Letters to Charles VII - Part I

Charles,

The next of my letters deals on the matter of friendship. It has been some time since I wrote you a letter, but the matter of friendship is one I have given a great deal of thought. Friendship, if you ask me, is a vitally important part of our lives, which I won’t just blurt on about it.

I will take this letter to point out the negatives and the dangers of friendship, because already, this is getting to be a long letter – just like my monumental lecture on relationships with your folks.

Before I continue any further on the subject, I will present the following statement to you:

Friendship is, for the best part, overrated.

That, dear Charles, is a very cynical statement. Why would I say such a thing? Simply because people value their friends so much that they betray themselves – their primary friend – in the process.

Friends are dangerous. Friends can make you untrue to yourself because you tend to value your friendships with people more than you value the friendship you need to have with yourself – it is, after all, a natural reaction. You know yourself, you are stuck with yourself, and therefore you have no need to keep yourself impressed with yourself. Friends, so it seems, needs to be impressed constantly – the most of them, anyway. You may retort at this stage that if I say something like this, I have never experienced true friendship. That, Charles, is to insult your self. You are a friend of mine, and I still have a hard time substantiating what you recently did for me – I don’t believe I deserved it.

Still, why do I maintain that most friends need to be impressed on a constant basis? Friendship is born from an overlap in fields of interest to use the psychological term, or common ground, to use the layman’s term. But life is a pretty dynamic thing, and so are people’s personalities. You develop in other ways, possibly losing interest in things, but for the sake of your friendship with a certain person, you hold yourself back and in the process you put the brakes on your own personal development.

Friends, dear Charles, are perennial. They come and go as the seasons. Yes, there are people who have friends for life. I counted myself among those privileged people, but recently I found that that special friendship was waning. And yes, it hurt a lot. So, understand that friendship is a great cause of heartache. Once again, you need to protect your heart in friendships. Pink Floyd, my all-time favourite band, described that protection of your heart the best to me:

Through the fish-eyed lens of tear-stained eyes
I can hardly define the shape of this moment in time
And far from flying high in clear blue skies
I’m spiraling down to this hole in the ground where I hide
If you negotiate the mine-field in the drive
And beat the dogs and cheat the cold electronic eyes
And if you make it past the shotguns in the hall,
Crack the combination, open the priest-hole
And even if you make it through…

I will write more on this passage in a later letter, as it had a profound impact on my life. In closing, I want to quote some of the greatest men who ever lived, who said this:

"Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation." – George Washington

But, also remember:

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival." – CS Lewis

Until next time, pick your friends with great care.

Mr. vd M

A Brain Spasm following the news of Saddam's death sentence

The planned hanging of Saddam Hussein, in my opinion, is such a farce.

Why is he (probably) going to swing? He has been found guilty of crimes against humanity for ordering the killing of 148 in 1982, which is still a heinous act of terrorism.

However, let us consider the greatest act of terrorism in the history of the world: The atom bomb the US dropped on Nagasaki. I can still OK the one dropped on Hiroshima, as it confirmed Japan to its knees in WW2 - it was already on its knees but hey - let's give America the benefit of the doubt here.

Nagasaki was totally unacceptable and made into lab-rats the 39,000 (according to wikipedia) people killed in the blast or died as a consequence. Who swung for that? Nobody. Why wasn’t Roosevelt brought to trail for that? Because America won the war, that’s why. I believe some Japanese generals et al swung after the war for the things they did. But not the Americans, no sirree. Justice - however unjust - is delivered by the winner of the war.

I live in a third-world country and it amuses me how the world carries on. More specifically, it shocks me what the USA does. One of the most common factors of any presidential administration since WW2 is the deployment of their armed forces because somewhere, halfway around the world, something is threatening their frail national security. This is a greater commonality than, say, Democratic or Republican presidents. So, they get on their ships and they hop in their airplanes, and go and kill another 39,000 people twice every decade or so – OK, I will settle in calling that an over-exaggeration. And suffer the same number of casualties in the process – The last couple of wars didn’t go to good for the Green Coats, I understand. The amount of their casualties makes them sound like a war-addicted, cannibal nation to me. Or they may just have the knack of electing a cannibal on a regular basis...

The point is this: Saddam was convicted for senselessly killing 148. In Nagasaki 39,000 died pointlessly. So, if one Iraqi president has to swing for 148, assuming an exchange rate of one Iraqi president to one US president, which sounds fair in my books, 263.513513... US presidents must swing for Nagasaki – discounting global inflation – I will not beat around the bush any further about that.

That makes me wonder about dictatorship. The cheers resounded all around the world when Saddam was ousted. But still the world, maybe without realising it, willingly bows down to the greatest dictator of them all every day – The USA. Will the cheers be heard the day this dictator falls, or will the rest of the world be forced to listen to the pathetic wailing of this once great nation for the injustices it so unfairly was made to suffer as we did on 9/11 or when Katrina and Rita struck?

So, on the day Saddam swings, let us hope there is another 263 nooses – the Americans had better get voting. And let’s not forget the nooses reserved for Russian presidents, compliments of Mr. Stalin. Or the number of nooses reserved for South African presidents, compliments of the Apartheid regime. The list goes on...

Lessons from SCUBA diving

This is the first of some postings I hope to write about the things I have learnt from SCUBA diving.

I had quite an interesting discussion with my brother the other day about the subject and why I don't appear to see as much as he sees when diving. The conclusion I reached is that I tend to look at things at the macroscopic level: I tend to look out for the big things - sharks, dolphins, rays, etc. He, on the other hand tends to look at the microscopic level: He keeps a sharp eye out for the nudibranchs, paperfish and things normally camouflaged.

This past weekend I have been diving at Ponta Malongane in Southern Mozambique - some of the best diving I ever did.

I decided to follow his approach and to re-evaluate my way of diving - and I conclude that I don't look at the macroscopic level. Far worse, I tend to look at holistic level. I try to see the whole picture - which I succeed in - but I do not understand what I see. The reason for that is that I do not understand or fully appreciate the full spectrum of everything I see.

So, what did I do? I emptied my BCD and got a bit closer to the reef. Sure, I still did not see everything there is to see, because when looking at a microscopic level, you will miss some of the big stuff. But in time, you will see everything there is to see. And from there, you can start stepping back and try to see the whole of a reef.

Such, my friends, is life. You need to zoom in on some things, the things that make up the whole. Then you can put some air in your BCD, hover a bit higher and then, when you are peacefully drifting over the Great Reef that is life, will you understand the parts of the whole, and see the whole for what it really is.

Letters to Charles VI - Part III

Charles,

Next to the relationship with you parents is the relationship you have with your siblings – your brothers and sisters. It is difficult for me to write on the subject as I have only one brother and my experience is therefore limited. Still, there are several principles which I believe apply.

It is said that we should always be kind to our siblings – they are the longest lasting link to our homes as children. One day when your parents are gone and there are things you need to understand about your childhood, they are the people most able to help you because they were there, in the same circumstances.

Siblings fight. Since primal times, that has been the case. Just read in your Bible what the first pair of siblings ever recorded did – the one hit the other upside the head with an old piece of rock. The reason? Jealousy.

I think that jealousy is the greatest enemy of relationships between siblings. That, and intolerance. My brother taught me to deal with jealousy. Tolerance only came into the equation later and I think it is more a product of the years. A relationship with a sibling is the first relationship you are likely to have in which you could learn to deal with peers – provided that your sibling and yourself aren’t too far apart in years.

I know how difficult it is to be tolerant of another sibling, especially when said sibling has mastered the art of annoying you. Then, more often than not, it is more tempting to pick up an old piece of rock and… you get the idea. The reward of tolerance is patience. And a rewarding long-term relationship with your sibling/s.

As you can see, your relationship with siblings is much less complex then your relationship with your parents. Your siblings are the first friends (other that yourself) you can have. I suggest that you start as soon as you can to build a friendship relationship with them. It is a relationship likely to last long beyond the time when your other friends are gone.

And they can reminisce with you.

Until next time, be the brother God created you to be.

Mr. v.d. M

Letters to Charles VI - Part II

Charles,

Now that you know where I come from, I will try to impart the morals of the story to you.

I said in Part I of this letter that all relationships require a certain degree of management. Picture this: A relationship is a lot like a car, but there are two drivers. Since the car is one vehicle, it can only go one place. You can’t cut it down the middle and drive the separate halves. Besides, cars aren’t that great when driven on two wheels. If the car is then to reach a desirable destination, both the drivers need to agree where they would like to drive the car. This discussion, this reaching of an agreement on the destination is where a lot of conflict occurs. The most conflict, however, occurs when the two drivers’ driving styles starts to cramp each other, or when the drivers disagree about what it says on the map, or worse, when one driver unilaterally decides to change the destination. Remember this comparison – I will be referring to it again later.

Your relationship with your parents as I said is one of the most important in your life. I hope for your sake that you have been blessed with the kind of parents I have. The most important things in your relationship with your parents are love, honesty and transparency and respect from both parties. On top of that, your parents need a lot of patience. So do you. Parents raise children to be parents one day, and children raise parents to be grandparents someday.

Writing this I am tortured by the thought of so many people maybe reading this who have never had the privilege of parents. We all need parents to be here – to put it crudely, all humans are the fruit of their parents’ loins. Procreating a child does not make you a parent. Some parents abandon their children physically, but millions more abandon them psychologically. It is indeed, in my opinion, the number one social illness in the world and I grieve for those souls. I grieve for those sent into life on bicycles, going it alone. They don’t have the luxury of a soft seat, climate control, or the joy of a tune on the stereo.

The feeling of being abandoned by your parents is where lots of things go wrong, and it is not your fault if you step on the brakes at that time. Once again, the fear of heartache kicks in and your reaction is probably one of saving the car. The reason I am telling you this is because you should always bear in mind that your parents are probably working their fingers to the bone to create a better life for you and to give you the opportunities they never had. However, as my mother recently put it to me, providing is only a small part of a parent’s responsibility towards his/her children.

To wrap up the essence of what I think you need to bear in mind in your relationship with your parents is this, and I will formulate this as my ten commandments for children towards their parents. After thinking about it, this is what I try to apply in my relationship with my parents…

1. Thou shalt accept thy parents’ imperfections. They aren’t perfect, and it is not their fault. This does not excuse them from constantly improving themselves. The same holds true for you.
2. Thou shalt accept that thy parents want the best for thee. This results in them pressuring you to perform at school and all areas of life, and I know from my own experience how much conflict this could cause. After all, the most of the money a parent invests is in their children. They deserve to see some return on investment.
3. Thou shalt realise that you are important to thy parents. Whether you doubt it or not, they are interested in you. They may have strange ways of showing it, some of those ways appealing to you more than some others. Accept it and get on with your life.
4. Thou shalt communicate with thy parents. It can’t make things worse. The short term result may often seem disastrous, but the long term yields of that communication is beyond comprehension.
5. Thou shalt treat thy parents with respect. When communicating, pay attention to some good old respect. Whether you believe it or not, they deserve your respect. They have earned it and if you aren’t sure how, you should ask them. Just don’t expect an answer right away and don’t be surprised if the question is met by a hostile response. Explain why you would like to know.
6. Thou shalt show appreciation toward thy parents. A little goes a long way. Your parents need to feel that you appreciate them and their efforts. A small token of your appreciation means the world to them. Even more so, the knowledge that you appreciate them is beyond description to them.
7. Thou shalt respect thy parents’ union. If you are lucky enough to have parents sharing a happy marriage, give them the space to love each other. I know public displays of affection makes you feel embarrassed, but rather than turning red as a beetroot, be glad that you have the privilege of growing up in a home where your parents love each other. If you are uncertain of what I am talking about, you don’t have to look far for someone with divorced parents. They will tell you what I am talking about.
8. Thou shalt pull thy weight at home. Nothing in life is free and the dishes you wash, the lawn you mow and your room you clean is a drop in the bucket towards the money they spend on you. I never realised this until I had to start earning my own money and perform the said tasks. But my parents tried to teach me that.
9. Thou shalt be honest in thy dealings with thy parents. Honesty begets honesty. Honesty is the windscreen wipers of the car you are driving together. If the windscreen wipers do not work, the car is headed for some serious trouble.
10. Thou shalt get to know thy parents. Remember, relationships work both ways. If your relationship with your parents is to succeed, you need to know their personalities. They are your parents, not gods. You have a right to know them and I suspect they would love you to know them. One day when you’re grown up, they may become some of the best friends you may ever have.

Well, that was a lot of information, but I doubt the wisdom in my words. I hope it rings true in a life somewhere – more specifically, I hope it rings true with you. I have put a lot of thought into this, and to be honest, I could write a work of several volumes and still not say everything there is to be said. Maybe, one day when I’m a parent myself I will write Ten Commandments for parents too.

It seems to me that this letter is going to have a third part – I didn’t even get around to siblings in this letter. This is one hell of a letter, so I will not prolong your agony any longer.

Until next time, study the Ten Commandments and decide whether they apply to your situation or not.

Mr. v.d. M

Letters to Charles VI - Part I

Charles,

Your relationship with your folks are very, very important. After yourself, they are the next people you meet. More specifically, I am referring to your parents now. This is a relationship you cannot choose. You can however, choose how you handle it. Relationships, like most things in life require management.

I would like to share with you about my relationship with my parents and brother.

I am the older sibling, and if I could have had one wish in life, it would have been to have an older brother. Don’t get me wrong here – I love being the older sibling. It does my self esteem lots of good to remember how I spared my brother a couple of hidings, and taking some for things he did. OK, it was not funny at the time, but time changes all that.

I didn’t have the perfect relationship with my parents. I still don’t. I doubt if it is possible to have one – the perfect relationship with your parents, that is. I experienced a lot of pain in my relationship with my parents, and being the person I am, I also caused them a great deal of pain. There was a time that I experienced my relationship with my parents as mutually exhaustive. I wanted to be anywhere but at home.

Still, the lingering question is this: Why did I only leave home at the ripe age of 24? Well, there are many reasons, which I won’t get into now. Solomon wrote this: “Just as iron sharpens iron, friends sharpen the minds of each other” (Proverbs 27:17). I guess that I, although I intensely disliked it, appreciated the sharpening because I realised how badly I needed it.

There was a time when my father was very absent – a time when I needed a father. In the modern Yankee perspective they talk about deadbeat dads. My father was never one of those, but he was rarely at home and when he was, in my 15 and 16 year-old perception, he was studying, sleeping or crapping on my head. We used to have nasty fights – nasty to the point of ugly. There was a time when I even accused my father of making me his emotional punching bag.

A major bombshell exploded when my dad was retrenched at the end of my grade 11 year. I didn’t realise it at the time, but it was an extremely traumatic experience for me. It was also the start of the healing process – a lot of things happened in that time. We did, however, have our nastiest fights in the years thereafter. I finally left home at the age of 24 after a particularly ugly fight. That, really, was when the healing process truly started.

I am not telling you all this because I want your pity. Like I said in my first letter, I want you to know where I come from.

As for my brother… my brother was always a pillar of strength in my life. I will even venture as far as to say that he is a heroic figure to me. OK, we had our fights, kicked the crap out of each other several times and got the crap beaten out of us about that, but hey. That’s what brothers do. It amazes me, years later now, how we as brothers can know the worst about each other and still remain friends and hold each other in the high regard we do. If am to be speaking for myself, at least. That goes to show, blood is indeed thicker than water. I don’t know what my brother will think of this, but I am actually looking forward to one day, when we’ll both be old men and still be friends. And brothers.

It is often remarked how you can choose your friends but not your family. Family should also be friends, otherwise it is hardly worthwhile. All relationships are give and take. When a relationship comes down to all give and no receive, it is a dead stick. It is very difficult to resurrect a dead stick.

Until next time, remember that dead sticks are only good for making fire.

Mr. v.d. M

Letters to Charles V

Charles,

Your self is the first person you ever meet, and probably the one you are the least acquainted with. Most people know themselves, but they don’t count themselves among their friends. I couldn’t stress enough how important it is to be your own friend. It is also the most difficult friendship you will ever have. You see, you are the one friend you should have whom you really have no secrets from. It is the one friend who will cause you the greatest extent of pain and grief. It is the friend who will anger you the most. You are the friend you should have who will hurt yourself the most.

The problem with your self is that through all eternity, you are stuck with him. So, you might as well learn to know yourself as a friend. You are likely to have times in your life when you are the only person willing to be your friend.

You will never have a friend who will teach you as much about yourself. You will also never have a friend who will teach you more about accepting people the way they are. You as your own friend can teach yourself through your friendship a great deal of patience. You can avoid other friends when they annoy you. With yourself you are stuck. Or as Yoda would put it, "Stuck with yourself you are." You can never run from yourself, you can never hide from yourself, although you can choose to ignore yourself sometimes, and beyond a wholesome discipline you need to do that sometimes. Sometimes you need to tell yourself to shut up.

I will think some more on this subject, and add my thoughts later on. Next time, I will tell you my thoughts on relationships with your folks.

Until then, learn to appreciate your own company. And sleep well.

Mr. v.d. M

PS: It is not that I am losing sleep over you. I am secretly a mild insomniac. But don’t tell anyone.

Letters to Charles IV

Charles,

My letters so far has been dealing on the subject of relationships and where they may lead you. Many of them were negative, as up to now I wished to relate to you how well I understand your pain right now. I couldn’t say that I experienced the same level of unfairness in relationships, but in essence I understand. Whoever tells you that life is fair, shoot them. Not literally, of course.

Relationships, however, aren’t all bad. Relationships can be very filfilling, and in my opinion, the relationships we nurture is a reflection on the value of the lives we live. I personally think that when we are judged one day, a lot of our fate will depend on the relationships we had.

I am not one in the position of giving you advice in choosing your relationships, however, I will let you in on how I choose mine. Again, choice. We always have a choice. I will try to define the relationships I deem important in life.

1. Your relationship with yourself.
2. Your relationship with your folks.
3. Your relationship with friends.
4. Your relationship with your life partner.
5. Your relationship with God.

I bet you may be a it surprised to see that a relationship with yourself is right at the top of my list. It may also interrest you to see that your relationship with a life partner only slots in in position four. Note that this list is not necesarrily in order of importance – it is more or less in the chronological order of life, with one exception.

I am going to end this letter here, as the next one is a chapter by itself.

Until then, be true to yourself.

Mr. v.d. M

Letters to Charles III

Charles,

Another couple of results of heartache, and many other things, are anger and resentment.

Anger, to a healthy extent, is good. Anger is an emotion which may fuel our drive to change a situation - for the better, but all too often, for the worse.

Anger in overdrive turns to rage - the times you see red, and you do not feel entirely responsible for what you say or do... but remember: You have a choice. You decide whether your anger turns to rage.

In the Bible we often read that God was angry. We never read that He raged. So, if God can be angry, so can we. He made us in His image, after all. If He feels He shouldn't rage, then neither should we.

Resentment is a useless emotion, and no good ever came from it. In my life I have known my fair share of resentment, until I realised that it was destoying me. Resentment leads to hate and bitterness. To give you an example: I felt for a long time that my parents treated me different as my brother. Of course they did, we are two different individuals and so they should have. I always felt they were more lenient towards him, more tolerant, and I admit that even now sometimes, I feel that they love him more than they love me. He is, after all, the glamorous doctor and I am the humble teacher. The resentment had settled so deep that I started feeling it towards my brother too.

That was when I realised that resentment is pretty much like a black hole - it will suck in everything it can and never fill up. It is a hunger that could never be satisfied.

Resentment has a couple of enemies. The first enemy is REASON. By reasoning, thinking about the matters that causes you to resent people, you could fill the hole. However, better than reason, is to confront the matter directly with the people involved. Realise that not all people are reasonable, but the key to resolving these is this: Mutual understanding. You, to destroy your resentment towards someone is to understand both your perspectives.

Enough for now. Keep peace in your heart.

Mr. v.d. M

Letters to Charles II

Charles,

Having your heart broken is probably the thing most teenagers, both boys and girls, fear. Yes, heartache is definitely not the most pleasant thing in the world but you can get over it. In life you will have your heart broken more than once. I don't say so, statistics does.

You had your first heartbreak the other day, and believe me, I felt for you.

Some years ago, I am not sure if it was in that Sunscreen Song of Baz Luhrman, but the line went something like this:
"Don't break people's hearts and don't put up with those who break yours."

The miracle about being human is this: You always have a choice. You have the choice whether or not you are going to put yourself in the situation where you may suffer heartbreak. You have the choice, when you see the warning signs, to ditch or to stick around. And if you stick around and the heartbreak comes, you have the choice as to how you are going to react to it.

The important thing about heartbreaks are that you shouldn't become a bitter and cynical person. Always remember that the glass is a certain percentage full. I believe that it was Solomon in the book of Proverbs who said that above all, we should protect our hearts. That means that we must be careful what we do with it, and even more so, what we think in our hearts.

Bitterness sets in very quickly if you don't consciously guard against it. If ever you want to see what bitterness could do to a person mentally and physically, ask me to tell you about my uncle. Bitterness led to his downfall. He is now an ill man, entirely trapped in his own mind, incapable of sharing his thoughts, his person, with anybody.

Because of heartbreak.

Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." So, don't be afraid of heartbreak. Accept that you will have to deal with it - sometime or the other. Either it will be by speaking and relating to people who also had heartbreaks, which sometimes means swallowing your pride, or like my uncle, whose life had become a long, dark tea-time of the soul.

Until next time, watch out.

Mr. v.d. M