what they want.
“They will laugh and get into it and enjoy the anecdotes and the craziness and the mayhem, as long as you’re doing your job well.
“But, the minute you’re not, you’re fucked.
“They’ll wipe their hands of you without a second glance.”

Bzzzzzzzp...

As black holes go, the most crippling is the one where you realise you are now not worthy of any emotive indulgence.
Not worthy of happiness or joy, satisfaction or accomplishment, peace or anger.
Your emotional rights as an individual are sucked into oblivion by the black hole of self-recrimination.
Self-recrimination. That’s the toughest jury; Borne out of true self-inquest, devoid of distraction and sleight of heart, or mind.
Like black holes in space, we know they exist and what they do, but there is little fuss about the exact moment of contact with one.
Just a bzzzzzp.
Gone.

Yin, Yang, Yawn...

The yin-yang of human experience bemuses me.
A soldier is sent to war, then accused of excessive violence.
A jockey is allowed to race a horse, then restricted from using a whip.
This constant see-sawing of human nature to try and soothe consciences and justify pursuits that fall clearly in that ‘grey’ moral zone provide stop and think moments for (wo)mankind.
I have bemoaned on this blog that not enough people are stopping, thinking and then talking about it.
Maybe they are talking, but the amount of bullshit in cyberspace just drowns out any intelligent thought, reason or discussion.

Bankruptcy lessons

The hardest thing about being bankrupt, well, one of the hardest, is being able to share in the joy of the progress and prosperity of those around you.
While being able to afford a doughnut will be your major challenge for the immediate future (read, next few years), your best buddy’s shiny new Lamborghini does not exactly set your heart aflame.
What it does do, is make you want to set yourself aflame. And the Lamborghini. And all the Lamborghinis in the world. And the world itself.
So bankruptcy teaches you detachment.
A forced lesson, but a survival one.

With out, from with in

When you are angry and seething at the state of the world around you, you must at least have the moral equivalent of a soap box to stand on before you let loose.

If realization has struck you in the deep, dark recesses of a forlorn and miserable patch, it is perhaps best to breathe deeply and try to follow the Buddhist meditation technique of – not thinking.

What else can one do? You cannot begin to change the world yet except from within.

Too many from outside are inside, and too many from the inside are outside – St Augustine

Sexy like hard work

Learning and scholarship and hard work and thrift and deferment of present enjoyment for future gain.

Lee Kuan Yew, creator of modern Singapore and former PM, explaining why Asians succeed.

None of those words are sexy, none make for exciting copy or eye-ball grabbing headlines.

Yet, as the Asians move to take over the world, parents will have to weigh carefully drawing a balance between the un-cool truths of the past and the hip calling of the future.

How to propagate the grind without killing the innovation.

Or else, the inexorable cycle of life will bring us to ruin.

Sophistication runs riot

Sophism was a movement in ancient Greece where an argument was obscured by big words and complicated concepts so as to hide the truth.
The movement gave us the word sophistication, which, over the years, has come to mean a good thing. A compliment.
Barack Obama is a sophisticated president.
The sophistication of modern life, however, was torched and looted by educated, middle-class and affluent rioters in London.
For just one moment, we were offered a window to the heart of modern humanity – the animal spirit laid bare.
Now, the argument is more earthy - parents teach your children well.

Guilty, Three years, solitary...

If you were sentenced to three years, but were given one week off before you went it, what would you do?
Running away is not an option. You do not want to run forever.
Do you spend the time weighing the cost of every minute detail that you will miss out on?
Do you spend every minute living it like it was your last?
Do you just hold your loved ones and say sorry, again and again?
Do you steel your mind and heart and begin the sentence even before it begins?
Do you die?
What do you do?

Stick, twist or shout?

What can you do, when, crippled as you are at the knee,
Hobbling along the floor of your dreams,
Walls closing in, sinking sand sucking you within,
What can you do, but thrash and tremble,
Pray and beg and hope for redemption.
It won’t come you know it, at least not in a painless shot of morphine,
or a lucky number worth a million dollars.
It won’t come you know it. Not like a knight in shining armour,
Or a knife to the heart in surrender.
What can you do when the bottom falls out?
Stick, twist or shout?

Money or me... so it's me

I am in a dilemma. I have realised that when I have nothing, I have everything.
Don’t dismiss that as standard-issue, trying-to-be-wise psychobabble.
It’s a profoundly earth-shattering discovery for me.
When I am completely broke and stripped of all material proprietaries, then I find I am able to think clearly, act normally and do that stuff that really leaves me at peace.
One thing for sure, I cannot ever have money with me.
It is has never bought me happiness.
Sure, the problem is me. But, it’s easier to get rid of money than to get rid of me.

Oh, get on with it

At 37 I’m done, dusted and ready to be trusted. Or, should that be still can’t be trusted.
The skepticism that accompanies old age is beginning to fester into a frothing fountain of bitterness.
Alas, I’m Silas Marner trapped in Ozzy Osbourne’s body.
Only India can save me now, I feel. And only I can save India (but don’t tell anyone in India yet. They may not believe you).
A PC has replaced my Mac, I’ve been reluctantly forced back onto Facebook and my kids are going to Oz for a holiday.
The randomness of life, I tell you.

Like Holland and Mickey Rourke

I have been away because of the World Cup.
That, coupled with writing a column, saving my job, relaunching my newspaper as a web-only product and relocating my family has left me bereft of any strength and sapped of all enthusiasm and emotion.
Like Holland, I am left with nothing. Which is quite something.
I love this blog too much to let it die without a fight. Like Mickey Rourke, in The Wrestler. So, come back if you’ve stopped.
And know, if you’ve ever seen a one-trick pony in the field so happy and free. Then you’ve seen me…

I am...

I am impressed that other sports, cricket in particular, have the balls to conduct tournaments that clash with the football World Cup. I’m biased, but cricket looks like some pissy shit compared to what’s going on in South Africa.
I am disgusted by how people become football fans and some even experts (read Facebook postings), just because the World Cup is on. Fookin’ posers!
I am disappointed with England coach Fabio Capello’s decision not to play a central midfielder and go with a punt-or-cross attack.
I am a selfish bastard. This last one is just by the way.

All gone

The beat is gone. So is the vibe, the DJ, the bass player and the guy at the end of the road.
‘Emptiness within’, in the vocal style of Elvis Presley, echoes. A lot of ‘f’ words come to mind, when actually only one will suffice, really.
‘Ifs’ and ‘buts’ and ‘what-might-have-beens’ swirl about the consciousness like locusts threatening to swoop on the imagination and devour any fertility that might exist there.
Dour. Life is dour. Like a blanket soaked in the ocean it drenches the skin in unforgiving coldness. There is no warmth. There is nothing. All gone.

The greatest sense of all

A sense of style, however skewed, is a must to be cool. A sense of the theatrical to lift the dourness of routine will leave your life embellished. A sense of timing – whether with a compliment, joke or tricky dance step – will set you apart from the ordinary.
A sense of the spiritual, the fact that there are mysteries out there unanswered but within our realm of experience, will evolve you.
A sense of beauty, whether it be art, people, poetry or music, will humble you.
However, without common sense all of the above are pretty much useless.

Hmmm....

When life consumes you, be consumed.
When the burden gets too much, lie down and let it crush you.
Be a reed, not an oak.
If it seems pointless, it probably is.
Don’t fight, don’t struggle, don’t dig in (unless it’s food and it’s free).
In all things be a child. Breathe like a child,
deep down to your stomach, not your chest.
Have neither faith, nor hope, nor love. Of the three, fear love the most.
Be like the ocean. Be constantly moved by things that don’t matter.
Above all, always, always, give in, give in, give in…