In the UK there’s a thriving group of non-profit techies, (also known as Circuit Riders) who stay connected through a mailing list, that regularly keeps everyone engaged with helping each other, and supporting each other, through those trying times when you need someone to call upon, as well as those not so trying times, when you just want to let people know what’s happening, or sound out ideas.  That’s great for the virtual contact, but I’d always felt that there was something lacking in the face to face meetings and events that could also occur, and that I’d experienced during my time as a Non Profit Volunteer Techie in San Francisco during 2006 and 2007.

Working with a model that seems to work well, of meeting on the first tuesday of each month, Amy began the first of London’s Net Tuesdays this week, and by all accounts it was a roaring success!!  You can read a nice detailed account of the event at Amy’s Blog. I don’t think it would be fair to even begin to try and give a better summary than Amy’s already done.  Clearly a seasoned blogger, with a great writing style, she’s done an excellent job of reporting the output from our Bloggers Discussion Panel, which involved Type Pad, Moveable Type, Wordpress and Community Server being represented. One of the members of the Panel, Miko who wore the slightly more technical hat for TypePad, as well as representing Community Server, has written up an excellent summary of the key blogging platforms, and a great summary of some of the differences between them.  I thoroughly recommend if you’re starting out to read her summary, and use those to help inform your decisions about which blogging platform to use.

We then ended the panel, having answered some great questions about the features and functionality of the tools, and then started to come up with a list of considerations to take into account, before getting started.  The blogging “strategies and approaches” part of the conversation was designed to verse people a little in the thinking that goes into making a successful blog, and after brainstorming from the room, we crowdsourced the following 5 key points, of :

1. Setting Goals
2. Write with Passion and Knowledge
3. Practice writing blog posts for a few months
4. Use your community to come and comment
5. Integrate your blog with everything you do

The premise behind this conversation was that in order to be successful with your blogging, there’s some key pre-requisites that are needed.  Especially if you want your blog to be engaging and participative.  With that in mind, Miko shared her own take on starting blogging, and what you should do, to prepare to succeed.

Some Of My Own Thoughts on Blogging

I’m certainly in agreement that blogging doesn’t just happen, on it’s own, in isolation from the world.  I think often people look at a blog, and think “I can do that”. They might even assume that just by installing or getting a blog set up, that they too can start to reap the engagement and conversation that occurs in the blogosphere.  Unfortunately, it really isn’t all as simple as that.

Speaking, from my own experiences, and I wrote my first blog post in 2004, I can say with all certainty, that blogging for me has been something that evolves over time. I’ve undoubtedly been learning a lot about the medium of blogging along the way too, and that journey educates and inspires me to continue to always try out new things, and then some.I first started my blog, as an experiment, using Blogger.com, and started out thinking of it as a place to capture my thoughts and interesting things that I would come across on the internet.  You can even see at Blogger.com my original blogs, as they were until I left them, and integrated them all into my current Blog, which is now a self-hosted installation of WordPress, and where you might be reading this from.

Back when I first started blogging, I decided on some key areas of interest for me in my life, and thought I would use a blog to collect interesting websites that I found and bits of information that I thought were useful.  I considered my blog to be a place to store my thoughts, and as a record of my travels through the internet. I even started a few different blogs, because I thought that other people might be interested if I started collecting enough interesting websites, relating to a specific theme, or idea, or topic, and that in time, people would start finding my blog and commenting on it, and leaving their thoughts and ideas, if I were to capture the “best of” along the way.

You must remember that this is back in those days when del.icio.us and other social bookmarking websites hadn’t yet come out, and I was itching for a way to start collecting my bookmarks online, so I wouldn’t always have to use the same computer, but would always have access to the cool links that I found along my travels.  I also wanted to be able to share with friends, and family some of the cool stuff I would find online, and thought that naturally in time, a blog would be the perfect solution.

And to an extent, it did work, for a few months, and it certainly warmed me to the idea of blogging, but it didn’t really take off, in a big way. I still didn’t quite understand, back then of what I might be able to use the blogging for, and I definitely didn’t maintain the discipline of keeping my blog updated with all the interesting and wonderful things I discovered along the way.

I think back then, part of the challenge for me was that everytime I wanted to post something I would have to log into the blogging platform, and then create the entry, and couldn’t just use a plugin, or bookmarklet script or external blogging client to write to my blog.  Now after experimenting with a number of great tools, I’ve decided that I’m in love with ScribeFire, a plugin for Firefox, and since using it I’ve also started blogging a whole lot more too.  But I digress..So after a considerably non-productive use of blogging, with little real interest in keeping it alive for the sake of keeping it alive, and with this terrible feeling that no-one in the world was interested in what I was writing about, or posting about, I laid my blogging to rest.  Not consciously, but I just didn’t feel the need, or a desire to write about stuff as much.  I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired, or excited, and I guess I was going through my own challenges in life, understanding what I wanted to do, and how I wanted to engage with the world.

Then in the summer of 2005, I ended up travelling to Peru, in South America, and all of a sudden, I had something that I wanted to share with all my friends and family back home.  After a few attempts at writing out long emails, with details of what was happening, in response to people’s emails, I realised that most of the time I was writing pretty much the same set of details in response to people, and spending quite a bit of time repeating the same stories over and over to people, on a one to one basis.  Spurred on with the knowledge and experience of using Blogger.com, quite successfully in the past, I decided I would use that wonderful medium of “blogging”, to write about my travels.  Suffice it to say, it didn’t take long before I took great pleasure in sitting in internet cafes, writing up my notes of the day.  I even became really diligent in writing in my pocket diary, a summary of the days events, so that my time in the internet cafe would be spent just writing up what I’d already thought about and reflected upon, at the end of each day.  I thought that sharing my travels, and experience in that intimate manner would be a great way to keep everyone updated on what I was upto, and how my travels were going, and it meant that I wouldn’t have to write the same email to everyone that kept asking me how things are going, and what I had been upto.

It also started to fuel my desire to write, since I knew I had a captive audience.  I’d received so much support and encouragement from people as I’d left London, that I figured most of those people would probably enjoy reading about my travels, and my adventures.  I later discovered that my cousin had also been sharing my blog out to his fellow co-workers at work, and even though I never received much email, or saw any visibility of how many people visited my blog, and hardly anyone ever commented on it, I felt like it was being read, and I kept it updated, just so if nothing else, at least my family and friends would know how I was doing, and that I was ok.

Of course, once I left Peru, and returned to London, the blogging on that trip to Peru didn’t seem like a natural thing to continue, since I was back home, and things in London just didn’t seem as noteworthy, or as interesting and different as they did out there.  My only regret with my blogging back then, was that I didn’t take a digital camera with me, and take photos… Some of my travels were just so scenic and beautiful, and some of the people I met such loving souls, that I wish I had captured them all on camera.. But instead I got the joys of having fond memories that I shall keep with me instead :)

Again, the blogging had seemed like a great idea, it had become really useful, and productive for me, when I needed it to communicate, and now that I was done with that trip, it didn’t seem like I had anything left to write, and so I just let it fizzle away.  Back then, I didn’t really have any comments on my posts, and I didn’t really understand, if I had emailed all these people that knew me, why didn’t anyone comment on anything I wrote??  And so, by not having much engagement from the audience, I ended up leaving it as a record of my travels, and nothing more.

Uncovering Your Voice

I guess all along, the biggest challenge I had, when writing for my blog, was to get clear in my mind who I was writing for, and what it was that I wanted to communicate.  I would have moments of sharp clarity, and specific things that I thought were noteworthy, and then the enthusiasm would wear off, reality would set in, and I would come to the conclusion that actually I didn’t have anything significant or noteworthy to share with the world. (At least nothing that seemed to get the whole world clamouring at my doorstep, and wanting to comment on).

I’d finally understood, that blogging is a very personal choice, and that if I chose to publicly share myself, I would always be able to do it on my terms, and didn’t have anyone to answer to but myself.  I think partly because back then I didn’t have a clear audience in mind, I used the blogging as a way of tracking my own thoughts, and adventures out into the world of the internet, but never leaving that comfort zone of writing into an empty vaccum where no-one seemed to be listening.

Now, almost four years on, a lot has changed.  My understanding of the internet, and it’s role in my life for one.  My ability to engage and connect with people for another.  And also how I’m using the internet, and what I’m seeing myself using it for are all changing too.  I think part of the online social networking phenomenon of seeing your network online, in platforms like facebook and linked in means that you slowly start to see your “community”.  Wheras in the past, the most visibility you would get is the emails you got and sent, and the IM chats.  The online social networks that have come into existence now, are slowly starting to make us all acutely aware of the fact that we now have “captive audiences”.  Be it we might use those captive audiences to chase, as werewolves, or to write on each others walls, but innately , we have people we are engaging with, and who are engaging back with us.

This is where blogging comes into play, and starts to become useful.

Whilst you can certainly send an email out to everyone you know, using bulk emailing platforms, once that email is sent, it’s gone.  There’s no permanency to that message or conversation.  It disappears into the ether, and you can only track the results, and await the response from people to know what people felt or experienced.  Whilst it makes it possible to communicate intimately, and personally, it detracts from the public presence that could be enriched by sharing the contents of those emails in public.  Especially if it’s non-sensitive information that goes towards establishing your brand, your credibility, your cause, your needs, or your experiences with others.  What people can’t see about you, people can’t know about you, and whilst email newsletters are great in principle, in practice, there needs to be something being added or updated to the blog, or the news section of your own website too, so that those people who don’t currently subscribe to the newsletter could also have the choice, based on the content.

Nowadays, I’ve come to understand a little more clearly my audiences, and my different voices when blogging.  I can’t say I understand or know them all clearly, but I do know that I have a number of different threads or streams of ideas flowing through this one blog.  I have very distinct and different communities of people that I’m communicating with through this blog.  (Albeit, those communities may only exist in my mind for now, but they are very real nonetheless).

I can see, as I re-read my own blog, and see the train of thought, and threads of conversation that I’m weaving together, that I have some very distinct and seperate groups of people that I’m talking to, or in conversation with.  And I think more importantly, I’m starting to understand how powerfully, I can start to engage in the conversation on the internet, through the blogosphere.

It never truly dawned on me, until the Net Tuesday event we had in London, but commenting on other people’s blogs has really started to make me realise and appreciate how important it is to give before you receive.  If I want people to comment on my blog posts, I have to go out there and comment on other people’s blog posts first.

If I want my blog to become successful, I have to make it more focussed, and targetted.  This is something I’ll write about properly another time, but for now, suffice it to say, that the internet is a big place, and the more targetted and focussed your writing is, the easier it will be for you to become an authority in a particular niche.  What that translates to, is that everytime someone googles something vaguely related to your topic or area of expertise, you’ll come up at the very top.  As long as you know what it is you’re passionate about, and what you genuinely know about, then chances are that you’ll eventually be able to become an established authority in that niche.  Until you get that focussed, your own thinking and writing will suffer, as well as the community engagement, and participation to your blog, your website, and your cause, or field of expertise.

Conversely, the more focussed, and targetted you are in everything that you do, the more you start to add real value for others.  You become capable of voicing the unvoiced, on clarifying assmumptions, on becoming an authoritative voice, and opinion.  You also become capable of synthesising and expanding upon the ideas and thoughts of other people, and actually further the conversation in the blogosphere.

But first, you must know who it is that you will be writing for?

Then what is it that you’re going to write that this audience is going to want to know about?

Once you can answer the above two questions, clearly, and you have people regularly asking you for, or your regularly telling people the same bits of information, then, and only then, will you be able to uncover your blogging voice, and start to contribute in a meaningful manner through your blog.  Until then, you’ll be finding your feet, through the possibilities of what you might be able to voice, and who you might be able to express your thoughts to.  That’s not a bad thing either, because until you start trying, you’ll never figure out your space, and most definitely not find the flow of your blogging voice.

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Yesterday afternoon, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. As a consequence, all the shops closed immediately, and there was rioting on the streets. It’s the first time that I’ve ever been in a country and personally experienced something so terrible happen at such close proximity. We were in Islamabad at the time, and Benazir was murdered near Rawalpindi in Liaqat Bagh, close to where her father was hung for his crimes.

We were just in Rawalpindi on Wednesday, the 26th, travelling back from Lahore, on the Daewoo, and to think, if we had come just a day later, we would be stuck in the chaos, and madness, with all our luggage, and would have had to find some way to safely get to Islamabad, and to the safety of the homes of our Puppo Bajjo (Aunty Bajjo), and my sister-in-law’s Chachu’s (Uncle’s) home.

During the day, my Puppo had invited some of her personal friends who were attuned to Reiki to come and meet me, since she thought both I and they would appreciate meeting each other, given my experiences, and travel, and their interest in all things spiritual! As part of the healing circle, we had consciously sent healing energy to the upcoming Pakistani elections. And then that afternoon Benazir was murdered. I don’t know if the two were connected, but I’m coming to realise how important it is that in the face of such trying times, we must all consciously send peace, love, calm and understanding to the situation. If we start to watch all the media, get wound up by the issues, and become fearful, angry individuals, like everyone else, we too will be adding fuel to the fire. It is only by embracing a non-dualistic, all encompassing state of peace, that we can begin to appreciate how peace in the world can only exist it, when we become that peace in the world. It’s never about the other, but always about us. Of course we may not be able to stop people reacting violently, or angrily straight away, but perhaps, in time, we will be able to direct our loving, supportive, compassionate, and healing energies towards others, in such a way, that they may continue to feel their emotions, but no longer be driven by them, or attach them to physical actions. One day, a time will come, when mankind will learn to deal with their emotions, independently of their actions. When such a time arises, there shall no longer be any war, or armed conflict. It may not be a world where everyone agrees on everything with each other, but it will be a world where the use of violence or force will not be condoned, tolerated, or acceptable, in any shape or form. That is the day, that we will begin to become more like humans, and less like animals. That day, is coming soon… I can feel it…

For now, I pray that the people in Pakistan feel safe, and secure, and that all those performing acts of violence and destruction find a way to express their anger, discontent, or madness in ways that doesn’t harm or destroy anyone or anything physical, and acts out only at the level of their experience of their emotions. In love and light to all…

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There seem to be some serious problems here, in terms of separation between races and classes. Whilst apartheid may be over, it’s very much a reality of life here, that blacks and colored people continue to be the underdogs, whilst the whites are very much still in their places of power, and wealth…

Of course it all depends on who you speak to… Speak to successful white people, and successful indian business people and you’ll get a sense of the forward progression, and wealth and prosperity being enjoyed by those folks. And then when you talk to less some black and colored people you really start to see just how much of a difference there is throughout the society.

I think it’s safe to say, that no matter who the race, everyone sees the white people in South Africa as still in control of the majority of wealth and power in the country. In spite of all the policies, and rules that the government puts in place, the white folk seem to continue to hold the majority of the wealth, and at least the perception of their power and sense of superiority appears to remain. Even when seeing the interactions between whites, and non-whites, you can really see just how much ignorance and separation exists between the two. Whilst it may not be conscious, most white people in South Africa seem to have a way of talking down to non-whites – be it jokingly, or unknowingly, they continue to talk as if their superior, and equally the non-white folk continue to respond as if they’re inferior.

Being a person of Indian descent, and being visibly colored, I’ve also experienced the two sides of this fence. Though when I first arrived in South Africa I wasn’t quite sure as to what this separation, or difference was – until I got to a shopping mall, in Sandton City, and for the first time saw whites, blacks, and coloreds all walking through the same mall… That’s when I realised that until then, I hadn’t seen and asian/indian/colored people in Johannesburg. It even brought home for me how I had completely associated black people with being servants, and maids, and never had once seen black people who were independently wealthy, or on an equal standing with white people.

The shopping mall was the first time that I had properly gotten out of the “security” environment – what with the home I was staying in having security gates, with guards, to the complex of homes, followed by an electric gate for the cars, followed by a locked gate to the home, with then the door to the home being secured at nights, and then going to sleep with a security gate inside the home, to create a secure sleeping section of the home.

Not that I think it’s a little over the top, with all the security… But I guess when you hear some of the stories of what happens to people, and you start to see some of the crime up close and personal, it’s one response to the situation I guess.

Personally I don’t ever want to live in so much fear that I have to lock myself into my own home, to go to sleep at night safe and soundly… But I guess that’s where the real challenges in South Africa arise…

There is so much disparity between the wealthy and the poor – and whilst some might argue that all you need to do is re-distribute the wealth, that clearly won’t ever change the real problem, which is ingrained at the level of the psyche of the society here… That people behave in ways that demonstrate the clear separation of the classes and races, means that the challenges faced by South Africa are entirely mental and emotional, and more visibly, lie beneath the surface of it all.

Last night, in the company of some Asian folk in Cape Town, I learnt just how deeply the wounds went, when you hear how as colored people, unable to watch and support the national rugby team, because of the lack of representation of all the races on the team… And how using the images of white male south africans as national heroes, is so unrepresentative of the true South Africa, and how the perceived ideals of the era of Apartheid appear to linger in the air, when seeing these white South Africans representing the country, and then having people imagine that everyone can rally around a sport, as a cause to bring the nation together really shows how disconnected the whites and the non-whites are.

Whilst having spent the day of the final rugby match with a group of white South Africans, and seeing them getting all elated and joyful at the success and triumph of the Springboks, even just on the ride home, the comment made by a friend of mine of how most South Africans (referring to the black folk), would be clueless to the reason for people celebrating, and being so joyful, and in such great spirits, since most South Africans wouldn’t necessarily follow the rugby – and how that was seen as a bad thing… As if, if only they understood, and could get behind the team, it would make everything better…

I thought back then that clearly there was something wrong with that picture, and after meeting people who in my eyes seemed relatively successful from appearances, but just happened to be Asian, or of colored origin, and hearing their inability to even support the sport, and the team really brought the differences home. It wasn’t a question of right or wrong, it was a question of getting over the pain and injustice from the times of Apartheid, when white people really did discriminate at every turn. When black or colored people couldn’t get on buses. When people were forcibly removed from their homes, so that the white people could live there… When black and colored people had to use different toilets to the whites.

It’s no wonder, with such a sordid past, and no space for people to go through any kind of reconciliation process that the nation really appears to be falling apart at the seams. Whilst there’s the apparent “forgiving” Mandela who sets a great example, it’s almost like the White people use that as an excuse to avoid apologising for the wrongs they did, and carry on as if very little has changed.

My own personal experience of the “superiority” complex that white people appear to live with might appear to be the inhospitable, unwelcoming attitude with which white people will say one thing, and then go and do another, but then I guess part of it really is just cultural. Having spent 8 months in San Francisco before coming to South Africa, where I experienced what it was like living in a family environment, and then living in a rented room, I really appreciated how much I value the Asian sense of family values, and especially within the Muslim faith, the way that a guest is considered a godsend, and an opportunity to serve and be hospitable…

Whilst I’m sure there was definitely not any malicious, or coldness around it – arriving in San Francisco, I really got a sense of how everyone had their own lives to lead, and outside the office, I was very much on my own… (not to mention, inside the office at times too!!!)

Coming to South Africa, it seems that same white cultural detachment from taking an active interest in your guests and their comfort, may have been something that I experienced through my white male South African friend, and his family… but then contrasting that with the warmth and hospitality of the Asian/Muslim families I met, and even of the black people I met, really brought home how perhaps part of the challenge is systemic in the way that most white westerners live their lives, in a state of detachment from each other…

We talked a little last night about respect, and as I write this, I’m starting to appreciate how the feeling of “disrespect” that I experienced whilst staying with white people, was no more than the lack of respect that they had for themselves possibly. If you look at the contrasts between the eastern and the western cultures, you can clearly see that the asian and eastern cultures have an embodied respect within their society. Whilst teaching English in South Korea I really started to see how Asian values affected the locals. Even just the way a friend of mine, being a 32 year old lady, who had lived and travelled in Japan and Indonesia, whilst living back at home, respected her dad’s curfew brought home to me what it meant to be respectful of your elders.

It does sometimes mean taking care of others and respecting the wishes of others above your own. Something which I think in western societies and cultures is lost. Most people are so engrossed in them, and what they want, that they forget to pay any attention to the people around them. Even just the way that older people are put into homes, since the family just doesn’t have the time to care for them. And the one phrase I heard yesterday, of how “a good family is one that you hardly see” just captures the essential difference between asian and western values, and how culturally the eastern and western hemispheres are worlds apart. I can’t imagine what life might possibly be like without having the integral element of family and hospitality within my every day life… And the more time I spend away from home, and family, the more I start to appreciate how valuable it is to live in an environment where people have enough self-respect to not need to get themselves shamelessly drunk, act stupidly in public, and sleep with everyone they come across… I can only pity the folks who have so little respect for themselves that they try to lose themselves in their drunken stupors, or have so little self respect that they’ll be happy sleeping with just anyone, for the sake of it.

I think western values are so overrated – I think for now, I’ve come to be very happy and comfortable with my “conservative” Asian values, that place modesty, sobriety, and virginity above the needs of the self, and it’s distorted sense of what matters, and what’s important. I’ll happily choose my family, and my set of self-respecting values above anything material, or self-centered any day. I’m just glad I was able to find my sense of priorities now, before I became too “western” and self absorbed in what I wanted that I neglected my family more than I already have, for which I can only now repent, and change my way of living in this world. It’s time I stopped thinking about myself so much, and started to put the well being of my immediate family first.

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After the 20 minute workout, since I’d managed to rig up the wireless network so that I could get hold of it, at the house, I stayed in bed, and just went online…

Next thing I knew it was already 8-30am… and there was me, laying in bed, working…

So I got myself ready, and decided that I was going to work from the dining room, to try to avoid the noise overhead from working in the office.. I dunno why, but sometimes it just seems a little too intense working in the office, with everyone else talking on the phone, around me…

Then we headed off for a few meetings, first with AICC (The African Institute of Corporate Citizenship), and there I helped get Joomla up and running on Matt’s computer (Matt being a canadian who just recently moved to South Africa), and had lunch in the local Nando’s.

We then had a meeting with a newly formed NGO that wanted to use Dance, and everything that comes with it to educate underpriviledged kids who come from disadvantaged backgrounds…

Their value proposition was awesome – and I may finally, through their hospitality get to experience a real Sowetan/African meal!! They may also be able to suggest a musical or theatre performance to get to see some of the real african culture on stage…

Should be cool..

Then stopped off on the Johannesburg Hub, on the way back, and got to meet Femke who’s heading that up…

The evening – instead of heading off to Bikram Yoga, as I was planning to, I decided I didn’t want to give myself 90 minutes for my health that night – since I needed something to release my mind.. and so ended up having an early dinner, and then going to watch Stardust, the movie… Was a great movie, and really just was nice to chill out, without focussed on doing, or being, but just going with the flow…

Sometimes it’s nice to just be present to the present moment, and not get hung up on what’s possible, or what’s to come…

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We ended up spending an hour or two getting the juicing done, and then with about 3 litres of juice between the two of us, we went to the safari park, to go visit the lions.. I finally got to the safari, and got to see the lions, and all…

Then, we had to rush back, in order to get to the Bikram class, and after the class, we got home, in time to start cooking, and have Max’s mom and her partner return from their weekend at the farm.

What started out as a bit of veg, and some salad ended up being just a salad, and then we ended up watching a bit of TV, (Me, You and Dupree), and then ended up doing some meditation together…

Went to bed kinda late… But it was a good day, with the trip to the safari park!! Finally got to see the lions!

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My doesn’t time fly!! I guess, getting settled into Johannesburg, and then fasting during Ramadan has kinda taken the life out of me. For some reason, I’m constantly feeling tired when I wake up, and don’t have the strength in the mornings that makes me want to jump out of bed, and sing for joy!!

It could just be the energy of this place… I’m staying at the house of my friend Max, and they have a lot of crystals all around the house… Could just be adjusting to that. Then again, if I went by what my juicing guru Jason Vale advocates, then I’m just being a victim of carbohydrate hangovers, having eaten carbs too late at night, not letting them properly digest, and then waking up in the morning feeling tired and exhausted.

Could be true, especially since during Ramadan, as soon as I wake up, as is customary I eat as much food as I can, to make sure that I have enough reserves for throughout the day. Ironically, on the days that I don’t manage to wake up and have breakfast, then I don’t even notice the fasting – so I don’t know what logic is at work there… But nonetheless, I am waking up regularly tired and exhausted (and yes the weight can also be a factor in that, just as much as the absence of exercise).

Well, once I got to Jo’burg, one of the most interesting things that I noted, was the stark contrast between the black and the white people. I guess if I were to see it anywhere else, I wouldn’t even give it a second thought, but here, for some reason, it seems there’s still a clear sense of segregation… Perhaps it’s more to do with the way in which people live in houses, in secure complexes that have security guards everywhere, and then have two gates to get through before being able to reach the house… Could have something to do with it. That and the fact, that on a day to day basis I haven’t yet seen many black people, apart from the housemaid, and her husband… I’m already keen to explore and discover the more cultural side of Johannesburg. I’ve already gotten a sense of the typical bar/pub culture, and seeing how South Africans are renowned in London for their heavy drinking culture, I figured it all stems from here. That’s one arena, I’m happy to say, I’ve been able to avoid, since there’s not really much point in watching people get drunk and plastered, as much fun as that was to watch at Uni, I think I’ve grown out of the need to learn how inebriated people can get, and what kind of antics they get upto…

Well, I’ve yet to come in touch with any real African culture yet (an dwhen I say African culture, yes, I am talking about black african people, with drums beating, and singing in a tribal way) – perhaps I’m just trying to see something that doesn’t exist… Yet ironically, I know that there’s a rich African culture permeating this land, you can literally feel it bouncing through your root chakra, and giving vibrancy to this place… I guess my greatest challenge here might be to just be able to allow myself to get grounded into that, and to be able to fully experience the physical vibrancy and aliveness that is here…

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I wish I already had all the pictures online, but since that hasn’t happened yet, that part will just have to wait!!

So, since leaving London just over a week ago (last Friday afternoon), I spent 4 days in Dubai, with my little sister, Uzma, her sons, Namir and Usaym, her husband Fahad, and her in-laws, Aunty and Uncle. (It’s so easy in Desi culture, to just call everyone Aunty or Uncle!)

Well, it was a fun time… I arrived in Dubai around 3am, Saturday morning, and had just enough time, after I got out the airport, and met my sister and her husband, and rushed back to their place, to eat some breakfast, before it was time to start fasting.. (it’s the Islamic month of Ramadan, and as part of the religion, we abstain from food, and drink, during the hours that the sun is up – and we start our fast, by waking up super early, and eating breakfast)..

Then that evening, when it came time to break the fast, we had been invited onto a boat, that went along the creek. It was mainly family, from Fahad’s side – cousins, uncles, and close friends from what I could gather… So that evening, as we dined on the creek, we got a waterside view of Dubai – allowing people to highlight different sites, and landmarks along the waterway, and thus completing my first day in Dubai… The day itself being somewhat of a blur, since I’d been so engaged with playing with my nephews, and just having such a blast with them. Namir, the older nephew had just had his 2nd yr old birthday the week before, and Usaym was just about 4 months old – so you can imagine how sweet and adorable they are!! (I’ll get some photos posted onto here, as soon as I upload them in the next few days!)

Well, the next few days all pretty much disappeared, as quickly as that first day had… With the days being filled with lots of baby talk, and being led by the hand, as Namir, holding my finger would lovingly repeatedly call me “Mamoo Jaan, Mamoo Jaan”. It was really sweet!! I think the one event that did stick out in my mind was India beating Pakistan, in the ICC 20 Overs World Cricket Championships (a game of cricket, played with only 20 overs!)… Ordinarily, I’m not much of a cricket fan, to tell you the truth – but being in the company of Pakistani’s who were obsessed with their cricket, you kind of get a feel for the game… Still, it was only when Pakistan lost to India, that it really felt like YES!! We won!! And I suppose for a few seconds, I could feel what it might feel like for someone who regularly watches cricket.. But for me, it was more just the fun of our team having beaten my brother-in-law Fahad’s team! (Not that I gloated or anything.. ;)

So then Tuesday evening, the last night I was to be in Dubai, during Ramadan, I ended up being taken out to the shops, and invited to “pick a gift”… Kinda strange, since I was in a clothes store, and by now most people know that I don’t get my shoes, or clothes in a regular clothes store! (By virtue of me being a little larger than average!)

Anywho, we ended up finding a Big and Tall, and after trying on a bunch of trousers, and jeans, I settled on a pair, and got home, to finish packing, and eventually make my way to the airport…

Then at about 1am, on Wednesday morning, we got to the airport, and got checked in, ready for the flight to South Africa, and the beginning of the next leg of my journey…

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Often, I’ve found myself making plans, getting ready to do something, and then something happens, unexpectedly…

Most times, I see that unexpected event, or occurence, and see it as a gift, as something to be grateful for… And usually, in retrospect, it really is a blessing in diguise…

But how often do most of us have the patience to see life’s gifts and appreciate them for what they really are??

So many people I know, are so busy living their lives, fixated on their goals, that when these unexpected quirks occur, these unplanned pauses, instead of being grateful for the opportunity to pause, and reflect, relax, and perhaps even take a minor detour, or go on a different path completely, people get fixated on their destination, and forget to enjoy the journey. It’s at times like these, that I often remind myself it’s the journey not the destination…

Because, in all fairness, if we look at it brutally honestly, we all know where life ends up – you die. You can’t get any clearer than that. We all know that’s the end cumulation of our lifetime of experience. At least for our physical bodies. (I won’t go into a discussion on life after death, not here ;p). As far as our physical bodies go, this life ends with death.

So if we know the destination, we know the goal, do most people choose to go hurtling towards it at breakneck speed?? You’d think it looking at the lifestyle decisions so many people make these days. The combinations of poor diet, stress laden lives, with barely time to pause, or reflect; it’s a wonder anything ever gets done, what with everyone rushing around, being permanently busy, all for the sake of money.

Ironically, many that aren’t living that busy, busy lifestyle are wishing that they could only be richer, have more money, had more opportunities in life, could do more, have more, be more…

Fortunately, not every human on the planet is driven this way (it’s a good thing, just in case all the busy folk burn-out, and stop working!).

This way of working, of being fixated on an end result, and then doing everything in their god given power to accomplish the result is how life used to work, and was the accepted norm… No pain, no gain.. You’ve got to work hard to get anywhere in life… Nothing’s easy.. Everyone’s out to get you, you’ve got to take care of yourself, no-one’s going to look after you… And the expressions, and phrases go on, and on and on… I’m sure you get the picture..

By default people that live their lives like this, inevitably live their daily lives from a place of fear, a place of lack. It’s the thinking that there isn’t enough, that you’ve got to fight for life, survival of the fittest and all that… Inherently, such a perspective on life is going to be draining, and suck the life out of you… By the time you die, you’ll have nothing to hold onto, and nothing left in you, and you’ll die, drained, perhaps even bitter, and empty… Life from this place tends to be cold, cruel, and usually a fight, or struggle, on an ongoing basis… It’s always about lack…

Ironic then isn’t it that if we stop to look at everything around us, we can see traces of the complete opposite… Look at nature, as an example.. The place from which we get our food (or at least the most rawest of ingredients for what we eat)… There’s absolutely nothing in nature that reflects shortage or lack… If you look at a mature apple tree, it will usually produce way more apples than any one person would be able to eat on their own… You look at raspberries, and strawberries… if you pick them, they’ll continue to produce fruit, week after week… Nothing in nature is ever produced in a rationed, or controlled manner… We as humans, imposing our perspective of lack, and shortage, might experience not having enough… and for various political reasons, people living on this planet might live without enough to eat, or drink, but that’s not because there’s not enough food on the planet… It’s because food is being controlled by people that live in a world of lack and fear… If people weren’t afraid about the price of food, and food was freely distributed across the planet, then all the food that now goes to waste, and gets thrown away, would be plenty to feed all the people that don’t have enough to eat right now.

But lets not get too political here… On the surface of it, if you knew that there was so much more than you needed, and that you’d always have enough, then what space would you be living your life from?? Which emotion? Which response? Which experience??

Most likely, it would be one of abundance, knowing that there’s always more coming, or perhaps even gratitude, at the way in which things are always available to you, as and when you need them..

Going back to our life experiences, and fixated goals… If we lived our lives from a place of gratitude and abundance, not fear, or lack, what would your perspective on life have to be, every time something unexpected happened?? That’s right! There’s some gift, or blessing in this. Something has been given to me, and when you start to be grateful for what you’ve been given, guess what, you start to find the meaning, or purpose in it.. Since you haven’t started out by discounting the experience, or the challenge, or the opportunity. What to someone living in fear, and lack, might have been an obstacle, a barrier to overcome, or even just a plain old failure, can start to be that seed of an opportunity, that blessing in disguise, that silver lining to the cloud…

Of course, for some people, it’s a real challenge to take on a new or different perspective in life.. Heck, some people have trouble changing their daily routines… And for some, reading this, it’ll be just plain impossible to understand what I’m talking about. Which is just fine… Those are folks stuck in their ways, and thankfully, you, reading and understanding this now, are not one of them… The good news is, that in time, everyone can change.. It’s just some people take slightly more time than others ;p)

So the point to my little story?? Unexpected turns of events can be a real blessing in disguise sometimes…

My own life, right now, being one of those wonderful examples of that… I was planning to be in South Africa, for September, October, and November… Flying out, at the end of August… As fate would have it, I was meant to be in London a few weeks longer, and so there were a few hiccups along the way, in buying the tickets, in the money all coming together… But what that’s meant is that I’ve had time to re-develop my website (http://www.magitam.co.uk), found more interesting, and appropriate products to sell, and re-vamp my entire online presence… I’ve also been blessed with the chance to spend more time with my newly married brother and his wife… I’ve had the chance to spend some time during Ramadan(the Islamic month of fasting) with my family, and even see my cousins, before travelling. Who knows what the implications, or consequences of all of those events are?? To be honest, I don’t really care, what they are.. I know that because of this extra time in London, I’ve been given the opportunity to relaunch my online presence, and start to generate another income stream, and I’ve had the chance to spend more time with my family…

Gifts that I could have never enjoyed, or appreciated, if I was obsessed with getting to South Africa… I’d spend all my time worrying, or obsessing over “what it meant”, or “why I wasn’t there already”… But instead, I can enjoy what time I have, appreciate the opportunities I’ve been given, and in the process, enjoy the journey along the way…

That’s not to say, that I’m not completely thrilled by the prospect of going to South Africa, and really really really can’t wait to get there… But it’s just a matter of time, and patience… and since I’m occupied with other projects along the way, I’m not fixated on what I don’t have, what I’m missing out on, or why I’m not there already!

I know that my trip to South Africa will be very deeply special, and will be a real “grounding” experience for me… It will also be the beginning of a completely new chapter in my life, one where I start to get focussed on what my contribution in this lifetime is all about, and start to have the opportunity to be able to really get engaged with what mnakes me buzz, tick, and just really gets me going in life… But I’ll continue to remember, that making a difference happens each day, slowly but surely, and that one day, we’ll live in a world where peace rules, differences are allowed to exist in a harmonius way, and the abundance of the universe is freely available to everyone, not just to the priviledged few..

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I ended up meeting with a friend for lunch, a friend after that for a juice, and then dinner in the evening, with as many of my friends as could come and join me.

That evening, John Sleeman had suggested a wonderfully Japanese Sushi restaurant, based on the recommendation of his partner – and I have to agree it was absolutely wonderful!

It was especially fun, trying to find the place! With friends all calling as they arrived at Piccadilly Circus, a little lost as to where to find this wonderful little alley, with the yellow sign of the restaurant sticking out of it!

Still, eventually everyone arrived, and then, with the chaos, and mayhem that ensued, with everyone getting the poor staff at the restaurant flustered, and confused – if it wasn’t for Salim stepping in, taking people’s orders, and then communicating them to the staff, I don’t think we’d have ever gotten any dinner!! Thanks for stepping in there Salim!

I ended up jumping from one end of the long table to the other – in hopes of spending a little time with everyone – even though I wanted to spend lots of time with everyone! But hey, what could I do – I was heading off to San Francisco the very next day, and with a bunch of packing still left to do, I ended up winding hte night up early (ish!), so as we could all head on home… Salim ended up leaving his cell phone though, and as we started to leave the restaurant, we ended up having a huge group hug (with me being the central focus of the group!) Can’t say you can beat that for being shown by others how much they enjoy your company!! (And your hugs!!)

I think someone might have even got a photo of us all in one big clump!! If not, I certainly don’t think I’m going to forget that farewell send-off anytime soon!

Well, off to San Francisco it is… I wonder what adventures lie in store for me there?? Only time will tell…

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