So where do we begin……

Well, we might as well start with the big things, the tangible things. The things that South African’s say they wish they never had in South Africa. Top of that list is without doubt, crime.

I’ll just be brutally direct about this, Australia doesn’t have crime, not in how we would define it in South Africa. Sure, there are the occasional robberies, muggings and bar fights but by and large, violent crime is something that hardly ever happens and when it does, believe me, it makes national news. Its actually pretty weird getting used to it. In fact, i haven’t quite yet realised that i don’t have to pack my laptop in the boot when i drive nor that i need to drive around with closed windows. The aussies complain about it being a nanny state and when South Africans come here, they complain about all the rules even though its those same very rules they desire when they are back home. I don’t disagree, Australia is certainly a nanny state but you know what, that’s why shit works here, that’s why there is no crime. I’ll give you a few examples of what I saw here with my own eyes through my last three visits…..

In my first trip here I, I was walking near a shopping centre of sorts on a Tuesday night where a young girl was a bit drunk and making a bit of a noise outside one of the closed stores. Nothing bad, just a bit of noise. Within 5 minutes, two police cars arrived, threw her in the back of the van and off they went. Strong arm tactics? Maybe a bit, but did it prevent the situation from getting worse and possibly making her think twice about her behavior? I’m damn sure! Then more recently, I was at a nightclub on a Saturday night with friends and a drunken brawl broke out between two dudes. A couple of punches were thrown and it ended. Within 5 minutes there were TEN policemen who taped off the area and began asking witness questions to everyone in the room, myself included.

Now again, this might seem severe but the point here is that people fear the cops for the right reasons in Aus. As we all know in SA, our reason for fearing the cops is what might happen to us if we can’t pay them a bribe or in extreme situation, how you might get beaten or raped by them. This nearly happened to someone I care about very much the other night, the only thing that saved her from what seemed like a certain rape situation, was that she had a decent sum of money in her wallet. Who the hell do we trust if we cannot trust our police?!?

Ok so the police function effectively and crime is low, what else. Well what about services? What about the basic functioning of the city that is based, in theory, off our hard earned tax money. Well its quite ridiculous how well both Sydney and Melbourne function. It’s as if every cent of your tax is being used as it was intended. In the nearly 2 months I have spent here now, I have not seen a single broken traffic light, a single pothole or even a single car accident. Their town planning is absolute genius. In fact, its as if they look at how all of the rest of the world does something and then they think to themselves, well that works, how can we improve it or that doesn’t work, how can change it. They have such attention to detail with how their roads are defined and how to make traffic flow efficiently without causing holdups. Thus you see far more roundabouts and far less stop streets. Traffic lights are longer on main roads and yes it irritates you but it gets the cars through quicker and ultimately, you get through quicker as well. Another thing here related to why so few accidents occur, everyone sticks to the rules of the road and the speed limits. Its drives South Africans nuts but you know what, it works! In SA, pedestrians wait for cars, in Sydney, pedestrians are so confident walking across the road when the little green man comes on, they don’t even look. Cars stop dead wherever they are. Needless to say, I have nearly run over a few ozzies with my South African exuberance and unintentional non-conformity to the rules.

Other biggies are that they have a demerit system for driving and they enforce it strictly. In fact, this past weekend was a long weekend and because they know people are going away and may be a bit more reckless, they enforced double demerits for any traffic violations! Oh and PS, never drink and drive in Aus!!! No one does it. Call a cab, use the public transport or have a designated dave because if you get caught over the limit, you go to jail and in certain cases (as what happened to a friend of a friend) you may lose you license indefinitely! No bribing of police officers here, you simply don’t fuck with that shit.

Now thinking of some of the bigger picture things here like raising a family. To be honest, if you are a young family with young kids, you will be giving your kids a better life and lifestyle as well as more opportunities by moving here. Secondary public school education is free and tertiary education can be paid back to the government, interest free, over a long period of time something to the effect of 10 years. So really, every kid in Australia has an abundance of opportunity. For this reason (and many others) Australia has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world, less than 3% I think.

Melbourne was recently voted the number one most livable city in the world, while Sydney was placed sixth, according to the Economist’s Global Liveability Survey. That tells you something…..

Ok so with all this good, there must be some bad. Yes of course.

Sydney is ridiculously expensive. Housing is insane! So insane that my friend, who lives in a very cosmopolitan suburb called Surrey Hills (think Greenside but in the middle of the city near all the action), told me that to buy the house he is renting, which is roughly equivalent to the house I own in South Africa, would cost $700,000. My house cost R700,000! Now when you factor the average salary in Aus against the average salary in SA, then this difference becomes even greater. Living costs are certainly higher here but i feel you are getting more for those costs, not so much in the size of your house or the car you drive because that would be better in SA, but in the quality of your lifestyle. Having said that, electronic products are definitely cheaper in Aus and of course, you can get uncapped, unshaped 24 Mbps ADSL for $40 per month! yeah i know what you are thinking……(WTFF Telkom!!!!)

Then there are certain intangibles which I particular like about Sydney, but more so in Melbourne. People, believe it or not, are less image conscious here. I cant stand the current Johannesburg trend of BMW’s, Merc’s, Audi’s and 4×4′s everywhere. Its like we have gone power mad in jhb and everybody needs to have that little piece of bling. I do understand where it stems from though. I think because we sacrifice a lot in terms of crime, corruption and 3rd world inefficiencies in SA, we tend to want to compensate for it with material items. In a society where these issues barely exist, these desires are less pronounced because people are able to fill up their lives with a better quality of life.

You might also hear South Africans who return from a trip to Sydney say that it lacks a bit of soul. I don’t disagree with these thoughts, I feel the same. It certainly doesn’t have the vibe that London but nonetheless, I think there is more than enough in terms of bars, pubs, clubs, lounges and great restaurants. For me, this is where Melbourne takes the cake of top Aussie city. Unlike Sydney, its has mountains of character and soul and probably the best foodie cafe culture I have ever seen. I have probably eaten the best meals of my life in Melbourne and the coffee is legendary. Maybe these things are trivial to you, but to me its really important. I am a party animal so I need to be in a place with a lot of soul and Melbourne is without doubt Australia’s food, nightlife, culture and sporting capital while Sydney is the more refined and prettier big brother that’s all about career, bling, being outdoors and the sea. Melbourne is raw, edgy and full of people with tattoos and piercings. Sydney is full of suits and mini-skirts. If these two cities were jhb nightclubs, Sydney would be Taboo, Melbourne would be the Newtown Precinct. Melbourne feels like a giant Melville (without the drug dealers, beggars and car guards) whereas Sydney feels like Sandton.

Which ever of these two cities strikes your fancy, a few things common to both is the brilliant public transport (you don’t need a car if you live close to the city), the complete lack of car guards, beggars, petrol attendants and in general, anyone else trying to give you assistance that you don’t need, and the way in which shit just gets done. Oh yes, no domestic workers here unless you are very rich, so you be cleaning that shit yourselves!!

I guess the one thing I haven’t mentioned yet are the aussies themselves. How do they compare to South Africans? To be honest, I struggle to read them somewhat. A large part of this has to do with how they speak. In general, most people raise the tone of their voice towards the end of a sentence involving a question. What I have noticed is that aussies tend to do this in every sentence, whether its a question or not and this makes them hard to read, well, at least for me. I find that while South Africans are more abrasive up-front, we tend to be friendly once you get to know us. Aussies on the other hand are quite the opposite. They tend to be very friendly to your face but its doesn’t quite feel sincere. Again this might be more of a cultural differences than a genuine difference in character. Either way, we are different people. South Africans are definitely more aggressive, as expected, given the background we come from. To the aussies, this comes across as arrogance and in general, South Africans are seen as arrogant by many Australians.

So be it….. that’s life. At the end of the day, we are all part of one world with a bit of sand and water in between and the only real difference between us, exists in our minds, not the imaginary lines drawn on the map nor the political boundaries created by our leaders.

Well that’s it for now. I will probably have more as I still have another month here in Sydney before returning home but I hope this was remotely useful.

I see the egos’ flashing around me and I feel the desire of my own ego to claw its way back to its former glory and then I feel that calming feeling that you can only feel once you have learned what the ego is an how damaging its claws can be. And then I realise and remember and feel, and feel sorry for, all those around me, that will spend the rest of their lives, most likely, chasing their tail trying to make themselves appears greater or bigger than what they are. When I feel these feelings, I also deeply remember that in feeling them, there is a part of me that is judging those people and thinking that I am better because I do not feel them in the same way, for a sizeable portion of life-time, any longer.

Of course, that is my ego

We are never far away from it. My ability to keep my ego in check has been challenged recently through certain events at home, at work, and just in general but the one thing that I know, is that I have immeasurable inner strength and this strength keeps me pushing and trying. It especially keeps me from saying what you sometimes want to say certain people, when you see their ego and it’s personal self-destructive nature coming to the fore.

I can’t say what I want to say to them.

Each of us needs to find our own path and come to realise these concepts (or never realise or acknowledge them or accept them) over the course of our lives.

We may choose to accept or to reject and either option may work for us and thus allow us to conclude that the option is irrelevant because hey, we’re successful, our approach worked and yours, therefore, didn’t. What do we mean by “worked”? Does this mean wealth and career success? Does this mean great friends and relationships? Does this means we are right and you are wrong?

In all our rightness, how often are we ever really happy? Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be happy?

I am so happy that we are doing an EQ course…All the prodding and pushing the right people, with the right words, in the way that they needed to hear it, has paid off….manipulation and job done haha

You see….that was my ego, right there. It wants you to know what I did. It’s wants you to know how clever I was in manipulating the people I needed to, to achieve my goal.

That’s why we all need it, because we are never free from it.

So you tell me, so what if we all have a massively giant ego? “I don’t care, I am happy” you say. You will never know what happiness is until you understand what your ego is. And even then, you will struggle to control it most of the time. It will get the better of you and when it does, you will revert into your old patterns of attention desperation, chasing the future but never living in the present (the future brings salvation and a better life) and being unable to let go of what others said or didn’t and should have said.

I have come to terms with the fact that I will never be able to truly subside my ego fully.

And I think, I am finally ok with that.

Is there something out there which in a moment, makes every thought and emotion crash into the floor?

Have you ever felt that feeling when time stands still in the mist of something truly spectacular and your entire being is wrapped up in cushions made of bliss and cotton wool?

It’s an amazing state to be in.

Amongst all the dark skies, there is always that one faint, distant sliver of light through the clouds. The darkness can always be lifted and the sun can shine again. Everything can be transcended. Wrongs can be righted and lessons can be learned.

So much beauty in the world, so much sorrow. Sorrow is beatiful. Sorrow is human, everything human is beautiful. Peaceful. Perfect. Imperfect.

What is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen or felt? You are.

I think we all feel this right? People steal our ideas, people take what we said and turn it against us, people think they are making us feel like we came up with the idea, we think we let others come up with the idea and then they take credit for it and then we get cross, we think that others use what we say to enhance what they say. Yeah i know, you feel it too…….

That endless game of apparent strategy that you feel you are winning one second and losing the next. That desire to feel like you are the one who has the knowledge and at the same time, feel like you control who else has the knowledge.

You feel like you are playing chess with a bunch that are playing checkers? Of course, they feel the same and you both feel like your chess has out smart’ed each others’ checkers. We are both wrong and we are both right.

You also both know when you are playing the same game as each other – there is a sense when your games coincide perhaps?

Life is fucking bizarre hey! One day you feel good about yourself, the next you feel bad. One day you feel like you made the right decision, the next day you think it was a total fuck up! One day you understand yourself, the next day you can’t understand your cat (my cat is fucking clever okay!!!)

I think the only thing we can do is speak our minds. I am only starting to so this now really. If I was to do this every day with everything I did, I would have no friends, no family, no colleagues, no clients. That’s what I am gonna start doing. Why? Because I am fucking right. It doesn’t really matter whether or not I am right, all that matters is that I believe I am right. Fuck you if you get in my way. You don’t stand a chance against my kind of gusto. Again, my ego wants to feel that. Your ego wants to match that. We are all so pathetic.

I wish I understood this less. I wish I understood you’ less.

Today Ogilvy has offices in 173 cities worldwide and has been widely recognized as providing the worlds greatest ever campaigns, many of which have been successful at creating the worlds greatest companies.

David Ogilvy is considered to be not just the Father of Modern Advertising, which on its own would be something quite extraordinary but taking a step back, he is considered to be the Father of Modern Consumerism.

This book, originally written in 1963 and then reworked in 1988, provides an anecdotal and powerful insight into one of the worlds greatest ever salesman, managers and creative geniuses. This is a book that every manager, entrepreneur-in-the-making and executive should read whatever industry you are in because the wisdom, while spoken about in an advertising agency context, is as appropriate in every other type of business.

The book is broken down into the following sections:

• How to manage an advertising agency
• How to get clients
• How to keep clients
• How to be a good client
• How to build great campaigns
• How to write potent copy
• How to illustrate advertisements and posters
• How to make good television commercials
• How to make good campaigns for food products, tourist destinations and proprietary medicines
• How to rise to the top of the tree – advice to the young.
• Should advertising be abolished.

The interesting thing about this book, when I relate it to the stories my wife tells of her experiences of working at an Ogilvy agency, is just how powerful a true leader can be in mobilizing an entire generation of people. Few people throughout history have been able to achieve such feats in a positive way that changes the world for the better. David Ogilvy was one of those leaders.

http://www.loot.co.za/product/david-ogilvy-ogilvy-on-advertising/vbcs-286-g960

Some of his famous quotes: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2011/02/02/10-david-ogilvy-quotes-that-could-revolutionize-your-blogging/

“The King of Madison Avenue: David Ogilvy and the Father of Modern Advertising: http://www.amazon.com/King-Madison-Avenue-Ogilvy-Advertising/dp/0230100368/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1299318002&sr=1-1

Over the coming months, I will redesign this site to allow for the types and themes of content I will be adding. This will include my assortment of quotations, photos, poems, artwork, music, astronomy, psychology, economics, short stories, journal entries, food and of course, humour. I have and will be experimenting with aspects of creative and lateral thinking that will probably be amusing to read as well as quite thought provoking.

I am in the slow process of putting together my first music album and I will release the whole thing for free on this site in the coming months. The productions are completely cross genre within the electronic music space and are an experiment in themselves. Each track has had the restriction that it must be produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by myself in 5 days, no more. Primarily this was done as a means to force creativity through the well known technique of limiting ones tools and time. Hopefully you will like the results.

Maybe I’ll even throw in some software engineering and architecture but by and large, this blog is going to become my journal of life and creativity.

I hope you can bear with me for a few months while I revamp things.

See ya soon!!

The interesting thing about the RSS feed having a mind of its own is that I got to read that post again for the first time in a few years….It’s quite fascinating reading something you wrote in the past. I think what I should do is write a few follow ups to some of the contentious ones and see if my viewpoints have changed and in what ways. If nothing else, it will be interesting to evaluate my thoughts over time and make some comparisons as well as ponder the influences.

Anyways, the RSS feed is now configured to show all posts so if all of a sudden you see a whole lot that you hadn’t seen before, enjoy!

On the 25th of this month, it will be 3 years ago that my mom passed away. She died due to complications related to colon cancer. Despite my overwhelming positivity in most aspects of life, I feel that it is probably time that I speak about this and the effect that it has had on me. This post will be long and if you are squemish, you probably shouldn’t read.

It’s not easy watching someone disappear from your life. My mom was a great woman. Loud, passionate and incredibly loving. She sacrificed so much in her life for my sisiter and I and I will always be incredibly grateful for everything she did to allow my sister and I to succeed.

My mom grew up in a tiny town called Jan Kempdorp outside of Kimberly in South Africa (which itself is a pretty small town). How the hell a family of Jews ended up there I will never know.

My mom had a difficult upbringing as one might expect, being a Jew in a small South African town. Antisemitism was rife and money was almost non-existent. Despite this though, my mom did well at school and her life long dream was to go to Uganda to live and work with the their gorilla population, sadly though, this dream was never to materialize.

It is hence not a surprise that as an adult, I am extremely passionate about animal welfare and am a member of a variety of welfare groups. In fact this weekend, I will be participating in a Peta protest against the use of animal skins in clothing where I will be covered in “blood” and will taunt people at the side of the road as they drive past – something I love doing because in general, I can’t stand people.

My mom was never able to attend a university but I was so happy that 2 months before her death I was able to give possibly the greatest moment of her life, which was my university graduation. I don’t think I have ever seen a bigger smile on her face, even bigger than my Bar Mitzvah.

One of the many lowest points that occur in seeing my mom pass away and something that still haunts me 3 years later is the last conversation I had with her before she fell into a coma. It was not the content of the conversation but rather that we had a bit of a argument. It was nothing serious, but we had an scuffle over something trivial while she was in the hospital and I kind of walked away in a huff.

The next day, my dad called me to say that my mom was in a coma. Two weeks later she was dead. I never got to say goodbye or how much I loved her. That moment haunts me.

Over the next two weeks, while her lifeless body was in the ICU, we all were around her, we spoke to her, we spoke about life, we did out best to put off the inevitable.

I knew that my mom was holding on till we told her it was okay for her to pass, I could feel it and sense it. On the 25th of July at 12:15 in the ICU at Linksfield clinic, I asked my family if I could have a moment with her. I told her how much I loved her and I thanked her for everything she had done for me. At the end, I kissed her incredibly bloated face and I whispered in her ear “Go and be at peace”. I turned around and walked towards the door of the ICU. As I was about to walk out of the door, her heart stopped and the infamous flat line sound was made by the hospital machinery.

It was over.

My dad and I hugged for the first time in my life and he cried which was something I have never seen before. I told him it would be ok. They were married for 27 years and my mom passed away at the age of 62.

The last 10 years of my mom’s life were not happy at all. Prior to her having colon cancer, she also had breast cancer which led to her having a mastectomy. She also had around 10 major 8 hour back surgeries which included things such as a spinal fusion on multiple occasions. At the time of her death, she couldn’t really walk anymore and was in constant pain.

Yet despite this, she always showed tremendous positivity and courage and even went to work right up until 3 weeks before her death. She was a file administrator for the same family of companies for the best part of 30 years. That courage, positivity, loyalty and strong will is something I am proud to carry with me today as part of her legacy. She was a great woman and the life and soul of our family. My sister and I sound so similar to her, especially our enormous laugh.

I miss her so much and it has been difficult for me to come to terms with seeing a new women in my dad’s bed where my mom used to sleep, especially given that it only took him 4 months to move on and is now unhappy (although he has yet to admit as much to me). Our relationship has been strained but I want him to be happy. He is still healthy in body and mind and has many years to live. I want them to be happy years.

This month is always hard for me and closer to the 25th I will become snappier and a bit nasty to those around me but it is never intentional.

Anyways, I am glad I finally had the courage to post this.

I love you mom!

I haven’t spoken about it much on this site, but my absolute passion in life has become music and more specifically music creation, engineering and production. I absolutely love electronic music and my genres that I am interested in both from a production but also a live performance point of view are from the 125 bpm tech and electro house through to progressive house and then to the 140 bpm tech, progressive and uplifting trance with a massive dose of belting techno in the middle.

Between these genres they represent everything that appeals to me in sound and my own productions in some way, attempt to combine all my music interests into one track. One thing is massively prevelant in everything that I make and that is my love for percussion – african, latin and synthetic as well as my love for powerful, driving bass-lines that you might find in techno or tech-trance. There is just something so provocative about the rolling bass of a Simon Patterson track and the complex percussions loops of a Daniel Portman track. I love complex drum and percussion rhythms and the interplay with the bass-line always where my heart is at.

But back to what this post is actually about….I plan to completely redo this site using Joomla instead of WordPress and will put a custom theme together which I feel better defines me (well, I intent to pay on of my more UI talented colleagues to help me with it .

The reason for Joomla is because I intent to create a bit of a community and artist portal site for myself where I will not only provide my tunes as well as weekly/monthly podcasts of me mixing together my top tunes but I intent to use it as a platform to provide some pay-for content.

A big trend in the music production world over the last few years is for budding and mostly unsigned producers such as myself to release high-quality screen casts tutorials on things such as sound synthesis and design, sound engineering, mixing and production techniques, specific hardware or VST tutorials and even genre specific tutorials.

Most charge either a monthly fee to access all content (but then you need to be constantly delivering new content) or they work on a pay per course basis. Of course, the quality of the course is everything as well as the ability to leverage off the viral marketing potentials of the current interweb.

From all I have seen up till now, the sound and audio community is more than willing to pay for this (unlike the software dev community) and I, myself have forked out a good few hundred dollars for top quality content which has really helped me learn and grow in my abilities.

Now where I intent to diff slightly is that I plan to offer soundsets and sample packs for download. For example drum and percussion sample packs which I have designed from scratch. This is currently only being done by some of the top industry professionals and few can compete with the Vengeance sample pack series. Nonetheless I intent to try and initially I will give away a third of each pack for free to entice potential users.

For example say I have created a pack that contains Kicks, Snares, Claps, Open Hats, Closed Hats, Shakers, Congas and Bongos, then i will create a sample pack containing a third of each of the type of samples and distribute it on the various sites, forums etc etc.

This community is brutal, if my sample collections suck, they will flame me to death and obviously not buy. If they are good, there is the potential to gain not just the respect of the vast community but also to turn labels in your direction.

I would probably offer the full sample pack for $20-$30 and it might contain 300-500 one shot samples and maybe 100 loops created solely from the sample in the pack and various bits of processing that effecting.

For the tutorials, I will need to first determine what I want to create and how often I am able to get something out before deciding on a costing model. I will probably include the Ableton Live Packs for free (I use Ableton Live as my primary sequencing system) to registered users of the site, again to entice them to view the tutorials that produced the live packs.

I also intent to provide tutorials on my live performance setup once I have actually figured it out for myself and actually started performing live. My intention is not to be a DJ, but rather, an electronic musician commonly known as a Live PA. This differs to a DJ in two ways. Firstly, I will only play my own music. Secondly, like a band or musician, I will totally recreate the music live – if you have ever seen Goldfish, then you have an idea about what I am talking about…

Overall, this is not something that will make tons of money by any means, it is not something that will allow me to make music all day long. It could however, have a tremendous impact on community support which in turn leads to gigs (where the money is at if you are a DJ) and production/remix requests (not much money to be made any more here).

The current trend in the electronic music world is that your music gets you the gigs and the gigs get you the money and that is why, nowadays, every DJ is a producer and every producer is a DJ.

Anyways, should be an exciting year. My intention this year, musically, is to get my tracks to a level that I would be willing to submit them to labels. If I can do that, It would mean that it has taken me around 2.5 years to get to that level which is decent since most well known producers say that it took them 4-5 years to get their tracks to top level standard. Who knows, maybe I am being overly optimistic, I still have so much to learn but hey, that’s just me

IMAGO is an area of psychology which deals with our perception of what love means, as passed to us by our parents primarily but also influenced by our environment…the whole nature and nurture thing.

At the time, we were both about 24 years old and the youngest there by at least 15 years. If fact, most couples that were there were either divorced, separated or pretty close to it and so we did feel pretty uncomfortable initially because unlike everyone else, we were coming there very happy in our relationship, but looking for further ways to enhance our lives together. All of the other couples, seemed to be there as a last resort to somehow get that spark going again.

I’ll start with the results first, at the end of the weekend, all the couples that were separated and even divorced actually got back together. Nuff said!

So what makes the course so amazing and why would doing it bring you closer together? Well, it all has to do with your parents….Whether we like it or not, our perceptual image of love, money, sex, men, women, religion and other racial groups are heavily controlled by the way we were raised. Ever read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki? It’s the same idea but with reference to money and how the rich stay rich because of how they think about money and how the poor stay poor, as well, due to how they think about money.

Now the image that our parents give us about love and what it means in this world has an enormous bearing on not just the rest of our lives, but also every aspect of our lives. Much more so than anything else. Why? It’s because for the first 18-25 (or sometimes even longer) years of our life, our entire mental picture of what it means for two people to be in love is entirely contained by the way that our parents love or don’t love each other. Above this though, the way they act towards each other in terms of how they speak and behave and under which scenarios and contexts also shapes everything we think and believe about love.

Have you ever found it interesting that:

• The child who was beaten, often beats his own children.
• The person who always picks the bad boy/girl, continues to do so and never gets why they keep getting hurt.
• The child whose parents got divorced when they were young, has serious commitment issues as an adult.
• The child whose parents were known adulterers, often becomes one as an adult.
• The child whose parents were together forever, often has no trouble committing to one person for life.

Now if these examples seem stereotypical or even clichéd, then we need to ask ourselves, why are they stereotypical? Is there some truth to them that makes them so common in society? I know people from each of these example and the amazing thing is that every single one of them conforms to the cliché. It’s not really a hard mental step to grasp really, what you see as a child, you believe as an adult. Whether you believe it or not.

So how this specific IMAGO course tackles this is by making you confront each and every issue that you have with your parents in a manner of highly engaging role playing and powerful psychological tools. It forces you to bring up, acknowledge and discuss things from the trivial to the most serious. The role playing is difficult but powerful. To give you an example of how it works…At one point, my wife and I had to sit on the floor together facing each other, we had to look straight into each other’s eyes and remain that way for the entire duration of the exercise. We took turns being the others parent and in doing so we had to give answers to concerns around a specific issue that the “child” was asking.

The whole idea behind this is to firstly get answers for and then have closure on why something is as it was. If you think you have no issues with your parents, wait till you do this. Let me assure you that every person ends up in tears, it is very traumatic and very healing.

There are many different psychological exercises that you will do with your partner to unearth everything related to how love was represented to you by your parents.

Over the course of the weekend you begin to really, truly understands who your partner is and why they do what they do, from leaving their clothes on the floor to the need for a boys/girls night out to issues such as cheating, children and life.

The reason why those couples got back together at the end of everything is that for the first time in their lives, they understood each other and why they do things. In most cases as well, if one partner was continually doing something that was unintentionally sabotaging their relationship, they also realised, probably for the first time, what they were doing and why they were doing it. In realising all of that, they now know how to stop doing it.

This makes all the difference.

My journey has brought me to a place where I believe most will never reach due to their obsession with money, greed, fame, lust, desire for power and all the other symptoms of the ego.

I have had many helpers along the way and as I continue to grow to become a better, more caring, more genuine person I wanted to acknowledge those helpers who have played a cardinal role in what has become a life worth treasuring.

Now besides from my wife, who is obviously the most influential force and person I have ever had on my life and who, over the last 10 years, has made me into a man that I respect and love, I have some secondary influences in the form of pieces of literature.

Now you might be thinking, what can a book do to change your life, well, you need to read these books and then you will understand. These books will help you understand how poisonous you are to yourself. If you are not so obtuse and ignorant that you cannot look deep into yourself, then these books will change the rest of your life for the better. Without further ado my top 5:

1. A New Earth – Eckhart Tolle

This is the most life changing book I have ever read. This is the source of dissolving your ego. Your ego, which you may or may not realise is the everything and anything upon which your apparent life is created. It is why you say and do practically everything and you have no idea how much it has polluted your life.

It creates that niggling little voice which is making you insane, every second of every day (though you may not realise your insanity until it’s gone). Every conversation you have, every thought, every thing you do, is affected by your ego’s desire to attain more.

Those who think they have no ego, are some of the most egotistical people alive by virtue of the fact that they use their apparent higher plain of consciousness to perceive themselves as better than everyone else. This of course, is the ego. It is only we you can be truly non-judgemental that you will understand this fully.

One day, although I suspect it will take a lifetime, I hope to be non-judgemental and ego-less from a purely genuine place.

If you think you do not need to read this, then you are precisely the person who needs to read it. Everyone on earth needs to read this, simple.

Does the following mean anything to you:

When I do well, it is because of my intelligence, but when others do well, it is because of their environment.
When I do badly, it is because of my environment but when others do badly, it is because of their intelligence.

You know what your answer is to this, that is why you need to read this book.

2. The Power Of Now – Eckhart Tolle

This book is by the same author as above and although written first, I believe should be read after you have read and absorbed the first book. This book conveys another side to the ego that we all struggle with every single day and most importantly how you overcome it.

For most people, the future will always be better, brighter and greater. We will achieve all our goals in the future and we will be happy, fulfilled and successful in the future. On top of this, most feel defined by their past. Their past shapes their abilities, their reactions, their lifestyle and their ambitions.

The problem with this, is that if this is how you define you life, you will spend the rest of you life blaming the past and wishing for the believed to be better, but never attainable, future.

Again, this is the ego’s desire to be better and in the same way as described previously, it completely poisons you out of your own future. This book provides the same solution as the first one, because it is the only solution to the same underlying problem.

You need to understand that the message in both above books takes years to understand and digest and it is not something that you just read. It is something you need to live. But after merely reading, the transformation will have already begun. You will be staggered at how much happier you are and how much more comes into your life.

3. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Steven Covey

Possibly the most famous, “self-help” book in the world. The definition of effectiveness. An absolute master-class of how to create everything you want, practically.

7 life-long habits that will take you a life time to embrace. These habits make you believe that anything is possible and if you are naive like me, then you will certainly welcome this way of thinking. If you are a glass is half-empty kind of pessimist, then you need to read this in order to not spend a life wishing for what you can only blame yourself for not attaining.

4. Emotional Intelligence – Daniel Goleman

Emotional Intelligence has nothing to do with how well you handle pressure or stress at work or how nervous you get in a job interview. This is what MBA students are taught to understand it as, but that is not it.

EQ is related to everything spoken about already and it is all of the above. This book discusses both the physiological and psychological aspects of EQ and if you love science like me, then you will find the biological aspects of the brain and mind discussed in this book, incredibly interesting.

This is the authoritative work on the subject by the man who first understood it and while it is a challenging read, you will feel incredibly awakened by the notions of how pointless and meaningless things like IQ really are. If you love the fact that you are clever and all you think of is shallow financial success, then you need to read this because you need to understand that clever has nothing to do with getting you the materialistic props that you seek so badly.

5. Gut Feelings – Gerd Gigerenzer

Superb. If you want to trust every decision you ever make and know that it comes from a place of depth so far beyond what the primitive, conscious, logical mind can fathom, then you need to read this. I think we all know, intuitively that all the best decisions, that we all make, are not those that come to use by way of logic and deep analytical thinking.

I have tried to live my life avoiding logical thinking for as long as I can remember and I have always made the right decisions for better or for worse. Note, that your gut may not always lead you along the path of least resistance. It may not even lead you on a pleasurable journey, but, it will lead you where you need to go, because there is a message and life-lesson for you in that journey.

This book is fascinating in that the author actually shows you how, though a multitude of verbal and thought experiments, just how powerful and correct your intuition is. It is staggering and provoking. It will make you understand that life is not as serious as we all wish it to be. Life is as fun as we make it and life is everything that we think it is. If you think it is bad, it will be bad.

So how have these 5 books (amongst many others) changed me? Well, everyday I am living the life I want, I am happy, I have all sorts of amazing opportunities coming to me, money always seems to make itself available to me when I need it and most importantly, I have a soul mate to share it all with.

Couldn’t ask for anything better really!

We take this for granted surely. I mean we get pulled into a world of abstraction where the blue sky formed from changing air pressures creates this blueish barrier between us on earth, and space.

The reality is that the moment I jump into the air, I am already in space. I have actually done what all those people who spend $20 million do. I went into space. I know it sounds retarded but think about it for a second. Walking on the surface of the earth is essentially the same as walking on the surface of the moon. We perceive it be different because we see that amazing blue sky above us which creates this illusion of separation but its just air really.

What a simple thought, it was profound for me.

Well, I am naive and I am fucking happy about it! Let me tell you what naive means to me…

While you find a problem in every solution, I find a solution to every problem. While you spend all your time focusing on the details, I spend my time happily ignoring them in the knowledge that everything always works itself out in the end. While you complicate your life with your inability to commit or to compromise, I acknowledge that two heads are always better than one and three heads are always better than two. While you spend your entire life focusing on meaningless titles and pats on the back that neither you nor anyone else will even remember in 5 years, I focus on being true to myself and not playing the game. While you have no idea about how toxic you are to yourself, I am confident that the way to my own success, is by us all succeeding together.

While you cannot survive without others knowing how clever you think you are, I carry the knowledge that I am smarter than you for the simple reason that I do not care whether or not I am smarter than you. While you cannot know true love because you cannot face yourself, I love completely and am completely loved because I am not afraid to get hurt.

The reason I am all this and you are not, is because I am naive. I chose to see the world as new and fresh every day. I choose to see each situation as an opportunity and not a chore or a disease. I choose to make mistakes and admit them. I choose to not care about being the smartest or fastest or richest.

I choose to be everything that you are not because I understand that the secret to life is not lust or greed or gain or revenge but rather it is love.

I choose to tell you this because watching you’ destroy yourself again and again and again and spend a long life chasing things you think matter, is agonising. I want you to be happy. I want you to know how wonderful it is to be free. I want you to know that in not chasing everything you think is important, the things that are important become apparent and realised.

Go ahead, call me an idealist, but one day, when its far too late, you will realise that you could have been more to more people by being a little bit, naive…

With my home country, South Africa, hosting the Football World Cup this year and with a good dose of irony in that my wife and I are emigrating from this beautiful country this year, times ahead are both exciting and daunting!

So excited, so scared, its gonna be a heck of a ride! By this time next year, I will be writing this blog post from Sydney, Australia (and will be lavishing the supremely better internet connection). I wonder how we are going to look back the place that has been our home for 28 years? How will we see everything once viewed as an outsider? I wonder how long it will take before I put on an Australian rugby jersey and praise the team?

So much beauty here, seems crazy to leave paradise except for the fact that it’s nearly paradise but not quite. It is all those not quite’s that are driving us away and to the place that has everything we have but fills in the missing gaps. You probably think we are taking the easy way out.

Is it easy to leave everything you know and everyone you know behind? Is it easy to start again from scratch? I think it’s far easier to maintain status quo.

I just can’t imagine ever supporting the Ozzie cricket team though

I do try and see every problem as an opportunity to learn and I am the first to admit that this is not always easy, especially when the pressure is on and I haven’t handled something the way I probably should’ve.

If, in the moment of crisis, struggle or mental upheaval you step outside the thoughts and think about what you are thinking about, you might be surprised how insightful you actually are about the way you do things and the way you think about things. But first and fore mostly, thinking about how you are solving the problem actually takes away the problem to an extent because in that moment, there is no problem, there are only thoughts and thoughts are never the issue, it is your emotional reaction to those thoughts that can be the issue.

Think about that for a second. If you control your emotions, then over time you can control your reactions to any situation even when you are challenged in a way that seems to threaten your ego’s sense of ownership, entitlement and desire to be the victim. That is powerful because you have not only changed how you “think” for the better but you changed it without actually changing your personality or being hard on yourself for how you think.

You can’t really change how you think and by this I mean you cannot control a thought that comes into your head but by changing how you react emotionally, over time, those negative, pessimistic thoughts that cause mental anguish and disease just subside on their own and all of a sudden you realise that you don’t think those thoughts any more.

Negative, compulsive thinking is everything that is wrong with the current world in my opinion and if you look around at the increasing number of people getting cancer, getting divorced and living unfulfilled lives, then surely this is all too obvious.

Knowledge contained in books like “The 7 habits of highly effective people” by Stephen Covey, “Mind Power” by John Kehoe and “Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman and “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle should be the foundational knowledge upon which all other knowledge in life is based. Everything else is less important and reciprocally, everything else will become more achievable if your emotions can be mastered.

It’s certainly a life-long battle and I am always learning more and getting it wrong all the time but that what it’s about. Enjoying and treasuring the journey because you will never reach the destination so rather embrace that concept now and let go of the reward at the end of the tunnel. There is no reward at the end, the reward is happening right now whether you are aware of it or not.

I was fortunate enough to go to Ibiza in 2008 and in doing so, one realises just how far behind we are in terms of parties, the atmosphere, the fun and of course, the music. There is only on place in SA that has it and does it right and that is ESP in JHB! They know what music is and how to play and mix it. They know how to drive a crowd wild! They are the only nightclub I will go to because they have a soul for the music.

Everything else in SA is shit!

I don’t know what happened to that rave seen of the 90′s? Those good old Rosebank days of the 90′s! Fuck man, those were the days! Since then, there has been almost nothing new, nothing unique and nothing that pushes the boundaries. Trance and Techno just aren’t accepted in this country and I don’t know why, it has so much depth and character but I guess, one can’t account for taste these days!

I listen to the radio on my way to work and all I hear is Lady Gaga, Britney and other horse shit and I wonder, where have the real musicians and artists gone? Where is the talent, it must still be there surely?

I saw something on Facebook the other day which really pissed me off. Fucking Tiesto is giving away as a competition prize, a personal phone call!!!!! Huge ass WTF!!!!!

How can their egos have gone so far up their own asses that even the guys that are talented, have become shallow, vote seeking, Top 100 thriving assholes!

Good on you ESP and James and Shane and everyone else! You are authentic! Don’t loose sight of that!

I have been reading the 2 famous books by Eckhard Tolle namely, “The Power of Now” and “The New Earth” and of course they are life changing, mind altering and truly revolutionary. I have been on the quest of self-improvement for a number of years now and at this point, I have been able to reach a good place in terms of ego balance yet I am still battling a bit with acceptance of The Now, acceptance of what-is.

It is a difficult thing to comprehend because our entire lives, upbringing and culture is fixated on making you, effectively, the conglomeration of the past who constantly yearns for the future, believing that the future is better and the grass is greener.

I see this around me mostly because I am now able to see it in myself. I want to help those around me get out of this train of thought but I know it would be too condescending to mention. Of course, my emotional awareness also makes me realise that I want to make it aware to them because at some level, it would satisfy the always present need to have my ego scratched, due to the ego’s desire to prove a separation between them and me. I am aware of it. The work place seems to be where people need the most awakening but it is also the one place that would probably never understand.

The trick is to not be too hard on yourself for having the egoic thoughts. It is merely to acknowledge them. Acknowledgement does 2 things. Firstly, it stops the thought in its tracks. Secondly, stepping outside of the thought, over time, will stop the egoic thoughts from happening in the first place because that’s just part of how the mind seems to work.

I love where I am right now in terms of my consciousness but ironically the world seems simpler when you let your mind run on auto-pilot and never truly thinking about what you are thinking or feeling.

My true aim for the next while is to be able to completely focus on the now without needing to focus on the now. If what is, just is, then, well….I have reached that point where few will ever tread.

My medium term goals, in no particular order are as follows:

• Continue to be an awesome husband (well that’s my opinion anyway)
• Become the worlds greatest DJ and producer
• Play the piano and bongo drums effortlessly
• Eat the food and drink the wine of every country in the world
• Continue writing on topics of substance and resisting to be like every other popular blog that writes bits about everything
• Definitely cook more, especially more Mediterranean
• Exercise more! A got a gym contract, it’s a start, give me a break!

That’s a decent list for the time being. I think I will have to re-evaluate whether I am the worlds greatest DJ and producer every month or so because it’s has such an immediate horizon

I know very few leaders and of the managers that I do know, few of them are good at it. Managers tend to be those that love to be negative and pessimistic, they spend all their focus on trying to do things right without paying any attention to whether or not they are doing the right thing. I have no time for managers, good or bad because the bad one’s make my life hell and the good ones cannot consider other options or other ways of doing things. They care not about being better than they already are, they only care about not becoming worse. Growth is not an option, the only option is not moving backwards, how negative!

Leading is about being the visionary, the one who won’t accept defeat and the one who knows how to be humble when he is defeated. Managers have no idea how to think beyond the boundaries of their experience. Managers may in time become CEO’s but they will never be entrepreneurs. They do not have the internal guiding light to separate themselves from what everyone else is doing and consequently, they become like every other business head void of any real concern or creativity.

I would rather be a leader of one than a manager of many.

Amongst the thousands of issues I have with the man of today, the one that I feel like speaking about at the moment is how much of his useless life is filtered through his jealous mind.

It’s as if he was put on this earth to rape, pillage and plunder the life and soul out of anything that could infer a weakness in own ability, wealth or status.

One of the best places to see such effects, are in your typical business meeting, you know the type where we try to impress you by metaphorically dragging our dicks across the board room table, taking out a ruler and measuring the mighty sword that has fucked up much of this world.

It’s all about me versus you, us versus them, haves or have nots, the hottest girlfriend, the most woman, the best car, the best LCD TV and the sad excuses at the end of the debauchery.

Now I am not going to sit here and say woman are not like this because that would be bullshit! Woman are are slowly treading the same paths by trying to beat men using the same game, instead of playing their own game, to their own strengths and being better than men by virtue of the fact that they are better than men.

The same clichés, the same stereotypes are more prevalent than ever and will continue to further dominate the increasing divorce rate until people learn to break free from the way they were raised and the excuses they continue to make to justify their behaviour.

You do not have to be the person that everyone else is, you are responsible for your actions and you can change to be a better person. It’s taken me many years to break free from my upbringing’s indoctrinations but I did it first and foremost by realising that indoctrinations existed.

That has to be the first step but of course, the world is too ignorant and selfish to realise a problem in itself so never mind, waste of time….

I find it so sad that going to the police station, I was made to feel somewhat embarrassed because my reason for being there was not something akin to rape or murder. It seems lessor issues are precisly unimportant to the SAPS but even worse, the fact that I am white means that I now somehow deserve it or can, at least, afford to deal with it. It’s pathetic.

Those people are supposed to be our knights in shining armour, our saviours in darkness but instead, they are the epitamy of what is wrong with this country. In their eyes, they are above the law and as such, have almost no motivation to implement it. They would rather laugh at you then assist you.

I have lost all faith in our police service over the last few years due to the unfortunate interactions that I or my family has had to have with them. For me it has reached the point where should I need to call someone in the most dire of situations, they will be last on the list.

Its quite sad actually how our real world life is being replaced by our Second Life or one of our 150 profiles on all these sites. I am no longer Doron Dusheiko, I am in in fact, www.facebook.com/DoronDusheiko and that URL apparently has more meaning than who and what I really am.

I recently have written a few articles for a some blog sites and have decided to stop writing for anything but my own blog mostly because of the realisation that 99% of everything I read is all bullshit! It’s all about inflating weak ego’s, associating one’s pathetic self-lack-of-image with something that is supposed to be important. In truth, no-one cares about what they write, they say and increasingly, what they do. This worries me and I do not want any part of it. Blogging has become entirely about numbers, promotion, dollars and has completely lost its original purpose of expression. I will not put AdWords or AdSense on my site as it is fucking ridiculous! Who cares if no-one in the entire Internet reads this. Who cares if my SEO descriptions and whatever are not appropriate! Fuck it! It’s all bullshit!!!

Becoming hooked on who is looking at your Twitter account is only going to ensure that you miss out much you could discover in the real world. I dunno, maybe I am a realist, a naturalist or just the usual cliche of wanting to return to the “good old days”. Well, fuck you I am! The good old days meant that people actually communicated, corporations actually did some work and each of us valued our first life more than our virtual life.

To paraphrase something from the movie, Good Will Hunting…”You can read, study and understand everything about the Sistine Chapel, but until you go there, you will never know what it smells like”

My view is that most of us give charity because we are too lazy to make a real, lasting effort and difference. You see, its very easy to write out a cheque or deposit money into some account and then wipe your hands of the matter based on the justification that you’ have done something for those poor and needy out there.

Its complete bullshit!

I agree and concede that is better that (maybe) that they receive something rather than nothing but lets be honest with ourselves…who of us is willing to actually go do some real charity work with individuals in the townships or in Africa somewhere? Yeah I thought so.

Now I don’t think we should be too hard on ourselves for this either. I mean, first port of call is to actually give a shit about the needy and of course, if you don’t give a shit, then i guess, you have nothing to feel guilty about, right?

I personally feel very little for human causes as I have the somewhat hard-ass view that they can help themselves. For me, it’s all about the animals but even saying that, I know I am guilty of just making a bank deposit and not actually gettting involved on the ground. I know others who have been far more giving of their time despite their busy schedules so I am not going to use that excuse.

Live and learn I guess!

My wife and her sister get along very nicely when they are sperated by the 600 or so kilometres between joburg and maritzburg. Consequently, I do not get along too well with her or her husband. The thing is, that we couldn’t be more different really. They are the uber rich, private bording school, learn to horseride and play golf types whereas my wife and I are from humble beginnings, have huge opinions that we don’t mind sharing and throw caution to the wind on most matters in life.

They think we are stupid and childish and we think they are pompass, anally retentive old prudes.

I guess the challenging thing about family get togethers is actually getting the family together really…not physically, but rather in terms of communicating constructively where jelousy, favouritism and differences don’t feature.

Never really seen it with my wife and her sister but I am sure it happens successfully for other families…

Not really any point to this post, just thinking out load Pietermaritzburg is a pretty place though!

For me, success in my passions and for that matter, even the enjoyment of my passions is stupidly, but nontheless, actually, self-limited by the time in which things are achieved or discovered.

I keep imposing limits on myself to the point where I rationlise that I am already too old (at the age of 27) to achieve what I really want to in life. I have actually managed to reason myself into believing that because many of the examples I gauge my success against, started on thier voyage at the age of 14-15, that I have somehow missed the boat by starting on this late in life. That’s the biggest pile of steamy, smelly bullshit I have ever heard!

The worst part about it all is that in deciding that I am too old, I also make myself think of what I love as a chore because of course, if I am too old, what’s the point and if there is no point, then there is no desire for the journey or the discovery.

Wow I amaze myself sometimes with how convoluted my thoughts can become…Thankfully though, I try keep myself ever vigilant on what I am thinking and why.

It’s time for a change. I can and will achieve what I want to. Age is nothing but a number or so I have heard…

So what can one do when part of a purpose has a relatively long duration to maturity? Patience is a virtue isn’t it? Hmmm, perhaps I am without that virtue. In honesty, I have always fallen into the trap of planning for the next before finishing the current. Now that might seem a reasonable way of going through life, if not admirable, but every now and again, I have to ask myself, does that way of thinking come at the cost of not enjoying the moment? not throwing oneself completely and honestly into what one is doing at the time?

I mean if you are always plotting for the future and forgetting that the best plans are the ones you never made (which in my case is absolutely true) then surely hindsight would suggest to fuck the plans and LIVE LIVE LIVE!!

I am both trying and getting better (despite the obvious paradox of trying to be spontaneous). In the last few years I have definitely started to acknowledge that the best things in life are truly free and on top of that I am slowly beginning to enjoy each and every moment and see every step in the work flow, every part of the process, as a journey and not a destination.

As the sugar packed says, life is a journey, not a destination…I try to remember that every day.

In fact, in an earlier post I actually praised myself for my enhanced emotional development that I believe I had spawned over the course of the year, only to realise towards the latter part of the year, that much of my self-prescribed improvements were in fact, merely syntactic sugar and band aid around some far greater characters flaws and deficiencies.

In my short period away from work, I endeavoured to correct some things, re script some paradigms and create an environment which fosters change…My idea was that instead of trying to tackle the problem itself (which I haven’t figured out yet) I would rather change my environmental frustrations as well as take greater charge of the things I have some control over. In other words, I am focusing on my Circle of Influence instead of my Circle of Concern.

Already I have seen vast improvements in my view towards the things which I felt were upsetting me….I was predicating that I did not have a fundamental problem with the specific thing itself but rather the sugar which surrounds much of life….by improving my acceptance of the sugar and also adding sugar to taste I actually feel better and even excited to tackle those things which I believed, only 2 weeks ago, were eating my soul.

Time will be the truest critic of whether or not I have actually made a lasting improvement but I believe I am on the right path again and I am really and honestly looking forward to 2009.

I hate those people, I hate those concepts and yet despite my best efforts so far, I am becoming them. It is frustrating and depressing and I don’t know how to get around the bills, the career expectations, the way we have been told it should be done.

I am not that person, I have so many dreams and desires and yet I can’t find a way to live them. Life is hard but I have always said and believed that it shouldn’t be, you are doing something wrong if it is, yet I am completely guilty of failing to listen to my own advice. Human nature is amazing isn’t it.

To say that the “coming” was accurate is a complete understatement. Names, places, emotions, histories, events current and past and everything in between reared their presence. It could only have been real and the amazing feeling that I had that I am being watched over was quite something, even for an atheist like me.

Since that day, I am not devastated to visit the graveyard, nor am I unable to reflect deeply on what could have been. The reason for this is that once the physical realisation that they are not actually gone, but merely physically departed, has set in, ones sadness is somewhat subdued due to the knowledge of their presence. In essence, they are still there, not just passively, but actively watching over you.

The replacement on the other hand, is much harder to come to terms with.

If all reasons, all why’s were obvious and available, there would be no need for and no ability to evolve. Why should drive us, but shouldn’t hinder us. Why should provoke us, but shouldn’t excuse us. Why should not agree with us, but should’t create false illusions.

Why oh why!

No one tells us that dreams are meant to be broken. no one tells us that enjoyment is only for the priveledged. Perhaps it’s karma, perhaps it’s freedom. We are not supposed to know the truth.

Why do we act on far less than we intend? Fuck if I could give you or myself a complete answer to this, I’d be a millionaire. All I know, is that over the last few months, I have grown tremendously. From an emotional stand point, I have really began to understand what I am feeling at a given moment and more importantly, why….

Its a lot of fuckin work, being a defined introvert, accepting all my OCD’s and fetishes and actually learning to accept myself. Its taken me nearly 28 years to get to this point, but I am nearly there and now that I’m nearly there, everything I think becomes and even greater cause for analysis, not so much of myself, but of others…..I find myself constantly investigating the poeple surrounding me, searching their body language for signs of the common. Signs of the familiar emotion that seems to bind us all together. Signs of a deeper meaning lurking in their superficial actions. Perhaps, all I’m doing is projecting myself onto them in the hope that I can explain myself by looking for them in me, and me in them….

Who the hell knows!

Words are illusions, a word can mean anything, we choose to give them a particular definition but that doesn’t mean that that word defines that object or emotion. An apple is not an apple, we don’t actually know what it is, we may call it an apple so that we can all identify it and have common knowledge when referring to everyday objects or emotions or concepts, but, this does not change the fact that the thing that fell on Newton’s head, is not an apple.

Why do we try over analyse what people say. Its not about what anyone is saying, its about how they are saying it….the tone, the tempo, the volume and most importantly, the look in their eye. One can make any sentence mean any other sentence with enough thought on how to mimic the non-verbal communication that such a sentence would invoke. Give it a shot.

Most belief systems that I created for myself, I did so when I was 6 years old. Time since them has allowed me to refine them but remarkably, none of them have been shaken…….I am still atheist, pro gay marriage, pro abortion and pro death penalty. These are the very surface level issues which my intellect concerns itself with. The more important stuff needs more blog posts…

If you only rely on your IQ, even a high one, to get you through life, you are bound to run into trouble. Intelligence without cause or more accurately, intelligence without emotional control is like calling yourself a freedom fighter, period. You can have all the brains in the world, be capable of creating the most beautiful strategies but without a good dose of emotional stability and intuition, you will be never understand how and why you do what you do, react the way you react and make the choices you do. You will commit yourself to a lifetime of self begrudging and mutilation because you fail to understand your own soul, hence how the hell are you gonna understand anyone else’s with enough clarity that you can make lasting and powerful relationships??

Having a high EQ means you understand how and why you react, how and why you have the opinions you do, how and why you have the relationships you have, and most importantly it allows you to make corrections in the above, not only in yourself but also in others. This is because you can figure them out better than they can figure themselves out. This runs the risk of manipulation of others but fuck why not……

So does this mean I possess all this, give me 5 minutes with you and I may or may not use the information against you. It is quite funny though to notice the lack of EQ around you. Just look at your friends and family, watch their reactions to everything, their body language, how they need to have their ego stroked every 5 seconds. Make special notice of how it perturbs them that you don’t. The greatest threat you can pose to a weak ego is to let them insult you or try and think they won the argument without any fight back from you. They don’t realise it consciously but deep down something says to them, this person will fuck me up…Sorry I’m listening to very aggressive Techno at the moment…….

Now don’t read this and think this guy is an arrogant prick, yes I know that’s exactly what you are thinking. All that means is that while reading this you are thinking to yourself, “shit maybe this guy is smarter than me, this cant be, we need to hate him or call him arrogant to settle our ego a bit, or perhaps we need to make ourselves believe his beliefs and knowledge are a product of his environment, not his IQ or EQ, I dunno, which is it, I’m confused”. Sound familiar, this is the same reaction you have to anyone who challenges you in an argument, says something clever which you didn’t come up with and generally every few seconds.

Now you know, fix it.

I treasure those electronic sounds to a level of pure infatuation because without them I would not know how to define myself. I think in terms of memorable song moments and indulge in the richness of its symphony. It gives me that adrenalin rush that I need to calm my intelligence and to sober up to the realisation that I have to act like everyone else.

How could I live without it.

I cant sleep and its pissing me off. Two weeks ago some mother fuckers broke into our house through the window on the balcony on the second fucking floor!! I mean the fuckers deserve an A+ for effort! Now I am constantly waiting, patiently, for it to happen again, night after night, desperately seeking the inevitable like the day is long. Maybe this time I can be there when it happens or be awake when it happens or be aware that it is happening….We are so fucking desensitised that when a 6 day old baby gets raped we think for about 5 seconds how kuk that is and how we don’t want it to happen to us and then we carry on facebooking.

Freedom is not a privilege, its a fucking right or is that what all the 6 year old Zimbabwean war veterans forgot about….Irony is the reverse of guilt my friends and if you don’t understand that then you have just proved it. Only when we are all in London or Sydney will they be happy, and they bitch at us for Apartheid, fucking Nazi’s!