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Take a restorative break
H
olidays may be the preserve of the well-to-do but in
this country where all is not always as it seems and
madness and chicanery are features of our daily lives,
it is very easy to become angry and depressed.
And let's be honest, if you're in business, either for yourself or
for a boss, trying to make headway in the current recession can
be pretty depressing in itself.
To maintain, if not restore, one's sanity, and to start to see the
world through refocussed eyes, one must take a break from this
madness.
And there's nothing like a bit of enforced idleness on a beach, in
the Karroo or high in the mountains to bring about the required
calmness of mind to carry on.
Calmness, it must be said, that junkies probably receive from a
good joint. But let me hasten to add that I am in no way
encouraging the ingestion of prohibited substances. I am merely
making an observation.
And on this matter I think I speak from experience … not about
the joint, you understand, but about the need for holidays.
For many years our family was too poor and too busy building
up a business to take proper holidays and certainly those that
we did do, to the South Coast, for example are vividly remem-
bers by our now adult children as having been memorably
exceptional.
We certainly weren't a family, like so many of those Transvaal
families of the 50s and 60s were, that spent every June holiday
at Southport or Margate or 'Toti in the same accommodation,
and doing the same thing, year after year.
In more recent years, however, my wife-of-long-standing and I
have been taking a regular annual break and I have come to
realise how essential these have been.
You see, for my entire life I have been an avid consumer of the
daily news. There was a stage, before newsfeeds on one's
cellphone and computer came into being, that I would read at
least two, if not three or four, newspapers a day, in addition to
listening to news bulletins on the radio and watching the
evening news on TV. You could say I am a news junkie, and,
certainly, I am an asset to any team in the general knowledge
section of a pub quiz night.
But nowadays? I become increasingly depressed at the contents
of newsfeeds and bulletins. Crime. Corruption. Incompetence.
Theft and grand larceny. The Guptas. Jacob Zuma. Nkandla.
Recession. Gigaba. Prasa. Eskom. The nuclear deal. White
Monopoly Capital. Not to mention Brexit and Donald Trump,
global warming and Islamic militants. Was it ever … EVER … as
bad as this in the old days? I don't think so.
This endless diet of grunge, served up with a liberal side-helping
of bullshit-speak by the politicians and their spokesmen,
inevitably leads one to anger. And anger inevitably leads one to
view the situation as “us versus them” (and I don't need to spell
out who the “us” is and who the “them”is).
And this in turn leads to a sense of hopelessness and despair.
Maybe it's time to pack up and
go… And I have to admit that
for the first time ~ ever ~
dinnertime conversation in our
family has turned to questions
such as “If I were to leave,
where would I go?” and “What
qualifications does one need in
Thailand/Korea/Canada/Aust-
ralia/New Zealand to teach/-
practice/work/whatever?”
“Stop the world, I want to get
off.” Well, no. That's not
necessary if you climb into your
car and take a drive through our
incredible country. Drive slowly
down the Stormberg Pass (my
favourite). Or cruise endlessly
through the Great Karroo. Or wind your way through the Valley
of a Thousand Hills. And stop in small villages, and stay in
quaint B & Bs. And smile at the locals, who will smile back and
greet you as only South Africans do.
And slowly, minute by minute, hour by hour and day by day
you will feel your equilibrium and sense of reality return, as will
your love of the country and its people.
And maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll return from your equilibrium-
restoring sojourn to find the Saxonwold Shebeen has closed,
Jacob Zuma in jail and the Guptas have gapped it to Dubai. Ah,
well... we can but dream...
But drive slowly on your holiday, to avoid the potholes that lurk
on every unmaintained backroad you care to travel along.
And don't drink the water if you can help it. Firstly because
there isn't much and secondly because it's hopelessly polluted,
thanks to municipal incompetence and bureaucratic larceny.
WRITTEN BY SMALLHOLDERS, FOR SMALLHOLDERS