Skip to main content

If you're feeling down...

I think I got hit by a freight train today. Maybe not. But for whatever reason, I feel like an unmotivated bastard, sulking in my little corner with every little thing around me driving me to the brink of insanity. Life is usually a pretty decent bed of roses for me... I have a job, I have a car, I live in a beautiful country, my family and friends are safe and sound... no real reason to be unhappy. But fickle is the mind, and fickle is the game it plays on its host. It makes one feel like the world is about to end... when in reality, one ought to be thankful for everything.

I think of little Nkosi when I feel that way. Everyone has heroes. Plato looked up to Socrates, Tendulkar no doubt looked up to Sir Donald George Bradman. Little Nkosi Johnson is one of my heroes. While I was out there living a relatively comfortable life, this 'half the size of bloody nothing' little 11 year old changed the world for me. His message to the 13th International AIDS conference was a simple one and a powerful one. Help us. That little boy made Thabo Mbeki walk out while he was speaking.

How did he change my world? He showed me problems of far greater significance than my own little ones. In the grand scheme of things, this little boy went through so much in life by age 11. He lost a mum and sibling, met a father he never had, lived with HIV and AIDS, wore a suit and spoke to the world, made the President of South Africa walk out... That little fellow made me re-examine my world.

Life may throw a lemon my way every so often but I have been spared the large, sour nasty ones. Life isn't always that nice to others. Little Nkosi passed on in June of 2001; he was finally consumed by a little virus about 110 nanometres in size that lived with him all his life. He never got to grow up. He did leave a powerful message behind as a legacy. He is a South African after all... where else can we get a Sisulu, a Verwoerd, a Mandela and a Jonty Rhodes?

I actually feel a lot better after writing about him. Thank god for Nkosi Johnson. Someday, I hope his wishes come true. I shall stop complaining now.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Strange is one way to put it

Life has been a bit strange of late. I've gone from being incredibly happy to depressingly sad. I don't quite have the answers to why that is and I am not really sure I care to find out. I almost feel like its easier to give up than try and work towards some worthwhile conclusion to the problem. I love going on vacation. I hate coming back from there. Generally, when I get back from vacation, I go through a period of adjustment that starts with the lack of sleep (because I am usually not in the same time zone as my vacation destination was), self-pity and loathing at the state I left my place in, in my hurry to get out of here. It progresses to outright hatred of having to go back to work and dealing with the routine in general. I resolve to find better things to do in life, learn more, improve myself, lose weight etc etc. And eventually, I end up no further than where I was, where I've been for over 2 years. I can find any number of reasons and excuses to make this someone...

Being Happy

I wonder why there is so much unhappiness in the world sometimes. I'm currently reading R. K. Narayan's Waiting for the Mahatma. The world the protagonist in the book lives in is a rather harsh one. And he seems to be quite unhappy. What makes one unhappy? Some days, I ask myself what the heck I am doing here. Maybe its because I have worked for the same person for 4 years and the same company for over 6. This was supposed to be a short-term job that would bring bigger and better things. I don't know what it has brought. I mean, I am doing better things. I am doing bigger things. But I don't know if it makes me happy any more. I don't wake up with the anticipation of hurrying to work to learn something new and make the world a better place. I don't know why. I suppose I have the ability to do that to a certain extent. Is it the lack of ambition?  Reading back to some of the earliest posts on this blog, I gave myself the task of being happy. Like it is somethi...

How to make a good thing go bad quickly in tech

I haven't written a work related post in what seems like ages. I am currently living through the aftermath of a third M&A in my career. The company I currently work for is in its third incarnation - from a small tech startup 15 or so years ago to something that was sold to a large software company - one of those lumbering giants that have their hands in all kinds of technology driven fields - where they invested sufficiently in it to grow it in its current location - to now finally being acquired by an even larger technology company - one that its hands in all kinds of technology fields.I came along post the second phase but I have seen 2 other US tech company acquisitions, one that made me quit fast and the other that took me around the world but made me leave anyway. The difference from the previous take-over of the current place and this one is stark. While there was a lot of churn up top in the previous acquisition and differences in what you paid for benefits etc, for...