It is the kind of novel that doesn’t let up from the moment you start. Every sentence dripping with intellect, emotion and beautiful imagery. Jin is such an incredible writer and world builder, thoroughly enjoyed my time with her complex and complicated characters.
I would describe little gods as historical fiction that is a clever marriage of science and spirituality. The characters are frustrating yet inspiring and force you to constantly question who you are rooting for. Even the most minor characters we only engage with over a few passages are written in such great detail that an affinity is immediately fostered.
There were so many sentences that took my breath away, I cannot wait to find and read more of Jin’s work.
It started out of pure frustration. A day that had tested me to what felt like my limit, a mind reeling with all the things left undone, difficult conversations to be had, dreams deferred, the torment of uncertainty, and and and. As I stepped into my car and turned on the ignition, the afternoon drive show’s host sounded like the shrill screech of a drill bit being forced into an impenetrable surface. Her words jumbled into the sonic equivalent of being suffocated by the overwhelming and cacophonous voices already fighting for space in my head. In that moment, I had to switch off the car radio to stop the drilling. The sounds coming at me from the car radio were not a nifty distraction in this moment, but a loud chorus from a loudhailer that threatened the fragile state I was in.
The 30 minutes and 40 kilometres along the M1 and N1 highways that followed slowly ushered in calm, lowering the voices that had been fighting for their moment at the podium of my mind, to a whisper at first and then to nothing. Suddenly, a moment of panic was de-escalated by tuning out further distractions. Surrendering to complete silence had allowed me to turn down the volume without even trying. That single drive changed the way I commute. Now, silent drives are an essential part of my daily and weekly routine, not just in times of high stress or overwhelm, but as a key ingredient I need to stay sane. Initially, I did think of the exercise as ‘serial killer stuff’. Who can actively avoid distraction for that long and not succumb to the internal chaos they are trying to evade? Me is who.
Getting rid of music, podcasts, audiobooks, etc. can also be a meditative experience, which is ideal if you’re heading to a stressful event, or if you just need to quickly reconnect with yourself. As you drive, you can take in the scenery, enjoy a few deep breaths, or play grounding games to feel fully present — all things that are tough to do with Top 40 Hits blaring in the background.
Carolyn Steber
I didn’t even consider it a mindfulness hack until I saw a creator I follow on TikTok talk about it a few months ago. She said we are wearing our minds thin with constant stimulation, much of which we cannot process at all because of the sheer volume of inputs coming at us all day. Being silent for even 10 minutes can help you step away from the noise of the day, reduce stress and improve overall creativity. Trying to decompress with other people’s thoughts and feelings coming at you isn’t conducive to stillness and/or calming your nervous system. Even something as innocuous as listening to your favourite musician belt out their latest songs can work against this practice. Our brains don’t really know the difference between lyrics, our internalised thoughts and reality, so singing along to narratives that contradict who we are or want to be, can in fact, assist in creating an unintended reality. This has been the most difficult part of practising stillness for me, because I quite exclusively listen to ‘sad girl’ music. And don’t get me wrong, I still do, I just don’t belt out the parts that I used to identify with and say out loud that I am not the “I” being referred to. Silly, maybe, but necessary for me.
Some of the things I do in silence now include workouts at the gym, working, writing, walking, and sometimes instituting ‘no-talk time’ with loved ones. The latter is one of my favourite ways to use silence, just being near someone I love, in quiet contemplation is an act of intimacy I relish. The quiet I have embraced in my life allows me to look around more, take in my environment more fully and sometimes more meaningfully. It has also meant that I process thoughts and ideas more slowly and thoughtfully, and I am less hurried to arrive at decisions and subsequent action. I know it can be difficult to contend with having nothing but your thoughts staring back at you, but for me, this practice has meant that a once daunting task, which I actively wanted to drown out, is now something I crave and even need.
Unfortunately, I read this about ten years too late Published in 2013, it was an analysis of SA at a very particular time.
Infuriatingly, many of the issues that plagued the country then continue to do so today, at alarming and probably irreparable rates now. I enjoyed his careful and considered analysis which incorporates history, social, psychological and economic nuances to dissect a nation that could have (at that point) become a ‘great society’.
The author also provides quite realistic and achievable solutions, some of which have come to bear and others which are still much needed. Would be interested in the author’s current reading of the state of affairs because 📉
I’m old enough to remember the very early iterations of vlogs which were exclusively on YouTube or natively uploaded to blog sites. These vlogs (videoblogs) were usually either shot strictly on a tripod (or atop a makeshift stand) in someone’s bedroom or a chaotic bunch of selfie-style clips shot in various locations, at random times, culminating in a video montage. The immediacy, editing perfection and commercial imperative of modern vlogs, entirely absent from their narrative. When they first became popular in the 2010s, I only went to YouTube to watch TedTalks, interviews, music videos, stand-up comedy and covers of my favourite songs. The allure of watching other ordinary, unknown people’s lives, escaped me. Now, that’s the entire foundation and popularity behind them.
Blogs at the time were places for online connection through documentation, commentary and engagement that went beyond what was possible in limited social media posts. Personal publishing online was still in its infancy and therefore novel to those of us dipping our toes into this ocean of possibility (now simply, content, yuck).
Five main blogging motivations were identified in Nardi et al. [2004]: documenting one’s life; providing commentary and opinions; working out emotional issues; thinking by writing; and promoting conversation and community. Blogs have become an increasingly important way of learning about news and opinions not found in mainstream media, and blogging has become a popular social activity for establishing and maintaining online communities.
In Gao, Wen & Tian, Yonghong & Huang, Tiejun & Yang, Qiang. (2010). Vlogging: A survey of videoblogging technology on the web.. ACM Comput. Surv… 42.
So naturally, one would assume that vlogs would be the visual extension or interpretation of the above motivations and uses. While there weren’t set formulas on how to vlog technically and structurally, vlogs in the 2010s were efforts at brief glimpses into personal events, how-to do ABC or short clips from concerts, performances, in class etc. They were shaky and oft grainy testaments to the mundanity of being a high school or university student, or candid travelogues shot in another country on a handycam or small digital camera. To my memory, unlike video essays, vlogs were (and are) used for personal documentation more than outright analysis or commentary.
In the present, vlogs flood our timelines day in and out, and have been reduced to overly produced ‘get ready with me’ or ‘come with me to the grocery store’ slop that has no soul or capacity to engage with human life as it is. What I mean by this, is not that these aren’t activities that people are genuinely engaged on a daily basis, but the performance of them by creators whose lifestyles are monetised can reduce our very existence to one of imbibing the consumerist loop of buy, use, buy, use as natural, desirable and aspirational. The slow voiceovers, perfectly timed After Effects text and product placements – a sales pitch which makes products of people’s very lives. I suppose, like almost everything else, its a result of living in a capitalistic hellscape. Perfectly curated, nothing placates and numbs audiences in search of constant entertainment, no matter its substance.
Obviously, the above examples are limited and do not speak to the entire scope of diversification within the genre; for instance, there are professionals like chefs, athletes, teachers and more whose insights into their daily routines are eye-opening and illuminating. Their vlogs often are about ‘thinking out loud’ and opening up conversation with their audiences, more than they are a representation of living within the confines of certain aesthetics. Further, vlogs do not account for the countless video essays, explainers and straight-up rants that some people post as their online counter-mainstream outlet.
I often think about how for many, a first time viewing of The Truman Show (1998)would not in fact present as the psychological thriller it is, but as an unappreciated opportunity on his part (limitless camera angles, lighting and cooperative supporting cast members for the ‘main character’, come on, Truman). People’s ‘real’ lives are content, their misfortune and joy alike consumable and open for monetisation. But unlike Truman, they are both the creator and star of their own shows, willingly.
Waiting for others can be a self-imposed prison sentence.
A much younger version of me once wrote that she did not want to get used to being alone on her tumblr blog.
I came across the frank plea in a recent archival exercise to transcribe text posts from that blog onto record cards (trying to have less of myself scattered across the internet, lol). Unfortunately, 24-year-old Pheladi, that’s exactly what we have had to do. Not just get used to it, but get good at it, really good at it.
At the time, it would be fair to describe my loneliness as nothing more than a dull ache, felt in short, sharp pangs months, sometimes years apart. The intensity of that ache has only grown over the years, its length and breadth sometimes overwhelming and suffocating its host. I have had to get used to being alone out of necessity, out of only having myself to lean on when needed. I deliberately don’t want to say ‘not out of choice’, because I recognise that much of my aloneness is a choice. A choice rooted in a mixture of avoidance, inflexibility, insecurity, poor communication skills, extreme self-love, some bad luck and obstinacy in the face of obvious misalignment (amongst other things).
As a yearner™, year after year of being companionless was initially a terrifying and alienating reality to step into. For context, I used to be the kind of person who left the house thinking ‘today might be the day I bump into the love the love of my life’ – legit, exhausting stuff. And the person who would happily ‘wait’ when some half-hearted lover had more urgent matters to see to than I. And the person who would save experiences and films to watch with this fictional other. But thankfully, somewhere along the way (maybe when my frontal lobe was fully developed), I realised that my life was happening anyway and that I should probably take part in it regardless of who was along for the ride. The realisation came about a year or two after that initial tumblr post, when I was living in a new city and, by virtue of not having my usual support structure of friends and family, had to learn to truly enjoy my own company.
I started with a small but important ritual on Sunday afternoons, a solo breakfast or brunch date with a book or the Sunday papers in tow as my only companions at the table. I recall the tinge of embarrassment that first crawled up my throat when I asked for a table for one. Heightened by the occasional look of pity offered by the waitstaff helping me that day. But those slow Sunday afternoons catalysed the courage needed to then go on solo theatre dates, to music shows, and even solo trips in the years that followed.
Following my own whims, without much consultation, is one of my greatest freedoms. One I do not take for granted because I can only imagine how many women before me, in my bloodline alone, never had the luxury of choice. The ability or space at any given moment to truly make decisions that served their greatest good or curiosity. I come from a long line of women who have always had to consider themselves last, to wait, and to serve at the behest of others. That I don’t have to do that at all is a privilege I carry with pride. I can book the thing, eat whatever my stomach calls to, buy whatever catches my wandering eye, go to the curated experience and chat to strangers, and come back to relative peace.
Like previous posts have alluded to, being in my 30s has allowed me to shed certain identities and ‘single’ is one of them. It’s not something I overexplain anymore, or something I care to dissect at length when I interact with the people I love. It’s a fact, sure, but not one that speaks to who I am as a person or what my life looks like. I still deeply yearn for companionship, but it no longer defines how I move or feel about myself.
It’s Winter in South Africa, and this one has been working hard to let us know just how cold it can get. It has been a wet and windy one, which we are not accustomed to up in Gauteng. Our Winters are usually a formality at best, a tick box exercise thrust upon us by the ticking of time and not necessarily by freezing temperatures. We are used to sunny mornings and afternoons, followed by occasionally chilly evenings, which necessitate light coats and jackets. Not this time. It is the end of July, and this post finds me bundled, gloved and beanied up while sitting indoors as we weather a weekend filled with rain and hail. Even though she (the sun) has been elusive this particular weekend, she has been the highlight of my life the past few weeks.
I have been experimenting with slow(er) mornings for a while now, but something clicked in July which made the whole attempt worthwhile. Up to that point, my version of slow only meant not exposing my brain and eyeballs to the digital scream that emanates from my phone screen first thing in the morning. No checking of notifications or scrolling until I had at the very least visited the bathroom, brushed my teeth, done my self-cav affirmations in the mirror and downed the chronic medication that keeps me normal. On most days, I am able to avoid looking at my phone until I reach campus and sit down to power on my PC. By which time I would have also stopped for a coffee along the way. Usually, enough time I told myself, to engage in human-ing before exposing my nervous system to the horrors of the day that lie in wait once I give the notifications centre the space to spread itself thick, overrunning the hour or two of calm maintained by my ignorance.
The Winter Break at work means I get to stop teaching for a bit, and usually I use it to travel, but this year I chose to sit still. To plan nothing, go nowhere and be moved only by the whims that popped up instinctively from one hour to the next. The added layer which proved to be a gamechanger, included a 10-minute meditation and sunning for hours, after my usual morning routine. And I am not exaggerating when I say hours, I averaged a minimum of two to four hours in the sun every day I practised this routine. Some days the sun was warm enough to necessitate a wardrobe change into shorts and lighter tops, which I did happily, returning to the same spot to absorb even more natural vitamin D. It’s probably prudent at this point to raise the fact that I do have a vitamin D deficiency. I have been medicating the issue for almost eight years now, but that little purple pill I take once a week has nothing on the feel of taking UV rays straight into my skin.
The ritual of direct sunlight and grounding on the faded grass in between helped usher in a kind of rest and restoration I have never achieved but desperately needed. `It helped me sleep better, maintain a balanced mood, and truly feel at ease. Not as pretence or reassurance of being ‘okay’ but actually being so. I would even go as far as saying that the last few weeks felt like living in the beloved Bobby Hebb song below. Sadly, this routine has already been disrupted by going back to work. I will try to hold on to as much of it as is possible but the machine requires less groundedness to grease its wheels.
My youth is firmly in the rearview mirror and a part of me is relieved.
Today is Youth Day in South Africa, a public holiday which commemorates the 1976 Soweto Uprising. The day is often marked by both loud and quiet acknowledgements of just how much freedom cost this country. My reflections this Youth Day were far less weighty, instead, I was struck by the fact that this would officially be the last one I would be able to celebrate as a “youth”. When the next one rolls around, I will be a real, full, card-carrying adult.
I will no longer be able to run for a leadership position in the ANC Youth League (dammit), forms will start grouping me with people who are 40+ (yikes), opportunities for the sprightly will consider my submissions with some disdain (“give the young ones a chance” or “make way” they’ll say) and to top it all off, my bone density is about to start an inevitable freefall which can only be quelled by lifting heavier weights.
But, there is a silver lining, this jumping of an invisible line into middle age also means I get to let go of so much. Past mistakes, past versions of myself, relationships and situations that have run their course. Turning 30 at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic meant that I didn’t quite feel I had aged because time was so warped by lockdowns and isolation, which significantly shrunk our lives. I remember blowing out my candles in my childhood home with just my mother, brother and father – extremely thankful to be alive, but rueful of what I had imagined that the moment would be like. Not just thankful that at that point none of us had the virus at the time or had succumbed to it yet, but to truly be alive, that wasn’t something my 27, 28 and 29-year-old self even wanted. To want to be alive was new.
So, I guess growing older has brought with it the will to live, which I am thankful for. It has provided me with what now seems like unabashed joy since. The certainty in who I am and what I want out of life has been more than just a second breath. The practice of patience, presence and rest has helped me become and feel like a real person again. And to that, I thank and am eternally indebted to time.
“I have never regretted walking out of a movie, I have many times regretted not walking out of a movie. Not finishing things is one of the great joys of life.”
So much so that I am almost militant about how I spend it (bar for when procrastination pays its languid visits). If something sucks for even 30 minutes, I’ll dip – no seriously, what are we doing? Not to say that I’m not tolerant of difficult or uncomfortable situations, especially those that are necessary (work, a funeral, a workout etc), but now, when I stray closer towards the edge of betraying myself to sustain being in a moment, I will always choose myself. Sometimes that looks like physically leaving, sometimes it is saying nothing further and other times it is just closing my laptop. Enduring anything for the sake of others is exhausting; real winners quit. Do I believe fundamentally that human beings owe each other things, absolutely, it just needn’t be everything, all the time. I have this one precious life and where possible, I am guarding it with my life, because not doing so previously nearly cost me, me. Is it selfish, yes. Is it right, also, yes.
In a world now saturated with high-resolution visuals, which are often sharp but empty, visual imperfection has regained its allure for me. So a couple of months back, I went in search of a handycam, to complement the film camera bought for similar reasons.
A handycam isn’t quite as analogue as a film camera. Still, it is enough steps behind current video recording quality, for the look and feel to transport me back to the early 2000s at a minimum. And why would I want to go all the way back there? Well, I have always been a person obsessed with documentation, first with words in a diary as a child, then through scrapbooks and photo albums as a teen and then eventually through digital albums and videos on blogs and social media. Lately, that last method has been the least fulfilling of the lot. Thousands of photos and videos die in the graveyard of my phone’s camera roll if not posted/shared, and draft after draft lie dormant in my Notes app.
The slowness afforded to me by my new (old) toys allows me to be more selective in what I shoot, when, and why. I’m not thinking about captions or matching certain cuts to trending audio, I’m just freezing moments with my favourite people in a format that feels most intimate to me. Not so say I have stopped making reels and TikToks day to day, that brings a different kind of creative satisfaction, but it is fleeting and very ego-driven (I’m just a chronically online girl). Making these little home videos and waiting a few months in between printing rolls of film, has helped in my efforts to slow down the pace of my life as well. It has helped me tap into increased intentionality, presence and acceptance. Acceptance of the randomness of being and the tiny imperfections that tie us together.
Published in 2013, it was an analysis of SA at a very particular time.
Write. Snap. Click. 