Well Covered

My rule of thumb for insurance, is to buy cover for the risks you can’t handle, while building capital to handle as much of it as you can yourself. Perhaps it is the Self-Reliance that was beaten into me by South African folklore. I push back hard on most people who talk of being “against hand-outs” when it comes to charity. Most of the time that push back doesn’t come armed with a mirror. The boundary between a hand-out and privilege is unclear to me. Privilege is compounded entitlement made invisible. Before you can start building breathing space, you have no choice but to rely on others. No one is self-made. Gradually, you can reduce that reliance. By building Capital. The only way to build that self-reliance is by snapping the connection between income and expenses. Self-reliance is a privilege. It is also one that frees you up to give back. If you get to the point where you no longer need to consume everything that is coming in. Separating consumption and creativity is the key to sustainability. The key to handling risk.

Bit of a Wet

I was a bit of a wet as a kid. At the tail end of Apartheid, we still had Corporal Punishment (which ended with the birth of Democracy). There were two occasions when I almost got caned, but waterworks saved me from Mr Pike and Mr Ash (not making the names up). This was the same culture that had the 2003 Springboks naked in a foxhole while having ice-cold water poured over their heads. The complicated bit is the "my parents beat me and look how I turned out" justification given. Often people who had it hard become the hardest opponents of stopping it from being hard in the first place. Like people who have made it against the odds objecting the loudest to those in poverty being given "handouts". I am still a bit of a wet. I don't regard basic foundations of kindness and respect as handouts. I don't believe in fear as an incentive.

Caning stand from British Prison in Hong Kong