Glass of Water

I recently have been spending large periods of time outside of our beautiful country, and as the homage goes, absence has indeed made the heart grow founder. When I return to South Africa for 2 to 3 months a year I find myself entranced by the beauty, magnificence and depth in culture our country possess. When I still lived in this country I found myself guilty of taking advantage of all the positives that surrounded me, I believe that when you spend so much time in any place you tend to shut out everything that’s going on around you and your life is engulfed in a little bubble. But I was given an opportunity for a major change in scenery 2 years ago and without sounding cliché my life has never been the same.

Besides being fully appreciative and conscience of the incredible circumstance I was lucky enough to be born into, I found that there was another side effect of my prodigal ways. Objectivity, having been removed from the South African context and more importantly the normal life path context I gained a strange objectivity. Initially these feelings were disguised as homesickness or perhaps just straight anxiety, but I soon realized that my life had taken a turn and there was no looking back.

Early in life we always have role models, not only do these figures aim to inspire us but they are really just people who have certain qualities we admire and wish to possess or have had certain achievements we wish to achieve. Role models make our goals achievable tangible and most important they give us a firsthand eyewitness account of a person living the life we wish to live. Now to say that my baptismal of objectivity also meant there was no one I could look up to is preposterous. However things get kind of complicated when you are walking down a path with no light on. I guess what I’m trying to convey is that growing up we are always close to our role models, in the beginning its our parents, super mom and super dad who seem to be invincible and seemingly omnipotent wise sages with answers to everything. Then as age comes about it changes it turns to artists, local sports stars and other celebrities, the moral of the story is that the older we get, the further our role models get from us. Maybe in becoming adults we slowly stop drawing our personhood from others and begin to look inside ourselves to fill the gaps. But what does this all have to do with objectivity, my global travels or the ominous title above you ask?

Well, it’s all tied together in what I call the bubble world problem. As a person you have 5 senses, an incredibly powerful mind, and an erratically emotional soul (anybody with a calm soul is a serial killer that’s a fact) with all these internal information processors we become overloaded with information. If we had to dedicate our conscious mind to all those stimuli we’d simply lose it. We’d all go absolutely insane, the world is way to much to deal with and if every morning you had to think about all the issues in your life and tasks to achieve no doubt you’d find the closest highest ledge and make like Humpty
Dumpty. So the brain helps us out, it blocks out most things and allows us to focus on only a few pseudo important things in our lives. I call this state the bubble world. Its safe in there, you wake up think of close friends and family and begin a seemingly important task, at breakfast you worry about the chores of the day rather than the genocide in Darfur, the outbreak of cholera in Vietnam and whether the Cuban Missile crisis was the closest we’ll ever get to the end of the world.

But there is a problem, the bubble world is awesome, comfy, easy to deal with and covered by rainbow/ rose tinted walls but what bubbles do best is burst. Now there are all sorts of schools of thought about the positives of the end of the bubble world, some say that it is integral to personal development and that seeing the worlds illusion allows for clarity. I do agree with that I prefer my sight crystal clear but sometimes illusions are there to serve a purpose. The first natural bubble burst we all experience is the pubescent rock n roll years, call it growing pains but somewhere along the line between 14 – 18 we
realize the world is a cold place, our parents are not perfect and that not all people are to be trusted. It’s a shock realization for all parties involved including the parents as they suffer through watching the bubble perception of their child go from perfect spawn of all the happiness in the world to a tumultuous rebellious angry natural disaster. But there is always calm after the storm and now we’re all grown up, varsity students, pre young up and coming professionals and post scum of the society teenage punks and all in our world is good. So now I ask you, to burst or not to burst?

The bubble is back and we’ve indulged in its illusion long enough. What is the next move do we rupture our happiness shield and brace ourselves for the big dark wave? Do we wait for the next natural burst letting nature take its course? Unfortunately I’ve already made my decision and I’m so far gone, I’ll tell you its tough out here, the little pleasantries of human life are now seem a bore, fickle relationships are a nuisance and there are days when it seems like all the light inside me has been sucked out by reality. But then every now and then there are days, when it makes sense, it all adds up and you know that the happiness you feel is real, in fact I wouldn’t describe it as summer sunshine happiness but rather a surreal calm that holds you and reminds you that you are all powerful, the captain of your universe and the part of a rare breed of people who truly see the world as it is. Don’t panic.

Wandile Mtoba

This writer leads a moderately happy life and generally enjoys the company of his friends, well most of them, winners know when to quit.