Alike, yet Askew

It is after the passing of several months in a new place that one can stop focusing on all that is going on around oneself, and realize that other people’s lives are changing as well. People get married, or move house, start new relationships, or do something completely unexpected. For me, I have noticed a lot of changes in the last few weeks, causing me to look back at what has happened in the lives of my friends whilst I have been in Korea. I was staggered by how much has gone on whilst I was too busy trying to wade into Korea and its culture.

In our current age of immediate, ever-present social media and information, looking back on my friends’ lives has been eerily easy. I have browsed photographs of weddings and honeymoons that I had no idea were even imminent. I have peered through years of profile pictures, thinking to myself that some people change remarkably little, while others morph into completely new people through the passing of time. Someone that has always been known as clean-shaven is nigh unrecognizable with a full beard. The reverse is also true.

These unprocessed changes (or lack thereof) lay everywhere in my Facebook feed. In the past, I would have been able to keep up with the myriad of happenings in the lives of almost every single person that I was connected to. Now, I am boggled by trying to keep up with even a handful. I think that my inability to keep up is a combination of a number of factors.

Firstly, I simply do not have as much time to keep up with everything happening in the digital world. Between my full-time job, my volunteering at GosuGamers, freelance writing, and generally trying to keep my mental health within acceptable boundaries, I have far less time to sink into Facebook than I had when I was a bored student with hours of free time.

Secondly, I have become a little disillusioned with the platform and social media in general. It is certainly a superb way to connect with people on the other side of the world. I have managed to keep message conversations with people I would otherwise have lost touch with. Looking at a person’s feed is a decent way to see what they’ve been up to. For most of you, my doting readers, my Facebook feed is how you keep up with when I post a new slew of words. It is a necessary part of our everyday lives. However, it is also a dangerous, vacuous pit where one can lose hours and one’s happiness or ability to feel anything, simply by staring at selfies of those around you.

This is linked to the third reason I use social media less than I once did – the ratio between valuable content and superfluous content has most definitely lessened, meaning that one must invest far more time in order to find something of value than one used to have to. What was once a bright star of connection to one’s peers has swollen into the beginnings of a black hole of narcissism. It has become much easier to post one’s entire life experience onto Facebook, from photographs to documents to sharing that great Buzzfeed link to those around us (#7 will BLOW YOUR MIND!). While the sheer amount of content on Facebook makes it easy to track changes in the lives of those we care about, it is also easy to become overwhelmed by the depth of life going on around us. Or to see hordes of selfies. Even this post is an exercise in narcissism – I write what I am thinking, hoping that people will notice and click an arbitrary button and validate my thoughts.

Social media helps us keep together. It has been great to scroll through the slideshow lives of my friends as projected through Facebook. Keep posting things. I like seeing things, and so does most of society these days. But before you post, consider the value of what you are posting. We love you, but do we want to see another just-woken-up selfie? You decide. We’ll all see it all anyway.

An Inspirational Birthday

Today is my aunt and godmother Collett’s birthday. To many people, she is a well-reputed publicist, manager, and producer in the South African arts scene. To others, she is simply a stranger that they have not and will never meet. To me, however, she is someone that has shaped the course of who I am, what I enjoy, and where I want to go with my life.

Since I can remember, Collett has been taking me to theatre shows, musical concerts, openings – almost every form of performing art imaginable. Before I was a legal adult, i had probably seen more theatre than most legal adults could claim to have seen. I witnessed everything from major productions off of Broadway to new shows in their first week in a tiny, smoky theatre. Some shows were fantastic. In others, the only fantastic aspect were the snacks served at interval. Nevertheless, Collett got myself, my brother, cousins, family, and pretty much anyone else she could possibly pin down for the time required to go and see as many shows as they could fit into their schedule. And then a show or two extra, just in case.

This exposure to the arts throughout my formative years has left its mark – I have an undying love for music, theatre, film, and almost any other form of expression. Ballet’s a little iffy, but it can be done from time to time. I have learned instruments because I heard them play in shows and liked how they sounded. I wrote because I felt that I too could tell stories like the ones I had seen.

Arguably the greatest thing that Collett has taught me is that one should never be afraid to pursue the things that one loves. Whilst other people were getting the degrees that they felt they were supposed to get, to go into the job they had been told was good, Collett went out and took a year to experience England. Whilst there, she managed to learn from one of the best managers of theatre at the time, and found that she had a passion for the industry. She has never looked back. It may have taken a while, and many dues had to be paid, but Collett is now regarded as one of the best in South Africa in the job that she is passionate about. That, to me, is true bravery. I hope to be half that brave.

Collett has always been around to help me do so. We would always try to plan regular meetings, be it to see a new show, watch a movie (the infamous Lord of the Rings viewings spring quickly to mind), or, as I grew older, cups of coffee and a chat. We would talk about everything and nothing – what was on our minds, who we thought would win the latest season of South African Idol, what I wanted to do with life, or Formula One. Collett has been watching over me from the day I was born, and for that I will always be thankful.

So, she may have a couple more wrinkles than years past, and her devotion to Michael Schumacher may have been corrupted into a love for the pretender that is Lewis Hamilton, but my love for this amazing lady will never change. Happy birthday Collett. I hope that you have many more, because this world would be far darker without you in it.

Letting Go

Sometimes you go into a situation thinking that it is going to be great for a while, but secretly knowing that it will eventually break your heart. Some people do it with relationships. Others do it with cars, homes, holidays, alcohol, or a host of other things. For Kristen and I, it’s fostering two cats. We thought that it would allow us to reap all of the benefits of cat ownership whilst minimizing long-term commitments of doing so. Tonight, we came to the point where hearts start to break. Tonight we decided that we will not be keeping them after all.

From our first night with them, we have grown to love Kichu and Catsby. They became more than temporary squatters in our living quarters – we became a little misfit family. Because of this, we discussed the possibility of adopting them with the lady that we are fostering them for, and this option was left open for the past few months, while she got settled in her new job in Africa. Tonight, she sent us a message gently asking us what our intentions for the two feline boys are, and we were forced to think carefully about it.

We weighed up the two options: keep them forever, or begin to look for other homes for them. We had to consider both their interests and our own. First, what is in their best interests. They need a secure, stable environment where they will be happy. While we may love them deeply and care for them well, we are likely to move regularly. Kichu is incredibly averse to travel, so the less that he would have to do so, the better. We can make sure that they go to a home where they will be loved in one place for the rest of their lives.

Then, we thought about our future. As cruel as it may sound, having the cats with us would be additional responsibility. Every time we travel, every time we start a new contract, we would have to be sure that the cats could come with us. Caring for them is not an issue, but having to turn down potential future avenues is. We have to try keep as many options open as possible, so that we can make the best move for us.

So, with these considerations in mind and with heavy hearts, we decided that they should leave us. It is the best for everyone. It hasn’t been easy. Simply acknowledging that they will be leaving us, even if this is not for months yet, has brought out tears and sadness. We don’t want to hand them over. We love them like children. But, like parents who know that the time has come, we must let them go to a better place for them. The goodbyes lie ahead, but they are not upon us yet. For now, we will love them. We will treasure every moment. We will play with them at every available moment. We will even forgive the occasional accident or shredded item. They deserve nothing less.

Three Years On

A little over three years ago, I met a girl. Met is almost too strong a word. I was in my favourite restaurant in the entire world, and she was a waitress at our table. I instantly found her table banter interesting. She went beyond that which was required of waitresses. Even though my friends and I arrived and ordered just before the kitchen closed for the evening, she remained cheerful with an edge of knowing sarcasm. Not to mention the fact that she radiated beauty, even after a long shift of serving people. Once I had left, I asked one of my friends who was currently working at the restaurant for her number. No, I didn’t even do it myself. I was a coward. Coincidentally, I knew that the policy for waitresses at the restaurant was to refuse all direct attempts from customers to get your personal information. So, in my cowardice, I managed to obtain her number where I would not have been able to had I been a little braver.

To my dismay, the young lady had a boyfriend at the time. I can still recall my frustration and despair at seeing the words ‘my boyfriend’ appear in the sentence of a text message later that evening. Nevertheless, I felt like she was someone that would be a positive addition to my life, regardless of whether our interests were romantic or not. I consoled myself, and resolved that friendship would suffice. A shade more than a month later, we were dating. And we are still together as I write this, one day over three years later.

This is the first photograph of us together. It was taken at an orchestra concert that I performed at. It seems like this moment was both aeons ago and just the other day. That is the weird thing about time, particularly in the context of our relationship. Memories float in the pool of my unconscious mind, much like the Pensieve used by Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter universe. They float independently of each other. When I think of an individual moment or experience, I can vaguely place it on some sort of timeline relative to other experiences, but I am surprised how often I am wrong. This was demonstrated last night, when we looked through the photos of us on Facebook. Things that I thought were relatively recent were revealed to have occurred years ago, and some new experiences seemed to have occurred long before they actually did. It fascinates me how time is nothing more than a construct, and one that our mind does not adhere to. We simply look into the pool of our memories, laughing or weeping at whichever floats to the top, before waiting to see what will surface next.

In the case of our relationship, I could do naught but smile at the moments we recalled last night over scrumptious fried chicken and a pint of beer. I love you, Kristen Bishop. I hope that I have the honour of doing so for the rest of my life. Happy anniversary!