Sunday, 20 April 2014

Day 43 - Abandoned Children make Good PR




Johannesburg - Gauteng traffic police believe a 16-month-old toddler was purposely abandoned alongside the N1 near Grasmere on Thursday night. 

This was after the child narrowly missed being hit by a truck travelling along the route. The truck driver noticed the little boy walking alone on the dark road at about 7pm. 

“We suspect the child was dropped off on the freeway as there are no houses around there from which he could have walked out of,” traffic police spokesman Obed Sibasa said on Thursday morning.
“Traffic police patrolling the area noticed the truck swerving and trying to avoid killing the poor innocent soul. When officers got to the child, he looked panicked and unsure of where he was.”
Sibasa said the child looked unkempt, and officers couldn’t be sure if his nappy had been changed.
“It was indeed disturbing – the child probably cried and cried until there were no more tears left and he was just wandering around, confused.” 

The child was taken to a place of safety on Thursday night. 

The case is being investigated by the police and Sibasa said traffic authorities would keep tabs on it too. 

“Police are busy with investigations and will try to trace the mother; as long as she is still alive, we will find her.” 

The Gauteng Department of Social Development would make sure the child was cared for until his parents could be traced. 

“When we have such situations where a child is abandoned, the child is transferred to us. We then get a court order from a magistrate to enable us to place the child at an NGO or in foster care,” a spokesman said. 

According to the Gauteng Department of Health, 89 babies were abandoned between January and August last year. In 2012, 135 babies were abandoned and 136 in 2011. 

Welfare organisations said while the department had noticed a decline in babies abandoned at hospitals, the number abandoned at social welfare institutions was on the increase.


 What I see when I read this article is how much the police spokesperson is trying to uplift the importance of the system of taking care of orphans and how well the system works instead of using this point to reveal and correct the points that force people to abandon their children out of fear of not being able to take care of them.

From my perspective, many of the children that are abandoned in South Africa are because the parents are unable to care for them and think that they will be taken care of by the system. Many of the children that go into the foster system end up being abused in some form or another as the people use them as a way to get money from the government and many will be used as slaves.

The other problem that I see is that the parents might be excessive drinkers – as is common in places like SA – which would cause them to either accidently or purposefully leave behind their child while they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol. A lot of people that get addicted to drugs and alcohol are struggling to cope with the reality of theirs lives that mainly consist of terrible jobs with horrible salary and then having to come home to care for their own families.
The reality of suffering and pain that most of the world consists of is a lot to bear and the responsibility – financially, physically and emotionally – of taking care of a child on top of the struggle of life can become overwhelming. We have all had experience of what happens when we feel like our cup is going to overflow, which is to remove something – either by getting rid of certain responsibilities or by running as fast and as far as we can to get away from the lives we deem ourselves incapable of supporting.

I see it as everyone’s responsibility to correct as many of these problems as possible to make the world a better and safer place to live in for everyone.

I do not understand why it is seen as normal for the government to use the suffering of the people they claim to take responsibility for, to use the suffering of those people to increase their public relations in campaigning and never deliver on their promises. The people that have been looking the other way while the world crumbles around them need to force themselves to realise that it is their world too and that what is best for all includes them.

Saturday, 12 April 2014

Day 42 - Fear is the Life Killer

I had to cut one of the dog’s nails today and she really doesn’t enjoy it, actually she gets so terrified that she throws herself free while being completely oblivious to any harm she does to herself or to the people around her. Every time we cut her nails she freaks out like this and makes it very difficult and dangerous for us to do the cutting. She doesn’t intentionally try to hurt anyone she only tries to push, flop and wriggle her way free, but when it is a very large dog like she is it can be dangerous as she can easily scratch or whack you very hard.

Usually when I do the nail cut I hold her as still as possible while the other person does the cutting, but if she jerks while you are cutting you can hurt her by cutting too much, so it can be quite a tricky thing to accomplish.

What I did this time is to decide to push her to push through this fear by holding her until she is completely relaxed and “fake” cut the nails over and over until she relaxed enough for me to do the real cut. She fought for a long time and whacked me around for a while till she relaxed and it did work. The reaction that she had to go through was so extensive and I do not want to have to push her through her fear and make her realize that I am not hurting her in any way.

I am amazed by how much fear she had to push through before she finally started letting go. I have tried to slowly push her through the fear before but it never went away and she was unwilling to let me assist her in removing it. When you work with animals the communication barriers that are in place are extremely difficult to work around and most of the time you have to end up showing them that what you are doing is in the best interest of all as the benefit much outweigh the cost of pushing through fear. In this case it is a matter of ‘if I do not cut your nail, it will grow so long that it will break and cause you massive amounts of pain and by cutting it we avoid that outcome’.

I realised while I was assisting her that this principle of sucking it up and pushing until you can stand and not allow yourself to be buried under the weight that fear brings into our daily lives is the only way that we are able to let go of fear and see all that is going on around us without hiding behind a wall of excuses and justifications.

There is a saying that I see as very assisting in terms of working with fear:

Fear is the mind killer, I will face my fear and I will let it pass through me, once the fear is gone there will be nothing, only I will remain.

Fear is momentary and if you stand and breathe the fear will pass as it is only what you think is going to happen to you not what is really going on around you, if you do not allow yourself to get sucked into the projections then you will realise that it is only a cloud of “what ifs” meant to haze your eyes so as to make you blind to reality.

Have you ever looked at yourself and your life without only seeing the “what ifs” that blind you? Do it and you will suddenly see that the problems you face are in fact simple to correct you have only been too scared to see the answer.

Thursday, 29 August 2013

Day 41 - The Children of our Future


My agreement partner and I have been looking at having a child soon and I have come to realise a few points in terms of taking on the responsibility of a child. From my perspective the responsibility of a child is in principle the same as the responsibility of taking care of animals. What I mean is that the core principles remain and what I see as the core principles is that we have to be willing to dedicate our time to train the child how to live in a world full of abuse but, never let go of his principles and that we have to be able to accept the financial responsibility that comes with their upbringing.

I see a lot of people go into fear about having children. For me the fear is that I will pass on “bad” physical genes and that the points that the child has to overcome from my DNA will be more than necessary. I realise that the child will have points both physical and personal that are passed on through our DNA that the child must work through no matter how much I want them to be ‘invulnerable’.

The main point - from my perspective – that is different to the responsibility of raising an animal or raising a child, is that the animal does not have my DNA within themselves and that the child does. Within this, the perception is easily created that it is like fixing someone else’s fuckup instead of my own. From my mind’s perspective, it enables me to place the responsibility for a lot of the animal’s base character designs within something other than myself, whereas with a child the responsibility for his base character design comes undeniably from me and my partner.

I am not saying that the act of raising a child and an animal is the same; I am only trying to say the principles of how to raise them are. I will teach them how to live within common sense and show them how to consider what is best for all in every decision they make. I show my animals this point as much as possible, but there is a communication ‘barrier’ that makes it more difficult. I am confident in the fact that I will be able to bring the message of “do unto another as you would like to be done unto” either as clearly or more clearly to my children.

I ask my animals to treat me with the same respect I show to them and that is all I would ask of my child, taking into account the unfortunate difficulties of this world that the child would have to be shown – how to work with and how to survive in a world of greed. I will have to teach them about the world even though I did not enjoy it when I was young. I will ensure that the child is able to stand no matter how hard the shit hits the fan – which would mean that it will not be easy but it will be necessary for them to learn about the how and the why the world works the way it does now.

I would’ve preferred to bring my child into a world that I can be proud of and that the child would be safe but, children that are taught that they must stand together to change the world are necessary to assist in the change that will come. (Note: I am not saying that everyone should have kids now, I am rather placing my current process into understanding and due to the fact that I have had an upbringing mainly based on support within the principle of what is best for all – as my father was standing this example throughout my life – I am clear on the fact that at this stage in my process and my life, I can support a child effectively. The decision to have a child will be made by each one according to their own process and of course the ability to support a child financially.)

I ask now for the forgiveness of my child or children for the amount of responsibility I am laying on their shoulders.

I ask that they realise that there is no other way to ensure that the world will change sooner rather than them having to pass it on to their children.

I realise that my children will have the best life that I can provide for them, but they will not be able to live free until all can stand together, equal as one, for what is best for all.


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Friday, 23 August 2013

Day 40 - The Weight of my Day


Recently we have been quite busy on the farm with Bernard passing so suddenly and we had contractors that just finished the new parrot aviary and porch and the fact that Leila’s kid is going to come soon , we have had to deal with all of these things happening and also carry on preparing all the points for the baby. I feel like it is a weight that isn’t getting much lighter. The workload seems to get bigger and bigger, it looks like we might not get to do everything as soon as we had planned. I don’t like having to shove things together and try to do or manage 10 things at once; I prefer having to focus on one point at a time. 

I realize that this is actually quite a cool test to see how I and we do under excessive amounts of pressure, and I for one have been pushing hard to get as much done in the short amount of time we have available to us to the point of my body getting the flu just to make me realize that I have to slow down. From the day after Bernard died I was off of the farm 5 out of 7 days, either sorting things out or doing shopping for the contractor or food shopping and the one day I actually had to go into town, come back and go back into town again! 

The one night I just started feeling sickish and the next day woke up sick – I was only sick for about 3 days really – and when I felt how badly my body felt I realized that I had pushed myself too hard and not considered that I had gone through a massive shock – physically and otherwise. I accepted in that moment that I would push myself as much as I could but, that it is impractical to be uselessly sick for days because of pushing too hard. Unfortunately this means that I am not superman:). I can only do so much before my body gives out and requires rest. My point with sharing this is that keeping myself busy so as not too focus too much on the point of Bernard is useful to be able to focus on what needs to be done day by day but, that this can only work if I allow myself some time to adjust and align myself with what must be done next. I mainly focused on keeping myself stable and assisting other people as much as possible or working on the farm so as to focus on avoiding to look at what Bernard’s death meant for me and how I needed to move forward after he had died. 

I have seen today that I still have the tendency of trying to rush through points without considering all of the factors involved and that I am trying to make myself move faster though the workload without considering that it is more practical to look at points in their entirety instead of skipping through the basics as if I know better. 

I realize that all of these points culminate in the point of me not focusing on my breathing but rather allowing myself to be consumed by the desire to prove myself as worthy by pushing myself beyond common sense practicality and into simple, distracting ego.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use ego as a distraction and as a way to not focus on breath

I commit myself to when and as I see myself going into ego or trying to distract myself with workloads and time limits – I stop, breathe and look at the problem facing me with practical common sense

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be overwhelm by the amount of work there is to be done and therefore utilising this as an excuse to get out of the work thinking it will just go away

I commit myself to when and as I go into fear and anxiety about how high my workload is – I stop, breathe and focus on one point at a time to ensure that I am considering all outcomes instead of getting bitten in the ass in the future because I forgot to check the quality of the work and not rely on the quantity to tip the scales.

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Thursday, 22 August 2013

Day 39 - Stepping out of Bernard’s Shadow



I don’t know what to say
How do I say the unsayable?
How do I explain the inexplicable?
How do I see what I don’t want to look at?
Bernard is dead
I don’t know what to do
I don’t know how to feel
All I feel is fear and anger
I am me
I will no longer allow myself to define myself according to what Bernard did
I will no longer allow myself to use him as a shield
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself as no more or less than Bernard’s Son
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hide behind Bernard and use him as a shield to block myself from my process
I miss him
I see that he is within everything
I see that I am afraid that he left too soon
I see that I am afraid that I am not strong enough to stand
I see that he trusted us all to push ourselves to change, but that he saw that not all would be able to allow themselves to choose
I see that – in truth – there is no real choice as we are all responsible for what we have created and as such, the responsibility to change is what all of us must allow ourselves to realise
He was not my father
He was not my friend
All he was, was what each of us must see in ourselves
He stood for all
He sacrificed whatever was necessary to allow everyone to make a choice between life and slavery
I cannot say that any of us would be able to do the same
He feared nothing
He was always stable
He taught us all, anything we were able to understand
I cannot say that I always listened
I cannot say that I always understood
I cannot say that I always honoured his principles
I can say that I am in the process of changing myself to truly be able to follow his principles to the utmost of my ability
I can say that I am in the process of working through my fears
I can say many things
I can say anything
What I have lived and what I do live is who and what I really am
What I live is selfishness
What I live is ego
What I live is anger
I see that I am angry at him for not fixing all of my problems
I see that I am angry that I did not allow myself to work harder on changing myself with his assistance while he was still alive
I forgive Bernard for leaving
I forgive Bernard for choosing to leave
I forgive Bernard for not preparing us more
I forgive Bernard for asking us to continue without him
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at Bernard for leaving
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at Bernard for leaving me and cerise
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at Bernard for not preparing us more
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at Bernard for asking us to continue without him guiding us
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see myself as too weak to stand
The decision I have made is to change
The decision I have made entails the responsibility of pushing myself beyond my current cycle of comfortability
I realise that this means that I have to push myself to be consistent within basic principles of self-motivation, self-discipline and self-dedication to the process of change
I dedicate myself to the simple act of writing a blog everyday
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to make mistakes
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use the self-created idea that anything I do has to be perfect as “I am the Son of Bernard”
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at myself for making mistakes as the mistakes reveal my imperfection
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear revealing my imperfections as the imperfections reveal my vulnerabilities
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being vulnerable
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use paranoia and fear of how people will react to my blogs as an excuse and justification to not write
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use specific words to redesign my self-forgiveness statement so as not to actually assist myself, but to keep myself in a never ending cycle of self-abuse

I commit myself to when and as I see that I am trying to abuse my self-forgiveness through how I place my words, I stop and correct the design of the sf statement so that I can allow myself to forgive myself for real
I commit myself to consistently blog, where I do not accept and allow myself to use excuses and justifications to not blog
I commit myself to learn from my mistakes and not use them as an excuse or justification to go into isolation, hiding and fear
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