Hot and Cold - Here and There

Icy rain knocks on the sky roof all day. I do not dare to venture out. Winter gradually locks me in. Shifting between a little more than four walls, cooking beef curry, brewing tea and mulling over new ideas.

From the other end of the world I hear about the relentless baking sun. The beating heat of high summer is conjured in my mind. We are sitting around under a shady tree, anticipating sunset, licking the soothing pleasure of a pineapple sucker.  I am sympathetic and envious! How about sending me some of that heat?

In another corner of the day, a victim’s pain reaches me. Family violence, publically executed, seemingly there are no consequences for the perpetrator. How does he live with his guilt? Another hit from the meth pipe? Are they all just victim’s creating more victims surviving on the expectations of an hourly philosophy? Almost succeeding in shattering dreams and toying with an idealists’ reality.

On the other end of the world I can only listen and understand. It is easy to sit on the sidewalk watching the spectacle of pain. A deep sadness descends. Tragedy is no longer something ‘out there’ it makes us reel in the pain of memory.  I dare to share some soothing words. Calming down frayed nerves, nurturing empathy, strengthening resolves. Hoping that we all learn something new in the recurring cycle of each day.

Simone Beatrice Naik Hagfeldt, 2015-01-29.

Love and Peace

Today I baked dark chocolate cookies in a waffle iron. Four-and-a-half waffle cookies that were not waffles. Scoffing the two-and-a-bit with some rooibos tea for company. It was perhaps a silent cry and a peace offering to the self contemplating the idea and fear of how to react to losing a friendship.

We live on this planet of diversity. With time as a natural progression, the fact that a growing distance could develop seems inevitable. Our lives become influenced by time and space, a gap in age and probably most of all a departure from sharing the same thinking on issues. Our memories become riddled with keeping the best bits as it suits us individually and as time moves on it is either a process of injustice collection, broken recollections or leaving everything to the oblivion of yesteryear. Why bother to want to go back and remember the mundane, the complex, the challenges and the triumphs? I guess it is critical if we choose not to cling too much to the ‘what was or the ‘what could have been’s’. There will be too much pain to be nurtured on the lieu of the losses incurred. Time gradually runs out to chase opportunities that might never come along.

Listening to a survivor of the Nazi holocaust made me draw parallels with the losses incurred through the brutality of the Apartheid Regime, our own version of social, economic, cultural and political oppression riddled with the perils of the ultimate injustice - not allowing people to be persons in their own right and identity.

All the more the contemplation and pain of coming to the realisation that in life, we sometimes have to make peace with people choosing to move on. Losing friendship and a bit of that sense of  “I am, because you are.”

We can easily draw parallels between what happened to the Jews in World War II and the continuous persecution of so many in war, racial conflicts, territorial disputes (etc…), but nothing can change the pain experienced by the survivors and those who suffered – who made the ultimate sacrifice of losing their lives.

Love and peace is more than a dream. Sometimes it is an internal struggle and the core of battles with those around us. The search for Love and Peace moves us beyond me and connects us to live in communion as we.

Simone Beatrice Naik Hagfeldt, 29 January 2015.

Curiousness

I’m curious. Ever since I can remember, I have been inquisitive. Even long before I knew how to write the word. My mother’s adage to me was always “curiosity killed the cat”. If my father can wish away my questioning he would be much happier than most. His contention was again on another level, “ask no questions and hear no lies”. Nowadays it feels as if my general need for knowledge has nowhere to go. Living in the Google Age, means that we are only a mobile phone data bit away from asking and answering questions. Strangers are willing wade into our lives with answers to even the most ridiculous questions.

We don’t have to wait until five days from now to know what the weather is going to be like. Opinions are easily found and even misinformation can freely pose as the truth cast in stone.

So, what has my curiosity got to do with anything? Nothing really. It is just an trait I admire in myself and would love to encourage in others. Searching for new ways to do things. Discovering cures to diseases, learning new ways to do old things and the list is endless. The best I suppose is to meet new and interesting people with diverse backgrounds and unique experiences. Crossing professional boundaries and opening up our minds to fresh concepts.

Yes. I will always continue to be curious… asking questions and challenging the status quo will continue to be an integral to my being.

What about you?