There is a war going on in my head. The different factions are all doing what they can to gain the upper hand. The fighting is intense and seems to be heating up, big time.

One side is pretty devious, they are all for materialism and wealth. They want me to go out there and get more and more and more. Just today I saw a house on the beach that looked awesome. I got the number and called. The house was tiny, a wooden beach hut, just up from the beach. The asking price was a paltry R3.2 million. Funny enough, this warring faction got into gear and started scheming ways to produce a little less than the asking price. With thoughts of being next to the beach, walking to a surf break and sleeping to the sound of crashing waves, these soldiers seemed to be getting the upper hand.

Another of the factions is in a little disarray. This faction is all for improvement of society and the upliftment of the poor. They really want me to devote my life to the ideal of working for the common good. Sure they have made a little headway in a couple of areas. But the headway seems to be starts and follow through has been lacking to date. I started my blog to rant about society and have ended up with a blog that seems to be a place of semi motivation and some schizophrenic mental ramblings. I suppose that is what a blog is all about, letting you into a window of my world, mad or not! On the book front, things have ground to a complete halt, as my intense inspiration vanished into thin air. That’s actually not true, after the inspiration dried up I continued to write some wonderful drivel. I will have to deal with that soon and throw it all away... There have been a couple of good wins, but this side needs to put in some intense effort in order to come out on top.

And then there is this splinter group. They are pretty laid back and relaxed. Relax, take it easy is their slogan and I seem to keep hearing it on the radio too. These dudes are keen to surf and surf and then take it easy some and then do some more surfing. They are quite keen to sleep in late, read lots of fiction and just enjoy the good life. The irony is that these guys are doing pretty badly in the war. I have all of this time yet have spent less of it reading, surfing and in reflection that when I had a full time job. The guys are still pretty convincing and I have to say that the good life is certainly rather appealing but it would seem that I intend to err on the side of activity. I have no doubt that if they win, they will come short with the last of the cash that I can scrape together. They can’t last too long.

The ultra conservatives are also part of the battle. They seem to be ruling the roost at the moment. They are convinced that if I slack off for a minute the world will fall to pieces. They are quite a rough and demanding bunch of comrades. I do think that I would rather be friendly with them than against them. These guys want to maintain my current lifestyle, whatever that may be. They want to do what they can but they seem to be a bit slow in their thinking. They have not yet managed to find a way. They are searching for business opportunities and trying to understand what it is that I should be doing with my life. To date, no news on that front. Instead they believe in action, action and more action. Sleeping on the job and relaxation is not acceptable and should be followed up with more activity in order to ensure that all lost time is made up. I hope that they will consolidate their activities soon as I am tired of continuous action. This idea of being a pilgrim in ones own life sounds like an ideal romantic notion but in reality it is tiring as there is no focussed direction.

Backwards and forwards, volleys of shots, lots of wasted ammunition. Missiles, rockets and subversive tactics. Charges and rebuffs, broken defences breached and on it goes.

I don’t need a beach house. Somehow I have to find a way to support my family and work for the common good of all. Within me, I know that this is the answer. I suppose it is the how that has caused my mental battle. This is my own conundrum that I need to solve, as many before me have solved in their own lives. I also know that I have to take it one day at a time and that my path will slowly become clear to me.

Pity that I want to know now!

There is a story of pumping arms, thousands of pounding hearts and pouring sweat that needs to be told!

My very own One Ocean! The race that has consumed so much of my mental energy and a little of my blog space. I must confess the 21km is really the Once Ocean as one does not get to do both of them on the race. I have always understood that the Two Oceans is one of the more difficult runs out there and I certainly was not disappointed. I have great respect though for all those runners that manage the 56km as that is a long hard haul regardless of whether it happens along two oceans or not.

My first Two Oceans was awesome. I took my hard learnt lessons about smiling and complimenting myself to heart and told myself many, many lies that made me smile. Crowd support was incredible and as a runner, something really appreciated. It seems having these people cheering for me and calling me by name, as it was included on my race number, added an extra couple of springs in my step. I also found that by interacting with the crowd, they got all fired up and we were both able to feed off each other. I was not going to let all of these complete strangers down!

Strangely enough there were also very monosyllabic conversations with other runners that were absolutely awesome. I may have misinterpreted some of their grunts though.... I had a conversation at the end of the race with a runner that I had been following for some time. It was really great as I was tired and needed the mental diversion. If it was not for her, I would not have run the time that I did. In fact, the women runners were incredible and impressed me immensely. I was just trying to keep up with them!!

I tell you all of this as this was the best run of my life. Strange but true as I have not been able to train for it all. I managed to run the 21km in well under an hour and forty five minutes. I look forward to meeting one of my five year goals which is to run two 21km runs in less than a hundred minutes. Bring on the Knysna 21!

And now that you all know about this goal of mine, there is no way that I can let you all down!

I have well managed to coincide the dearth of my own writing with school holidays. This would not be as important if I did not have any children, but I do. The last couple of days have been spent swimming in their holiday lives. We have done so many things and it has been wonderful.

Being a bit of a book worm in my past, I have often read of people (fictional and non fictional) quoting their dads and moms. These people seem to have passed on real wisdom to their children which they have kept and applied to their lives, and then passed on to their kids and so on. I have often wondered how I would ever do the same as I would like my children to have the benefit of some of my own learned wisdom.

I have come to realise that the only way this happens is for one to be immersed in their lives. Then opportunities for this passing on of wisdom (can I call anything I spout be called wisdom?) abound. There can be no doubt that children are these proverbial sponges and they sure soak this stuff up. I have found it immensely rewarding to see some of my teaching in action. ‘Look daddy, that guy is swimming the wrong way in that current’ and ‘dad, you can let my brother do it as he has not had a turn’.

Ahhh, and then for the rest of the time there are some serious battles to resolve!

I have strayed from my writing path. I have followed other paths, other ways. I have failed to blog as a good blogger should!

There has been some theory to my lack of writing. After writing a whole heap of good chapters, I moved onto some of the more serious aspects of my book. Reading this serious stuff again, I discovered that I was writing drivel. No, it was worse than that, it was slimy, boring and nonsensical muck! I had lost my groove, my exultation, my plot. I was unsure if I had any plot to begin with.

And so I have taken a complete break from writing with the hope that this is all I need to start again refreshed, energised and with a serious plan in mind. I am sort of back! I have decided to dabble a bit with some blogging, the proverbial dipping my big toe into the waters of wordiness.

It seems to be working. I have some more ideas and styles that I would like to play with and a certainty as to the message that I want to communicate. At long last I am getting the idea that this book is the purging of my soul and that this is a book for me. If you like it too, that would just be a bonus!

My son shocked me this evening. I turned on the computer to get busy on this piece and he asks me if it has Microsoft Paint. I was a little surprised and so opened the program and let him get on with his stuff. In a couple of minutes he had drawn the following:


Just so you understand, he is six! His grannies would be proud....

In a whole different direction....

I have always been the ‘well planned’ kind of guy. My life was so full that I did not like things to change my plans. In fact those little things were irritations to be avoided by even better planning. Hmmm, I was possibly a little boring. These days, I have to say that I am just as busy but the real joy is that all of my busyness is driven by stacks of opportunities that arise on a daily basis. All opportunities that involve food and surfing go immediately to the top of the list, closely followed by photographic shoots. A combination of all of these is a jackpot!

I have discovered spontaneity! Something that I possibly frowned upon in the past, is now something that moves my world. Life does happen now and there is so much to learn right now. There is also so much to give back right now and so much joy to give and to share.

Just this last weekend, my wife and I decided to change our Easter plans in minutes. We ended overnighting with family a mere two hours drive away. And what a wonderful family Easter Sunday we had. And we almost missed out because it was such a mission....

I have resolved to take everything as an opportunity, to relish their difficulties and rejoice in their possibilitities!

Yesterday was a tough day.

Long ago, perhaps in another lifetime, I was warned about two critical losses when giving up work. The first loss is contact with other people. This has actually been a gift, I have gained contact especially with family and friends. The second issue is the loss of purpose. As a thoroughly focussed chap, I knew that this would never be a problem.

That loss of purpose hit me hard yesterday....

Just two days ago, I blogged that I was in a place that I would never have dreamed about. I also blogged that this was an incredible place to be. Both these things are still true.

I was not prepared for yesterday though....

Do you remember ever moping around the house as a kid saying, ‘I’m bored’. Perhaps you have children that do this and it thoroughly exasperates you. It certainly bothers me although I clearly remember that feeling of just not feeling like doing anything. There just seems to be no point. I would walk round and round the house just looking at stuff and thinking, nope, I don’t want to do that, or that, or that. Round and round achieving absolutely nothing.

That was my day yesterday. Lately my writing has been so uninspiring that I have put it aside, so I could not write. My ‘to do’ list has all been but crossed off, so there were no tasks to do. There was no surf to surf. My children were at school or with mates. So I sat in front of my laptop and refreshed my mail, hoping that somebody had sent me something to do, again, and again. I even spent time staring my laptop into sleep mode and got pretty good at this! I wrapped it all up by falling asleep in the middle of the day on my son’s bed.

For the first time since I was a child I had nothing to do. It was a horrible realisation. For so many years, I may have been bored in my work, but at least I was busy and knew that I was supporting my family. Yesterday, I did not even have that! Yesterday I was a burden to them.

The other thing about yesterday is that I did not see it coming and when it came, I did not recognise it. Later in the afternoon, through a fog of self doubt, I saw this self pity for what it was and decided not to do something about it. I closed my laptop and resisted the urge to throw it out of the window. I then put my mind to sleep by aimlessly pottering around the garage and the garden. Some mindless TV sealed the deal.

I have realised that in the past my weeks used to be jam packed with activities. I did not have to think, I just had to execute my diary and turn up when and where it indicated. Now, I need to carefully plan my life and fill it with well chosen activities. If I stay at home, I need to think about what I want to do and what I want to achieve, and then go and do just that.

This morning I woke up and went for a slow and enjoyable run along a new route so that I would not obsess about my time. I then checked out the Two Oceans route, as that will keep me occupied on Saturday morning. From there I spent some time in reflection and on this here blog. I now have a bit of charity work to do this morning followed by a trip to Cape Town to register for Saturday. I feel far better having identified the cause for my low and hopefully will prevent it from visiting me again.

Have you ever wondered what it must be like to sit in a chair in an old age home watching but not seeing the TV all day, every day? Waiting to die?

This morning while pounding the tar back into shape, surfing was very far from my mind. That is unusual as I often find myself day dreaming about these perfect waves and my perfect form as I carve them into bits. The joy about day dreams is that they are perfectly acceptable no matter how far from reality they may be. Nope, instead I focussed on smiling and complimenting my breathing like any good person would do. “That was a great breath, take another one, and another one”.....

It was just after a welcome shower that I received a text from a friend of mine, inquiring if I was as keen as him to indulge in surfing some real waves. And so I found myself in the sea surfing little waves on a nine foot long board having a glorious time. I have never had the opportunity to surf this kind of board before and this was a fantastic and fun learning experience. The real joy was there were just a handful of guys and a girl in a very calm sea simply enjoying life. And it was that simple.

The question that I get asked a lot these days is “how is the surfing?” I find it difficult to answer as I have spent so much of this wonderful time of mine on so many other activities that I have always wanted to do. I have actually not surfed very much at all. Perhaps I just write about it now with more passion.

This morning, this handful of strangers were all in the water rooting for each other. Something that does not happen too often. I certainly walked away feeling revived in body and spirit. I also walked away with a little gift, an appreciation for how blessed and privileged I am.

It is strange to think that after a lifetime spent focussed on work, I am now a pilgrim in that same life. Every day I try and take all of the opportunities that present themselves. I have some serious long term goals that guide my choices but I still have this surreal feeling of being led somewhere. I am already in a place I could never have daydreamed about. I think it has come about through being open to opportunity, having a better understanding of myself and feeling life for the first time. It is not my daydream of perfectly carved waves but something so much better. It is a place filled with love and joy and life.

Deep within me somewhere, it is all right!

I am enthralled and exuberated! Neurons in my brain are firing at unprecedented speeds. Thoughts coalescing, growing and then diverging again. Many of them! Synapses are firing with force and energy. There is a new idea in the old grey matter and it is causing mayhem. This idea feels right and worthy and even worth while. Perhaps I am at the start of something wonderful and beautiful. Something that will grow into a reason for my being. Perhaps this idea is worthless and will fizzle and die in time. There is risk but there is possibly huge reward. A reward so big that I am wondering if I am the right person to try and grasp it. I know I should be, must be, but am I?

Last year, a friend and I took our two boys on a boy’s weekend. The idea was to spend good time with our sons on their own. Added to that we wanted them to experience something completely alien to their way of life, to their experience, and to their accumulated base of knowledge. We were going to have fun! We camped in Augrabies Falls, we saw the Sishen Iron Ore Mine, and toured the Kimberley Big Hole. I loved watching my sons face light up and his eyes grow big as he saw and experienced stuff that blew his mind. The time we spent together was precious beyond measure.

This morning saw me on the road doing a short run (Two Oceans is soon). I then dropped the kids off at school and joined a mate for breakfast. Waffles and ice cream, mmmmmm. More exciting than the syrup high, far more fascinating than the news or weather was the idea!

I have long been concerned about the moral fibre of society. My kind of role model seems to be non existent although role models of all varietals are everywhere. I do not want to abandon the upbringing of my children to their school teachers and their friends and their parents. I do want to do all that I can do to assist my sons to grow into decent, loving and good human beings. I want to try and build a relationship with my sons that will help them through their difficult teenage years. I also want to provide them with a network of local role models that they can go to when in need and learn from at any other time. Until today, I had no idea how to get this right. Truly speaking, I still don’t, but there is an idea!

My friend suggested that we create a group of like minded dads and their sons. The mental, spiritual and emotional well being of our children must be one of our highest priorities. We then invest time and energy into creating experiences for our children that revolve around specific issues that they are experiencing or specific values that we would like them to attain. We would include some new rituals / traditions to make this an exclusive and special experience, something that they will look back on and remember with pride and joy. We will hike, we will camp, we will play games and we will solve some cleverly crafted puzzles all directed at building special father / son relationships and instilling deep values into their little spirits.

This is going to take a lot of effort and time, but the outcome is so important, it is worth the investment of my life. My description does not explain exactly what we are going to do, that will all evolve with time. Nonetheless it is all about quality father and son time in a world that is madly busy. It is about sharing the real joy of life with our children.

The idea is just an idea. Either way the investment will mature in a couple of years and the return will be priceless.....

I recently read that Mother Theresa was a disillusioned old woman working to further her own self interest to instil her agenda on a place that scarcely needed it. You can imagine my shock at seeing this article on the net. Here was one of the heros of our time being slated for the role that she played in our world.

I thought she was an amazing force for good with her simple premise of helping the dying die with dignity. I also thought that everyone looked at her with the same kind of admiration and respect as I did as being one of the living role models of peace and charity in action.

The article was vehement and scathing, which is something that she probably would have enjoyed, i.e. being persecuted for her faith in God. It drove home the point that there are always other opinions and views in this world. No matter what path you choose, you are always going to find people who disagree and are totally opposed to your actions. Does this make your course wrong? I don’t think so if it is well considered and in line with your set of values. More than that it is important to do the stuff that feels inherently right!

So if you pick up dissenters along the way, consider their opinion. If it is twaddle, shrug it off, and if not, use it to improve your own course. Keep in mind that it is through deep consideration of other people's alternative opinions that we are able to hold up the mirror to ourselves and elminate our own blind spots. This has to make us better people or more determined in our course of action!

And as for Mother Theresa, in my world, she still rocks!