Escapism

From Wikipedia: "Escapism is mental diversion by means of entertainment or recreation, as an "escape" from the perceived unpleasant or banal aspects of daily life. It can also be used as a term to define the actions people take to help relieve persisting feelings of depression or general sadness."

Now that definition wasn't completely satisfactory for me, so I decided to further delve into the depth of the internet to find one that was.

From Urban Dictionary:

Escapism
	An addiction to doing things that make you forget the world. Someone that is a victim of escapism is often found in self denial about things in life, becuase they find it unbearable to face the world. A victim of escapism usually has bad grades, daydreams way to often and has major mood swings. They also have trust issues and are secretly wishing they were dead.

Haha, now that is a lot more acceptable, albeit slightly sarcastic and amiable. The key word, in my opinion (which I guess defines a blog, the author's opinion) is "addiction". I've had a few conversations with close friends on exactly what addiction is. If you think about it, addiction is relative. For a gamer, a few hours a day playing a game you love is completely acceptable but maybe for someone who doesn't recreationally enjoy playing games, this might seem like an addiction. But isn't that relative to the guy who trains a few hours at gym each day. Or the girl who sits in the park, after her high school classes, reading her novel. They are habits relative to each person. Why not do something you enjoy, right? Of course then the argument is brought forward that an addiction is only labeled as such when a line is crossed and the addiction has a negative affect on a persons behaviour. 

The reason I wanted to talk about escapism and addiction is because I'm trying to find a way to increase my daily motivation to do what I do. I've been working a lot recently, at a small restaurant near to my apartment, namely Banana Jam Cafe. Don't get me wrong, the work is great, but I've also signed up with Intec College, through which I'm studying Mathematics, Economics and Accounting, in order to [hopefully] get into UCT (University of Cape Town) next year. After a long days work I get home, take a few breaths, and ultimately end up spending the rest of my evening playing games. This leaves little to no time for studies. However if I work less, I have less money to afford to study. It's a vicious circle of priorities.

Never mind the fact that I haven't been able to sleep in days due to love, or the lack-of. Sigh. Yes, I did recently feel the sting of the loss of a loved one through a break up. Another relationship dying to the complications of a long distance relationship. I did warn myself before. I knew the risks. And yet the passion for another human being seems to overwhelm the brain and any form of logic. This might be another reason I seem to be swaying towards this habit of escapism recently.

Discovered an awesome, highly literate, self empowered "rapper". I use inverted commas because I think he's more of a poet than a rapper, but I guess general consensus might suggest a rapper is more suitable. His stage name is Macklemore. Birth name is Ben Haggerty. He is not signed by any big brand music label. He created everything he has released with his own production team. He's done it solo folks. I find this very impressive, especially in the modern era where everyone strives to find a label.

He has some serious work, and some... not so serious work. His ironic single, "Thrift Shop" is huge, and has over 100 million views on youtube.

He does do a lot of serious stuff that really seems to get to me. I love the pride for the sport he loves and the way he takes exerts from live commentary from the games and uses them in the song.

My favourite however is a song entitled "Wing$". You can see with the title that he seems to be implying something about commercialism. The songs meaning is quite intricate and I'll allow you to decide for yourself what he is trying to get across to the listeners. I love it though.

There was a point to this blog before I started writing it. Now I've forgotten. Maybe in a few days when I'm feeling more able I'll get back to you.

Mike

There and back again

You thought I forgot about this didn't you!

I don't really know who I'm talking to when I say "You" but I guess the ambiguity is what makes it that much easier to offload anything on the mind, with no restrictions and/or limitations.

The last time I made a post here was somewhere in August last year (2012). I haven't actually read what I posted all those months ago because six months ago I was in a very different space, both physically and emotionally, and I guess even a bit spiritually. So, if I were to go ahead and read what I wrote(typed?) back then, I'd be scared that it may influence anything I have to say today, now. Which would be unfortunate because it wouldn't be 100% sincere. So instead I'm literally going to ramble about whatever crosses my mind.

Ok, let's start with the relatively important milestones. 

I'm back in South Africa. 

I finished work in New York in late September and decided to spend some time with family after living on another continent for almost a year. So I headed to Durban to visit my loving mother, and by pure chance the dates coincided with my aunt, uncle and cousins' visit to South Africa (they immigrated to Australia several years ago and I hardly ever see them, once every few years would be accurate) so it was awesome spending some family time with them. Being away for so long makes one appreciate family that much more. I have to constantly remind myself to be more appreciative of my family and show them on a regular basis just how much I love them. 

I got my learners license while I was in Durban! FINALLY. Probably about six years later than most people I went to school with, but it was probably due to the fact that I was always slightly apathetic about the whole deal - my reasoning being that if I didn't own a car, and wasn't going to own one soon, then why do I need to know how to drive it? But that changed when I realised I could simply "borrow" my friends'/parents' cars. So at the moment I've signed up for driving lessons and hopefully within the next month or two I'll be a certified driver. I am excite.

After Durban (October) I decided to travel around South Africa a little, visiting a few old friends, and some relatively more recent ones. I went from Durban back to Joburg, followed by a stint in Pretoria, back to Joburg, then Cape Town, BACK to Joburg and finally ending back in Durban (December). While in Durban I decided I'd pick up a "holiday" job while visiting family, bar-tending at the local night club (entitled XS NiteClub in Umhlanga). This was a very.. interesting experience, to say the least. It was definitely not as financially prosperous as I had hoped it would be, but eye opening nevertheless. Twas awesome to have Christmas with both parents though, with my dad moving to Durban in December as well (another coincidence, I know right?). I'm trying to think of the last time I spent Christmas with both my parents on the same day and I can't remember any specific year since the divorce, which is over ten years back.

Now I skipped past something fairly important. In fact I should probably say some one, because when/if she reads this at a later stage she might slap me for calling her "something". When I mentioned that "stint in Pretoria" I was actually visiting a very old school friend, and at his 21st, I happened to meet someone. And yes, when I say "meet someone" I mean MEET someone. She's pretty amazing, but when I looked back on previous posts I noticed I spent way too much time going on and on about how much I was in love and how supposedly perfect my girlfriend was. Not that I don't feel the same way, but no one really wants to read that, other than her and me. But yes, her name is Bee - short for Bongiwe Nhlangulela, and she's awesome. Beautiful. Amazing. Sexy. Cute. Funny. Breath taking. She makes me very happy and I hope one day she can see herself the way I see her. This was in early November, but by chance she happened to be in Durban a lot of the time I was there too, so we got to spend a lot of time together, with the family too. We're coming up on three months. AND it's her birthday tomorrow - wonder if she thought I'd remember? 

So - back to the main story here. After Durban, I moved back to Cape Town in January. It's been almost two years since I lived here, so it's fairly familiar to me, considering I'm staying in the same area I lived before. I'm sharing a flat with two of my friends (that only move in in the next week or two) but I'm feeling really excited about the next year and what's to come. I found a job fairly quickly, working as a waiter at Banana Jam Cafe just down the road. It's a less-than-10-minute walk, so I'm very happy that I got so lucky with it, the vibe, ambiance, staff and people in general are very chilled, after my first day I already dig the job. Of course it's only second priority because I also have a new development as far as my studies go. I'm not sure if anyone remembers - or if I did even mention in my blog - but I applied to UCT (The University of Cape Town) last year. Well I got my application back (late last year) and to my disappointment found that I had been denied entrance due to low matric marks. So what I'm doing this year is basically "re-doing" matric, with INTEC College, I guess you could call it a bridging course. This was as per the advice of multiple parties, including UCT. If all goes to plan, I will get good enough marks come the end of the year, re-apply to UCT, and get in this time. So as I said, work is second priority and studying is first, but I still need the moola to keep me going (rent, water/elec, food, internet, strippers, etc).

So yeah, that's the past six months in a relatively short synopsis. Of course I'm sure more interesting events did occur but I can't exactly recall what happened on a day to day basis.

Watched quite a few movies recently. Les Miserables was spectacular, don't miss it. Flight was also very sensational, especially the first twenty minutes, cinematography was mind-blowing.

I'll leave you on a humourous note. Some funny pictures (for the entertainment aspect of this blog!) and The Lonely Island (Jizz in my pants, I just had sex, Shy Ronnie, etc) posted a new video. #YOLO

Au revoir!