Hot, cross and adrift in a scary world

A woman attends a street memorial service in Brussels following Tuesday's bomb attacks in Brussels, Belgium, March 23, 2016. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

A woman attends a street memorial service in Brussels following Tuesday's bomb attacks in Brussels, Belgium, March 23, 2016. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

Published Mar 29, 2016

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Cape Town - A wise person told me the other day that it is during times of extreme contradiction that floundering occurs.

The anchors to which we attach ourselves start to feel tenuous, and the waters seem dark and the currents unmanageable.

This contradiction was never more apparent than on social media this past week. My Facebook feed was like a list assembled by both Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. There were video clips of dogs playing the piano, pre-orders for the new Harry Potter, reports on the Brussels attacks, advice for sleeping better, analysis on state capture, discussions about Abbi on Broad City, memes featuring fish, reviews of Batman versus Superman, free slots, cheap shots, recipes for carbonara, adverts for washing powder, analysis on Islamic State (IS), stuff Ramaphosa said, stories about cats, stories about parasites on cats, pictures of Ankara, pictures of poisoned people – all the frothy flotsam and the serious jetsam of the world, flung together in a tsunami of bytes and pixels.

I floundered, not sure what to think. I read a long piece tracing the history and ideology of IS. Then I watched a video of a man proudly showing off a fence he had just built to keep his dog in. The dog promptly leapt over the fence.

I read an article summing up all the terror attacks that have taken place across the world this year: Turkey, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Ivory Coast and Mali. I commented on a post about hot-cross buns and watched a video of an orang-utan hugging a dog.

These are uneasy times. The world has started to feel like a scary place. States are being captured, nations are being ruptured. People are being murdered over mining, women are being raped for just being. There are nuclear threats and slaughters, bombs and missiles, paedophiles and poisons. Bees are dying, icebergs are melting, seas are suffocating and land lies parched. I have been wondering about the world and the sea and anchors.

I’ve also been thinking about the way the world is presented, and whether only that has changed and not the world itself. Sure, we are living through one of the most complex and fraught periods in history - technology is transforming society at a furious pace; the rise of extremism threatens global safety; poverty and inequality still stalk too many - but are we any worse off than past generations?

Or are we merely aware of more because of the advent of digital media? With one click on a link, we can take a live tour of shelled apartment blocks in Syria; with another click, we can watch a teenager light his farts in Nebraska.

In response to the bombings in Brussels, a friend wrote on Facebook: “How anyone can be human and do this is inconceivable.” Someone replied: “That’s your first mistake – thinking these people are human.” But the awful truth is that the attackers were human – with families and tender moments and love and hate. It is the contradiction that is so shocking, that leaves us floundering and feeling helpless.

While the politicians are manoeuvring, the corporates angling, the thieves plundering and the haters hating, it’s hard to know how one can make a difference. My wise friend says it starts by recognising and accepting the flaws in ourselves and others. Once we do that, we can be more tolerant and more empathetic of others, and kindness flows from that, and this kindness ripples out and creates a calmer, less turbulent sea.

It’s a nice thought. I tried it yesterday in the supermarket. A man jumped the queue in front of me. I recognised his flaws (selfish, ill-mannered, queue-jumping bastard) and then tried to accept them – and couldn’t. I tapped him on the shoulder and politely pointed out there was a queue. He responded with horror, apologising repeatedly, and then we got into a conversation about the price of Easter eggs, the merits of extra-spicy hot-cross buns and the Brussels attacks and the sad state of the world.

I went home and contradicted myself in a most human way by eating three hot-cross buns while reading an article online about how to lose weight by avoiding carbs. I also trawled through the horrors of Boko Haram’s reign of terror in Nigeria, watched a cool video about sandboarding, saw a meme about Donald Trump and read about war crimes in the Central African Republic.

I also read a quote by Nietzsche: “I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.”

Then I had another hot-cross bun and wandered outside to look at the garden.

Cape Argus

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