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nelson mandela bay's family lifestyle
author:
theunis pienaar
complicity
issue:
8, summer 2008
- taking part with another person - involvement as an accomplice in an act It was carefully written, in stark black ink, on a light blue piece of paper and carelessly stuck to the wall above his desk. One of those “notes” that are intended to reinforce something significant you've read and want to remember. “The strongest man is he who stands alone,” - and below these bold words, in slightly smaller print, Friedrich Nietzsche. Whether Nietzsche actually uttered these words, I cannot substantiate. What I do know: he spent the last nine years of his healthy life in a gypsy-like existence, aimlessly wandering between various French, Swiss, German and Italian cities. Then, in 1889, at age 44, he experienced a mental breakdown that left him an incomprehensible invalid, for the last eleven years of life on this earth. If Nietzsche did write this and made it a premise of his life, it seems it did not work out too well for him. Granted, relationships aren't always the simplest aspect of life. They're often messy, unpredictable and sometimes disappointing. I've had my fair share of relationships going sour, but “standing alone” just never seemed like a viable option. I met Adrian Nel when I was fifteen. He was fifty-five and manager of the men's section at a well-known local clothing retailer. Under his watchful eye I started out by sorting socks and folding jerseys, learning about sizes, styles and quality labels. In time, mister Nel graduated me to the sales floor – the elation after selling my first men's suit, is still fresh in my mind. I cannot say that Adrian was a friend as we would describe friends. We never shared an evening at the theatre or a gripping sporting match. He would, from time-to-time, over the few years that I knew him, invite me to join him for an evening at a restaurant. When time started running out for him, I did visit him in hospital, bringing him magazines and the fickle conversation of a teenager. He was, however, the first man who helped me realize, we are stronger when we have accomplices. He taught me that work is not about earning money, but something to be enjoyed and there is meaning to be found even in the simplest employment. He didn't teach this through a lecture, but through being with me. Looking back, Adrian Nel was probably the first of many accomplices who chose to take part in my life. Time and circumstances placed us on the same sales floor, but it was he who chose to be an accomplice of mine. As time progressed and my selling skills improved, I moved on to other retailers, spending Saturdays and holidays selling clothing and later furniture to people eager to consume, but nowhere was another Adrian Nel to be found. It was only when I re-entered society, coming back to Nelson Mandela Bay, after a stint as a sailor in Saldanah Bay and Simons Town that I stumbled across another accomplice. I've told you about him, when we talked about authenticity. I was in my early twenties and he was in his late fifties. He was supposed to teach me Hebrew and Aramaic, but ended up teaching me that there is nothing more valuable than “being who we are”, without excuse. In Bloemfontein, while immersed in post-graduate studies, Dolf Britz chose to become another of my accomplices. I was twenty-two and he was forty-two. He taught me history and life, that we cannot and should not want to control and that we should always challenge our own perceptions. Later in the small town of Bray, with its meager population of one hundred and twenty, three new accomplices awaited me. They played relay – as two left for greener pastures, a third retired from a life of exhausting work, to distil lemon brandy and farm sheep on cattle land. Whatever they thought they were doing in that Thirstland – teaching, farming or creating illegal liquor - they were complicit to my life and growth and ability to cope with responsibilities far beyond my own reach. They helped me to challenge myself and life and tradition. They showed me new ways of understanding people and situations. They made me more than I would ever have been, had I chosen “to stand alone”. Ironically, the man who carefully wrote down those stark black words on the little piece of blue paper never became my accomplice. We shared a bedroom for more than ten years, many meals, evenings playing board games and watching television. We went on holiday together and on hikes, even once a canoe-trip. He was my brother, still is. Married now, like me, with his own children and his own interesting life on another continent – and I hope with his own accomplices. Time spent together does not make accomplices. Neither do family-ties. They find us – choose us. I would hope, as they have been to me that I have been to them - that somehow, despite them mostly being twenty or forty years my senior, it was never a one-way street. That I was as much an accomplice to them, as they to me – filling something in their lives that only a younger person can, as we took part in each other's lives. This is the nature of complicity. It is reciprocal, shared. It anchors us so that we do not aimlessly wander from one moment to the next, but grow and enjoy and at least feel as if we are making some sense of that which is this life. I realize that we merely allow accomplices into our lives, that we stumble upon them – this is my experience, anyway – but I would highly recommend you do allow them into your existence, should such a rare opportunity present itself. It has sustained me and changed me – and eventually bestowed upon me the fabulous joy of being to others, what they have been to me, so that those “others” can now be to me, what I was once to them. In my opinion this complicity has contributed to my completion and a life that has some meaning.
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