Thank you.
The woman i am truly blessed to call an inspiration.
The woman whose voice i look to for strength and humanity.
The woman who lived, not for herself, but for every struggle scarred being.
The woman whose legacy will enjoy the expanse of eternity.
Dr. Maya Angelou lived love and inspired it.
She was a literary titan, she was a beautiful soul and she will be missed.
Rest in peace, Dr. Maya Angelou.
By my own admission, I’d hardly call the life I’ve lived – however short it’s been thus far – anything outside of bizarre. Focusing more on the light-hearted and insane things – insane by my standards – I’ve done, i thought it would be cool to share just some of the craziness i get up to.
Most of the time things just sort of happen to me and i have no control over anything, those are kinda fun too.
Jumping off moving trains:
Thing is, they asked me to.
So, while i was in high school i would commute to and from school by train. It was a fascinating experience, seriously; nothing like it must be now. So i was thirteen and a friend of mine suggested i jump off the train. I promise you, my brain barely flinched and i was out of the train and running like i was Forrest Gump. So i fell – come on, it was bound to happen. I got right back up, waited for the train to screech to a halt and i got back on. The weird part was that i found nothing wrong with that, tumble and all.
Called out by a hobo:
So a homeless man called me out and tried to hit me in broad daylight, in public i don’t care who you are, what you look like or where you’re from, being beaten up by a homeless man, in public, has to be one of the most demeaning things ever. Your self-esteem can’t survive something like that.
It was my first year at UCT and there was this one homeless man who’s a notorious liar, i might have told him that i don’t believe his story one bit and one thing lead to another. And by that i mean he screamed at my face, almost keeled over and did this grunting/growling/yelping thing that was my signal to run for it. It was a harrowing experience.
I fall for things:
I have a habit of falling. For a while it was just an old friend of mine’s issue, Nokukhanya, but after some intense self reflection i realised i have the same problem.
I once fell off the stage at prize giving in primary school and had to pick myself up act like nothing happened – you all know that look; the look that saves face but you know you’re crying on the inside.
I once slipped on a wet condom on a long flight of stairs and rolled to a halt. Thing is, it was entirely my fault; i saw it, i prepared myself mentally to avoid it, but my brain flatlined and i stepped on it. Don’t worry; it was used as a water balloon the day before for some weird upper campus residence Olympics or something. Someone tried to help out, but i snapped at him; i shouldn’t have done that. They laughed even harder because of my attitude.
I slipped on a banana. Just a month or so ago. That was by far the most demeaning thing that’s happened to me.
Little people problems:
I was almost beaten up by a little person because i accidentally bumped into her while i was in a rush. In my defence, i think she was already very angry and so decided to hit the side of my leg with one of her crutches. I was just at the wrong place and the wrong time.
My rebellion:
I secretly skipped lectures whilst i was doing my first year and went to audition for IDOLS. It was foolish, it was rebellious and it was invigorating. I mean i never made it very far, just past the first preliminary round. My acne covered face – at the time – should have stayed at home, but i guess i needed to go renegade just this once.
I mean granted it’s not the craziest of things and some might even say that my life’s been pretty dull, but I’d beg to differ. It’s the little things that make my life interesting. So i haven’t been to rehab, taken drugs, woken up in a stranger’s bed with a dyed poodle and a mini-human petting a rooster beside me, so what!?
We are human.
We’re perfectly imperfect and designed as constant works-in-progress. Everything about us is imperfect; our languages, our societies, our views of perfection and our understanding of the universe.
Understanding that our imperfections don’t diminish our quality is a step towards understanding that our flaws are remarkable in their mass-produced uniqueness. Sure that sounds a bit contradictory, but when you think about it carefully you’ll realise that as unique as we’d like to feel and as unique as we believe our problems are and our gifts are, they truly aren’t.
The uniqueness lies in our interpretation of these gifts and issues and our flaws play a major part in that. Our uniqueness lies in the brand of impression that these issues and gifts leave on us.
We are human because we’re flawed, as is everything that we do, and by virtue of that premise our wars are flawed, our love is flawed and our dreams are flawed.
Arguing against the importance of flaws in our existence would be arguing against the existence of human nature.
Now don’t get me wrong, flaws are generally uncomfortable tears in an otherwise pristine facade, but they aren’t all bad.
I’d like to think of flaws as intangible assets that can be internally generated and manipulated at will. That could very well be my accounting side speaking but the point is that flaws are capable of being wielded and moulded to our liking.
Then again one can say that flaws were always meant to be part of humanity. Our imperfections were singed into our fabric from the very beginning, and the fact that we possess them and own them means that we’re exactly the way we were meant to be.
We’re perfectly imperfect.
The scars were meant to be there; the little nuances, the awkwardness, the blemishes and tears were all meant to be part of our lives from the beginning. Our way of thinking was never meant to be perfect, thus our wars were never meant to be without flaw and fault.
To believe only one thing and not allow the influence of others would be a flaw worth doing away with, because the sooner we understand that we’re fine just the way we are, we’ll embrace the beauty of being perfectly human.
A.C. Shabangu 