Happy 2014

Happy new year 2014. May we all have an amazing year.

The numbers of this year add up to seven so this could be a wildly chaotic time in which things happen in a manner that is even better that anything that we could think about.

I hope that in this year more people discover their own creativity and are able to pursue whatever it may be. I think it is a true blessing to be able to create.

As for resolutions. Don't bother making them. I feel that most people are always living the best lives that they can manage. Should you wish to try harder at the beginning of a year, that is great, but, don't expect yourself to be a totally different person this year. You are who you are that that is good enough.

Namaste'

Wedding fun

My eldest child is getting married and it has brought to mind thoughts I have on both weddings and marriage in general.

It is truly an amazing thing when two people get together and decide to get married. What they are actually trying to do is form a new family unit. From this the next generation can spring and then they too can become ancestors.

The modern thing of writing your own vows is pretty silly. The old ones pretty much covered all the bases that needed to be covered.

Firstly I like the word cleave, as in cleaving unto each other. What this says to me is that you become one unit. One itches, then the other scratches. If you think of being a single unit then how could you do anything that would harm the other part of you or hurt the other part of you?

The second bit of forsaking all others, well that is true, you have to put your spouse first. I know this is an ignored opinion with people being told to pursue their own fun and give their partners freedom to pursue their own thing. Just be careful that in all the pursuing the reason for being together does not get lost. 

The thing I feel with the forsaking is that at last you are declaring to the world that you are a new family that all other people should not impeded your progress towards this goal. The other part of forsaking is the being faithful to your spouse until you both die. Now this one is pretty harsh. Not the bit that when you both alive, this goes without saying, but, what most people don't seem to get is that it is until you both peg.

The thing is that what you are agreeing to is serious. If you are an honourable person then the vows that you are taking should almost make you shit yourself. You are on the lightest side of the agreement, promising to love this person regardless of what happens. You are promising to cherish them no matter what.

The word cherish should be worried about. It is sneaky. Cherishing goes way beyond loving and caring, cherish is the thing that will make your heart skip a beat when you unexpectedly see your spouse in a crowd. Cherish is knowing what the other one want before they even do. Cherishing can just bring a lump to the throat in all it should invoke.

In traditional wedding ceremonies they have all the times quoting all the ups and downs. If you live long enough together you will experience the better and worse, the richer, the poorer and the sickness and in health. In the modern idiom I think they should add in the exciting and the boring. They should also add something about even in the cross and grumpy. The thing about in sickness of course is that with one sign of a pen, your spouse now has the right to make all of your medical decisions should you not be able to. So be nice to them, they could switch off the machines one day.

Now with all this talk of marriage we get back to the wedding. Instead of it being quite a sober affair that is in line with what you are promising to do, most wedding become this extravaganza of trying to be people who we really are not. Women would not in all reality run around in white poofy dresses that make them look like sugar plum fairies. What does it say about us that we expect people to pretend to be someone else on the one day that you had better have a grasp on what is real.

I know it is a celebration, and as such I will keep my opinions to myself. (Here doesn't count, the likelihood of my child reading this is almost the same odds as the zombie apocalypse)

I think it is lovely that they are getting married. It shows hope and really that is all that is needed to keep going in this world of ours.

Taco hell oops sorry meant shell

My family and I love to have a Taco evening every now and again. This comprises of us purchasing a box that contain the required spices to zing up the mince, Taco salsa to use in the construction of the tacos and lastly the taco shells. We normally also buy an extra bottle of salsa as the amount given would only give you a cubic centimetre per taco which is just ridiculous.

Well we planned this excitement for our evening repast last night and my child grated the cheese, I sliced up a lettuce into 5 mm strips and tomatoes into tiny blocks and my husband prepared the mince. All was going well, there was a bit of excitement as the box pronounced that it contained a new look. Hey we come from Africa almost anything excites us. I imagined all sort of new containers, added toys, possible a tiny piñata.

 The wonderful smell filled the kitchen and the salsa had been doled out into individual serving bowls. The lettuce, tomato and cheese were all ready and looking inviting and then the new look was spotted, what had been excitement turned to despair as we realized the new look was flat taco shells, no longer were they going to be enticing shells to put delicious flavours into and then enjoy their crispy delight, but rather flat objects that would need to carry the flavours in a precarious journey from the dinner plate to the mouth with morsels of deliciousness falling back to the plate waiting surface. The worst thing was that these new shaped taco shells were not all flat, but only half of them which then allowed us to have the debate as to whether to be the altruistic martyr or allow each family member to grow by experiencing the bitter disappointment of a flat taco shell.

Please go back to the old style taco shells; they really work a whole lot better. The dinner was taken from amazing to okay and that is a sad thing to do in this day and age where things are a struggle as it is. 

Namaste'

Be a real Rabbit

I love the story about the velveteen Rabbit that longs to be real. The poor rabbit needed to lose some of it's fluff and perfection to achieve this state. I feel that I had my pretensions taken away from me at quite a young age. I have never regretted it as I feel the state of real is something that you should strive for.

I get really worried about people that I know that are still full of pretensions. I have seen how the life has a tendency to dish out enough problems to equal the level of entitlement shown. I have seen people live their lives so as to impress others with stuff that is only created by smoke and mirrors. Motivation is also so important. When the motivation is greed then nothing good can come out of it.

The other side of this is the really dumb choices people make to ensure that they experience problems. I have done it to myself; whilst sitting far too comfortably in my life; I took myself overseas to work so that I could feel what poverty felt like. I learnt two seriously important lessons, firstly that I didn't like living under the bread line and secondly, that the grass is not always greener on the other side. But, hey, some more of my pretensions went away and I became a bit more real.

If you think of the word pretentious, then the root of the word is pretend. I think that it is a form of insecurity that initiates pretentiousness. It is frightening to stand in front of the world and let it see who you actually are. The biggest leap is not to give a damn. This is both coming towards you and going out from you. Giving a damn is not the same as caring. You should still care, but not with the negativity that is required with trying to impress people. The other thing to remember is that anything that other members of your family have done is not your fault and no guilt is needed over the deeds of others. You can admit to others what has occurred in your life and the interesting thing is having a real conversation may allow other to be real back. It is amazing how many experiences people have in common.

I have also witnessed people who borrow other people's woes. These are often celebrities who the borrower has never met. Borrowing other people’s sorrows is a shocking thing to do. It is sham and is part of pretension. You do not grow as a person by crying tears over something that is not your lesson. It is just self indulgence and often only performed so that others can see how sensitive you are. Be careful as the tears you cry over someone else’s lesson, as this may cause the lesson to be given to you.

It is the same as criticism. In my life I have experience most of the things that I had thought harshly about in others. In retrospect it is all quite funny. I suppose that is what the final realization should always be. That all the things that we go through are all just material for and excellent comedy routine called life. So be brave, show the world who you actually are and maybe slowly but surely you will loose the new and shiny fur that you had as protection and then you too will be real.

Namaste'  

Anthropology: are you making it?

Here is a question: Has electronic storage of your history destroyed the anthropological foot print you may have left for future generation? Has electronic storage actually created a footprint that you can share? How many photos have you actually printed so that when your hard drive crashes or Facebook decides to throw away your posted photos you have something to look at?

It is also an interesting question of how will future generations remember you? Have you made anything that will be looked at and actually get a spark of memory happening? Have you done anything interesting so that stories can be told about you?

I have a box that contains my mother's family artefacts and I have also added items from my mother's life. There are stories from my family's history, but mostly due to the fact that they were on the frontiers of Africa. Most of the history has tragic overtones. I have tried to tell stories of their lives, but there are so many holes in the tales that it is just a work of fiction. I have photos of their lives it still does not bring their thoughts through.

I suppose that DNA is the one way in which we can follow the history of our ancestors and future generation will be able to see their path right back to us and then back to the cave man. Our little journey of passing on the human message has been encoded. I liked the Dune books where knowledge was passed down to the next generation. I suppose that is the nature part of it and then the nurture will reflect the history of the families that led to the way that we think.

The values we have are hopefully better than the previous generation. That is whatever generation you are from. Hopefully my children will actually have children of their own and whether good or bad, those children get to hear stories of my life.

Namaste'