Life is extraordinary
Harsh it is…and glorious at the same time
Wow! Life is extraordinary. Why? Because even in the darkest moments there are fragments of light that can help you find a way out and into the sunshine. I am by no means old but I have been on earth — a planet that often seems just as invincible and fragile as we are — long enough to have experienced the harsh reality and glorious splendours of life.
As a white boy growing up in a lower middle-class suburb of the then Apartheid South Africa, life was not always easy. My parents left high school early as they needed to support themselves when their parents could not. They worked hard and built careers for themselves while raising a family on a tight budget that did not allow for many luxuries for most of my childhood. Encouraged by my father to work and save for things that I wanted, I began working at a local supermarket where I packed the groceries of customers into a trolley that I pushed out to their car. I received no pay for this and relied on the goodwill of customers to tip me for my service. I progressed from this to delivering newspapers six days a week on foot until I could buy my first bike at the age of 16. I was voted courier of the month by my customers and used the prize money to buy a book on World War II — I was a bit of history nerd especially on great wars. I think the notion of working to get something instilled in me a work ethic that has served me (and the companies that I have worked for) well over the years.
I am not trying to say my life was the toughest as it was not tougher than those of black South Africans, especially prior to the sea change in 1994. As a white child I very rarely went into black areas known as townships but as a teenager I did go as part of my church’s outreach to its flock in these areas. I was shocked by the crushing poverty that unfortunately still grinds many in the townships today. I began to question my white life and, upon reaching university in the 80's, I realized how much of the South African history was left out of the textbooks we used and how much propaganda we were fed. It was then that I started t
To comprehend the reasons for men like Nelson Mandela resorting to violence to end the Apartheid system which was based on the same belief system of racial superiority propagated by the Nazis in Germany. I started to see a dark end for the South Africa that I knew and started to doing small things to help change come about. And guess what? Small fragments of light began to appear that were magnified by the actions of other South Africans and the dark end started to fade. The rest, as they say, is history (and herstory). And yes South Africa still has its issues but it is in a much better place now. From that day onward my awe of life grew exponentially as I grew to understand that the night is at its darkest before the dawn. Life is hard, sometimes brutal and unkind, and can seem very dark but it is also gloriously reaffirming when you beat the odds, meet the love of your life or are touched beauty of small but extraordinary everyday experiences. This is why in the midst of tough times, I always force myself to remember that today is not for eternity and tomorrow could be the day when everything changes or when you personally meet your hero (mine is Mandela who I wrote speech notes for) and life’s light shines brightly.
