John Stupart.com

I am now 3 months into my South Africa decompression after returning from the supreme inaka that is Northern Hokkaido, and what do I have to say?

I’ve finally begun to remind myself that while Japan was indeed incredibly awesome and fantastic blah blah fishpaste, there was always a downside, be it the incredible solitude, the job or simply the lack of good beef. It’s so easy to think back on Japan with rose-tinted glasses because it’s really the kind of place that makes you forget the bad things so very easily. It gets lonely, sure, but then the weekend arrives right before you’re about to beat up small children/puppies with a baseball bat and you go snowboarding with some very good friends or grab some incredibly fresh sushi in Wakkanai which would make those mainland ALT’s cry at their inadequate failfish. It’s a very up and down kind of existence, and that’s pretty damned ok by me. At least now I can sorta think back on Japan with extreme fondness rather than remorse.

From Sarufutsu

Sarufutsu, gaijin population: 1

South Africa, on the other hand, has thrust me arse-first into the frenzied realm of Johannesburg, where reality firmly grabs you by the scruff of your neck and forces you damned-well face the (African) world in all its wonderful exultations and excretions. I put the ‘African’ as an aside for the simple reason that one can be confronted with brutal and frank honesty in other countries, it’s just that SA is what I’m used to. It’s what I expected, it’s what I wanted, and while I still miss snow like a crack addict misses that $5 bill, it’s all the challenge I had hoped to get back.

I find it very difficult to articulate this kind of mentality to friends, particularly foreign ones, as I have so often been painted as the soulless Bush-loving neo-con warmonger that would spit in a hobo’s eyes and pee on the flower garlands of baby-eating hippies. I can safely say only half of this is true. The rest… well… I’d have to say come here to SA first and see just what a trip it is and then we can see how much puppy-dog idealism is left, as well as how much true compassion and empathy one can contain. Anyone living in SA can safely attest to this phenomenon. SA leaves precious little space for non-grounded feelings. Everything we know has been thrust into the molesting eyes of reality, be it by the government, the press or the beggar at every traffic light you drive past. From the hobos living under every bridge to the clutchplate afrikaner cruising in his bantam, this place, to quote Syd Kitchen, is not for sissies.

I really wouldn’t have it any other way! Living in rural Hokkaido was important in that it showed me a world in which we don’t have to exist in such a brutally-frank society, and urban Johannesburg has shown me in no uncertain terms where I belong; the harsh, the beautiful, and the absolutely honest lowveld.

From 2008-09-08 – JHB

Jo’burg, in all it’s smelly glory

A girl carrying her sibling on her back cries as she looks for her parents in the village of Kiwanja. Civilians have been on the march in eastern Congo, uprooted by fighting between the country’s army and rebels. November 6, 2008 (Associated Press / Jerome Delay)

I normally reserve my more earnest posting for commentary, but this picture today resonated on a whole other level, which affected both intellectually and emotionally. Put in one simple sentence: This kind of sorry shit must end. And it must end with the utmost priority.

There are precious few people in this world with whom I share my life’s goals and objectives, primarily because I’m not quite ready for them to bear public scrutiny. Put simply however, I aim to eventually be in a position where I can directly influence the prevention of this kind of misery.

It’s important, because I used to see these pictures and think “aw shucks”, but I’m now firmly in recognition of the simple fact that children like the one above will never have even close to the privilege which I enjoyed, and that their lives will almost certainly be stricken with misery and hardship. I used to think that this was the problem of the UN, or of people who are considered our leaders, but then I developed a healthy conservatism, which above all else taught me that it is precisely these people and organisations who are incapable of effecting any real and lasting change.

I aim to change their lives.

I have a strong desire to help these people whom I’ll never know but shall exist in abject poverty, conflict and violence if I don’t try and help them. I will endeavour to do this because I cannot in good conscience settle for a life of utility simply because I had the advantage of being raised in a loving, peacful society where I was afforded great education and amazing encouragement from friends and family at every turn. I cannot then simply trade that all in for simple wealth or happiness.

I will try until my dying breath to make that people like this girl and her sibling become the exception in Africa rather than the norm.

Also, I hope to develop cold fusion. But I like to stay realistic 😉

I recently finished reading Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls and I have to admit that this is the first Hemingway book I’ve ever read. It was a deliberate decision on my part to educate myself in some proper literature and elevate myself out of the murky and corrupting waters of political commentary, military history and paperback fantasy (long story.) So; armed with an arsenal of classics procured by my mother from the SPCA bookshop, ranging from Hemingway to Joseph Conrad, I started reading. And good God! I haven’t been this intrigued by an author since Tintin!

I’m going to avoid reviewing the book and giving an explanation of the story in detail, but suffice to say the book revolves one Robert Jordan, an American partizan fighting with the International Brigades against the Spanish Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War. The book revolves around several themes, but the most mechanical of which is the destruction of a bridge (by Jordan) at the beginning of a larger offensive by the comrades. Now, enough dry explanation, because it simply doesn’t do Hemingway justice.

What affected me most profoundly was probably the extremely descriptive style of Hemingway’s writing. The charm of it, however, is that he’s not explicitly descriptive, explaining the flavour of the chamomile tea which Mrs Puddlebottom sips lazily on the creaking wooden porch which smells faintly of cinammon… or something. Instead, Hemingway gradually and inexorably drags you along a development of character and story which seems both bizarre and weirdly natural. By the end of the book you’re left wondering how on earth such a small context could make such a profound impact on one’s emotions.

I think what impacted upon myself most about Hemingway’s style of writing is that he appeals to my sense of realism. There’s never any hint of some sort of hopeless idealism or drippy happy-ending. Considering the ideology of the communist partisans during the civil war this is particularly ironic! Instead, Hemingway lets you know in no uncertain terms the very real misery of war, and the probably outcome long before it occurs. It elicits a sense of resignation at one’s fate while still being able to indulge in deliberate and considered fantasy; that there is always hope, even if the reality of your existence is indicating everything but.

The book will leave you stripped of everything nice and leave you gutted, but you’ll be thankful for it, and you’ll understand in complete terms how you got to this point and why. Hemingway in this sense elicits the very fundamentals of realism for me. The calm and considered acceptance of one’s contextual parameters and the subsequent consequences your actions (and others) will occur. Moreover, Hemingway allows the realism a very deliberate portal into fantasy; into dreaming of what will be if hope turns into fruition. The notion that war will become a distant thing for the characters, and that love can be given the proper space in which to be enjoyed. But this fantasy is never given precedence over reality, and it always remains in cognizance thereof, so that the fantasy can be enjoyed all the more for its own simple sake. Hemingway’s writing, for me, allowed me to enjoy the high emotions of the characters in their brief but intense elation while still understand the very real and terrible reality in which they exist, together with the very real and terrible future which awaits.

Hemingway wrote none of this by accident, and I am glad for it. His writing has affected me profoundly, and I only wish that one day I could write at even a fraction of his skill. I still can’t explain the effect of his writing very well. It’s a hot-cold, quick-slow kind of affair. It both frustrated me immensely yet always enabled me to see the why of it all. It reinforced my belief in considered fantasy while still accepting the daunting reality of one’s existence, and not to shrink away from it.