The morning is cold. The early breeze finds its way through the cracks of the window frame. The phone rang and buzzed. As hard as you try to snuggle deeper into the warmth of the bed covers, the forces around you won’t allow you.
Reluctantly, you wake up. Slightly annoyed that you must go work in the middle of winter. Slightly annoyed that your son told you that today will be his first debate session that will be held at his school. You are annoyed because your application for annual leave to watch him was rejected due to compulsory training at your work. You sink your head into your hands as you realise that you are working so hard to give your children a life you missing to live.
Your wife has been up since 4 am. She usually does this to make lunch for you and your boy. But weirdly enough, you cannot hear her. The sounds of kitchen utensils are muted. There’s no scent that accompanies the sizzles she prepares each morning. Worried something might have happened to her, you wear your slippers to check on her.
As you turn around the corner wall of the master bedroom, leading to the TV room, you see her. Every time you see her, you feel like a gold miner who found his first chards of gold after years of digging. She does not need to be sunbathed for her beauty to radiate. However, you notice a worried look in her eyes.
You ask her what’s wrong. No answer. You ask again what’s wrong and again there’s no answer. The flickers of light from the TV suggest that she is watching something serious. Perhaps that holds the key to wants troubling her.
You walk up to her. You notice that her eyes are red. Tears have formed a clear lens filtering through her eyes. The chemical composition in your body begins to change. Your heart begins to beat irregularly as anxiety and worry fill your veins.
You place your arm around her. You tuck her into your body. You wonder what is on TV that has her so emotional. You think maybe it’s another war. But that won’t cause her to be teary. Perhaps her favourite celebrity has passed on. The TV is on the 24-hour news channel. The breaking news break your heart too.
“BREAKING NEWS: A 300 km wide asteroid is heading for Earth. Say your prayers.”
I was watching a show on TV early this morning about the universe. Today’s episode was discussing all the possible ways that the world might come to an end. You know, what I realised is that indeed we, as humans, are truly insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
But in the same breath, when the world comes to an end, what would your last thought be? Would you be happy with the life you lived? Would you have lived life? Not really to the fullest but according to your definition of what life is?
Or like the majority of people, would your life be spent on building a life? Would your life have been spent at a corporation that operates like modern feud kingdoms?
This has been my greatest personal conflict. I am one of those that noticed pretty early in life that employment cannot give you the freedom to live. But, in the same breath, in my close circles, there was no one who was succeeding outside of employment. Those who were succeeding were far in between.
Employment is a scarce commodity in the present economy. Indeed, if you are employed, cherish and respect the job. But refuse to let it be your master. Employment cannot be the god that gives you life and a reason to live.
For life is greater than that. What wakes us up in the morning should be and must be a greater ideal than work. Work should be a tool to help us realise our ideals.
I am one of those who believe that we are living in the golden age of civilisation. The past, especially for a Black Man (and even worse for a Black Woman) was hell. There is no other way to describe it. We were robbed of humanity. We are tools and seen as second-rate animals who happen to look like the “masters” just slightly darker. And to a great extent, there are certain pockets in the world that still view us the same.
In the future, I am one of those that fear that the one attribute that makes humans the most advanced species to ever evolve will be robbed from us. Christopher Nolan said that the biggest mistake that we are currently doing is that we are giving new technologies such as AI god-like attributes. We are essentially making an idol of our creations. Wherein past idols were created in the image of a natural element.
Tribes worshipped cows and buffalos because they were a source of life. Tribes worshipped the stars because they offered a connection to a higher consciousness and a greater depth of intelligence. Through the stars, man was able to navigate the world. Through the stars, man was able to tell the time and prepare for the various seasons. These idols came from nature. They were creations from a Higher Life Force. Future idols seem to be our creations.
Therefore, as people worship AI, the creator of that AI becomes their god. Removing the metaphysical from the equation, as people worship AI, the creator of that AI becomes wealthy. His wealth will come at the expense of the masses compromising their God-given intelligence for a man-made one. The future seems like it will be a world of not only rich and poor but intelligent and ignorant too.
Thus, I believe that everyone, in this valley between the two time zones, now is the time that we can go for our ideals. Now is the time we can go for our dreams. But in the very same breath that has inhaled and exhaled so much already, another particle that pollutes the air that circulates the lungs is the current state of our economy.
Again, if you have a job. One needs to be thankful and grateful. The lies on social media should never paint over the harshness that most South Africans face. One in every second South African lives under the poverty line. That is extremely profound, and it will remain profound until the stat begins to waver more positively.
It could be hard for most people to implement the following, but our job should be a tool to pursue our dreams. Not everyone has dreams of becoming a millionaire. Not everyone has dreams of travelling the world. But everyone has a dream of something. And employment, working for someone else, will never enable you to live your dream.
Thus, work should be a tool to live your dream. If the dream is to travel the country, save enough during the year to travel in December. The laws on the land provide you with 21 days of annual leave, regardless of what your employer may say. That’s a constitutional law.
If the dream is to be a housewife and build a beautiful home, begin that online business. Save money from your employment to have some seed money to begin the business. The same goes for someone like myself who wants a log cabin in a small town in KZN or in the Free State.
But the reality does not make it that easy. If we are honest, most of us are earning pocket-to-mouth money. The disposable income that we end up with does not offer the luxury to even save. It is literally enough to get by.
As AI will rule the world of tomorrow, we should remember that money is man-made too. We possess a greater tool to grant the access to live our dreams. And as cliché as it sounds, that tool is our mind.
More accurately, how creative we can use our minds. Great writers wrote from the imagination of their minds. Great scientists conducted experiments from the imagination of their minds. Imagination is a function of creativity. That creativity is a God-given attribute.
With this God-given attribute, when we are deliberate enough to use it in our lives, we will find means to translate our dreams into our realities. I am in no way saying it will be easy. Because most of our minds are programmed by the forces that be. Chances are I am going to share the link to this post on Instagram or WhatsApp. Chances are on WhatsApp, you’ll see this after seeing 10 or more statuses. On Instagram, maybe after 10 or more posts and reels.
The mind is under constant attack by the rich and powerful because they understand the power that the mind wields. As simple as this sounds, in its simplicity it illustrates the truth behind it. Everything that we humans have come to use and rely on; our phones, the clothes we wear, and the entertainment we engage in, is nothing but the imagination of someone’s mind.
There lies great uncovered and undiscovered treasures in the imaginations of many human minds. If the world were to end today, would die knowing that you tried your level best to explore the fullness of your imagination? Or will you die knowing that your imagination and your mind were a slave to a modern feudal lord that required 8 hours, 5 days a week of your life? That when you are dead, future civilisations that might emerge will find nothing of your existence? That your existence was wiped clean like dust off a coffee table?
Something to think about as the sun returns to warm Earth. Let it ignite a fire in you as well to live your life.
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