This year has been a tough one. Tough one in all facets of my life. There’s quite a lot to unpack. Some I feel I am not ready to share yet and some I feel I am. So, I guess, as I have all these years, I should just like my heart do the typing and let my fingers follow the lead.
Where do I start? I will start with my greatest confliction: employment. Gosh, I hate it. I hate it with the greatest of passions. I recall how at the end of 2021 I told myself that I would never again work for anyone. But that subsequent year I found myself back in the workplace. But I will be honest, in 2022 I took the job in Umhlanga because it was taking me to KZN.
If there’s a province I wish to live in, it is KZN. I am fortunate that the universe took me to the richest and most privileged area of KZN which is Umhlanga. Yes, I got there, and I was told about other areas that have even greater wealth but my soul felt at home in KZN. I truly love KZN. Perhaps it is the Xaba in me, the mighty king who eats a cow whole with its horns in me, that feels at home at KZN. I loved being there and I have made it a life goal to go back.
But you see, the vehicle that took me to my beloved province was the vehicle of employment. And unfortunately, the school that hired me was the pits. That was absolute trash. I still feel sorry for the bright kids who deserve better. That institution took advantage of the many loopholes in the education sector. It is an embarrassment to even call it an institution in education. That school is not a school. It is a business.
And one would argue and say that there is nothing wrong with that. But it is for someone like myself who believes in education. And I am not talking about education being the key to success education. I’m talking about education being able to transform your life herein transform your mind education. I'm talking about education being able to be a socialisation device education. High-quality institutions (such as the public ones in the country) are able to do that. Thus, my values did not align with the values of that horror show called a school and it was torture to my soul.
So much torture it ruined a relationship I had with a beautiful girl. A beautiful girl with a beautiful heart. So beautiful she drove more than 40kms to buy me a carton of milk when I told her I ran out. So beautiful she drove more than 40kms to hand deliver me lunch. A love a man rarely gets to enjoy.
What employment does is create what I call the Big Brother Effect. I am not sure whether to explain the effect now or later as I nearly experienced the effect this year. But in the interim, let me explain the Big Brother Effect.
The theory is based on the book 1984 written by George Orwell. More accurately, the theory is based on what happens at the end of the book. In summary, the main character aims to break free from the society set in 1984. He does not believe in the system and he tries to break free from it. And the book tells us what he does secretly to break free until the end when he is caught by Big Brother (the omnipresent figure in 1984).
The agents that work for the system, Big Brother, torture the main character. They torture him until he reaches his very limits. They torture the love he had for a woman he was not married to. They torture him to the point that he doubts his own perceptions of reality. At the end of his torture, the torturer tells him that it is not enough to break him down. Instead, he will be broken to the point he has no choice but to love Big Brother. And in the last paragraph of the book, that’s exactly what happens. As he sits alone in a café, tears run down our main character’s eyes as he has no hope in anything else but Big Brother; ending the book by saying “I love Big Brother”.
And that effect, employment creates. No, embodies. Fast forward to this year. I came to Gauteng because my soul could not sustain the torture I was experiencing in KZN. In believing that the grass is greener, I jumped ship and sailed to Gauteng: the land of gold.
At first, I was happy. At first, I was excited. I mean, for me who desires to be wealthy, where better to find treasure than in the land of gold? In the province that made South Africa? I was excited, to be honest. Everything seemed to be falling into place. But remember, I am still employed.
So what happens is that I can not fully explore this province of gold to find my gold. And unlike the business masked as a school, this place is a business that actually prides itself as a private school (and it is listed on the JSE). So what that means is that they have far greater standards and demands that need to be met. Thus, this place is the typical business that prides itself in having early arriving and late leaving employees.
I will admit, I am such an employee. I cannot arrive just on time for work. That’s something I cannot do. Perhaps it stems from when I was a waiter because as a waiter, it pays to arrive early to ensure that your bays are ready for the day ahead. But you see, what this does is that the workplace will see you as a hardworking employee. And naively, you might believe this work ethic will be rewarded. And naively, you are right. You will be rewarded- with well done, great job pats on your back.
You are not rewarded with money and if you are rewarded with money, it will come at the end of the year as a once-off bonus. And this is where the Big Brother Effect takes effect.
We live in a capitalist society. We need money to survive. If someone tells you that money is not important, tell that person to try and buy bread without money. Tell that person to try and find decent shelter without money. Money is essential to modern-day living.
And we can not call on money. Money is a man-made entity that’s why affirmations don’t work on money. Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos did not visualise and call on money. They did not pray themselves to financial success. No, they applied capitalist principles to attain the vast wealth that they enjoy. Unfortunately, the principles they employed are not available in the textbooks we study at schools.
Therefore, unlike the millions (and billions) that they create, we create the few thousands to get us by. And those thousands come from the workplace. And the owners of those workplaces know this. How do casinos ensure that they have returning customers? By giving them a taste of the cake but never the whole cake. That’s exactly the same with the workplace.
The workplace will give you a taste of the cake and never the whole thing. It will literally give you just enough to feed you, clothe you, transport you and shelter you. Like a master taking care of his slaves. You see, if you are a good and diligent slave you’ll be content with this life. You’ll be content buying a phone on credit, playing over a R1000 a month for 3 years. You’ll be content buying a car you know you cannot afford for the next five to six years. You’ll be happy with the fake facades that come with being part of the working class.
And what happens is that you’ll find yourself unable to maintain the lifestyle you’ve created with the crumbs received from the workplace. And therein lies the Big Brother Effect. The workplace can never be able to fulfil one’s purpose in life. Your purpose is not to make the next man or woman wealthy. Your purpose, whatever it is, is to contribute and add to the human life. Even if your purpose is to travel, in your travels you will find nuggets of wisdom to share with those around you. Like Marco Polo and the great travellers of past who explored every corner of the Earth to bring back what they discovered. How do you think the clothes we wear, the pap we eat or the braai we enjoy was introduced to us Bantu people of South Africa?
Like how one Instagram baddie once said, we were not placed on this Earth to suffer. And lucky for you if you grew up and never got mugged, never got assaulted, or never got to experience the severe harsh realities experienced by those in Middle Africa or certain areas of the Middle East and East Europe.
If you wake up in a warm bed and you have bread in your cabinet, you are blessed. What employment does is that it will make you believe that waking up in a warm bed and having bread in your cabinet is not a blessing. No, it’s a curse. Such is not for the working class.
So employment will provide you with all the wrong ways to use credit, so you feel like you are part of the working class. You’ll go on to buy a bigger bed on credit. Can’t have a bed without a bed frame, can you? You cannot leather real leather so a faux leather bed frame will do. Add it to the credit bill. Where will you sit? Buy more chairs and add them to the bill. And since we are here, we might as well buy the furniture to accompany the bed, faux leather bed frame and chairs. And that too gets added to the bill. We continue to add various items to the bill on the promise of the salary that employment provides for us that we do not see it when we become slaves.
And the moment that happens, you are tied to your workplace. Now you work because you have bills to pay. After the spending is done and the credit bureaus are telling you that you are overspending, the reality of your life starts clocking in. The inner desire to live out your purpose begins to be stifled. You realise that you cannot travel because you need to be at your desk for 8 hours, 5 days a week (some 6 days a week). Money like a sugar rush, when the spending rush ends, you are hit with a godly crash.
You no longer get to enjoy the things you bought. You start wondering why you bought the faux leather bed frame. You start wondering why you bought an Instagram-inspired, expensive 6-piece tea set when you hardly have guests (and when you do have guests, they do not drink tea but something way stronger). You remember that you bought these things on a 12-month price plan. So for 12 months, you need to pay that bill or your credit will be ruined.
Thus, the workplace you once so cherished to give you an illusion of financial freedom was actually a trap to get you to plough the fields. Now, you work because you have bills to pay. Now you work because you cannot afford not to work. Yet, you forgot that when you had your warm bed and bread in the cabinet, you could afford the simple pleasures that brought you true joy.
All at night, you realise how tiring it is to wake up every morning to be around people you don’t like just to get money to afford that lifestyle you’ve created. You realise how demoralising it is to live in fear that one mistake will cut the financial supply that sustains the lifestyle you have created. You cannot but feel defeated that without the paycheck you receive, you will become a former shell of yourself. The smell of rotting fish smells more potently than that of roses. The idea of losing everything and being a laughing stock in your society cripples your mind. Your heart begins to feel the clutches of financial burden. The clutches squeeze on your heart, trapping it within your self-created cage. They squeeze your soul; forcing tears to roll down your eyes.
Feeling defeated by life, you begin to have no choice but to love your master. You will fall for the “we are family” nonsense they say at work. You will find pleasure in being the overworked, underpaid workhorse. Your life will find pleasure in the weekend escapades with your friends. You will find meaningless pleasure in the girls who will never use your Instagram inspired 6-piece teaset. They won’t sit back to appreciate your faux leather bed frame. In fact, they have probably seen one with real leather. You just happen to be the club bait who’ll have to do for that night.
This will your be life thanks to your master: your job.
Whatever passions, whatever strands you had to your purpose, they will fade away into the shadows. And this is exactly what nearly happened to me this year. It was the first time I experienced a burnout.
For about a week, my system was saying no. Lucky for me, I’ve read many books that have taught me to never use credit for frivolous items such as an Instagram inspired 6-piece teaset or a faux leather bed frame. Instead, they taught me to use credit to build. And I figured it best to build myself. And so, I enrolled to further my education. On the surface level, nothing wrong with that right?
I have enough education. Formal education that is. I do not need more. My original plan was to save and get into the property business. Never to further my education. But the curse of the workplace and spending time with employee-minded people:
“It will be good for you,” they say.
“One day it will pay off,” they say.
“Wow, that’s great! Keep it up they say,” they say.
Worst advice ever.
Those statements are just employee catchphrases. But I fell for them. And about 8 months in, my soul could tell that this is not the life for me. It was a wild experience. My body was consistently shaking. My mind was raging wildly. My mind would create wild illusions. There was a time when I wanted to rip the skin off my bones. It was a wild experience.
As I look, I now see the tale signs. There are some guys who see me as a big brother. For those guys, I could not offer them the guidance and wisdom they sought out. Because I was not myself. I stopped writing for a while and it shows on my blog.
I was wrapped in the employee mindset and everything became about money. Yes, I believe we have to make money to live in this capitalist society but not everything is about money. When everything becomes or is about money, the things we cherish and equate to money will lose their value and importance. And I believe that’s why some women never find true love because they equate a man’s love with his money.
There were tale signs that I look back and I cannot help but be angry at myself about. But in the same breath, I appreciate that the Lord blessed me with the wisdom to see them. I appreciate and value the experiences of this year. I can confidently say that they resurrected a part of me that had been dead for some time. But more importantly, it reinforced my will to leave the workplace and never come back.
The cotton fields are not for me. And the primary goal next year is to escape from the master’s whip and never come back.
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