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SUN
INDEPENT (Sunday Despatches) column. WEEK ENDING AUGUST 27
Woke
up one morning recently, clear-eyed and clear-headed. This unfamiliar
condition made it impossible for me to face the world, or even get
back to sleep.
"It's
time to take stock of life," I told myself.
But
Myself, who wasn't listening, said:
"It's
time to get away from it all. Back to basics. To be at peace with
Nature, and receptive to deep thoughts and great ideas. Let's get the
hell out of here."
I
liked what Myself said, even if I say so myself. I visualised Myself
sitting in solitude beside some silent pond in the woods, pumping out
philosophy like Thoreau and Billy-o.
But
life isn't that simple. Having arrived on a remote shore, I looked up
at the Tsitsikama Forest clinging in the mist to the cliffs above,
and asked: "Must we really go up there?"
"Yes",
chorussed my merciless offspring, slipping another rock into my
backpack. It was already so heavy that when I looked upwards I fell
over backwards. This became a matter of concern, if not to others,
to Myself, for on the Otter Trail one spends half the time staring in
horror at the horizon - which is straight above one's head.
Nevertheless
the exertion in the clammy confines of the forest certainly takes
one's self out of one's self, as I myself soon discovered. The
thought process becomes as sharp as the rocks one staggers over. The
thoughts themselves grow as strong, precise and regular as the
tree-trunks on which one pulls oneself up the ravines.
And
do you know what those thoughts are? Those great thoughts nurtured in
solitude in the depths of the Tsitsikama Forest? If I may speak for
Myself, the first thought is about the next step up. The second
thought is about the next step up. Then the next step up. And the
next, and. . .
"It's
rather like politics in the New South Africa," I said to myself.
But Myself wasn't listening again. He was thinking about the next
step down. And the next. And the next.
We
had one great thought in common: - the next thousand steps down are,
strangely, more painful than the next thousand steps up. Now there is
a thought of much gravity!
Though
scrambling over the Otter Trail does produce deep thought -
especially as one reaches the bottom of a seemingly bottomless ravine
- the forest trail is not conducive to great ideas.
So,
as soon as it was over, I myself flew directly to the peace and wild
inspiration of the Kruger National Park.
In
the Game Reserve one is, at last, blissfully cut off from physical
exertion and the hurly-burly of civilisation - apart from an
occasional Mozambican migrant or a gun-runner flitting between the
impala and lion.
One
stares at sunsets and gazes idly at the flames which scorch what was
meant to be dinner. One watches, passively, the immutable laws of
life at play. One's mind opens to the great ideas of the universe.
Or
so it should be. Speaking for Myself, I could not concentrate for a
single minute on the greater issues and conundrums of our time. These
damn leopards kept running across the tarmac in front of our car.
They did it wherever we went, at disturbingly unpredictable
intervals. Each would appear, seemingly from nowhere, interrupting
our thoughts and our progress. Then - before I could say to Myself,
"There's another damn leopard", or "Out damned spot,"
- it would vanish into the undergrowth.
A
check with my passengers confirmed these were not merely spots before
the eyes. So I complained to a warden that leopard-spotting (hah!)
was becoming as prevalent as zebra-crossings. So much so, that one
could no longer think properly in the Park.
Ironically,
it was only when I got back to Gauteng and civilisation (not
necessarily the same thing) that I was able to identify at least one
of the great ideas - one of the great issues - facing the New South
Africa.
I
found it on the front page of last week's Sunday
Independent.
Archbishop
Desmond Tutu doesn't like Nelson Mandela's taste in casual shirts -
and he's told him so, the Anglican diocesan council of Cape Town was
informed.
"It's
good that this matter has at last been courageously aired," I
said to Myself - who pointed to two other items in last week's
paper. If you are in search of peace then look no further
than your clothes, advised the
headline on Dali Tambo's column. And Robert Kirby fearlessly took on
half the nation on the issue of pornographic pictures of people - or
parts of people - wearing no clothes.
Clothes
- their political correctness, their presence and absence,
cross-dressing, and the role of fashion in stabilising the New South
Africa - is so grave and gigantic an issue that I must deal with it
in future columns. But only if I can get away for several weeks in
order to pluck up the nerve and to ponder the subject in solitude
with myself. |
