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Bursting your bubble
01/04/2008 13:00 - (SA)
David Moseley
Living in this fine land of hours - and I write this right now at no finer a time as the sunrise hits the windward (could be leeward) slope of Table Mountain, sending the cable car-bound tourists into rapturous bouts of applause - you're almost forced to ask yourself questions. What colour Eina Ivy do I choose - should it match the roses or the geraniums?
If the guy selling hangers is in the middle of the road and the light is green and I run him over, will I go to jail or am I providing a public service? Is Mike Stofile really as retarded as he sounds, or did he just hit every branch of the anti-white tree when he fell out (please note, for similarly braindead/hyper-political readers, this a reference to the old 'ugly tree' joke and has nothing to do with monkeys)?
But more than that, you're forced to ask questions of yourself. What kind of person are you? Do you fight or do you run? Do you risk getting beaten in your driveway for your car and R30 in South Africa, or do you move to the UK where the kids just beat the hell out of you for fun.
Honestly, I'd prefer to get stabbed in the head for a few bucks rather than getting my teeth kicked out for no reason at all (have they grown back yet, Kev?). Naturally I'd prefer not to get stabbed, mugged, murdered or robbed at all, but it's going to happen - like this very weekend in fact. I'm not dead, so I wasn't murdered, just a simple robbing. Certainly the lesser of the world's evils.
Not a bad bloke
Every time I drive up to a stop street or a set of robots I ask myself whether I should shell out the loose change. Every time someone comes knocking at the front door I wonder whether I should aid their plight. And I wonder whether this has anything to do with the type of person you are.
Because I've been checking myself so often when confronted with cupped and open palms of late, I've started wondering if I'm actually a good bloke or just a selfish git who'd just as soon get on with his own life and not worry about the kid with snot plastered across his face who looks like he hasn't eaten in 17 days. I think it's a question everyone should ask of themselves.
I don't think I'm a bad bloke, but the fact that one of my best mates is apparently engaged and didn't let me know tells me otherwise. I don't kick puppies, but I'd just as soon kick one of those office-kitchen freaks who start telling you about their weekend when all you want is for them to get out of the way of the filter coffee machine. I really don't want polar bears to go extinct, but there are a few people we could definitely do without.
I've always thought that if you did the right thing it marked you out as a decent inhabitant of the world. The problem, I would imagine, with the world today - and not just South Africa - is that everyone would rather just float along in their own little bubble and not really worry about the bubbles popping alongside them.
Send your comments to David.
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