Thought for the Day(s)

It's become a nihilist week.

Existentialism has taken a back seat.

~eugh~



On Being Nothing - Brian Jay Stanley

A friend of mine shared this interesting read from the New York Times with me today. I'm sure it resonates, to some degree or another, with all of us.

"Every man looketh that his companion should value him at the same rate he sets upon himself.

–Thomas Hobbes

As a carryover from childhood camps, I still instinctively check my mailbox with excitement. At camp, when I felt homesick, the arrival of mail from family was a reminder that I was not forgotten, that somewhere in the great world, though not here, my existence was written boldly in another’s ledger. Now, despite my Pavlovian reflex, browsing my mail is not merely unexciting but depressing.

What am I in this world but a pawn of others’ projects? The utility companies require the payments they are owed. The stores have new products they invite me to come and buy. A speaker has planned a lecture and seeks an audience. I owe taxes to the government for making money, for spending that money, for owning a home, for owning a car to leave that home. I am not a name but an account number, a social security number, a customer ID, a “current resident” of this address. Every day, I am sought out by people who do not know me but who want something from me. I matter to the world merely as the owner of a bank account from which others wish to withdraw.

Most annoying are subscription solicitations I receive from literary magazines that got my name and address from rejecting work I submitted. They do not want my writing, but might I send them my money — so I can read the writers they chose over me? They thwart my project and subsume me into theirs. Not that I can blame any of these solicitors. A store needs customers, a speaker needs listeners, a publisher needs subscribers. I use others as surely as others use me. They are not my enemies but individuals trying to live and succeed, just as I am. Nevertheless, all those individuals added together make up the world, and the world is cruel.

At every stage of life, we desire to be noticed and affirmed by others. Infants are born craving affection as much as milk. Children playing do not require the active involvement of nearby adults, but if you try to leave they demand that you watch them play. Adolescents, in their perpetual anxiety to be popular, do not so much look at others through their own eyes as look constantly at themselves through others’ eyes. Those who are dying worry about being remembered after death, though when dead, how can they care if they’re forgotten? As adults, our successes give us little pleasure unless sweetened by others’ admiration. If we dress up, there must be others to see us or our work seems wasted — no one wears a tuxedo at home. A marvelous gardener once told me (speaking for human nature) that he takes more delight in a single garden visitor’s compliment than in all the shrubs and flowers he has ever planted. What is this craving for another’s eye to rest upon us?

Upon reflection, a desire for recognition seems irrational. Since we live in our own minds, why should we care what thoughts are in the minds of others? Is this not like a Canadian fretting about the weather in Mexico? How to explain this need for notice is debatable. Are we so doubtful of our worth that others must attest to it? Conversely, are we so certain of our worth that others must bow down to it?

Growing up in a small town, I had an audience. I knew everyone at church, at school, on opposing sports teams. Everyone else knew everyone, too. Thus we were all one another’s audience. This did not always make life pleasant; one had an audience for one’s failures as well as one’s successes. But it made life meaningful. Everything counted because someone was watching. In high school, the bliss of getting a pretty girlfriend consisted less in having the girl herself than in walking the halls with her on your arm, for others to see. The chief motivation to score goals in sports was not to beat the other team but to impress the fans. To score a goal or get a girl on a desert island would have been a paltry pleasure. Small town life resembled the medieval universe in which saints and angels looked down on the adventures of humankind. Your actions might lead to heaven or hell, but because all eyes were on you, even damnation possessed a certain coziness.

A decisive break in my life occurred when I left town after high school. My well-nurtured ego thought of the outside world as the waiting arena of my actions, where all humanity was expectantly assembled for me, yet when I arrived I found that no one knew my name nor wished to learn it; I was a king without any subjects. Arriving at college was like stepping out of the medieval world into the modern. The campus was a chaos of otherness with nothing at the center, least of all me. Unknown students from unknown places lived unknown lives, unconnected to mine. What did my actions matter anymore, since no one was keeping track of me but me? I studied anomie in my sociology classes and experienced it alone in my dorm room. Though I made friends, I no longer had an audience.

I remember lying awake in my dorm bed the first night I arrived on campus. The thought gripped me that no one on campus or in the city knew I had come or required that I be there in order to function. The local restaurants had been in business for 20 years without my patronage. The dorm where I slept had been housing students since before I was born. If I died tonight, I thought, the city would not miss me or pause from its busy routines except for someone to call my family to fetch my body. I felt frightened to be so unnecessary. The one comfort I clung to was that the college had admitted me and, more importantly, had offered me a scholarship, implying it wanted me. For what is the proof of being wanted except being paid?

I began noticing every small sign of my insignificance to others, and minor episodes made deep impressions. One day during my sophomore year, I was issued a $100 citation for parking seven feet from a fire hydrant, when the law required 15 feet. I thought the ticket was unreasonable, for although common sense told me not to block a fire hydrant, how was I to know the precise distance required, when no one had posted a sign? I appealed the ticket using this argument but was informed in a formal letter that the law does not bend for the ignorant, and I had to pay. Reading the brief, austere sentences from an authoritative stranger gave me a view of myself through the law’s eyes, as a nameless citizen. I had duties more than rights; the law’s only concern was that the human herd keep inside the fences. Excuses were irrelevant.

Some days I feel so insubstantial that I am startled by signs of my visible presence in the world. On a recent afternoon walk, when my thoughts on these matters had gone somewhat too far, a dog rooting in the grass turned its head and barked at me. I turned my head toward the sound in surprise: I had made the rooting dog look up — therefore I did exist. True, the dog hated me, but in its bark I heard a vicious compliment, for it is better to be hated than ignored, hate being a form of acknowledgement, albeit negative.

Society is adroit at disillusioning newcomers, and many self-assured children grow up to be bitter adults. But bitterness, instead of a form of disillusionment, is really the refusal to give up your childhood illusions of importance. Ignored instead of welcomed by the world, you fault the world as blind and evil in order not to fault yourself as naïve. Bitterness is a child’s coddling narcissism within the context of an adult’s harsh life. Instead, I know that the world only tramples me as a street crowd does an earthworm — not out of malice or stupidity, but because no one sees it. Thus my pain is not to feel wrongly slighted, but to feel rightly slighted.

There must be a Copernican revolution of the self. Instead of pointlessly cursing the sun to go around me, my chance of contentment is learning to orbit, being the world’s audience instead of demanding the world be mine. If the world is a stage, then everyone’s an extra, acting minor roles in simultaneous scenes in which no one has the lead. With so much happening, society is poorly made to satisfy pride, but well made to satisfy interest, if we will only let go of our vanity and join the swirl of activity."

Brian Jay Stanley’s essays have appeared in Pleiades, North American Review, The Antioch Review and elsewhere. He lives in Asheville, N.C. More of his work can be found on his Web site.

Fragmentary Girl

“Let's face it: I'm scared, scared and frozen. First, I guess I'm afraid for myself...the old primitive urge for survival. It's getting so I live every moment with terrible intensity. It all flowed over me with a screaming ache of pain...remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I've taken for granted. When you feel that this may be good-bye, the last time, it hits you harder.”

-Sylvia Plath

This is Horse Country

I found this aweRsome fabric print at our local hospice shop on Louis Botha Avenue a few weeks ago. 

Ric wasn't too keen on it at first, but I convinced him that it would be pimping as soon as I had spray painted the old manky frame. 

Now he also thinks it's aweRsome. 

Oh man, it makes me so happy. 

I feel like I'm some sort of urban cowboy.

(re)purposing

I don't know how it is that I've been living in this house for a year but only recently discovered the old, discarded wheelbarrow positioned against our wall. I decided to clean it, spray paint it and plant some roses in it (not that I have a clue of how to care for Roses, but I do know how to spray-paint the shit out of weathered items). 

The weather finally started changing a few weeks ago (our beautiful Plum tree is finally blossoming) so I decided to try and get our garden looking a bit more presentable. I've replanted tomato seeds as the ones I tried to grow inside earlier in the year, the ones that were "guaranteed to grow", were an epic failure. Now if it would only stop raining and hailing like hell is freezing over, then my plants might actually stand a chance of survival. 

Layer Cakes

I saw a beautiful picture on Pinterest the other day of a layered bite-sized cake which I decided to recreate. It is surprisingly easy to make and you can vary the preferred size of your layered cakes by changing the size of your cookie cutters. 

Ingredients

• 3 cups flower
• 1.5 cups sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 - 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp white vinegar or apple cider vinegar
• 2 cups water or soy milk 
• food colouring 
• 250g icing sugar (I use the ready made Ina Paarman ones) 
• 125 g vegan margarine (I use Cardin)
• 1/4 cup water

Additional Items

• 3 cake tins
• cookie cutters
• cake decorations such as hundreds of thousands, sugar etc. 

Pre-heat oven to about 180 degrees Celsius. 

Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, make a hole in the bowl and add the wet ingredients. Mix until smooth. 

Divide cake batter equally into three separate mixing bowls. Add a few drops of your desired food colouring. If you want different shades of the same colour, simply add more or less food colouring to the three separate bowls. Mix until you get your preferred shades. 

Pour the three coloured batters into three separate (pre-greased) cake tins, insert into the oven and bake for about 30 - 40 minutes, or until your cake tester comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow cakes to cool. 

While cakes are cooling, prepare your icing sugar. Cream 125g vegan margarine, then mix in 250g icing sugar and 1/4 cup water. 

Once the cakes have cooled, turn them over onto a clean surface and begin cutting out shapes with your cookie cutters. 

Stack the cake shapes onto each other and secure with a thin layer of icing sugar between each each. Ice the tops of the cakes. Sprinkle with decorations and serve. 

Inner City Poet

We went to watch the most incredible documentary yesterday, "Searching for Sugar Man", which centers on the enigmatic life of Sixto Diaz Rodriguez aka Rodriguez. 

I remember discovering his CD in my parent's collection when I was about 17 years old, listening to it for about twenty repeats and authoritatively informing my parents that I'd made the most phenomenal musical discovery. They laughed and informed me that they'd been listening to him since they were in University. I've kept his Cold Fact CD (stolen from my parents) with me ever since and listen to it intermittently when the mood hits. 

What's crazy is that I never really bothered to find out more about him- for me it was just a no-brainer that he was known across the world. To find out that until now, he has effectively been anathema to the American music industry completely floored me. 

The documentary chronicles the efforts of Cape Town record-store owner Steve "Sugar" Segerman and music journalist Craig Bartholomew to trace the real cause of Rodriguez' death in the nineties (it had been rumoured that he shot his brains out in front of a small audience, alternatively self-immolated himself) - only for them to discover that he was alive and thriving as a home renovator in working-class inner city Detroit. 

What follows is an incredible journey of discovery, not only for South African fans but for Rodriguez himself given the fact that he had never known that he was "bigger than Elvis" in South Africa. 

The documentary is incredibly informative and shows how his music went on to spark the Voelvry Movement headed by Koos Kombuis and Johannes Kerkorrel, as well as further liberal resistance to the Apartheid system. Biko is rumoured to have listened to his music and apparently many Iranians, prior to the 1979 revolution, were also passing his music around. He has to be the biggest underground prophet that never was.  

Do yourself a favour and go check it out, I promise you won't be sorry. 

Thought for the Day

 

Justin Lee Williams



PostSecret

Chanson du Jour

"Curious" Humans

Albie Logic

Question: How to bath a really dirty big black dog who gets increasingly aggressive and agitated the longer he is in the bath and whose complaints escalate from soft whimpers to surprisingly disconcerting guttural growls and whose paws are like big mother-flipping serrated shovels that can pack one hell of a hook when angled correctly and whose weight (and consequent strength) seems to triple as soon as he is placed (placed?) into the bath. 

Answer: Treat the whole bathing experience like some high-stakes ops-mission where you have to infiltrate foreign territory (i.e. pissed-off Albie territory) by frantically distracting your really dirty big black dog with his fluorescent pink chewy toy whilst singing "chewy toy, chewy toy, chewy-chewy-chewy-chewy-chewy-toy" to the melody of Homer Simpson's "Spider Pig". 

After-thought: Why share this experience on one's blog? 

After-after-thought: I didn't photo-shop that eye. 

Mussaman Curry Stir Fry

I'm addicted to coconut at the moment and so I headed to Chinatown in Cyrildene to stock up on and satisfy my obscene craving for the-best-ever-coconut-drink-ever-(!)(above) as well as to buy some other foodstuffs, such buckwheat noodles (which are ready in a record time of 5 minutes...the quicker the better), fresh vegetables, nuts and tofu.

Truth be told, I also get a kick out of going there because I get to indulge my infantile self by finding as many discretely-placed expletives on the food packaging as possible...sort of like a grown-up (yeah right) version of I spy. 

Anyway I decided to make the above-mentioned (very quick and easy dish) for dinner. Woollies has a really nice curry paste (consisting of onion, galangal, red chilli, lemon grass, coriander, cumin, lime peel, tamarind and various spices) which I used as the base for my stir-fry. 

Ingredients: 

• 1 small head of broccoli, chopped
• 1/2 packet mushrooms, chopped
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 packet firm tofu, diced
• 1 cup cashew nuts
• 1 packet Woollies Mussaman Curry Paste
• salt and pepper to taste
• buckwheat noodles (or noodles of your choice)

Heat some olive oil in a pan and fry the broccoli and mushrooms with some salt and pepper until they are soft yet firm. Add the tofu, cashew nuts, coconut milk, curry paste and soy sauce and mix. Bring to a boil and leave to simmer for about twenty minutes, stirring occasionally.

Prepare the noodles. If you're using buckwheat noodles, dump those suckers in boiling water for about three to five minutes and voila, they'll be done in no time. 

Serve and slurp 

(in appreciation!)

A Lotta Panna Cotta with Poached Strawberries

I've discovered the most amazing gelatine (eugh) substitute (not that one ever seeks to replace gelatine but rather to imitate its function) called Agar Agar which is readily available in powdered form from most health stores and/or Dischem pharmacies. 

This awesome powder can be used to make vegan cheese cakes, mousses, jellies and PANNA COTTA! Yep. Panna. Freaking. Cotta.

You may have to experiment a little with the Agar Agar powder to get the right measurements for your desired consistency (depending upon which dessert you want to make). The key to using the Agar Agar powder is to bring it to a boil and then to let it cool and set. 

I've been making Panna Cotta in record time because the mixture sets so quickly, so this is a great dessert to make if you want something that looks all fancy without having to offer a quid pro quo of time and effort.

Ingredients

• 300 ml soya cream / coconut cream
• 200 ml soy milk / coconut milk 
• 45g castor sugar 
• 1 vanilla pod / 1 tsp vanilla paste (the latter is available from Woolworths' baking section)
• 4g Agar Agar
• 200 ml champagne or sparkling wine
• 200 g castor sugar 
• 1 punnet fresh strawberries, washed and sliced (but you can use any fruit of your choosing e.g. raspberries, gooseberries, pears etc.)   

Pour the cream, milk, castor sugar and vanilla (if using a pod then slice the pod and scrape out its contents) into a pot. Add the Agar Agar and bring to the boil.

Whisk to dissolve the Agar Agar and allow to simmer for about 2 minutes. 

Remove from the stove, pour mixture into your desired moulds and leave to cool (outside at first and then transfer to the fridge when the mixture is not longer steaming hot). 

While the Panna Cotta mixture is cooling in the fridge, pour the champagne / sparking wine and castor sugar into a pan and bring to the boil. Pour the champagne syrup over the strawberries and allow to cool. 

Once everything has cooled turn the Panna Cotta out from its mould onto a plate (if you struggle to get the Panna Cotta out of the mould, then place the mould in a few centimeters of hot water for about 30 seconds). Spoon strawberries and syrup over the Panna Cotta and serve. 

Left over champagne syrup can be used towards...MORE PANNA COTTA the following day.