Shifting Focus

You may not realise it, but you have a problem. I can solve that problem. There is no one else who can. Manufactured inadequacy. Projected confidence. Illusionary exclusivity. There is a reason why wealth is a team sport created in bubbles. If you genuinely care about the person, and your lives are connected, then creating a problem to extract wealth makes no sense. If you have a relationship with a person, it becomes impossible to hide that you are as confused and incompetent at most things as the rest of us. That you are just doing your best. If you care about someone, you stop looking for someone “better” to replace them, because the key is time spent. The person matters. Nepotism, Hereditary Privilege, Patronage, Clubs, and other forms of anti-Meritocracy are incentives. They shift the performance spotlight to a group bigger than ourselves. They make room for vulnerability. Family, children, friends, and community. They also have unintended consequences. I don’t know the answer, but the question is how to see real problems, be honest about our ignorance, and see the strengths in others that are not ours.

"American Progress" John Gast (1872)

Fighting over Scraps

The Corporate world is a game, best played as a game. I wasn’t good at it because I wasn’t willing to accept the veil of meritocracy. I took it too seriously and literally. I was too deep soaked in Righteous Indignation. It is more a club with increasing levels of loyalty when you prove yourself. Layer 1 is for cogs. Paid a salary and with a notice period. Your salary is the price it would cost to replace your skills and knowledge. Layer 2 is longer term incentives. Tying you in so breaking loyalty will cost you. Layer 3 is participation in profits (and losses). The club aims to reward you enough to stay, but not enough that you can afford to leave. Layer 4 is ownership. That private club isn’t open to everyone. Wealth creation gets institutionalised, so the first three layers are sufficient to create the value while closing the door to layer 4. Layer 4 is for immortality beyond individual contribution. Enough underconfident overachievers will do the work in the first three layers to make sure layer 4 is exclusive. Harsh reality? Layer 4 is available to those who start from scratch. The first three layers are attractive enough that people will fight over the scraps. Institutions change unwillingly. Pick your layer 4 and build new institutions.

Slow Down

I am a slow learner. Always have been. I started walking late. My Mother says that is because my older brothers carried me everywhere. I started talking late. Maybe I can blame my brothers for that too. It’s nice having someone to blame. When I was 7 years old, I was put in a Speech & Drama class for people who were struggling with school. When I was 9, I got a teacher who suddenly got me. Mrs Rae changed my course. As the foundations set in, things started making sense. I have never been afraid of looking like a Moron. Of asking the dumb questions. Of appearing to try too hard. I regularly get lost in the grass of things I don’t understand, think aloud, and make mistakes in public. We live in a world that rewards false confidence. That thinks those who understand cause and effect are worth putting in charge. The truth, I think, is that no one knows. We are all lost in the grass. The world changes too fast to understand. There is too much noise, and we see whatever we are looking for. The best we can do is choose what we pay attention to. What we give relevance to. What we build meaning from. Slowly.

Trying Times

Social Media keeps us connected to each others lives, but only bits of it. I find it a great catalyst for real world interactions, and am a power user of other forms of staying in touch. Still, I am very aware of how we live our lives in parallel. There are bits we can't, or won't share, because they hit too close to home. We aren't sure if it is fair to share because others are involved. Does it breach 'the container of trust' we build by knowing more about people than the world does? Sharing everything can feel like a plea for help. Sometimes it is. There are lots of people who don't have support beyond this. There are communities building for the harder things like intimate relationships, deaths, break-ups, moving jobs, losing jobs, physical sickness and mental health issues. 

I am lucky. I do have a deep bench of support... so this is not a plea for help. My partner Gem & I have been trying for a child for a year and a half, and after various tests have found out that I have a very small probability of having a kid, from me, even through IVF. Not zero, but tiny. There are other options to become a family, and we are looking into it. We have support, but this is one of those things with no solution. It just is. I have been broody for years and it is something I have taken quite hard, despite being philosophical and stoic by nature. In going through this, I have learnt just how common this kind of challenge is. It feels really odd to tell people you are trying. As you do, you learn just how many other people struggle their way through the storm of human fertility.

It does feel weird being public about it, but there we go. If you are struggling too, know that you are not alone.

Pressure Valve

I spent almost 12 years of school, and 3 years of pre-school, with a small group of guys. There was no escape hatch. There was no pressure valve. Since leaving, there have been few places with that intensity of shared experience. Perhaps my residence at university, but by that stage you chose who you spent time with. I come from a community. Warts and all, seeing these guys is like seeing family. They are part of my origin story. We understand things from the perspective that we see them. In context. We like to talk in politics of 'the people' speaking. The only certainty I have found about family struggles is that everyone has them. 'My people' and I didn't always agree. There were great, and there were difficult, times. In a global world, we get to choose our community. A downside is that we don't always work through difficulties. We move on. A real community starts when that option disappears. It starts locally.

Pressure Release

Good-enough Parents (Michelle)

Although I went down the financial route in my studies, and choice of work, most of my extended family have been involved in the caring professions - teaching, medicine, psychology or the church. I am lucky to have always been surrounded by ears willing to listen, and nets willing to catch. I am a pretty confident guy, but that is because I know what is behind me. At my lowest points (and many of my highest), one of the people who has always been there is my Aunt Michelle. She practices clinical psychology and neurophysiology, and is busy with a doctorate researching insomnia. She recently started a blog on parenting. Many of my friends have 'the crazy eye' at the moment as they deal with being new parents. I asked her if I could share her thoughts here...

Most of us fly by the seat of our pants as parents. We can read, prepare, listen to advice yet our experience is a unique and intriguing one. We may have been surprised, or carefully planned being a parent. Regardless, there are immeasurable sacrifices of self and yet immeasurable rewards.

Sons and daughters bring yet another dimension to our experience of life, and often leave us with a truck load of random feelings that come from a place we didn’t even know existed. Collectively, these feelings cover dimensions such as overwhelmed (particularly at the onset, by responsibility regarding the “foreverness” of the task), stuck, bored, mesmerised, in awe, bemused, delighted, irritated, angry, immeasurably proud, humiliated, ashamed, guilty and downright confused. Guilt, oh the feelings of guilt…

We are never the same when a child comes into our lives. We are more: multiplied, transformed, and metamorphosed.  We need to care for self yet should no longer be self-centred, other-centred, stretched and expanded out of ourselves to see this person growing up under our care. We view the process with fascination and trepidation. Parenting is progressive and has momentum. Time never stands still; it is never enough or is immeasurably slow. We have to take care to not be distracted, dissociative, disconnected, tardy or poor role models. The little person becoming adult (eventually and way sooner than we perceive in the earlier days) watches and learns from everything we do and say, dependent on our ability to parent as responsible adults, not as friend. We need to keep them safe, watch their backs and treat their lives with honour, respect and reciprocity.

We watch their growth and marvel. How is it possible that we created this extraordinary human being, an extension of ourselves yet so unique in itself? We joy in family and social expansion as school starts and watch academic advancement. Extraordinary, frustrating, exciting, annoying. We defend our offspring with every fibre of our being, every instinctual urge and feel offended, affronted, anxious and distressed by outcomes. Yet the accolades and achievements blow us away, make us marvel again and breathe a sigh of relief that we have all survived once again. To strive for perfection in the process is nigh impossible. In the words of Winnicott, we need to be “good-enough parents”.

Dedicated to all the indelible and privileged journeys I have made with my children, and the children of others.

Senegal

I find the concept of Sovereignty and Independence strange. At the smallest non-individual level sits the family. Despite almost as close a foundation as you can get my brothers, and my parents do not view the world in the same way as I do. It rhymes, but we push each others buttons. A friend of mine says, 'your family push your buttons because they are the ones who installed them'. 

The French Colonies of Senegal and French Sudan merged in 1959. 

In 1960, they got independence as the Mali Federation.

The union broke up a few months later.

In 1982, Senegal and The Gambia merged to form Senegambia.

The union dissolved in 1989.

Separatists in the Southern Region (Casamance) have clashed with Government since.

I am more convinced that Independence has less to do with Empowerment, and more to do with power. Nation building is the process of creating power bases by building walls. We need to learn the lesson of respecting differences taught by heavy footed imperialism, and the lesson of not over-valuing differences taught by heavy handed nationalism.

African Renaissance Monument

Dakar

Anomaly (Jessica)

I have a big family with lots of aunts and uncles and cousins. The next generation is also starting to grow up. I can remember baby Jessica being very confused by the man with glasses growing his hair. What was he? Since then, I have got my eyes zapped but the long hair has made a comeback. Jess is now 13! Being on the other side of the big pond (I am a Soutie with one foot in England and one foot in South Africa), I don't get to see them as often as I like. One advantage for me of the technology age is that doesn't mean I can't be a part of their world. I am super chuffed to introduce her as my youngest ever guest poster, as she talks about feeling like an anomaly.

Jessica, Janet (her Mom, my cousin) and Ryan

Anomaly

by Jessica  (Age 13)

Society rules most teenagers' lives, from what i have realised. Their clothes, their shoes, their hair, their words; the way they talk; the pictures they take; the way they pose for pictures; posting the pictures; where they post them; why they post them; what they say when they post them; their friends; their marks; their bags; their attitudes.  All of these are basically controlled by society. I would know. I am also, unfortunately, one of society's victims. 

Society controls most things about me, even though i know it shouldn't. Most people spend their whole teenage years trying to impress society, my question is, why? What is so important about society that it has the role of taking over our lives. To be quite honest I'm tired of always trying to impress people. Why cant being ourselves be enough?

I have just entered my early teenage years and I'm already feeling the pressure of society. I am constantly trying to keep up with the latest trends, when who I really am, is just drifting me away from me. I have seen so many people suffer from the pressures of society. I thought all teenagers these days were influenced by the world around them, but I was wrong. I thought to be cool or what we call "popular", you have to be in with all the trends and have the best shoes. I was wrong. I thought for people to recognise a teenager as anything but weird, you had to have at least 400 followers on Instagram. Yet again, i was wrong. You might be thinking that what i just said is exactly what you need to be "recognised". No, it isn't. 

I know you've heard this before but, you can be just you. I thought I was the only one getting tired of this whole "gotta-make-an-impression" thing, but I was wrong. Lately I've made some new friends who don't really let society get the best of them and actually, they are some of the most amazing people I have met for a long time. I have learnt more about some of these people in a day then i have about most people in 3 months. These teens actually don't care about what others around them judge them for. They are themselves. I think it's inspiring and incredible how emotionally strong they are. I am trying  to make sure I surround myself with more people like this. They still like the same music and same clothes and shoes as me, but, it doesn't control their lives. And ... it helps that their personalities are just incredible. 

Most teenagers my age are just looking for serious relationships. Everywhere on social media, you see posts reminding you to want that "special someone" or "bae". I'm so sick of always being told by other girls my age that we must impress the boys so that they will like us. Being told that wearing this or that will make us look hot or attractive. No. Most boys don't even put in half the effort for girls. Girls spend so much time on their make-up and hair. I don't even think boys care if your eyeliner is "on" or "under" your waterline. Why can't we be ourselves for them to like us? 

Yes, I have "dated" before but to be honest, I'm not really interested yet. Everyone is so shocked when I tell them I haven't had a proper "first kiss" and I always tell them that it's never crossed my mind and I'm just not really interested. I don't want to kiss a guy just to tell society that I have. I prefer keeping guys as my close friends. If you have to change how you are for a guy, or girl to like you, it's not worth it. They must like you for who you are.

This generation is basically moulded by technology. Phones, iPads, tablets, computers, laptops.... If I had to ask someone to have a real conversation with me, the chances are, they won't be able to. I think our generation is just so thirsty for information, and technology is full of it. We are hungry for constant information, whether it's talking to our friends on Whatsapp and Snapchat or scrolling through Instagram. I learnt a few days' ago that your brain can process 10 pictures in a second. That's amazing.

Instagram, Snapchat, Whatsapp

Back on topic: Some people are going to completely disagree with what I have said. Then again, its just my opinion. Today, I have decided I am going to change, not for society, but for me. I am going to be myself and who ever can't handle it, well, I guess you are entitled to your own opinion. I am just so thankful to have met those people who have opened my eyes and shown me that being myself is better than anything else. Don't get me wrong, none of my friends have been a mistake. They have all taught me new things and different lessons. 

I'm going to be a Pineapple and stand tall. Wear a crown on my head, and I will be sweet on the inside.

Up in the Air

I have been lucky to have fantastic colleagues. Smart. Interesting. Interested. Caring. Creative. Business was personal. I cared. The teams never stayed the same though. Someone needed to move city. Someone felt they need a role change to stay learning. Partners careers are taken into account. I couldn't ever hold onto a team that I was loving. The teams changed. The same is true of friends and family in a scattered world. It now turns out it is the same in terms of countries. Nothing stays the same. If we are looking for consistency, we need to look deeper. We need to appreciate each moment, because at any point everything can be thrown up into the air.

Up in the Air

Black Sheep v Swart Donkey

My brothers are both Doctors. When my Dad introduces us, he says, 'This is Dr Black, this is Dr Black, and that's... Trevor.' It's okay because I have lots of family members who are psychologists, so I have learnt to cope. The bit of that about Doctors and Psychologists is a true story. It's true that the bit about how my Dad introduces me is a story.

Often when we make big life choices, people who care about us will have a view on what we have done. It may be annoying at times, but it shows they care. I have been asked what my family thought about my choice to stop working for money. To give up my professional memberships. Was I considered the Black Sheep of the Black family? The truth is that what I am doing now is very consistent with how my family have always known me. On top of that, I am actually a very risk averse person. Stopping work isn't a risk in my eyes considering the various buffers I have built. Worst case scenario of getting another job isn't exactly a risk. My family and friends know that I will be okay. The only raised eyebrows I get are with respect to my lack of shaving, length of hair and type of humour.

Black Sheep v Swart Donkey

I may not be the Black Sheep, but I am the Swart Donkey. The people who know me best know I have have struggled with stubbornness and noisiness over the years. I have strong opinions. Most of them have been shown to be wrong. Donkeys are stubborn, ignorant and noisy and so it seems very appropriate. I also try very hard to slowly chip away at those issues. A little less ignorant. A little better at listening. A little bit changed. Each day.

I am not going anywhere quickly... but I will keep moving without giving up. 

Generous Forgetfulness

Raising kids seems to be a form of adapted warfare. But where you genuinely love your enemy. I have only ever been an innocent bystander. Able to give them sugar and hand them back. Pull a funny face. Then retreat. More like a sniper than hand to hand combat. Watching 'Band of Brothers' felt like a more genuine dramatisation of what war is like. Not the constant action of most big explosion action movies. More like long periods of boredom salted with absolute fear and panic. As an outsider, the most challenging part of raising kids looks to me like the long periods of patience required. Long. Where if you hand out sugar, you deal with the consequences. So you keep it to Easter and special occasions. You ration.

What is most impressive about most of the people I have seen making their way through this process is the 'strategic thinking'. Being able to focus on the winning the war and not each battle. As adults, I think we often take interactions with people to be an insight into who they are. We look for patterns. We look for cause. For intent. For the story. With children, the story is still being written and so they hop from utter and complete devastation, to a giggle, to a burst of energy, to a collapse, to being nasty, to being kind, to being funny. They even have the ability to reflect back behaviours as a form of feedback. A friend told me that being with her kids has taught as much as she is teaching them through seeing them interact. Seeing how relationships are built. Unconditional love. Forgiveness. Time. Even the bits they will never remember form a core of the relationship.

The biggest transferable lesson I have learnt from my friends and family who are raising the next generation is to not add too much story to every event. Not to see patterns where they aren't there. To be able to see battles as battles, not wars.

To always keep a store of smiles, jokes, hugs, tickles, spins and kisses. To be generous with our forgetfulness.

Character and personality also exists outside patterns.

We are defined by every event.

Inner Stories

I don't suffer from any debilitating fears or anxieties, and am very lucky to have an awesome support network of friends and family. Many of our fears happen beneath the surface though. We see the performer, not the petrified person throwing up backstage. For many, the idea of public speaking is mortifying. For others, any group of people leaves them feeling overwhelmed, and even just a brief self introduction will induce panic. Ironically, these same people may actually love communicating. They may be able to speak to Royalty, Noble Prize winners, Popes and Chief Executives without breaking stride. Something else is going on.

A lot of what we do isn't calm, calculated and rational. I think that is a good thing. A lot of the best bits of life lie in the emotional side of things. The story. The fears. The release afterwards. The beauty is in the battle. It is still interesting to look at afterwards. The story behind the story. The inner story.

Late last year I went on a climb up Table Mountain on a particularly scary route. Although I did it, I carried the fear monkeys up on my back.  In Vancouver, I walked along the Lion's Gate Bridge and the Capilano Suspension Bridge. Both were clearly very safe, and the views were absolutely spectacular. Again, I did it. But. But. Back on safe ground, my heart rate definitely came down.

Capilano Suspension Bridge - Hold On!

Lions Gate Bridge

Capilano Tree Walk

The fear doesn't come from what will happen, or even the lack of knowledge that I will cope. I will be fine. I know that. There is still a what if that sits with me. That will always sit with me. Poking me in the ribs. Refusing to allow my breath to do its thing. This morning, a friend and I went on a hike up to an old train bridge crossing in Victoria (British Columbia). Even though each step was on very solid wood with gaps of only about 8cm (way to thin to fall through), everyone was incredibly nervously walking along. Most would venture about a third of the way across, if at all, and then come back. I forced myself to walk across the whole thing. 

When you got to the edges, the steps were the same distance apart, but in between there was solid earth. Suddenly the speed of walking increased and the breathing calmed. There is something very powerful about knowing that you will be fine if things go wrong. Even if you really don't think they will go wrong. Even if you know that the support is probably, intellectually, fine.

Track Easy, Track Hard

Track View

Emotional support is huge. I am lucky. I have that. I have a deep network of friends, family and people I care about who will pick me up if I stumble. That lets me walk faster. That lets me breathe deeper.

Our support network is not visible. But is as real. Our mental responses. Our emotional responses. That is why when someone is struggling, it may not make sense to us. That is why there are easy problems and hard problems. Easy problems are solved by the wooden slats that make the railway tracks. Hard problems take the deep networks that come with time, trust, belief, relationships, communities and the stories that we tell ourselves.

Family Constitutions

Being wealthy can get complicated. Particularly if that wealth is shared.  Many very wealthy families end up being mini-institutions. They have to have things like 'Family Constitutions' deciding what they stand for. What the rules are. They have to think about succession planning. Who is going to run the family? What skills are required? Countries have constitutions for dealing with how people are supposed to interact with each other. One of the first known written constitutions came from Medina where a group of families asked Muhammad to come from Mecca to Yathrib (which became Medina) to help a group of families function as a 'bigger unit'. As the unit got bigger and bigger, this constitution would have become less relevant. More abstract.

Learning to work together

There is something empowering about not having to bother with being part of a bigger group. You don't have to get permission. When things are small, and without huge repercussions, decisions can take account of subtleties. The unspoken. When it is just you, you can decide how you spend your money. You can decide how you spend your time. When you are in a relationship, suddenly you have to discuss spending habits. When you have children, you have to think about their needs. For most people, there is then a huge jump between that and the constitution of the country. 

At each stage, it requires uncomfortable conversations about what is important. It requires compromise. It requires taking into account minorities. It involves thinking about what is okay to force people to do, and what is not okay. When is it okay to be paternal? When do you need to let people find their own way? A struggle between individual rights and group rights.  As groups get bigger you become a custodian of the shared wealth and culture of the group. What responsibilities do the privileges you have inherited entail? We struggle enough deciding who we are. Deciding who a group is is even more complicated. Groups evolve. They share. They learn. 

Groups are also where the magic lies. The support when we are down and out. The people to celebrate with when we have shared success. 

True wealth lies in our complicated connections to other people.

Inner Eight Year Old

My grandparents have moved home a few times. Whenever I see their new place, it immediately feels like a visit to Gran and Grampa. The furniture goes with them, and the paintings and little mementos that are deeply wired into my growing up. There is always a workshop where I will need to find my Grandfather covered in grease working on a new project. My Gran will be making tea in cups I know. The little things that make up their place in the world.

My Grampa in his happy place (with his boy alongside)

Having moved from South Africa in 2008 to explore the world, I find the South African shops a little like the home that moved. It is odd because you don't really get the equivalent 'South African Shops' there. Overseas, the bits are distilled. The 'other' stuff is taken away. All that is left is the differences. I can quite easily walk through the 'tantrum tunnel' to a check out when all the sweets aren't the ones I grew up with. When you take all the little things I haven't seen in a while, and put them in one place, my inner eight year old is over the moon.

When you live close to people, you don't always notice the similarities. The familiarities. You notice the differences. Scott Alexander wrote an incredibly powerful essay 'I can tolerate anything except the outgroup'. When people are very different, we tolerate them. It's easy. What is more difficult is when things are almost the same. When there is so much in common that the differences become the focus. When subgroups get formed and fight. Protestants v Catholics (both Christian). Christian v Jew (Jesus was a Jew). Christian v Islam (both Abrahamic, neighbours in Africa and Europe with ebbing and flowing borders for thousands of years). Greeks and Turks. Pakistan and India.

Little things are different here in the US. Street signs. Traffic lights (we call them robots in South Africa). The brands of sweets. While my Gran's cups may let me know it is her home, the home would have been very much like many others... there. The brands of tea - Five Roses, Rooibos. The appliances. The taps. The company that makes the toilets. There would be things that bind homes that go unnoticed. A few common books on shelves. What is on the TV. The newspaper. 

Visiting my Gran

Being away from home makes people feel patriotic. People don't move because they don't love where they come from. I see far more Springbok rugby jerseys on the streets of London than when I am in Cape Town, Joburg or Durban. More flags waving at away sport events. Differences start to fade when you are extracted, and similarities are distilled. My ears prick up when I hear an accent I recognise.

Mandela and Robots in Chicago

It would be great if our ears could prick up without being away. If we could distil the bits that excite our inner eight year olds. Eight year olds are great at making new friends. One just offered to change his party so that a friend of mine in his 30s (who he had just met) could make it.

Friendships must rise.

Future Family

I find it interesting how we are able to unite around an external enemy. Given a few generations, people start to forget that they were ever divided. We have short historic memories and seem to hop from battle to battle. When Muhammad arrived in the Arabian Peninsula, there were a bunch of tribes fighting each other. Armstrong argues that the key reform he brought was to let people be bound by faith, rather than tribe. Before that, law was enforced by vendetta. Mess with my blood, I'll mess with yours. Those tribes that now form the Arab grouping hated each other.

Shaka Zulu rose to power two years after, and far away from,  the Battle of Waterloo. He brought together a bunch of very independent tribes over his 12 year reign from 1816 - 1828. The connection to Waterloo is that Britain suddenly looked down South to the power vacuum of the defeated Dutch (not the Boers, the ones they had tried to get away from) and sent some settlers. Interestingly Muhammad was invited to Yathrib (later called Medina) to form the ummah (a group based on Islam rather than tribes) just 10 years before his death in 632. He, and 2 years of Abu Bakr after him, united the tribes of Arabia - people who had been fighting each other for years. 12 years to form a nation. Conn Iggulden tells the epic story of Genghis Khan. He too, bound people who had hated each other. Who killed each other. Who feared each other. Who became each other.   

The hatred gets forgotten years later. The Zulu 'nation' after Shaka was anything but harmonious and united. I believe the catalyst for change came with the Bambatha Rebellion. Struggling to recruit labour in the years after the Anglo-Boer war, the British imposed an onerous hut tax to encourage Zulu men to enter the labour market. They were not pleased and rose up. Together.

The Bambatha Rebellion

A lot of the fighting at the moment happens primarily between people who have a lot in common. Scott Alexander wrote a fantastic essay entitled 'I can tolerate anyone but the outgroup'. We seem much better at dealing with people who are VERY different from us. Looking at the past, it does however seem we are able (in the long run) to overcome differences. Khan, Zulu, and Muhammad were revolutionaries. Part of overcoming the conflicts in the past involved directing that aggression elsewhere. At some point, it would be great if the next revolution would be to not require an enemy.

Since, it seems that if history is a guide, one day that enemy will be family.

Big Uncle

Many of my best memories from growing up come from family and friends gathering, around a pool with a braai. For a stage, it was a Sunday ritual at my Gran's house. During the holidays, my Vaalie cousins (now Coathangers) would either come down to Durban (still Souties) or we would go up to Joburg. The family friends who I went to celebrate with in New Zealand earlier in the year also had a pool. Their Dad was huge and we were tiny. A common denominator in all these events was some big uncle tossing us around. Yesterday I was that big uncle.

Defining Family

When is someone family? Is it the point at which the relationship is not a choice? When the escape hatch disappears. When they are so deeply woven into your life that they are connected to those who are connected to you? Some relationships last longer than marriages. Some siblings are estranged. Some friends become brothers. I think we get to define whatever the word means to us. For me, it is the people you make time for, and who make time for you. Beyond entertainment or distraction. The people who care about the stuff most people don't. The people who are a part of you. Who hold you together.

A detail of one of my mother's stitched oil paintings

Time for Buzz

A number of people I know have lent into the idea of taking on physical challenges as 'happiness projects'. Some of my friends have completely transformed themselves, and you can see the buzz and energy that has resulted. One interesting common thread though, is the talk of the sacrifice their families have had to make because of the demand these challenges make on their time. The need to wake up early, and go to bed early. By taking on the Comrades Marathon, or an Iron Man, or the Unogwaja Challenge, or the running for 24 hours, the event is not the main attraction. It is the training. It is the time.

What interests me about this is that it is a trade off between Family and Personal Projects. What never seems to enter the equation is work. Work is a given. You have to eat. You have commitments. We have a certain number of hours a week we work. A weekend. And annual leave. The idea of walking into your bosses office and saying, 'I would really like to attempt the Comrades, which means I need a three hour lunch break every day. I will however not be leaving any later than usual, because obviously family time is not negotiable'.

We think about our salaries in money. Tim Ferris argues we are leaving out time. Someone who works a 100 hour week, with two weeks of leave a year (while staying 'in touch') may earn $150,000 a year. Someone who works 40 hours a week, is home for bath, bed and dinner time, with 6 weeks a year of leave, and turns their phone off on the weekends when they leave at 4 o'clock on a Friday - may earn $100,000. Who earns more? How do you value benefits like great colleagues, interesting projects, and an environment that takes into account the needs of the community, families, health and well-being of everyone a business affects?

A former colleague of mine was recently building a new business in a new country. He commented on how a big part of that was 'hurry up and wait'. There were things you needed to do, but there were enforced periods of time in between where there was nothing you could do. 94.37%* of the time someone with one years medical training may be able to do the job of someone with 30 years. There is always 'stuff you can do' when working in creative endeavours. You can do additional reading. Meetings can be longer. You can plan. Do competitor research. You can pretend to work while surfing the web. Work can expand to fill the time allocated.

Killing time in whatever way, shape, or form, seems like one of the most tragic things we can do. Time is priceless. I am not someone who argues that we should always be doing stuff we love doing. Sometimes you need to accept reality and do the things that need doing. Do the things you are best at even if they aren't the things you want to be doing. But we aren't heroes, and there are other things that are important.

That is where I think we have some thinking to do. 'I don't have time' isn't good enough for things we need to do to have enough buzz and energy for the things we have to do.

*always say things you are making up to two decimal places. I call this the Murray Rule. A colleague in my first year of work told me people always believe things when they are to two decimal places and said confidently.

From The Tail

We like to talk about tribes, and homogeneity, as if there are these wonderful little bubbles of happiness where everyone agrees with us. Where the rules are clear and everyone knows exactly how people will react when they do something. At the same time, the closest thing to our bubble is the people who share our DNA. Yet, if you want to find the thing that drives most people the most nuts, it's family. Both the family we choose, and the family we are given. The people closest to us are effectively mirrors shining our strengths, and weakness back at us with slight variations of flavour.

Something I work very hard on is being self-reflexive. We are incredibly good at seeing the things that irritate us in other people. One of the least pleasant, but most useful, lessons my mother taught me was that if someone is really aggravating you, it is probably a personality trait you share. They say the opposite of love isn't hate, it is ambivalence. If someone gets your blood boiling, it is because you share something you care about. This often happens when people talk about their family members and what bothers them. The listener has to refrain from giggling at the irony. No one likes to be giggled at when they are moaning though.

Scott Alexander wrote an amazing essay on how people think it is okay to celebrate the death of Margaret Thatcher (Ding Dong), but feel deeply uncomfortable about celebrating the death of Osama Bin Laden. Our lack of tolerance for outgroups is humbling. Humbling in that it is very difficult to even moan about without doing the same thing. My own view is that we have to identify with all opinions we hear as 'our opinions'. If someone believes something, so do you. That causes us to own all the crazy opinions in the world. It does make for awkward writing though if it sounds like we are the Queen. 

The other issues with claiming allegiance to tribes is history. It's awkward. Family infighting is not new. Groups have always been fluid and fractured. The groups we now think have history are rather young. The idea of borders and countries is very young. Jan van Riebeeck and the  'Dutch Settlers' arrived in Cape Town in 1652. 363 years ago. Today is the celebration of 200 years since the birth of the 'Kingdom of the Netherlands' (See the Google Doodle). It is 199 years since the birth of the 'Kingdom of the Zulus'. Another interesting little connection between two remarkably similar groups of people. Both farmers. Both migrants from North. Both very family orientated. Both with a distaste for English (Anglo-Boer, Anglo-Zulu).

1652 - The Year the Dutch 'arrived' or the scoreline against the All Blacks in 2003  

Reading the history of the two Kingdoms is fascinating. It really never seemed to be a disinterested attempt at improving the lives of the citizens. It was a bunch of scared people seeing who had the bigger weapons to impose their right to rule over others. David Graeber makes the point that 'Majority Rules' was really just a pragmatic way of seeing who would win if it came down to a fight. If someone had weapons (i.e. a propertied man), they got a vote. Most of the proper fighting ended up happening at home. Killing of brothers. Killing of friends. I have often talked of the idea of building a bigger tribe. Perhaps that is the wrong metaphor. It seems tribes are dodgy. It seems we treat the people we should care about the most, the worst.

On the positive side, when you realise something isn't working. You can fix it. Otherwise you just eat yourself from the tail.

Ouroboros - A Dragon continually consuming itself

Surströmming

They say you can't choose family, and friends are the family you choose. That isn't really true once you get past immediate nuclear family and the first years of your life, i.e. the ones under your roof. Of course you can choose family. Family are the ones you spend sufficient time with to let the guard slip.

When we just meet people for a slice of cake, a beer or a meal it is a very controlled environment. When we start feeling tired, we can make an excuse to leave. If there are enough friends around, a buddy of mine taught me the art of ninjaing (leaving without saying so). When you are heading back to the same place for an extended period of time, you can't ninja. If your mood changes, you have to deal with it. You have to learn to treat people nicely even when you aren't in the mood for people. Quite often you can tell family by the fact that they don't treat each other very well. You don't get to be rude to friends. You can have banter, but it is normally of a good nature. When it comes to family, people start to push each others buttons. Another friend said this this was because your family are the ones who installed the buttons.

With family, you have to learn to deal with irritation. People clash over completely different perceptions of time, cleanliness, money, goals, responsibilities and reality. This leads to uncomfortable conversations even if people are brave enough to address them. Often they just ferment. In Sweden there is a tradition of leaving herring to ferment in a can. You know it is ready when the tin looks like it is about to explode. This takes 6 months to a year. Unlike Biltong (which South Africans love), even the Swedes who told me of this said it wasn't all that pleasant. The catch phrase 'But it is not as bad as it smells' is unlikely to win any advertising awards. Perhaps eating Surströmming is just part of being part of the Swedish family. Learning to have uncomfortable conversations is part of becoming family.

Surströmming - Not as bad as it smells

Even people who have been brought up under the same roof experience situations differently. Kid years are like dog years. A whole bunch is packed into a much shorter period of time. You are quite literally becoming a different person almost every day. Just sit at a family gathering with kids of different ages and watch them. Their experience of that event will be completely different. Add to that the different adult perspective and our worldviews are only loosely related. Every situation will lead to some sort of mini-conflict of perception.

But there is something wonderful about choosing to spend enough time with someone that they may start to irritate you. You get deeper. You get closer to the good stuff. You get to the dark stuff. A lot of the things that affect our happiness makes us feel very insecure. We only share them with really good friends, close family, priests, lawyers, doctors, teachers or others who we feel will keep the story in confidence. Heather Plett wrote a wonderful post on 'Holding Space' for people you care about. Learning to hold space is a powerful guide to creating deeper, more meaningful relationships.

A cup of coffee and a catch up with a buddy is great. If you want to choose someone as family, it is a deeper commitment.