Sidetracked by the masses!

By this time all of you are probably on the edges of your seats and chewing your nails in anticipation for my next post?! Never fear, the waiting is over. Sorry for only writing again now, but we've had some problems with our internet (nothing new to those of you who are living in Africa or have lived in Africa at one stage or another)

I just want to thank everyone for their comments, at this stage of the project I really appreciate any kind of feedback. It shows me that my writing doesn't fall on def ears, so to speak. If you guys haven't read the comments, please do so now.

(pause for the reading of comments)

Ok! I trust that everyone has read Martins remark about his skateboard hurting him, although he gave it a lot of attention? If not, go read it now.
No more pauses.
Good.
Most probably Martin just made an offhand remark without really thinking about the implications of what he wrote. If you have thought about the implications Martin, I'm sorry for selling you short. Anyway, I was going to discuss the "hurt factor" in relationships at a later stage, but seeing as Martin already mentioned it, we might as well have a look at it now.

Before we continue, I'd like to make a statement:

"No matter how much effort you put into a relationship, you WILL GET HURT at some stage."

Demotivating? I hope not! It is just a fact of life. People will hurt you, objects will cause pain on an emotional or physical level. You will be let down in your relationships. The question is, how do you deal with it? How do you react to that venomous remark your wife made about the food you prepared for her out of pure love? What do you do when your skateboard slides out from underneath you and you end up with a bruised and bloody elbow? This is where the real test of character comes in. This is where we go back to my first post and realize that we need to work on finishing what we started.

Again, there are exceptions. If we are in a bad relationship and second part of that interaction hurt you, walk away. By all means, if you feel that you need to get away from something or someone because it is taking too big a toll on you, do it! There is no reason to stay in a relationship just for the sake of being in a relationship. If you feel that you need to get out, and you can motivate it, get out! Let's use an example.

(The following characters are fictitious. If they resemble any person or situation you are acquainted with, it is pure happenstance.)

Let's use the names John and Sally for the following scenario. John fell in love with Sally and courted her. Sally fell in love with the attention John gave her, and not with John himself. When John asks Sally to be his girlfriend, she says yes because she likes the flowers he brings her and the way he spends all of his money on her.
As the relationship progresses, John can see that Sally has a roving eye as she is constantly flirting with other guys. When he tries to confront Sally about it, she sidesteps his accusation by telling him that, in order for their relationship to work, he needs to spend more time end effort on her, and less on his other activities. John, being the love-struck man that he is, sees this as a reasonable request. To outsiders not paying close attention, it also seems reasonable.
The longer the relationship lasts, the harder John tries to keep Sally's attention and affection focused on him. He becomes obsessed with keeping Sally happy, no matter what. All the while Sally is laughing at him behind his back, flirting with other guys, maybe even doing more than just flirting with some of those guys.
When John finally realizes what is happening, he has already pushed away most of the people around him, he has lost his ability to function on his own. He is basically a shadow of the man he used to be. It  is very difficult for him to get out of this situation, would you agree? Although it is difficult, would you also agree that it is the right thing to do (getting out of the relationship)?

That was a very long scenario, but what I was trying to illustrate is this: When you are in an addictive relationship, you very seldom realize that you are addicted before it is too late. Even if you get hurt all along, you still hang in there because things might get better. Tip, they usually don't.

Wheo, I sidetracked myself after being sidetracked by Martin. All I really wanted to say tonight was that seeing as our entire existence is based on relationships, we need to be able to handle getting hurt.
I don't know about you guys, but I can't think of a single relationship in which I've ever been that I've not been hurt or let down at some point or another. And I know that I have let people down, I've hurt all of the people I love. I've hurt my cat, I've neglected my violin and so the list goes on.

Aaaaah, sometihng just exploded in the background, I'm going to check what happened! Talk later!

You and the Universe continued...

In my classification of relationships I have only touched on the subject of unavoidable relationships briefly. One of my readers wants me to give a complete layout of all the different types of relationships one can have. This is what I am aiming for, but it might take some time, as I am still exploring all of the options. But for his sake, let's look into it today.

So far I have come up with two main categories of relationships. Unavoidable and avoidable relationships. Within these two categories, there are lots of branches that we will explore:
Under unavoidable interaction we have the following.

• Mother child relationship
• Your relationship with food
• Relationship with nature
• Relationship with work colleagues
• Relationship with inanimate necessities (clothing, transport etc.)
• Relationship with death
• Relationship between body and mind

Avoidable interaction.

• Love relationship
• Relationship with animals/pets
• Relationship with inanimate sports equipment/book/games etc.
• Friendships

That is what I have for now. I think that, as the blog continues, I will add more to the list.

Hmmm, soup and buns!

Food. Yes, food is as unavoidable as death. We have to eat every day. Food is a great thing, I loooooove eating! There are so many different kinds of foods that I like and so many I haven't even tried out yet. I have to eat at least three times a day, otherwise my stomach becomes angry with me, and that is one thing I would rather not anger! To sustain ourselves, we need to eat.

We have to be careful with food though. Why would I say that? Because food can easily become master of the relationship and then we have a problem. Some people overeat themselves and become extremely fat. This is not healthy! On the other hand, some people think that they eat too much and that they are fat, when in fact they are under weight and under nourished. This is also not very good! With food, you have to find a balance. Yes we need it, but we must not turn the basic need into more than that. Don't become obese! We also tend to eat too much of one thing and too little of another, for example, some people only want to eat meat and do not want to eat their veggies. I am the first one to say that meat is definitely the best part of my daily food intake, but if you eat only meat it is very unhealthy! You are messing up your body with your eating dis-function. You have to sort out what you need to eat to keep the balance between body and mind. Mostly, when the body is unhappy, the mind becomes unhappy and the other way around.

On that note, I am hungry! Talk to you soon.

You and the Universe

We all have shoes. How used have we become to shoes? All of us see it as a right, not as a privilege. The fact is, having shoes is a a massive privilege and not a right. Obviously we live in the light of having many different pairs of shoes. We have different shoes for different occasions, running shoes, formal shoes, ski boots, flip-flops, slippers and so the list goes on.

Try to imagine life without shoes...

Do you see now how lucky we are to have them? 

As I mentioned earlier we live in relation to everything. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING!! The stars are as much a part of our lives as is the beds we sleep in. For some the stars means more than it does to others. I mean, some people worship the stars, others "read" the stars and plan their weeks according to what they saw up there. To me it is just a bunch of far off planets that makes it worthwhile for me to look up at night. No not really. I love looking at the stars, especially when I am in a very remote area with clear skies and very few man-made lights around. The stars remind me of how small I am and how big the entire creation or universe is. It really makes me think about where I, a tiny human being, fits in. Thus my writing...

Categories of relationships? Yes, I'd like to think there are certain types of interaction, apart from the obvious differences between human and non-human interaction. There is a definite line between our relation to the stars and our relation to our work colleagues, won't you agree? 

Which brings me to my next point; Classifying relationships. There are certain relationships that are unavoidable. The best example of this is your mother. Since the moment that you were made, you were in a relationship with your mother. At first all of the interaction came from her side, her body fed yours, you basically grew out of her. Once you were born, she fed you, she clothed you. She protected you. If not for her, you wouldn't be here. As time went by  you also started giving something to the relationship. You started talking, started doing chores for your mom etc. The fact of the matter is you didn't have any choice but to have a relationship with your mother. That is an unavoidable relationship right there. Even if you hate your mother and never talk to her, you still live in relation to her. The mere fact that you do not want to relate to her, proves that she exists and that she had a part in forming you. 

If you do not want to acknowledge that the sun comes up every day, it won't really take the sun away, now will it? You will still have to live in relation to the sun and it's movements. You are in a routine because of the sun. The same goes for your mother. Even if you do not want to see her ever again, you live the way you do because of her, at least to a certain extent. Because of the love or hate between you and your mother you made many choices during your life. Choices that influenced your life and hers. You both have to live in context of those choices, or if you will, where you are in life relates back to those choices. 

Do I make any sense? Read on if you think I do. If not, read on in any case! 

Next time on "Imagery&Insights on a Day-Dreamers sleeping habits", more on unavoidable relationships. (We might be spending a lot of time on this topic, seeing as there are many kinds of unavoidable relationships...)

Humans vs. Objects

Look at all those footprints. Imagine all the different types of interaction that took place on those stairs. Not to mention the interaction between humans and stairs. Stairs are a simple everyday thing, have you thought about life without stairs..?

Just to clarify something. I said in my previous post that our interaction with inanimate objects are easier to handle (in some ways) than our relations with humans. There is, however, an exception: When you let the object become master of the relationship, you will start having a very difficult time to keep that relationship balanced. I will say more on this subject at another time.

Why did I say that in some cases it is easier to maintain relationships with humans than with inanimate objects? Usually this is not the case, because humans are mostly more complex than objects. Yet there are a few cases where a human relationship hardly needs any work to maintain it. I have a fantastic relationship with my family, we do not need to work very hard at it for the relations to stay that way. I know that I can turn to them with any of my problems and they would never turn me away. Did I need to work at the relationships to get it where it is? I don't know. I wouldn't call it work. We always just did stuff together and this great bond is the reward. 

Now people will probably say that if you spend as much time with an inanimate object as I did with my family, the bond would be the same. You can put the object in a cupboard and take it out two years later and you'd still have the same bond. In a sense that is true. Once you know how to ride a bicycle you never forget how to do it, right? Haha, I can tell you out of personal experience that it is not always the case. I used to cycle to school every day of my school career and afterwards I put the bicycle in the garage. When I took it out six years later, I fell off and messed up my foot completely. Maybe if I don't talk to my family at all for six years the end result would be the same, only on an emotional level and not physically. 

As off tomorrow, I will try to put relationships into categories and describe each category. It will be a timely process, so bear with me. For now, I will go and work on my relationship with Mr. Snowboard! 

A new friend!

If there was any doubt, I am of course the Day-Dreamer! :D
Why am I a daydreamer, or actually, why would I describe myself as THEE Day-Dreamer? Because I live in a fantasy world. When I was small I always found something to keep myself busy and to help me visualize myself as something out of this world. 

A few titles I gave myself as a boy:

• The Flying Saucer
• The Blue Baboon
• The Lizard
• The Red Retard (it was meant in a good way, although I find it hard to see how the word  retard can be seen in a good way?!)

The above mentioned are just a few of my pseudo-names as a child. Usually people outgrow that stage where they wish they could fly or that they had some kind of special ability that no-one else has. Not I. I still have plans of flying one day! Not a day goes by when I do not think of some kind of weird plan to see the world. I am always planning, but unfortunately most of my plans never come toe fruition. That is a big part of my unhappiness, I think. Especially over the last year. I have made big plans and they were perfectly on track until seven days before the start of my new adventure. 

Well I promised I wouldn't write about how sad my life was, and I won't. I just need to put a few things into perspective for myself. The fact that I couldn't go on one adventure just helped me to go on another one! Yesterday, I went for my first snowboarding lesson, and I loved it! I spent most of the day riding and today I was out on the slope again. My body isn't quite used to boarding, so I am quite sore at the moment... 

Did you guys notice what happened yesterday? I made a new friend. A new relationship was born. My life took a new turn. I am associating with new things and a new kind of sport. At this stage it is still a shaky relationship, seeing as the interaction between me and the board have been limited to two sessions on a small piece of snow, but I want to continue this relationship. I want it to grow to something big! In this case, the board has no choice. In human relationships though, the other party always have a choice. Therefore I'd think it is safe to say that our relationships with inanimate objects are way easier to handle than our relationships with humans. What do you think? On the other hand, our relationship with people come from two sources, so you won't always have to work so hard at it as you do at inanimate relations. 

Let's use the example of me and the snowboard; if I don't spend a lot of time on the board, thinking about the board and paying attention to my instructor, my relationship with the board won't grow. I won't be comfortable on the board, the board might hurt me. If, on the other hand, I do practice a lot, I will get more comfortable with the interaction between me and the board and our relationship will grow. I won't get hurt as much and neither will the board. Obviously your next question is going to be:"The \snowboard is inanimate, how can you hurt it?"

The answer is simple. If I neglect the board it deteriorates and eventually it will break while I am using it, and then I will get hurt quite badly. If I respect the board, it will probably not let me down. If I disregard the board, well you know what will happen...

Tomorrow I will discuss a small part of the interaction between humans and why in some ways it is easier to maintain a human relationship than one with an inanimate object.

If you think I am insane and that my theory is utter nonsense, just keep on reading. You might find that I AM insane, but I think there is method in my madness... 

Can you see why I want to work on my relationship with the snowboard?

In this picture you can see many types of relationships. Relationship with the self, with the camera, with the mirror, with the bed and so it goes on. Can you spot more?

re·la·tion·ship  [ri-ley-shuh n-ship]  Show IPA

noun

1.a connection, association, or involvement.

2.connection between persons by blood or marriage.

3.an emotional or other connection between people: the relationship between teachers and students.

4.a sexual involvement; affair.

Origin: 
1735–45; relation + -ship

Related forms

pre·re·la·tion·ship, noun

Synonyms 
1. dependence, alliance, kinship. 2. affinity, consanguinity. Relationship, kinship refer to connection with others by blood or by marriage. Relationship can be applied to connection either by birth or by marriage:relationship to a ruling family. Kinship generally denotes common descent and implies a more intimate connection than relationship: the ties and obligations of kinship.

The definition of the word “relationship” as given by Dictionary.com

I’d like to focus on the very first explanation of the word, namely a connection, association, or involvement. I will put strong emphasis on our relationship with our environment. Our connection to what’s around us. Our association with people around us, with things around us.

By paying close attention to the picture above, you can see quite a few kinds of relationships. It is obvious, from the familiar way that the man is touching the woman and her relaxed stance that they are in a love relationship. You can also see from the way that the photographer is all in grey that he is not a direct part of that relationship. Yet from the bigger picture you can see that he is quite comfortable in that setup, otherwise he wouldn't have been lying on his back on the same bed as them. They would also have been uncomfortable with him on the bed with them if he wasn't well acquainted with them. Thus it is safe to say that there is a fairly good relationship between the pair and the photographer, would you agree?

Other than person to person relationships, we can also see a relationship between the people and the mirror, the people and the bed, the people and the floor... Two of the three people in the picture is looking at the mirror and seeing themselves in relation to everything else in the picture. A relationship, in my opinion, consists of two parts. Each can exist on it's own, but they function better when they are put together. Or sometimes one of the two benefits from the interaction between them, while the other one is being abused.

Before I carry on describing my connection with my sleeping bag, I’d like to give you a little something to look forward to.

Next time on “Imagery&Insights on a Day-Dreamers sleeping habits”...

Surely you want to know who the Day-Dreamer is..?

Some reasons

As promised, I am back with another post. I am still not sure exactly where and when my story started, maybe in Genesis, maybe even before Genesis. But I am not here to write about the history of the world, only about the history of Cilliers Marais. That and hopefully the future of Cilliers Marais as well.

To put it simply, I am unhappy. I haven't been really happy in a very long time - don't lose interest now guys, this will not be a depressing moan-story where I tell you how unfair life has treated me and all of that typical self-pity nonsense.
I have every reason to be happy, and yet here I am, sitting in the cold isolation of the Maluti Mountains in northern Lesotho. Unhappy.

An interesting hut close to where I stay at the moment.

Through writing this blog I want to figure out where I stopped being happy and why. I want to explore myself and my past through writing. The main focus of my posts will be relationships. Once again guys, don't run away! If you think about it, our entire lives are lived in relation to everything else. We live in relation to other people, yes. But we also live in relation to weather, food, toothpaste, animals, water, grass...

You see where I am going with this? I want to actively think about how I live in relation to everything around me. That is why I am writing this blog. It forces me to take some time to sit back and think about my life, to think about how I fit in and where I fit in. Up until now I have tried to avoid thinking
by being busy all the time. Over the last 6 months though, I haven't had anything to do, so I started thinking about stuff and I didn't really like where those thoughts led to. Hopefully through this blog and with your help, I will rediscover my equilibrium and become a happy man once more.

Thank you for your comment Ivan, your question was a relevant one. Some blogs can definitely carry on for a very very long time, but if all goes according to plan, this one will end once I have regained my balance. :)