Fountainhead

19^th Feb, 2011

I have long been feeling that I am living in a fog. In my younger years it was a narcotic fog, herbal, filthy chemical, whatever could create the fog. Recently, in somewhat more sober years, the fog has seeped out since witnessing the damage I do to myself working therapeutically with people, holding them in their trauma, walking, sometimes stumbling out of the horror, the crippling pain and the decimated self worth. All those workshops, the sledgehammer to my body and my delicate energetic system, I am done with it. Done with it. I put a further 6 months into iDecided, which is a website where people working with trauma can swap sessions, debriefing and supervision, but that lay down flat on the African earth in December last year, and has refused to rise. I realised I had to flog it, to chase people up and down badly designed corridors, be stood up for meetings, pursue communications with no response from the very people I was trying to help. Sometimes, the message comes loud and clear.

I have just closed the yellowed, worn pages of a badly printed book, the cover long fallen off, depicting a platinum blonde who one would expect to see perched on a red Ferrari, or in a Bond film. The designer of this cover had clearly never read the book, the most extraordinary fiction ever written, with the most important message I have ever read. The Fountainhead – Howard Rourke’s opus. It has cut through my fumbling attempts to live this life given to me, and what I discover is that the very thing I am offering to others, Activating Genius, is the very thing I have been longing for, all my life. What a mess of a life it has been, surrounded by humans who believed they knew how to develop an individual. Occasionally ham fisted family, beautiful intentions but blind to individuality, sworn enemies of anything inner, firmly committed to pruning, clipping, moulding, beating the impetus out of the little animals in their care. Constipated contracted school, clueless, posturing, hopeless in any capacity to nourish something more delicate than fictionalised history and formulaic mathematics. Religion, friends, work, you know the drill, the waiting passageway of humans busy with other humans, determined to shape humanity so that their very own genius never gets a spot of airtime.

What was it I wanted to do? I wanted to sing, to write, to create music. I just hope its not too late to make contact with that of me, like it was for Peter Keating, when he finally painted, it was gone.

I also understand my devotion and admiration to P now – he was fiercely, uncompromisingly individualistic, but I also suspect the violence of his creation was to scare people into submission. Compared to him, J is a  mere man in a suit. A second-hander. In his brother’s shadow, brilliant, I do believe it was a fight all his life to stand out. Genius, but I wonder what his real genius is?

And what mine will be? How about I approach The Enterprise Powerhouse not as an altruistic project, but a piece of work that is to serve my genius, my individuality, my unique configuration. Yes, this will be good. All the altruism didn’t feel right, it was the fog, and I think that’s part of this hunger for a partner, a man, that disowned part of me created a hunger for it in someone else. I served J, disconnecting from myself around him, in his space. Perhaps he picked it up and was repulsed by it, perhaps that was the key that set me free from him, it would have been so horrible to be with him, had he said yes to me in January.

The song I discovered this week, the tablecloth that holds the map of the singer's desire, tells him, “You’re the wrong turn, a big fat no, the fifth drink before a long drive home …. You’re the bars to my cage, you’re all I think about every day … every time you walk by, I am drawn to you. Desire, such a wicked little high, when the one you want, is blind to you ….”

His blindness, or clarity will set me free. It is a feeling I have that we would be great together, but he will destroy me. As will altruism destroy me.

My intention that I put out to the universe: An investor will come on board, and want me to start The Enterprise Powerhouse as soon as possible, latest September 2011, and will generously renumerate me to do so, with 12 extraordinary, motivated, committed geniuses enrolled to the course.

Thank God for Ayn Rand, thank God for The Fountainhead. What I wrote down this morning from the hallowed book:

The creator is not concerned with disease, but with life.

And ….

There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.

How different might my life have been if I’d have realised this in my twenties? But it is how it is, and it is not too late.  I will make music, and I will write, and I will be successful with The Enterprise Powerhouse, in shAllah. I have licence to be myself, to abide by my own barometer of “yes” or “no”, and even though other people are hovering around the project, the shall be great wide open spaces for lateral stretches of creativity to breathe in four dimensions and expand into something brilliant, breathing genius. 

Security

14^th Feb, 2011

I’m not quite sure how to feel, about to sleep inshAllah in this Bryanston house, perched on the first floor, the ground floor secure, the stairwell terribly secure with inch wide solid metal bars hacked shut by a heavy padlock.

Up here, in the king size bed of foam, perched on the wall is a small dvd player, on its own little custom made stand, wired into the alarm system, flashing scenes from the four cameras which cover the entrance gate, the front door, the back yard and the parking area. What a nightmare it must be to have insomnia, and to lie here watching the grim grainy black and white images switch so clumsily to each other.

A moth flies before the lens, hogging the limelight, shamelessly.

Whilst I was cooking my spinach earlier, I looked down and noticed my armour. On my upper chest lay my tawiz, protection from Shaykh Nazim, the prayer inscribed within the sewn leather triangle. Further down, around navel height, dangled the panic button, hung from an unattractive, cheap silver chain. And at my ankles, lay the lovely Ms S, pit bull terrier, more sweetheart than any pit pull I have imagined. Probably the dog with the finest manners in Johannesburg, aside from her rancorous farting.

So I am not sure what to feel up here in this bedroom. With all the security I wonder if I should suspect some horror has already occurred here? I do not know this area, have only heard of too many robberies, too many hideous home invasions (they don’t call them home invasions here – I’m not sure those orgies of torture and pillage have their own title as yet). The spectre of events I have heard or read about hover in my mind, this being a wealthy area. I have no desire to live here, in the north, where apparently beauty only resides within homes, the pavements merely a supporting role to the high electric fences.

This screen on the wall sends its tired message into this room, and I wonder what my mind will think of tonight. I wonder what I will dream in this new room, this house where I have had so much emotional discomfort in the last month. InshAllah, I will sleep deeply, and the dreams that come my way will continue to inform me, to teach me and remind me. InshAllah. To choose not to plug into the house’s personal fear matrix will free my sleep tonight, so, I push down the little screen with its grainy images, the dull light leaves the room, g’nite. ….

            

North of the Zambezi

North of the Zambezi – 10^th Feb 2011

This morning at 8am I stepped onto my yoga mat, preparing for the day I prostrated to the north-west, “Haq”, I bow to the truth. Trucks rumbling in the background, the sound of the building supervisor’s voice became louder and louder as the concrete mixer rotated. He started yelling and I was reminded, I’m north of the Zambezi, as my friend B put it, north of the line that separates Jo’burg and Rosebank to the south, to everything in the north. I am WAY north of the Zambezi, here in Irene, surrounded by Centurion, rapidly becoming one of my least favourite places on the planet.

When I heard the supervisor scream, “Come on man, you fucking useless, hurry up,” my rage surged. Off the mat I marched to the building site in my yoga gear, passing A, the old Zulu man in his overall who works in this complex full time, who was standing watching the performance from a distance. “Eish, hy vloek die manne, ne?” (“he’s cursing the men hey?”)

“Eish,”  he replied.

I tried to get the supervisor’s attention to let him know that we could hear him and could he tone it down. He ignored me, so I got a bit of paper and a pen and pointedly stood taking down the company details, ready to burn his sorry ass. At which point he came over and asked what the problem was. By this time I was furious, and let him have it, which I don’t often do.

“Its unacceptable that you are talking to these men like this and telling them they’re fucking useless. We can hear you loud and clear …” I went on, basically in a fury telling him they deserved dignity and we didn’t want to hear his abuse. He apologised, and when I stormed off, I realised that what I’d wanted to say was that this kind of behaviour is why some black people hate white people so much. Remember Eugene Terreblanche? What is with these kind of South Africans that they can’t see the correlation between violent crime and command language, control behaviour, treating people like dumb animals? What does this fellow think the consequences of his vitriol will be?

God, this place is heavy. This far north of the Zambezi does my head in. Its ugly, lacks progressive thought, makes me want to flee south, to the arms of Jozi where less of this goes on.

Mind you, when I was furniture shopping near Northcliff, I think the area was called Albertskroon, with my friend last week. The blonde Afrikaans lady who served us, ciggie in one hand coffee in the other, not an ounce of fat on her tiny body, declared her dominion by leading us to the workshop at the back of the shop and yelling at the top of her voice, “Hey … WARASSA! Shut up, julle raas,” (“you’re making a noise”) to a group of black men crafting tables, chairs, cabinets. Ugly, unnecessary, she was quietly embarrassed when she realised we didn’t occupy the same side of the Great Divide as she did.

Awful, dark country this is. Awful and dark when the men choose to stay in the employ of the Nazi, as we now refer to her, where these confounding relationships are perpetuated, where the filth of dominion, disdain, disregard and victimhood smears itself over our days. Oh I’m dark today, I apologise, but I feel terribly, terribly dark.

My friend pulled me up on the weekend, on what I said about the risk of the current socio-political discourse becoming a cliché. He identifies as black, occasionally taking  the righteous pedestal, and feels to correct me about this: he thought I was saying that the post-apartheid discourse was a cliché, and that I was, like a typical whitefella, disregarding the suffering of the blackfellas. This is not at all what I was saying; I am looking for tangents, byways, other avenues of the cultural discourse, to reveal some enlightening perspectives. I realise I have the freedom to do this, by virtue of my historical privilege, bolstered by the deeply entrenched sense of entitlement that hums within me. 

But from this morning’s horrible story, and from the daily scenes of black people being berated, commanded, ignored, corrected, badgered, diminished by white people, those backroom scenes, sometimes in public, but often I guess lonely, humiliating scenes, I recognise that there is a need for the solid post/anti-apartheid discourse  to hold firm, to remain rooted deep in the earth and not be shaken, even though some people switch off, some roll their eyes, glaze over, some simply observe.  That perhaps now, more than ever, is a time for vigilance, whilst we distil and implement the constitutional and legal process, perhaps it is timely to break out fresh language around human rights.

Unfortunately we are often ruled by the dictates of the markets, our virtual Hitler, with all the fear mongering and manipulating of the national psyche around job numbers. Hallowed job numbers. These numbers are part of the game, critical aspects to dividends and prospects, quarterly earnings and political sales pitches. Without brilliant leadership, which is absent, the one way we can move this society into empowerment is through individuals affecting local pockets and the ripple effect that will result. Economic policy is meaningless to the guy spreading the liquid concrete under the viper tongue of the supervisor and his black moustache; he will probably only get paid R50 or R100 for the days work anyway. My contribution is a program to develop entrepreneurs, inshAllah, as I don’t believe in relying on job creation or being an employee to guarantee the freedom of your soul or your pocket.

Get me out of here. Out of this headspace and into something softer. But this, snor city, (moustache city), this Pretoria,  is what I chose when I arranged to stay here for these days. I trust my soul, I trust these distastefully uncomfortable situations that ignite my ire. These days fuel my fire around injustice and abuse, and bring into close range the power that I gained from my cultural heritage that I can harness and use for good now. It is risky, stepping into the warzone of race and human dynamics, I may get annihilated, I may be humiliated. I may be responding to historical triggers that are unresolved in me. But what I do know is that I can’t stand by, I cannot simply observe people’s struggles. As much as I wish someone would help me, even rescue me, love me, respect me, care for me, protect me, so I must do for others when situations arise.

Usually I am more cautious, circumspect before entering the fray, but I am further fuelled by the ferocious energy of Gauteng, of this land that has been ravaged by mining concessions, and pays us back with toxic acid water. Bakes us with heat, submits to our manic highways and byways, only to drive us forward with the urgency of creation on the edge. I do not know any other city in the world that propels its citizens with such raw, voracious, insatiable energy.

What I do know is, here, north of the Zambezi, I miss the progress of Jozi, I miss the embrace of my old lover and can’t breathe much in the mist of the conservative population that manages this energy. This is an old feeling, an old distaste that carries with it all that appalling legacy, and when I see it re-enacted it brings a whole Mail & Guardian, Vrye Weekblad history and vigilance, and I want to be done with the contractions of the past, done with the need to diminish and control  each other, done with the division of labour that has not really changed, in for example, the building industry on show today.

Tell me – am I simply a naïve woman? Gone too long and too sensitive? What I am interested in is a life beyond fear of each other, and with every abusive encounter, how we set ourselves back to a fearful, bitter, back-biting society. Maybe I’m too much of an idealist, or I believe too much in alchemy, what can evolve from merging disparate elements. Maybe I spend too much time on my own, so that I can entertain ideals. Maybe I’m out of touch, but my curiosity is heartfelt, as is my frustration with the days that fail to produce the possibilities that I hold.