Know thyself: The torments of acne...and the elusive solution.

The problem

| Puberty.... thy heartless bastard! |

Before high school I was fresh faced, a bit chubby, full of confidence and ready to tackle the world. I had heard of rumors of this puberty thing but I figured that I was a special child and that nothing could possibly go wrong with me. But after hearing stories of what my older siblings had gone through I had decided to brace myself for the onset of puberty, I mean it wasn't all supposed to be bad right : the package came with a deeper voice, more facial hair, growth spurts and all so I kinda needed it , always being the shortest man in the room and all. But no one and nothing could have ever prepared me for for what was about to happen. Circa grade 10(2007) I started to cross the chasm, into the deep dark abyss known as puberty, all the other upgrades were really great but the only thing I couldn't handle was the acne, oh dear Lord why did you give me the acne....

In search for a solution

So there it was my greatest enemy for the past 6 or so years, acne, acne, acne. Cursed with weird/sensitive/reactive skin, at times I couldn't even tell if I had oily, dry, or mixed skin because it exhibited each quality at different points in time. And I tried absolutely everything. Honestly, you name it and I've tried it, the following list contains just some (rain drop in the ocean) of the products that I had tried to no avail:

1. Clearasel.
2. Young solution.
3. Oxy.
4. Clean n clear.
5. Acnet.
6. Garnier.
7. Zinplex
8. Epizone.
9. Eucerin.

And these are just a few of the well known brands that I tried, in times of deep distress I even ventured into the unknown. The following is not something I am extremely proud of but once, desperately in need of a solution I went to a pharmacist in Swaziland and he told me to use  vaginal cream on my face (yes...really...). Not the greatest decision I have ever made in my life, the fact alone that I was actually using it was weird enough, but now imagine having to explain to a bunch of macho male teens in a high school hostel why I had a tube of vaginal cream in my cupboard, as if the pimples weren't enough stress :( . I'm sad to say that this brave experiment didn't work at all, if anything it just made it worse and the issues just got deeper and deeper from there. 

Psychological effects

In the world that we live in, beauty plays a big role in our daily lives, with the media bombarding us from all angles, we have a preconceived notion of what it is to pretty, to be beautiful,to be attractive, to be normal. And high school is a time when everyone is trying to outshine everyone else, the cool kids are getting girlfriends, the pretty boys are receiving their first kisses etc etc. This is a very difficult time to be suffering from something so trivial as pimples and bad skin. But this plagued me throughout and it has such a deep rooted effect on your psych. Something that I haven't really shared with anyone was the fact that for the purposes of a self-induced delusion - There were many occasions where I used to go a whole week without looking at myself in the mirror, it sounds weird but I swear this is true. My reasoning was that if I can't see how bad my face is...then its not that bad..right?. And this helped me sleep at night, but it didn't stop the eyes wandering around my face during face-to-face conversation, so to counter that I developed the habit of looking away when talking to people (or just not talking to people at all :) ). So I'd be staring everywhere but at your face cause I didn't want to see myself through your eyes....quite deep hey, deep, sad, but very very true.

Depression, anger, sadness, fatigue, short-temper, lethargy...these were all bi-products of my disastrous face.. Every day became a challenge for me, a challenge to make it to the end, to survive, to refrain from breaking down in public, in-front of friends, in-front of people. Its such a traumatic experience and I don't think any one that hasn't suffered from prolonged acne really knows how this feels.You see, your face is the entrance to your soul, because your emotions, your thoughts, your feelings are all expressed through your face. When you meet people, first they see your face and then they analyse the rest of your body. Its analogous to living in a house that's falling apart on the outside. No matter what the situation is on the inside, all the judgments are passed long before entering the front door. And this left me constantly searching, searching for acceptance, seeking approval and always looking for love. Because when you don't accept, approve and love yourself, you obviously have to depend on someone else to.

Next sop...varsity

Going into varsity, the situation only got worse, and now this affected my academics, because instead of focusing on my work during lecturers, there I was thinking about my face.And the thing is that it's not all restricted to the psychological level even, because when you have inflamed skin, you can literally feel the puss pushing out against the boundaries of the pimple, and trust me that shit hurts! So not only did I wake up and feel like shit, I was reminded the whole damn day that there is a war happening all over my face, all day everyday. And to make this objective situation ten times worse there are so many pretty people in varsity, so one can't help but compare... :( As I walked around campus on the daily, I used to curse people that had perfect skin, cause they looked like they bath in milk while I looked like a destitute prisoner of war. I even wanted to see less and less of my own friends, locked up in my room for days, hiding behind the books and the course work - wondering why life is so unfair?

Searching for the underlying problem

What I didn't understand throughout this period is what actually caused this problem, all this time I was trying to fight it from the outside in: more face washes, more toners, more creams, if this doesn't work try another one, if that doesn't work try another one use a face mask, try a steamer, more more moreee!!!! I think my face was even tired of me, it probably almost threw in the towel as well. Early into varsity I stopped dairy, since I discovered that it was a contributing factor, after this change my face did improve..ever so slightly. 

Because of the effects of alcohol (high in sugar and toxins etc), throughout varsity I had many on and off periods with that as well, thinking that alcohol=bad, but that never lasted long.There were way too many parties to attend and not nearly enough self-discipline. I had managed to stop junk foods completely, so no sweets, chips, chocolates and the like. And people around me would often ask me why? But I would simply tell them it was due to 'health reasons', not exposing the reality of the matter : the fact that I was fighting to get control of my life back. 

In high school I got into the unnecessary bad habit of smoking as well , having such great friends as an influence (face palm) but I stopped that for good, early during my first year of varsity and haven't touched a cigarette since. This had some sort of effect, but then there was nothing to take my mind of the stress that was being caused by my face... So for the following years my love hate relationship continued with my face, I had good weeks, bad weeks, good days, bad days, ups and downs, ins and outs throughout and I eventually just conceded that this was my life, this was my journey. I decided to accept my fate....

The revelation

This continued up until this year(2014) the year after I completed my honours degree in varsity. Since I had started working I had a fairly routine schedule so I started going to gym on the daily after work with a group of work mates. What my workmates did was, they ate oats an hour or so before going to gym, for the carb-loading benefits. So I did the same, every day for about 3-4 weeks I had a nice bowl of oats (with sugar), sometimes even twice a day. After some time I started to notice that after I ate oats I used to get this bloated uncomfortable feeling in my stomach (which I actually used to get often) , this got extremely awkward over time. On top of this I also started getting this horrible acne by my jawline, and not just a lightweight whiteheaded pimple, it was deep cystic acne, those hard painful bumps that take oh so long to go away. Furthermore I also used to have a distinct weird feeling, like some sort of anxiety, but I didn't take much cognizance of it (i passed it off as fatigue). So this all continued to happen for a few weeks. 

At first I thought "o.k just some more retaliation from my face" but after consistent irritation and further annoyance it eventually lead me to do some research on our loyal friend Google, and after a few searches I came across this life changing article by Jenifer Blanchard. Her story was basically the same as mine: acne from a young age, trying every acne product on the market, staying indoors cause she was afraid of the world, hatred of staring in the mirror, feeling ugly and gross, despising other fresh faced teenagers, feeling of anxiety at times.. and halfway through reading the article I was like "woah, this is my story!". Then the part where she mentioned the jawline acne, I knew that I was onto something.

"Now the ACNE had started migrating downward, showing up along my jawline and neck as well as on my face. Deep-rooted, cystic acne that never seemed to go away. I didn’t know what to do anymore."

I carried on reading and she mentioned that after trying all products and even getting expert advice (which i did as well,and it was a complete waste of my time and money), she decided to take matters into her own hands by signing up for a nutrition course.

She continues to explain that during a lecture on food allergies the doctor started listing symptoms produced by gluten allergies and law and behold...one by one the truth was reveled and I saw the light.

"I was listening to a lecture on food allergies, and the doctor who was teaching the class started listing off all the symptoms that gluten and dairy allergies produce: anxiety, heartburn, GERD, ACID REFLUX, stomach pain, ear infections, sinus infections…the list went on."

Connecting the dots

My mother will be quick to tell you that I was terribly sick throughout my childhood and my parents had no idea why. But looking at this list and taking into consideration all my issues from birth to now, it all starts to make sense.. maybe, just maybe I was sensitive to gluten. On the one hand I was extremely  happy to come to this realization but then again I was also like REALLY?REALLY?? REALLY!!!!! The universe waits for me to go through high school AND varsity fighting a constant battle with myself before telling me that I shouldn't be eating gluten? After all the bread, the scones, the buns, the oats, the pasta, the beer! NOW you tell me that I'm gluten sensitive, now when i'm 22...well done! I kicked myself after reading this but it also all made so much sense, because looking back the times that my acne was at its worst correlated to times where I had a lot of wheat/barley/rye.

• Hostel and res -> the food is ridiculous, so you just end up making sandwiches to supplement everything. I'd go days eating like +10 slices of bread.

• High school going into varsity -> in high school your status of being a cool kid depends on whether you drink beer or not (which tasted disgusting) so what did i do? I drank a whole lot of beer!. In varsity... well, we all know what happens in varsity, you are either studying, sleeping or drinking. 

• Varsity self catering -> living in a house, without being catered for, not knowing how to cook to save my life- what did I eat most? bread, pasta and more bread!!!!!! and that's when I started my oats habit as well - 'just add boiling water' they said...curse you Jungle Oats!.

And what does bread, pasta, beer and oats all have in common? Gluten, gluten gluten!!!

Looking back it should have been more obvious but I mean its really hard connection to figure out and honestly up until this year I didn't even really know what gluten was, but now I know and I'll never forget. I've stopped eating all forms of gluten and the results are truly amazing (especially considering where I am coming from).

Postmortem 

With all this said and done, I'm not saying that I have photogenic face with smooth silky baby bottom skin...yet! I am however clearly on the road to recovery and it really feels great, being able to walk out your house and face the day (pun intended) in confidence is one of the greatest feelings in the world. I'll have to follow a strict diet of course, but it's for a good cause, I really do miss my craft beer, but honestly I'd choose smooth skin over a hangover any day.

Know thyself

Now this definitely isn't a proven cure for the millions of other acne sufferers out there, but it is worth a try. The point to take out of this is to always look for the root cause of your problems. I am a strong believer in logic,  reason and rational, and in as much as we may live in a random universe, not everything is random, things don't 'just happen' especially if the observations are consistent, one needs to look for the correlation and search for the true cause. It is extremely important to know yourself, your body, your allergies and your sensitivities both physiological and psychological, else you will spend your whole life fighting in a losing battle. 

Take some time, do some research, experiment on yourself, make some sacrifices. Life is too short to suffer, when the solution to your problems could be one simple insight away.

T4aM

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Know thyself : There is no rush.

I had the most interesting impromptu conversation last night with a group of friends. The topic was basically that 'there is no rush...you'll get there when you get there'. And I think its something that I needed and something a lot of us in our generation need as the future leaders of Africa and the world as a whole.

This ties in with something that I heard at a conference this past week as well. An Interesting statistic that the average age for successful founders of startups in silicon valley is about +-34 years , and all this time I had been thinking that it's just a bunch of 20 year old hoodie-wearing straight out of varsity (if they even finished) kids that are running the show - yes these people do exist but they are not the majority.The issue is that the media does a great job in telling us about the Marks, Bills and Steves of the world. Personally every time I hear about another 15 year old Summly-creating kid I think "what am I doing with my life?.

And it is this media-frenzy that contributes heavily towards one of biggest problems experienced by the 'first-world' youth of today. Cause now we get out of varsity and we expect everything to just fall into place, we want to be those CEOs that we read in the news, those high rolling executives that we see in the movies or those kids with IPOs coming out of Silicon Valley/Israel .There is nothing at all wrong with that but...you don't want to end up comparing apples to pears. And the more we compare ourselves to others, the less we feel we are doing with our life. Who knew a UCT graduate living in Cape Town can come out of varsity and feel like they have accomplished absolutely nothing in life, firstly cause it's much harder to get a well paying  first-job in the modern day and age, secondly because +300 other people in the country are graduating with the exact same degree as you are and thirdly because we don't even know what it is that we want from life at this stage.

And then people speak of Passion : another big debate in itself, "what should I be doing with my life"?, "what do I love", "what does my soul long for"? This was also mentioned at this dinner table discussion, basically the dilemma is - "I'm about to graduate and I have no clue what my passions are, I might know what I'm good at...but do I know what I love?" And I can relate to this fully, I think we all can, both old and young alike.  The cognitive dissonance emerging from the inherent feeling that from day 1 you should make a career out of your passion, heart-felt desires and interests.On the one side of the coin we all know that this is more than possible because it has, is being and will be done for years to come. But on the other side of the coin, the side we commonly refer to as reality, the truth is that you have debts to pay off, family to support, food to put on the table, car repayments to complete and an unemployment line to avoid, so money needs to be made one way or the other.

Another problem is that there are expectations set by our parents and those around us to be these perfect finished products by the time we leave varsity and these are the dreams we are sold...  

Dream Formula : [Study a good degree] + [get a good job] 

= [money] 

= [financial stability] 

= [happiness] 4eva!. 

This puts a lot of pressure on us and overtime we too tend to adopt and enforce these expectations as well and when these dreams aren't actualized, our self-worth, self-value and dignity depreciates drastically. As you live out this equation, when you tend towards the end of the 'get a good degree' part your world starts to shake beneath your feet because you wonder what the rest of your life holds for you. And honestly in a world were everyone is receiving an education (now a 15 year old can learn the equivalent of my degree online in a few months), the economy is struggling and job security is a myth - this can be a very daunting and emotional period, so instead of just worrying about your final exams, you are wondering about your future, you're wondering about your life. Personally my 4th year at varsity was the most stressful of my years at UCT, and no not because of academics - that was the least of my worries - I was too concerned about what will become of me after I receive that much coveted degree... what does the future hold, where, who and what will I be? - questions that I am still trying to answer to this day...

With all this said, how does one overcome all these hurdles, obstacles and challenges, that life (and ourselves) place in front of us. Well if I had all the answers I wouldn't be as concerned as the next person :D but I don't have the answers cause life is not a theory exam, the memo isn't in a drawer somewhere and no you won't be marked out of 100 when you die. Life is dynamic, ever-changing, hella confusing and extremely interesting (if you give it a chance to be).

What tomorrow holds I don't know - But I do know the following:

1. It is a long journey and it is my own journey, my own story and my own life.
2. I know I need to figure out myself as a person while I attempt to figure out my place in the world.
3. I need to realize my values, my dreams (not the medias dreams ) and my ambitions (not my families ambitions for me) .
4. I need to assess my skills, interests and abilities going forward.
5. I need to chill the fuuuuuck out. Honestly if there is anything I have learned from my eclectic religious expeditions and daily meditations is that when you listen - the universe speaks. And yes... as cliché as it sounds life tends to direct you when you allow it to, trust me it really does.

All in all its a good mixture of self-confidence, self-belief, ambition, humility, perseverance, constant introspection and of course a bit of good ol' luck as always. Honestly we don't know what the future holds and as Oasis beautifully puts it in Morning Glory -" Tomorrow never knows what it doesn't know too soon".

So remember that there is no rush... but with that said -> keep in mind that God/The Source/The Universe doesn't help folks who don't help themselves B-).

Over and out.

T4aM.

Do you know why you are here?

Do you know why you are here?
what lessons you have to learn.
the reason you came back.
the reason for your reincarnation?

Do you know why you are here?
on this plane of reality.
the same dimension as before.
the same soul from previous lives?

Do you know why you are here?
why you chose to stay behind.
what task have you left undone.
what stone have you left unturned...?

Do you know why you are here?
why you wake up daily.
why you choose to breathe, eat, sleep.
why your heart still pumps blood?

Do you know why you are here?
what you asked to come down for.
why you have chosen this path.
why you are living this life....
                                 -----
Deep down, you know why you are here.
you know what you want to learn.
what you need to change.
who you need to be.
and what you need to do.

You know why you are here.
so don't lose you way.
keep true to your mission.
your purpose your goal.

The signs are all around you.
inside you.
they are you.
You feel them.
you know them.
but will you acknowledge them...?

You know why you are here.
what you want from this life.
what this life wants from you.
but will you accept it?

You know why you are here.
don't let the reason elude you.
don't let 'reality' delude you.
you're here for a reason.
don't be fooled by the fools.

You know why you are here.
don't think it's by chance.
you had a plan to descend.
you had a plan to come down.
You wanted to be here.
don't get caught up in the noise.
for we are in it, not of it.
don't forget who are you.

You know why you are here.
so make use of your time.
don't waste it on wasting.
for it's not on your side.

You know why you are here.
and you've been here before.
but you stayed back for something.
you stayed back for more.

You know why you are here.
don't pretend that you don't.
You know why you are here.
so remember yourself.
You know why you are here.
be true to the Truth.
don't get sidetracked or caught up.
       Your life's waiting for you.

T4aM
--------------

Take off the mask

I look at you but do not see you
You speak to me but I cannot hear you
You touch my being but I cannot feel you
Because the real you
Is suppressed deep inside

You try your best to please the public
Put on a show for those around you
Carefully molding people's perception
Yet your true nature
You choose to hide

Who is the real you
I thought I knew you
Please stop the gimmicks
Please show the truth
Stop denying
With these facades
No need to front
So stop the lies

Take off the mask
And be yourself
Please don't pretend
That you're someone else
Take off the mask - Let's see you naked
Life is way to short to compromise

#T4aM

Hamza Kashgari

A Saudi poet and former newspaper columnist jailed by the government for three tweets -

and they say we are 'free'...

T4aM
---------------
"You can buy your way out of jail - but you can't buy freedom"- Kanye West
---------------

The here and now - Utterly Amazing

Over the past two weeks I have tried my hardest to fully embrace myself in the here and the now, the present moment that which knows no future and no past, that which has no worries, no regrets, no anxieties. No mistakes to cry over, no ambitions to plan for, no objectives to work towards.No concern for the opinion of others, not a care about where it came from or where it is going. No thoughts, because there is nothing to think about, no future cause there is nowhere to go, there is nothing else to do, nowhere else to be, nothing else to have. It so simple, yet so revolutionary, so straight-forward yet so elusive : the fact that we are HERE, we have always been HERE, we have never been never experienced, never known anything else, you have never gone back to the past to cry, you have never gone into the future to laugh..nope everything you have ever, will ever, can ever do is in this present moment. The moment I realised this, I realized the real reason why my mind has been such a mess over recent years, the reason why I am always stressing, worrying, paining, living anxiously, the reason why so many relationships have failed, the reason why so many projects have been shelved and left undone, the reason I am so anxious about my future and my career, my place in the world - And the real reason behind this is because I have hardly ever been here. It is a hard pill to swallow but - imagine mentally spending a good part of 22 years somewhere else...its utterly ridiculous!

Only in a few moments when I do what I love, and can so easily engage myself in - have I been so easily able to forgo that natural human urge to be somewhere else, but every other moment in time it has been an implicit, silent struggle. But there is hope, because when one takes cognisance of the fact that there is no-one and nowhere else to be - all the unnecessary life-draining, negative-tending thoughts fall to the way side, and your life begins to manifest in the only way it knows how - in the now... It is honestly a beautiful beautiful thing...



















T4aM
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Be here now, you honestly cannot be anywhere else fully....
The truth is : that Mother Nature only knows today....
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Harsh lessons learned from years spent in school...The sad story of a top achiever.

Initially I wanted to call this note "How education ruined my life" But the thing is education never ruined my life, hell I probably wouldn't be living in Cape Town, the design capital of 2014, working at a top technology/business consulting company - without my brilliant education. But rather it is the education system that has played a huge negative role in my life. And this is something that I am only noticing now at the tender age of 22.

It was great being the smart child, the intelligent one, the one who always knew what to do and when to do it. The loyal student, always in the top 3, consistent, motivated, hard-working. Thus, at the young age of 18 when one is about to leave high-school (and no one else knows what to do with their life) it is a great feeling to know that your life is mapped out because you are a 'top achiever', a high school 'success', a fine product of the education system...bwaap bwaap bwaaap. If only I knew back then... if only I knew.

I lived in a bubble, utopia, an ideal world - a world of my own, a world that the education and reward system had helped me fabricate inside my mind. I was getting awards every term, getting book prizes at the end of the year, even made it into the national news paper after my Matric results (its Swaziland so I think everybody makes it into the paper at least once in their life...truth be told). But this constant flush of success, awards, recognition and achievement had led me to think that I was king of the world, that I could do no wrong, that I had it all figured out and that my path was set - but in all honesty it was very very far from this.

What this 'excellent' childhood did set me up for was a fantastic reality check.

The move to varsity was not the most amazing transition I have ever experienced. I went from getting 89% for End of Year Matric mathematics to getting 64% for test 1 MAM1000 - a first year mathematics course at UCT. And I mean this was probably the second time in my life that I received such a 'low' mark for a mathematics test - the inner me was like "64% for maths dude???" Up until this point I thought I lived and breathed mathematics, I thought I owned mathematics, I thought numbers and logic were my slaves but sadly that really wasn't the case. Worse than actually getting that low mark, was that feeling of 'failure' that feeling of 'shame', of 'disappointment' that is what hurt the most. That feeling of 'I'm not good enough', I am 'not smart enough' and worst of all that feeling of wondering what people thought of me and what they saw me as. See... up until this point I had based my self-worth on what other people think of me. And I mean after being recognized in front of the whole school on frequent occasions its hard to value yourself without involving the value that others place on you. But this taught me that it is of utmost importance that the value you place on yourself must come from within- Lesson 1.

Now this was a sad moment in my life - but what did I do afterwards? I did what any self-respecting first year varsity student would have done. I drank it off on a Friday night on Long street and convinced myself that "I'd do better in the next test" :D - haha but that didn't work either because as much as the next test result might have been slightly better. The problem was that my aim was to beat everyone else in the class and not just to beat myself. But when they post up the class list with test results and you see that people are getting 100% and even 120% (imagine...) and there you stuck sitting on a smooth 69% position 300 out of 700 - then you realise that this struggle cannot be won, this struggle cannot be won if you are basing your success on how other people did. Because you are not on the same level, you do not have the same background, you do not have the same path and you do now have the same goals. Thus from my constant failure to beat other people academically here at UCT, I realised that I had to have my own struggle, my own set of internal standards, rules and ambitions that were not solely based on the external world. The high school days of competing with my smart classmates were over, as it was now time for me to compete against myself. Yes it is perfectly acceptable to use guidelines from others with regards to where you can be and what you can achieve - because its absolutely true that competition breeds progress - but that's where it must end. Because you must realise that at the end of the day you have your own race that needs to be run. From this I had my second lesson. Lesson 2 - Develop your own Jihad.

"I don't know", "how do I do this", "what happens next", "is this correct", "why is this like this?" The questions that I have been asking over and over again during my past 4 months at work. Working both during my short vacation stints at different companies(Kalahari and Yola) and now at my first full time job at BSG in Cape Town, had lead me to ask so many damn questions!!!. In the beginning of my professional career I swear that every second sentence that left my mouth was appended with a large hanging question mark. Even to this day I am still asking questions. But I was never like this, and honestly it is still a bit difficult for me.

See being the 'smart one' , 'the chosen one', the 'messiah', the 'alpha and omega'- haha ok that's pushing it (I wasn't even thaaat smart really :P ) but yes, being 'that kid' meant that I had to know it all. It meant that people were always asking me questions and that meant that I always had to have answers. It was a hard job but it was a great feeling because again there's a feeling of that sense of value derived from others. But you see, asking questions for me meant ignorance, it meant darkness it meant I was weak. Because I had this belief that I had to know it all, there was so much pressure for me to know it all but in the real world as I have so harshly learned (over and over again) you do not and will not know it all at any point in time, it is just not practical it is just not possible. Thus you must ask questions, because ignorance is the basis of greatness, nothing is the foundation of all things, questions are the keys to understanding,  wisdom and knowledge. So Lesson 3 would be the fact that I don't know it all - and its completely ok to seek help and guidance, in fact it is highly encouraged to ask questions. Light exists on the basis that there is darkness to begin with.

Tied in strongly with #Lesson 3 is almighty Lesson 4 - It's ok to make mistakes. For as long as I can remember I have been greatly afraid to make mistakes, to take risks to delve into the unknown. And I'm not sure if its because I am mathematically/scientifically inclined or if its just because I am just too damn scared and risk-adverse. But growing up I had always  thrived for certainty, and the ridiculous stuff I was learning at school gave me that certainty. We were given problems that had model solutions. We were given equations and all the damn parts of the equation and our task was to simply calculate the answer. And that was supposed to be challenge?? really guys...really :| Is this supposed to develop top students in our schools?

I (speaking strictly for myself) was brought up in an academic system that had a large-ass safety net, that had a solution to every single problem, where for every test we were given, the teacher had a model solution in her first draw designed to perfection. And this is a problem, because I was not taught to think out the box, I was not encouraged to think differently, I was not forced to break the barriers of what makes sense and what is acceptable. I was taught to please, I was taught to follow orders, I was taught to submit to a higher mortal power. I mean in primary school we are given Religious Education, we are even given an outline of how we are supposed to think about the world - does that even make sense? ( Yes teaching it is one thing but enforcing it is the issue i am trying to tackle here...) A child straight from the womb, from the void, a fresh expression of the Tao, is told how to view the world and his/her origins, so that he knows what is 'right' and what is 'wrong', what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. "Because we older humans that have been in the system for so long know much more than you and can tell you a thing or two about 'truth'"..hmm really :|. Yes we need to help our kids establish themselves in the world but we need to let them think, we need to let them create, we need to let them live, explore, try fail and fuck up, we should encourage our children to fuck up every single day. Because that is were growth comes from. I look at my younger brother ( Isaac ) and I admire his creativity, his brilliance, his bravery, his unique thought processes. He draws, plays guitar, jams the piano, makes movies, designs buildings and countless more things and there is no right and wrong, he isn't simply doing what he has been taught to do, he's expressing himself and making countless mistakes along the way, but that is the true key to growth.Knowing that it is ok to make mistakes....

Finally one of the biggest illusions of all is the fact that the education system is always preparing us for what is coming next, we go to pre-school to prepare for primary school, we go to primary school to prepare for high school we go to high school to prepare for college, we go to college in order to prepare ourselves to be in the big bad world, and then bam reality hits at the tender age of about 22/23 and by then we should be ready :| But then the cycle starts all over again, and you realize that we live a life constantly preparing for some fantastic future event. So that by the time we are 65 we have retired and amassed all the wealth that we need and can finally enjoy life - buuut then you contract some disease and that's it :| so in essence we prepare ourselves to die, not to live. (adapted from Alan Watts - Playing the game of life).

Thus  Lesson 5 ladies and gentlemen - There are no certainties in life, there is no amount of preparation that can get you ready to live in this three dimensional reality. We do not know what tomorrow holds, so instead of constantly preparing for it and bracing ourselves for its impending yet asymptotic arrival, we should grab that bull by the horns and live it right now, we need to create our life, we need to live our life and unbind ourselves from the strong grasp of society, the invisible chains of suppression and control. Life cannot be learned in a book, taught in a class, written in a test, and no one and nothing can fully prepare you for your destiny.

T4aM