A rose by any other name...

If anybody ever asks me why I want to leave South Africa, here's a simple answer.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Oh but that's not so bad, my more liberal readers will cry (those not in South Africa). Apartheid, Nelson Mandela, social change, blah blah blah (I'm allowed to be flippant about it if I've lived under this flavour of 'democracy' for 23 years).

Yes very well, but let me present Exhibit C:

And that's it, don't you see?

Firstly, if you want to do it, just come out and say it. Say "no whites welcome", why not. You think that dressing it up with other names makes it better, or somehow politically correct?

Secondly, there's the very key fact that white South Africans make up less than 10% of the population. Nobody's exactly sure how much less, but as that graph demonstrates white South Africans are emigrating, dying or just fading into irrelevance.

Which would be fine, except when you get continual reminders in public job advertisements like the ones I've shared above that if you're white you shouldn't even dare apply for some jobs.

WTF, really? It's like holding a townhall meeting, and then putting up a sign "freckled redhead Asians not welcome". Is it really necessary? How hard would it be for recruiters to just ignore applications from less than 10% of the population (I sure as hell know it'd make me feel better).

Instead South Africa is this country where race has been weaponized. A lot of people will say a lot about reverse racism, but the truth is that the recruiters who posted those job ads may well be white themselves (makes you wonder - were there any Jews helping the Nazis run the gas chambers?).

And that's just one of the reasons why I want to leave, but probably the biggest. The country has become like a big mean bully who keeps punching the little kid and then trying to make out that the little kid is running into his fist all the time.

Come in, Home Base

Has it really been more than a year since my last blog post here? That blows me away.

Blowing me away even further is that I could practically repost my last post here, word for word: I'm in another new job, it's been an extremely eventful year, and the elusive 'aha' moment of my life that I can still sense is just around the corner is tantalisingly not only out of reach but also out of sight.

And so I keep going. On December 19 I turn 32, which I guess is what explains all my pent up frustration: I'm getting to that point in my life where the rockets blasting me into outer space are either going to overcome the inertia and get me there, or else I'm likely to blow up on the landing pad.

Melodramatic much? Yup. Everything has its seasons, and this may not be full winter but it's pretty damn chilly for me.

However, even in the midst of the chill, sometimes one can see a scrap of wisdom that grabs you by the ears, shakes you around a bit, and deposits you a little ... maybe not wiser, but at least a bit more determined to see it through.

Not like there's a choice, but hey. Like I always say, if life were easy, everyone would do it.

Here's the scrap of wisdom I saw just tonight, written casually onto the window of a shop in a mall selling sporting goods:

Some marketer probably googled 'motivational quotes'. Well hell, it worked. It didn't get me to go into the store and buy a pair of sneakers, but it got my attention and left me feeling that I WILL be ok after all.

I will, because I am. Because I must. Because I want to.

Because this frustrating, too-long story, isn't over yet. Thanks Rango.