Tag Archives: philosophy

My Claudia Schiffer

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In the movie Love Actually, Daniel is mourning the death of his wife, Joanna. To mask his sadness, he talks about how he would not want anyone to be his date for his wife’s funeral, unless it was Claudia Schiffer.

As the movie progresses, he mentions Claudia Schiffer a few more times, and it becomes evident that Claudia Schiffer would be, besides his beloved Joanna, the person he would most like to be with. She is his fantasy girl.

As it works in fantasy movies, he laters bumps into Claudia. For real. But – in the movie she does not play herself. She plays Carol. One of his stepson Sam’s school friends’ mother. Obviously she is not Claudia Schiffer in terms of the story, but there is an immediate attraction between Carol and Daniel.

Why am I telling you all this? Because Carol is NOT Claudia Schiffer. And she is NOT supposed to resemble Claudia Schiffer in person but Daniel’s Claudia Schiffer. Daniel’s fantasy girl. All of us have our fantasy Claudia Schiffer or our own Brad Pitt or Elizabeth Taylor in her youth, even if he has a beer belly, or she has more wrinkles than a Shar-pei, he or she is out there somewhere, for love is blind…

I for Incapacity

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I for Incapacity

A short story by Kobus Myburgh

“Ahhhhh…” Danny rubs the tense muscles in his neck as he walks on his way to work. Where does this ache come from? And why is he feeling so dizzy? Did he eat something funny? The shapes of the trees around him begin to bleed into each other; dark, oozing and green. The palisades start to look like devil forks, beckoning him to come closer. The faces of people around him seem to laugh at him, their teeth long and sharp. And those eyes, oh so empty… Danny falls.

…4 months later…

The pain is becoming more unbearable every day. Why does everybody just stare at him? Why don’t they do something about it? The faces around his bed seem to pity him. Their eyes are wide and sometimes teary. What is going on? Oh! The pain! “Please! I need something for the pain!” his soul scolds the bystanders.

It has been four months since he last moved on his own. Four months since he last uttered a single word. While his eyes were usually closed, his mom often opened them in hope that he can see what is going on around him. His large dark brown eyes were wide open now, howling in pain and fear, dry like the Sahara. It is not only the pain of his aching muscles, but also the pain of the humiliation of being totally incapacitated. He needed someone to wash him, to turn him to prevent bed sores; to feed him and take care of his bodily wastes.

Danny would’ve cried if he still knew how to. He would’ve cried if he still had tears left. No-one seems to know that he is awake and can hear everything they say.

“Still no improvement,” says the one he knew as Father Simon. “I wonder if he will ever wake up.” A high pitched voice out of his range of sight, vaguely familiar, speaks faintly, unintelligible over the rustle of the autumn leaves outside his open window, as if praying to her ancestors. Someone bends over him, stethoscope in hand. Why don’t they warm the darned thing before pressing it against his already nitrogen-fuelled heart?

Mama Jane cries in a wailing tone. Oh, she used to be so brave and strong, for her eldest son’s sake. She didn’t want him to lose hope of ever recovering. Now it seems she has given up, shown by not only in the siren-like anguish in her voice, but also her bent back as she looks down onto him when the two of them are alone in the tiny room.

Danny lies flat on his back, on his rusty spring mattress lain on a high base made of bricks. If he could speak he’d tell them that he didn’t believe in the age-old beliefs of the Tokoloshe. Can you imagine a man with only one arm and leg and the face of an old man on the body of a boy? Ridiculous!

“The Tokoloshe can not reach you now.” Mama Jane said one day, absolutely certain that the evil spirit was responsible for her son’s condition. In spite of his disbelief, Danny sometimes wondered about the Tokoloshe, with the big evil spirit of the devil himself encaged in that small body. He was threatened constantly as a child that the Tokoloshe will make him ill if he was naughty. Does it really exist? Was it responsible for what he is going through now? Was his modern lifestyle in which he openly denies the existence of the creature the cause of why he is bedridden? Are his sins finally catching up with him?

A single tear runs out of the corner of his left eye. He can feel it trickle down his temple, cold and clammy; seemingly emotionless.

“Danny,” his mother said. “You have a visitor. He says he is an old friend of yours, and his name is James. He said he wants to speak to you alone. I didn’t know you had any white friends?” If Danny had the ability to change his facial expression, he would’ve seemed confused. He had very few white friends and definitely not one who goes by the name of James. If Danny could speak, he would’ve shooed the visitor away. James took a seat beside him, and starts to talk.

“Danny, I know you can see me from the corner of your eye, and that you can hear me. I know that you are fully aware of what is going on around you, as long as it is in your range of vision. I also believe that you have probably heard your family talking that you will never speak or move again.”

James stood up, and turns Danny’s head sideways. Their eyes meet and he saw fire in James’s eyes, flaming so intense, like two volcanoes about to erupt. Did the Tokoloshe manifest itself in this stranger?

“I also know that you are in pain that is getting gradually worse every day. I also know that, by now, you can move your eyelids if you concentrate. I also know that you are asking all kinds of questions about what happened to you. I may be able to answer some of those questions for you, but only if you agree to answer a few of my own by blinking once for ‘yes’, twice for ‘no’. Ready?”

…a long silence follows as Danny seemingly concentrates on blinking his eyes…

*blink*

“Good! You initially thought I may be a doctor here to help you, but you don\’t think so anymore, do you? Do you know who I really am?”

“I didn’t think so. Danny, I know exactly when your illness started, but I was not there. I know the exact day that you collapsed. I know the exact day your ability to move your eyelids returned, even though you didn’t know until 30 seconds ago that you could do that. I know exactly how your symptoms started, and I know what brought it on. Do you know what happened, Danny?”

“I might have been a bit naive to think that you would know. You probably think you are cursed, and even that I am a manifestation of some evil spirit or angry ancestor. Do you have any idea why you think you may be cursed?”

“Four months ago to the day, you broke into a vehicle, caused a lot of damage and stole a lot of what was in the vehicle. Do you remember that?”

Danny became pale, but doesn’t blink. The stranger seemed to notice the flow of blood from his face, and gets a sardonic grin on his face.

“I am the owner of the vehicle you broke into. The vehicle was armed with a nerve-impairing gas that slowly infiltrates your body and incapacitates you within 12 hours – growing on you like a virus, engulfing you, making you gradually weaker and dizzy until you finally collapse. Although there is no antidote, the effect of the gas works out in six months; only two more months to go. But with this bit of good news comes some bad news: the pain will become worse and worse. Do you know why?”

*blink* *blink*

“The pain is becoming worse as your sense of feeling returns. The gas has affected your nervous system, and hence your ability to have any feeling. You were in excruciating pain over the last four months; you just didn’t know it, due to paralysis. Over the next two months, your nervous functions will return to normal and with it your feeling, and at the same time the pain will become less.”

With that, James stood up, smiled at Danny, and walked out of the room. As Mama Jane came back into the room, Danny blinked and faintly smiled at her.

The Devil in us all

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Disclaimer: If you have not seen the movie Devils Advocate yet, and want to, do not continue reading this post until you have seen the movie, as this post will be a plot spoiler. Since this movie is over 25 years old already (1997) I felt it safe to post the punch line here, in an attempt to explain my post.

Disclaimer 2022: OK, so I realize that this article, when written, was quite heavy on religious references. I have since decided to keep religious references for the most part out of my posts. The beliefs I mention here are mostly still relevant to me today, but may not be to you. If you disagree, scroll past this article now.

While some people believe that the devil is your own ego (and I am a partial believer in that), this post is not dealing in its entirety about that. What this post addresses mainly is the sin of vanity, which is actually feeding your ego, so it is actually only a subset of this egotistic devil inside us.

I recently saw the movie Devils Advocate again, and in this movie, Al Pacino (the devil) claims that vanity is his favorite sin. This is because humans are so easily overcome by their own vanity. In the movie, Keanu Reeves (Kevin Lomax, the son of the devil) is a hot-shot attorney with a 64-0 case win history. He only took prosecution cases in the past where he must present the evidence to put the defendant away, but in his latest case, he was attempting to set the defendant free.

At one critical stage during the case, he leaves for the bathroom, and experiences a strange phenomenon (you did read the disclaimer, right?), where he lives into the future which we as the viewer see as about 90% of the movie, although in the life of Lomax it is but a split second. Once he is out of this split second, he knows exactly what will happen if he wins this case for the defendant, so he opts out of this case, regardless of the consequences to his career, only to be tricked again by the devil minutes later.

Satan hammers on our own vanity hundreds of times per day, and this movie shows this so beautifully. Humans will often do everything to boost their own ego by believing things like I am the greatest or I am so good or I am God or I am worse than Satan. By the way, have you ever realized that God detests that humans pretending to be God themselves, or even better than others? But Satan flourishes on humans calling themselves the devil or better than others? This is again to feed your vanity! You are GOOD! Just as good as me, or even better than me! You are better than the Prince of Darkness (no, not Eskom…)! You are my equal! Humans love this! This should give you an idea that Satan can not be a God! No God will allow his followers to be his equal, and no God will like his followers to put them higher than another fellow human being who were created equally by God, in the image of God!

Satan loves to make you feel good about yourself, usually at the cost of others. Your ego tells you that you are good, that you are better than others. Your ego is indeed the devil, because it is the devil that feeds you this information through your vanity. Whether you are better at math than the next door neighbor, or whether you have won 64 court cases and lost none, the ego is responsible for the feelings of superiority you experience. The devil is in you. Fight him.

I will never love again! Right!

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I can only feel sorry for people who say I will never trust anyone enough again to love them, because I have been hurt too many times (or something similar).

My motto in this situation is to deal with it, and deal with it decisively. There is absolutely nothing wrong with mourning over the loss of someone special after a breakup. You may even call that person names (only in your mind, of course, if you wish to remain friends with that person). Mourn, deal, get over it, and move on. Do not make your suffering more than what is absolutely necessary.

People having this attitude also often feel that they cannot move back to being friends with the person they were with after the breakup. Nonsense. The key is to deal with your loss and grief before attempting a friendship. By dealing with it, getting over it, and then re-establishing a friendship, you may actually be surprised at the possible benefits of being mature about it all:

  • Sharing good times with someone you really care about, by giving up a small part of that person (the lovers part of the relationship) and focusing on all the other special things about that person.
  • Being the eternal optimist, I also believe that there might be a slight chance of getting that person back again, but that would depend on the situation, and how you deal with it. But don’t wait too long for that person — life goes on, friend! Date others. Have fun. If you are lucky, you may actually be happy with someone else, or maybe get that person back. Don’t live in the past too long, but no harm in being patient for a bit.

So, next time you hear someone say those words, maybe something I said here will hit home.

Pots and lids

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When it comes to love, there is an old expression that states that every pot has its lid. We may call this the hypothesis. Well, you see, I have a problem with that philosophy. Here is my reasoning:

If we all believe that we are pots who has a lid out there somewhere, it means that all of us, men and women, are pots. This means that there are no lids out there. That makes sense, right? We are all pots, and therefor there are no lids. So – if you want to believe my philosophy, you will immediately disprove the hypothesis.

But – just to prove that I am actually an optimist and that love does exist, I will take this philosophy of mine a step further and explain that the hypothesis is indeed false, but that my philosophy has a silver lining – you just need to look carefully.

If you take it as the truth that we are all pots, you may fall into despair. But here is the thing! We are all pots, but some of us are small, some are medium, and some are large. When we meet our soulmate out there, we are simply two different sized pots getting together, and we fit snugly into each other. In other words, we become as one.

Now – after reading that explanation, I manage to explain everything except one little thing: of what use are two pots inside each other? You cannot cook with them. You cannot do ANYTHING decent with them in that state, except maybe neatly store them away in your cupboard. If you see this cupboard as your life, you can see yourselves as a unit when you are together in the cupboard, protecting your life together, and that you strengthen each other emotionally.

But – where is the real use? Here. When a cook cooks a scrumptious meal, he takes out both pots, and use them each for their individual purposes. That symbolizes our own unique strengths and purposes. As man and woman (or whatever you identify as) we all have our unique strengths, weaknesses and limitations. Together we cook up a symphony, and when we are done with our masterpiece, we go back to being snugly together in the cupboard.

You may feel that a cook can sometimes not cook something spectacular without a lid on the pot. Yes, you are absolutely right. But, I have already said that there are no lids in the world of romantic love. So, where do you get lids? Lids are your friends, children, family and pets. Abracadabra, the picture is complete. (I think…)