sometimes

when you love someone enough...
their enemies become yours.

[just a thought]

 

Day one

Feel like I've travelled halfway across the world in the last month. The rains in Queensland, snow in Tehran, desert in Dubai. There's still nowhere like home.

First day of real work and everyone seems relaxed. What a relief. Have my own office and I'm working under the boss. I can see life stretch out in front of me though and I know already I could not do this forever. I have aspirations. My end goal I know but I'm still working out which stepping stones are solid.

This year will be crazy. I'm still reserving the making of my new years resolutions. Gonna need them as my ace card. Got hdip dissertation and law school/ board exams and The job. Let's just hope I soldier on as usual and don't let it affect me... I want to be the best i can be at what I have chosen to do, not just mediocre.

These things in life I won't sacrifice
My family including my boy
My real friends
My dreams
My future
My education
My time

I am doing this to learn, not just about the trade but about myself and what I want and like.

I drafted two summons and a will, sat in on a consult and worked on a legal opinion.

Beautiful African sunset on the way home, after the worst rains ever... The sun revealed itself as a blazing ball of burn, the sky was streaked with purple strokes... Perfect ending

Trip to the Randburg Mag Court only to find the file we need is not filed, and the woman behind the counter rudely tells us that she will not look for it, loose files are not her deal. Welcome to South Africa. Watching our associate not blink upon hearing this, whilst knowing her client will again be disappointed having waited half a year already just to have their default judgment effected inspired RESOLUTION ONE:

 

Patience. Elaboration to follow.

 

Next we visited the HUGE law firms to serve a pleading. Huge yes. Beautiful, impressive, wow. Do I wish I was working there? I don’t know, certainly it was my dream and my vision. If I considered it for two minutes it was eradicated by the next visit.

 

The advocates chambers… not in grimy central Joburg but the classiest part of Sandton. And I am certain that is what I want to do.

 

Lunch at the fancy bistro across the square with most of the office, and convo turned to advocates. Impressive ones can keep their calm, never get flustered. Water off a duck’s back. Resolution one confirmed. I resolve to be calm, deal with less intelligent people without raising an eyebrow. I will try and control my temper. Teach myself slowly. This is a weakness. Nothing must ruffle me. Or else I can give up dreams of becoming an advocate… kiss that designer tower with its own coffee shop and duck egg blue wallpaper goodbye…

 

I have more resolutions, but I need to think about them.

 

Did training on how to bill, and spent two hours at candidate attorney lunch. Got BW to sign my form, he seems nice J Finished my work and was told to go home at 4:30. Gonna make the most of it, cause in a few weeks my life will be a living hell! Enjoying the work though, but I have to learn more attention to detail. Something which plagues me. Have always been more of a concept person. It will be RESOLUTION TWO for sure. Attention to fine detail, when listening and when acting. Focus minutely on the job at hand, review things many time not automatically but sensibly.

 

Day two. Tomorrow schools start so traffic will be hell.

 

 

Hafiz says

"O God where is the one who knows and sees
To open up the secrets that in my heart are jailed.
It was not fair to punish my godly heart
With abuse, my heart bitterly cried and wailed.
If I was deprived in my longing, say naught
Kindness of fate from this hardship, none bailed."

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

comparison

It is only by comparison which we fail. in our own rights we are perfect.

Sometimes we cannot exist through functions of desire alone.

It is through our differences that we experience the world.

I am inseparable from my faults.

please do not blame me for that which is beyond my control, please try to understand my differences and appreciate that we all have unsatisfactory parts. I am like no other. I do not want to be at all like anyone else. please do not compare me. I am not the same as anyone.

My hands are tied.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

He asked which way the wind blew

Not knowing he was too light to fight it

And like a flower takes flight to

Scatter it's seeds

He was thrust by a gust, into the weeds

Upon surface, he asked no more questions

Oftentimes I regret
How I forget to show you
How much I love you
When telling you has become habit

"The only criticism that I can have of you;
For kindness, the beauties charge extortionate fees."
Hafiz

Lessons of Law

I wish I had kept a record - of all the ways that studying law has defined me, of how it has shaped the way I see the world, on my evolving views on justice, on nuggets of truth I discovered unexpectedly along the way.

I will never remember anything now - my memory has been moulded to suit my specific occupation's needs - to store copius amounts of meaningless information in my short term memory for retrieval upon panicked demand. No, I will never remember, but I will never again be the same person. The study of the law has defined me.

I do not feel calmer. Though I am not more attuned to justice than I was before, I am more aware of how to create a just result by manipulation of technicalities. For there is no greater underlying sense of justice which permeates any legal system - I was misguided to seek it. All our labour has merely brought us one step closer to having the power and knowledge to use means and resources available to us, as lawyers, to achieve whichever result our client paid us to achieve. A purely capitalistic endeavour. I feel as though I am losing a greater sense of what is right - although no system created by man could ever capture the elusive virtue of justice.

There are few truly altruistic people - few people who take any pleasure in the happiness of others, unless such happiness is intrinsically linked to their own. Just look at the way man treats animal - as if their cries of pain were soundless, or meaningless.

I have encountered the efforts of those who seek to protect animals. I feel these are noble, and yet largely futile. A species which cannot extend its care to its own clearly lacks the inherent capability to extend its care further. Animal protectors often claim cruelty to animals is a root of cruelty to humans - I fear that they have mistaken symptoms for causes. Cruelty which lurks within a human will find any and multiple ways to manifest itself.

And man is evil.

This is no revelation, in fact it is the rationale behind every attempt man has ever made at religion. For I still believe that most religions were created by noble men - nobler at least by comparison to those they would have follow them.

Religions have demanded refining as man has become more knowledgeable of his surroundings, and as civilisation has evolved to provide more opportunities for evil, man has extended his reach to all of them.

There are many, many things which I, and the rest of the common world, are not privy to in the man-made world, and none of them are forged by love.

There is no divine guidance. If there were there would not be so much evil in the world. The sooner people accept religion for what it is - an attempt to curb the evil of mankind - the sooner we can move towards an understanding that death and suffering, for any reason, or in any name, is still a natural sin. No religion that provides an outlet for any form of violence deserves the status of divine rules. And I have yet to encounter a religion which does not.

It matters not what version of greater good we adhere to - whether we name this good "God" or "Nature" or "Science", or any other conceivable name... We need to remove the objects which distance us as humans from this notion, whether these objects are religion, ignorance, or simple stubborness. Somewhere in human consciousness there must be a greater capacity for love, care trust... and justice.

if our love was a bean
all crunchy and green
and it grew in a pod
or a bubble

then i think i would know,
for better or worse
that nothing compared to your cuddles

because when one is in a bean-pod
all cozy and tight
one has no choice
of where to stay for the night

the only choice that beany has
is to stay in the arms of her lover!

I am remembering,

wistfully,

the days which I did not have to suppress my anger

for fear of harming the recipient.

Hang on a second...

Why should I feel guilty for an insult from me

Which you heard from someone else

When you shouldn't have been there asking questions

Which I wasn't given a chance to answer

Because you went behind my back

Where you were unwanted

And unappreciated

To speak about something

Involving me

When I was not there

Not invited

And not given the chance to speak

You talked about me

Without me there?

 

You fabricate stories

And pretend you didn't

You have so many problems

And deny them

You try to act innocent

Get sympathy

Which you don't deserve

You make me look bad

But worse for you

You make yourself so hard to respect

 

Well then you deserve what you hear

 

I don't feel bad for you at all.

Under heaven, all can see beauty only because there is ugliness" Lao Tsu

 

If I can learn, from this ugliness, to be more beautiful....

 

"It's [the] yang part of us that sees the world and ourselves in terms of how things should be different, how we need to change things to make them more the way we think they ought to be... It is our yin self that holds our more compassionate, accepting mother energy." Biff Mithoefer

 

Does this teach us to accept anything befallen by us, that any injustice, any untruth, any disservice should be overlooked and forgiven, without so much as a plea for forgiveness, or an apology? A repeated injustice? I seem to require that these injustices be recognised and not overlooked, for me to begin forgiving them. I can accept, possibly forgive, but to be able to do so I want my suffering to be recognised, I want my sacrifice to be understood and acknowledged. \

 

Is it wrong to want my pain recognised, my suffering seen, my sacrifice noted? Is it wrong to expect an apology? It is certainly not selfless. But it does not make me a worse person than those I must forgive, and yet they are seen in no worse light. I struggle, to find the meaning in this, I struggle to find the right path and what I should do.

 

 If I were to stop thinking about what I should do, and just "let it be", then what would happen? I don't know, but it is so hard to forge something you do not desire. It is so hard to forgive a liar. It is so hard to forget hurt. This is so hard.

I have yet to discover what fuels the fire you hate me with, but I feel its flames. Closer they creep, faintly promising warmth, forked tongues of deceit. It is not long till you are dancing around my fiery grave, and a little part of the world weeps for a soul only they knew was innocent.

 

You will pay.

There is no weakness in forgiveness, but no strength in saying the words, if I don't feel it in my heart.

 

"There's no weakness in forgiveness"  Emarosa

Long, low and far you go

And I, I do not follow

You leave me alone

 

High, cold and quiet you go

You leave me alone

And I am always waiting

 

Long, long, long you stay

You stay too long

I wait alone for you

 

Easy, easy you go

And find it difficult halfway

I was struck from the beginning

 

Backtrack and meet me at the start?

When everything fades in comparison to your smile,

I curse him who makes you cry.

The problem is with acting strong,

is that eventually they will forget you have feelings.

In between waiting, and wishing

There is no time for kissing

 

"In desire for thy kiss and embrace, I die.

In grief for they glistening ruby, I die.

Long the tale, wherefore do I make? Short, I will make;

Come back! for again in expectation for thee, I die." Hafez.

 

 

 

A possible New Years Resolution

To forgive everyone their sins and let them have a clean slate; to not hold past misdoings against them and to see them with virgin eyes.

In doing this I hope to alleviate myself from the pain of disappointment and also to help those who I have judged have a chance to redeem themself in my eyes.

I realise my eyes are not the only ones that matter,

and that they do not need to redeem themselves, they owe nothing to me.

But I wish to set them free from their associations in my eyes.

I think one of the most important lessons anyone can learn is that

Nobody is the same as him; nobody thinks like him, reasons like him or sees things in the same way as he does.

And so they will act differently.