I came across these quotes from Morrissey today and thought that it probably reflects the reason why I never managed to laugh much during my life with the exception of a few fondly remembered occasions during my childhood when I did not yet know of the horrors that awaited me in the country of my birth, South Africa!! Hip hip hooraaa, Suid Afrika!
“Life is a very serious business for the simple reason that nobody dies laughing.” – Morrissey
Growing up
I grew up in a very abusive community where the best life skills taught by the teachers, parents and preachers of the time included lying to promote yourself, sledging people to gain psychological advantage, how to dominate through the use of emotional abuse, shifting blame to someone else, cheating to win [including the widespread use of performance drugs], pretending to be religious so that you may advance yourself financially amongst the other pretendees, justifying drinking habits with excuses, keeping your wife and kids under control with violence and threats thereto, killing animals for pleasure with justification from the bible, and so on and so on..
Needless to say, I also learnt that in order not to expose oneself to the unwavering abuse you have to pretend that you do not notice a thing and never, ever confront anyone with the truth about their behavior; it may cost you your life. It was also during my mid-teens that I started to think that I may have to look in other families, communities or countries for people that I might like and want to hang around with. I also started to develop suspicions that I may be quite a horrible human in the eyes of others. Hip hip hooraaa, Suid Afrika!
”As a teenager I found life to be inevitably disgusting, and I could see no humanity in the human race” - Morrissey
Relationships
Looking around for decent folk to hang with, it inevitably lead me into dating girls, initially from close to home and eventually to as far as England and Germany. Oh my, oh my, oh my! After about the thirtieth time I figured out that the behavior of the people in this family is by far worse than what it was back home, I started to get seriously worried. I reckon that the first twenty to thirty conversations with any new acquaintance is mostly lying and pretending and all the information given during that time will be twisted or just downright untrue, and all for self promotion.
I remember that the girl from one of my serious relationships showed up at my door one night in quite an emotional state. It turned out that her father was up to his old tricks again being very emotionally abusive towards every-one in the family. [no, the whole family was supposedly tea-total]. I did also further enquire about why they didn’t leave and the answer was that he apparently provided really well. [Her M3 and Z4 were birthday gifts]
I also remember that I hi-tailed out of that family when they became so viciously nasty and derogatory towards me because I wouldn’t participate in their religious ceremonies involving liquor likened to blood, that I couldn’t justify staying around anymore. By now my suspicions of being a horrible monster of a human have been confirmed several times over and guilt was setting in because I couldn’t change the way I felt and I developed a serious aversion to greed and money, especially in the prosperity mongering churches. Hip hip hooraaa, Suid Afrika!
“Again, I lay awake, and I cried because of waste.”- Morrissey
Thirty-something
My thirties were spent falling around from one abuse job to another after losing out in a BEE merger with a company that I helped build up for more than a decade. I spent all my free time trying to get back in a career I never had and completing two more degrees on top of the two I did decades ago, just to give myself some glimmer of a chance to eventually get a job, if then not such a great one.
By the time my late thirties came around the demise of the rainbow nation and its decent into anarchy was in full swing. Shifting blame took on a higher form of oppression with the practice of blaming apartheid for everything including the murderous tendencies of South African citizens, thieving, sodomy, stupidity, laziness, uselessness, drunkenness, incompetence to name but a few. If you have a white skin you are an automated racist, if you have a heavy Germanic accent you are a labeled racist, if you own something that someone else wants for free, you are an imperialist racist thief.
Killing and murder was at the order of the day and corruption can be considered the national sport. Raping babies is considered a cure for aids and the minister of health promoted beetroot for the same cure. The president of the country is a polygamist who promotes extra marital affairs with aids sufferers because he also has found a preventive measure for contracting aids. He called it showering.
By now I was carrying the burden of being an horrible human, a monster, the typical antichrist, a useless Neanderthal in the eyes of the world that can’t get a job, and a disgusting loath worthy racist in eyes of everyone that promote themselves because of the color of their skin. And even though everyone is exposed to the exact same horrors in South Africa every day people started to put me down as selfish, and a cheapskate for not wanting to get married and force more children into this world. I must grow up, they shouted as they spat their abusive venom. Hip hip hooraaa, Suid Afrika!
"I am still my teenage self. If you think that we all step through a door marked Adult, or that we sign a Grown-Up Document, you're quite wrong. We remain as we always were, and that, alas, is one of life's many nasty tricks." - Morrissey
It was also during this time that I started to pray to my beautiful God, you know the God of evolution, the One that caused the rhino to be such a gorgeous creature, not to mention his awesome work on birds. We’ll it was never my belief that he could affect anything materially, but I prayed simply because I wanted relief from all this disgustingness and I thought the best way to go is with one of those magical terminal diseases that are contracted ever so often by some lucky sod.
The diagnoses
It came swiftly, as if by magic. At the age of forty two I was told that my nerves are being eaten and I’ll probably be able to get out of here in about two to three years. I was quite emotional at first as the realization set in the relief started to lift my spirit. I walk around with a smile nowadays, and the reaction from people in public is quite horrific. I think the men think I’m trying to pick them up, and the woman think I want to jump them. Yes just imagine a smiling six foot four Neanderthal, hunched over, glaring from under a heavy brow at where the next attack is going to come from, and you’ll understand.
But it is in the spontaneous response of the little girls that bump into me from time to time that I find the greatest solace of my Gods presence. They have no prejudice, they have no money agenda, they do not see my ugliness, and do not understand their mothers panic when they speak to the huge friendly man. Hip hip hooraaa, Suid Afrika!
“It's so easy to laugh, It's so easy to hate, It takes guts to be gentle and kind” -Morrissey
Solace in dying
I am nearing forty five now and my once iron grip has faded almost completely. Some mornings my vision is glazed over and I can feel the last life is slowly draining out of me. And I can confirm that I might not be laughing, but I am smiling because it sure feels good to know, that soon I won’t have to face any arrogant South Africans anymore. Hip hip hooraaa, Suid Afrika!
“And make no mistake, my friend, your pointless life will end; but before you go, can you look at the truth?” - Morrissey
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