The Protagonist

“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts…” –William Shakespeare-

Different Stages

We are all the protagonists of our own lives playing out the part that we believe we were destined or forced or at own will wish to play. Many characters enter our story as our family and friends, some of them stay for a long time and have a big supporting role to play, but they all soon exit the stage forever, as will we sooner or later, and be sent off to God where we’ll be judged on our performance. According to Shakespeare we have different parts to play, from the part of an infant, to a school going child, to a lover and wife or husband, and so on and so forth. This is true, but I also think that we change our roles in terms of our own character and values, changing the way we ‘react’ towards life, changing how we feel in certain situations, and of course it is all a matter of choice, and a matter of adaptability, we adapt to our ever changing world, we change with it as it in turn changes again with us.

Changes

The last 4 years of my life I have changed into many different characters, not dramatically from one opposite to the other, but rather some things within me has changed, like the way I see people, from nearly always judgemental to completely open towards all people. And also judging behaviors and morals of other people, I still tend to do that but less often, I rather try to understand why certain things are done and decided by certain people than immediately see it as wrong because it conflicts with my own theories, I believe in the beauty of all people. I have always been care-free and stretched out my love to everyone around me whether they’ve hurt me or not, I still strive to be exactly that except some things have changed since the beginning of 2011.

 I’ve come to see things more clearly, I realized that even though you love a person does not mean you have to endure the suffering some of them intentionally release into your life, I love unconditionally, but I must learn to also look after my own emotions and self esteem as they are being affected. In summary, negative energies should be avoided if your own positive energy is not strong enough to overcome it, and if you walk away from someone as a negative force they are not good influence. Some of us may try to change people into what we think they should be, and I often try to do that to people I love, but this is not healthy, as I tend to give up my own life, put a pause in it, just to push another along to find later that they fell back and you missed out on many things in your own life. It is necessary to understand that sometimes this should happen for the love of another human being, but a balance is required, and a will to succeed in changing is required of the person being helped, otherwise you are wasting away.

I could never really explain this new change in me until I read ‘To the Lighthouse’ by Virginia Woolf. I found my character in another protagonist, Mrs. Ramsay, who represents best what is going through my mind. In chapter 8 Mrs. Ramsay inspects herself and why she cares so much for other people and inside yearning for someone to care for her, and realising that perhaps she gives so much of herself in order to receive praise and be remembered as the one everyone goes to:

“She went out of her way indeed to be friendly. Do you want stamps, do you want tobacco? Here’s a book you might like and so on. And after all – after all (here insensibly she drew herself together, physically, the sense of her own beauty becoming, as it did so seldom, present to her) – after all, she had not generally any difficulty in making people like her…She had been admired. She had been loved. She had entered rooms where mourners sat. Tears had flown in her presence. Men, and women too, letting go the multiplicity of things, had allowed themselves with her the relief of simplicity…when Mr. Carmichael shuffled past, just nodding to her question, with a book beneath his arm, in his yellow slippers, that she thought that she was suspected; and that all this desire of hers to give, to help, was vanity. For her own self-satisfaction was it that she wished so instinctively to help, to give, that people might say of her: ‘Oh Mrs. Ramsay! Dear Mrs. Ramsay…Mrs. Ramsay, of course!’ and need her and send for her and admire her? Was it not secretly this that she wanted, and therefore when Mr. Carmichael shrank away from her, as he did at this moment, making off to some corner where he did acrostics endlessly, she did not feel merely snubbed back in her instinct, but made aware of the pettiness of some part of her, and of human relations, how flawed they are, how despicable, how self-seeking, at their best.”

Even Lily suspects that perhaps Mrs. Ramsay pities people out of her own need:

“Why does she (Mrs. Ramsay) pity him? For that was the impression she gave, when she told him his letters were in the hall. Poor William Bankes, she seems to be saying, as if her own weariness had been partly pitying people, and the life in her, her resolve to live again, had been stirred by pity.”

Perhaps this is why I have this desire to give; perhaps it is just as Mrs. Ramsay suspects, self-seeking. This would mean that I’m a fraud, but it can’t be? Maybe we help because naturally we feel better about ourselves and we feel like better human beings, being selfish and only want to help oneself is not a life at all, is it? No, it simply cannot be, one cannot be selfish and seek out your own selfish ambitions to the sacrifice of others, it is better to sacrifice some of yourself to the benefit of others is it not? Where do we draw the line though? It is important to be mature and balanced about these sorts of things, and I would like to learn how, instinctively though I think I’ve reached that point where I naturally decide not to get in to deep. That is the change I see in myself, not to help others for my own benefit, only out of true unselfish love, and when it is having a negative effect on me it is time to retreat and look after myself, for falling in the same pit one cannot expect to pull the other out of it!

Along with changing how and when I should intervene in someone’s life I also came to see myself as separate from others, I realised that I have this need to completely devote myself to those in need because I yearned to be looked after myself, I did not want to be the strong one all the time, I want to be able to break down now and then and know I have a hand to pull me up. 

I've learned to allow myself that, to be human, to be hurt and to be angry when I need to be, of course not a long dragged out time, but as long as it’s necessary, but instead of relying on others to pull me through I’ve learned to deal with things on my own that will make me stronger. I am not misguided, I know that often we need people, we need them in our lives and around us, but we cannot rely on them to always be our safety net, we need to grow, we need to become stronger. To me the best therapy is talking to God, who always comes through in one way or another. The summary is that we need to see ourselves as separate from other people, and not depend our lives on them, love them completely and allow them to lean on you when they need to, do not push them away, simply learn how to ‘be’ without them:

“…she felt, more and more strongly, outside that eddy; or as a shade had fallen, and, robbed of colour, she saw things truly.”

There is something I recognise in myself that I should really focus on changing, and that is this idea that life can be so cruel, and if I were to die today or tomorrow then so be it, I don’t want to seek out death, I just don’t mind it, I have to learn to love life in such a way as to grab hold of it and fight to keep it, I strive to be rather something more like that, one cannot help however to feel like Mrs. Ramsay sometimes:

“…but for the most part, oddly enough, she must admit that she felt this thing that she called life terrible, hostile, and quick to pounce on you if you gave it a chance. There were the eternal problems: suffering; death; the poor. There was always a woman dying of cancer even here. And yet she had said to all these children: You shall go through with it.”

The Activist

I live in a third world country and I study its politics and I’m very much involved as an activist with the opposition party, along with that I’m always updated on current international politics/relations/affairs and news, I also constantly read autobiographies, stories and other biographies on people under suffering regimes (and this for pleasure), so it’s quite easy to become negative about these sorts of things, and it can bring you down, but I think the test lies in how you pick yourself up again because staying there is much too easy than finding your way back to being positive. 

Me, Lana, Olivia and Kristen

I find that listening to Jazz brings me up instantly, and meditation I find very helpful, exercise too, but most of all being with the people I love brings me so much joy and it’s easy to forget about the troubles of the world. 

Me and Skye

Sometimes I over socialise myself, because I need it now and then, but it also has its effect on me, because often many friends feel the same about life and of course as I do, I feel compelled to make them feel better. It’s sort of like pumping positive energy into someone while eating their negativity, they walk away inspired and you feel hopeless, but most of the time I feel good about helping others, it’s when I need help and no one is around or in no position to feed you positivity that gets to you the most. 

Chelsea and I

Since being back in Johannesburg I came to like being alone, I know this won’t last, eventually I’ll crave a social life again, but at this moment I feel extremely content and at peace to spend some time with myself. All my friends in Johannesburg are either back in their own countries (Australia, Kenya etc.) or busy with their own things, Johannesburg is a big place and we are all scattered, where in Port Elizabeth everyone was in the same place more or less, it’s tiny! I see people now and then but very rarely to be honest, I feel this is a time for me to recuperate, find my centre, reorganise my life and focus completely on my studies until I am finished and ready for the next part of my life. I only have a responsibility towards myself and my own healing:

“…now she need not think about anybody. She could be herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of – to think; well not even think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others.”

Mr. Bankes talks about life and relationships:

“It was in this sort of state that one asked oneself, what does one live for? Why, one asked oneself, does one take all these pains for the human race to go on? Is it so very desirable? ...friendships, even the best of them, are frail things. One drifts apart.”

My friend's, Louise and David, baby Neil

This is profound, but I have to differ from Mr. Bankes, although often life gets the better of me and existing doesn’t often make sense and I start thinking philosophical, which takes hoursJ, but in the end I always realise that living is really amazing and beautiful, there is so much to miss if I were to die young, I’ll miss the chance to fall in love again, and one day looking into the eyes of my own children, seeing how the world changes around me, that’s how I pick myself up again.  And on friendship, they definitely do fade, but you do find that rare gift sometimes where no matter where you are in the world your friendship thrives.

 I have many friendships like that, and when we’re together it’s like we’ve never been apart, those are the ones worth fighting for, not the ones that give up easily.

In the movie Tuck Everlasting Angus Tuck tells Winnie Foster how beautiful life is, how magnificent it is to see a plant grow, go through the seasonal changes, and one day eventually die to give way to more life, as all species do, and how awful it was for him as an immortal to never be able to change and grow older and die so his children can take his place and grow, it was like being a rock at the side of a riverbank. 

That was so beautiful and it made me think about how extraordinary life is, with all its changes, including the suffering and the joy, nothing and no one will be the same forever, and the next step or process or change is even more beautiful than the last, even death, our final change on earth is extraordinary as we give up our place to make space for new life.

Gone with the Wind

Another interesting part of the book, To the Lighthouse, is where Lily explains feelings and how we don’t really know each other or ourselves, there is a difference between what you put out in public and with friends than what is really going on in your mind. One is told not to be jealous and to always be kind and that this or that is the correct way to react to certain situations, like Scarlet in Gone With The Wind, she loved a man she could never have, but she had to pretend in front of his wife that she only cared for him as a friend, but to everyone else she was an open book, she expressed her real feelings instead of doing the socially acceptable thing and move away from her love to find another, a sad reality. We are taught by our parents and society to feel and act in a certain way but we often feel and want to act differently, so we have a battle inside our minds. I think though that the important thing is to be honest about how you feel, anger, jealousy, hatred, pride, hurt, and then to work hard to find the balance and to make it better:

“Such was the complexity of things. For what happened to her, especially staying with the Ramsays, was to be made to feel violently two opposite things at the same time; that’s what you feel, was one; that’s what I feel was another, and then they fought together in her mind, as now.”

Often when I have a bad day or had another night mare about my attack I feel angry and hopeless, depressed and not in the mood to be social at all, but rather hideaway and feel sorry for myself. At other times I feel completely strong, joyful and powerful like nothing can get me down, and sometimes I can feel both at the same time. This would be another explanation of Lily’s quote, either way we should still be honest about our feelings, accept them, and only in this way will they go away. I’ve read too many times in many books how it is important to not fight a feeling as society encourages, but rather accept it wholly and feel it completely, in this pure form of honesty you start to let it go. I have practiced it many times and it works, stubborn and difficult behaviour towards your own feelings will only make it grow stronger which would make you look weaker. Unfinished business like having a feeling or emotion you never dealt with will always come back to haunt you. Life is beautiful, including all our negative and positive emotions, we have to learn how to deal with them, how to feel them, accept them and then to let it go. I think the main reason why people struggle to let feelings and emotions go is because they make it a part of them, it is important to realise that we are not our emotions, they are separate, for example you are not sad you ‘feel’ sad, you are not your emotion you merely feel them going on in your head. Once we grasp this truth life becomes easier and we see the light again.

And all the lives we ever lived.

And all the lives to be,

Are full of trees and changing leaves.

Mariska Ras

Suffering with Purpose

Earlier this weekend that passed I sent one of my very close friends a speech of mine that I did a year ago. I realised the day I did the speech as well as from the reaction I got from my friend that it is quite inspiring to many people, I then sent it to a few other friends. I think that I am now ready to put it public and share it with more people who can learn and grow with me as we all continue on this path of life together. I often still have to remind myself about everything written in this speech, it's very easy to feel sorry for ourselves and give up, it's much harder to stand up and face life as it is and seek the truth in all of it, the meaning, and then to put it away and walk forward again. We are all affected by suffering but how we allow it to affect us is our decision. 

Certain things have changed in my life, and it will never be the same, I work hard to rid myself of the negative effects and work even harder to build upon the positive effects, I have to be selective in what should change and what shouldn't. For instance, the fact that I am more careful and more observant of my environment, not taking unnecessary risks in places where I don't feel secure is a positive change that this situation has brought into my life, and I want to keep it because it makes me better, but a change that I do not want to keep is the one where I don't see the good in people anymore, I started to believe that everyone is evil and bad. 

It is much better I have to say, I trust people more than I use to in the beginning, and I do believe in the good of all people but also that we are all capable of anything, it all comes down to choice, I am however more careful around people than I use to be, I use to be careless and naive. What I'm trying to say is that we should look at troubles in our lives as a lesson and an opportunity to take something wonderful from it and add it to WHO YOU ARE, and learn to overcome the negative aspects it brought into your life, the more we overcome the stronger we become!! 

I was asked to speak at an Inspirational Women's event in Port Elizabeth on Women's Day in August 2010, about a year ago. I didn't know what to say, but after some prayer this is what came out, and I hope this brings  some meaning in many people's lives.

Suffering with Purpose:

Molweni Manenekazi! ('Good evening ladys' in Xhosa)

Round about 2010 years ago, a man around the age of thirty stood before King Herod of Israel where he was condemned to death, even though no crime was found against him. The King gave him to the people who then tortured his body, he was mutilated in such a way that half of his flesh was lying on the ground. He was then put on his head a crown of thorns that pierced his already ripped, bloody skin. On top of his deeply wounded back, that was already continually pouring out blood from beatings with iron spiked whips; they put a big, heavy wooden cross to carry towards his fate. A body in such pain, yet they continued to nail his hands and feet to the cross. He was the last man to die of the three that was crucified that day, yet he was the only one who was beaten in such a way that he should have died before he was nailed to the cross! When he died a big thunderous roar irrupted from the heavens silencing all who watched. This was the Son of God, God’s most precious gift but He allowed him to be treated in an unthinkable way, this all for the biggest purpose of all, our salvation.

Earlier this year on the 14th of March I was walking on camp premises not far from here, it was early in the morning and I was praying and preparing spiritually for the day. A man came out from nowhere and robbed me before he strangled me with his arm and dragged me into the fields where he attempted to murder me if I did not cooperate. He raped me and tried to kill me again, this was the second time he failed, he then continued in trying to abduct me and there was a third murder attempt. Through the entire time I was very calm, fear never stayed longer than a few seconds at a time. I was completely taken over by a much higher power, and delivered from death, and miraculously released by my abductor.

Where was God when I was in pain?: “My precious child, I never left you during your time of trial. Where you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”

God never said that we will not experience trial, in fact His only Son was trialed many times and was put through the most horrendous suffering imaginable, the cross. Therefore our suffering is our own cross. I stand in front of you today a whole person, I’ve not been broken, nothing was taken from me, I am as happy as ever to be alive, and I still love my country. A mere hour of my life was spent in suffering but that was all, I am stronger than ever. Therefore not only did God protect me, the essence of me the one that is inside, my spirit, but He made me stronger than I've ever been. Every day is a blessing to me!

He said that we should cast our burdens on Him and He will take care of us (Matthew 11:28-30). I did, and He took care of me through other women in my life. I was able to heal and be completely restored through the support of wonderful friends back in Johannesburg and here in Port Elizabeth, and also the amazing women in my family! Without them it would have taken longer and it would have been harder. The one woman, who has ensured my healing, is my mother. This is a woman who has experienced many sufferings in her own life, yet she was the strongest pillar during mine. Refusing me to lie down she pulled me up and showed me the way, because she knew, suffering comes with purpose.

Her purpose in my life helped me to find the purpose of my suffering and that is to be the voice of the voiceless, to speak for those women who can’t, to stand for those who are beaten to the ground. To speak in a society where silence is favored, and women are ignored. Carry those who have no more will to live. I want to provide strength to the weak and be a light in all this darkness. I want my love and joy to overflow from my heart to yours.

As women, especially women of Africa, we have all experienced some form of suffering, whether it is death and loss, illness, abuse, discrimination, oppression, war, poverty, exhaustion, pain and loss of our children, and many other struggles we women often have to face. We should not lower to the ground; we must pick up our cross everyday for it has a purpose. It can be very difficult, but we will not be overcome by suffering, because suffering without purpose is torture! How do we find the strength?: “And be not grieved and depressed, for the joy of the Lord is your strength and stronghold.” (Nehemiah 8:9-11) This is how we are able to be happy, contagiously so, on a continent that is filled with pain and sadness to the outside. We have a key, something powerful that is beyond human understanding, and often inexplicable, it is experienced by those who accept it.

I want to urge every woman here, we are all either a mother, daughter, niece, an aunt, or simply a friend, let us reach out to each other, woman to woman. We need to strengthen each other, be the pillar to someone in their suffering and in the moments of sadness all women experience even years after trauma. If a friend is crying over past suffering, lie next to her and cry together as sisters, then laugh together as children and start over again, and do not stop, and in this way inspire others. They may cut our bodies, they may bomb our houses, and they may assault us or beat us, they can take away everything we have, but we will survive, we will be stronger and we will rejoice! Jabulani! As the 20,000 women who staged a March on the 9th of August 1956 against the Urban Area Act that marked our National Women’s Day said: YOU STRIKE A WOMAN, YOU STRIKE A ROCK!

Enkosi Manenekazi ('thank you ladys' in Xhosa)