Category: Mind Space

When I was a kid my only goal was to leave home and live somewhere far away. Not that I hated my family. But we were subjected to a lot of hard labour and the holidays, which are supposed to be the best time for most kids, were the worst for us. December was the…

I am typing this on my phone at about 20 000 feet, staring out the window at the sea below… we have maybe 15 minutes before we hit the tarmac at Cape Town International Airport. A young woman next to me keeps pressing her phone against the window trying to capture the view. I am…

I recently came across a stat that stopped me mid-scroll. People in their first year of retirement have a 40% higher chance of getting a stroke or heart attack than people who are still working. That’s not a small number. And it made me wonder… what exactly happens to a person when they stop having…

It’s surprisingly easy to make enemies. I use the word loosely here… I mean people who simply end up disliking you. And I’m becoming more convinced that it doesn’t take much. One subtle way this happens, one most of us probably never notice in ourselves, is the need to always correct people. To always prove…

Imagine you woke up in the middle of an indigenous tribe deep in the Amazon. You don’t speak their language. You don’t know what they eat, how they get promoted, or what education even means to them. Is it learning how to hunt? Learning guerrilla warfare to invade neighbouring tribes? I don’t believe how we…

I almost died yesterday. Well, it’s hard to say whether I would have died or not, but I was held at gunpoint, and guns kill, so I think that first line is a fair assessment. The strange thing is that this happened on my last night in Cape Town, just before heading home to the…

I first came across gambling at a very young age: in my village on Boxing Day, and even at school. Back then, I didn’t think it was a big deal. Every 26th of December, my village hosted its own version of the Durban July – a horse racing event that drew hundreds from nearby villages.…

Have you ever been stuck in a routine you didn’t want to be part of? Not influencer skincare routines, but one you dread because you feel like you don’t know what else to do. For eight months, my life was a cycle: wake up, scour job sites, send out applications, and wait. And you know…

I once read a quote from the late Robert A. Heinlein that changed my perspective. It’s from his 1973 novel Time Enough for Love, spoken by the central figure, Lazarus Long: “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a…

I hated mathematics growing up. I’m tempted to write a long list of valid reasons (at least to me) why this was the case. But the honest truth is that I sucked at it. Case closed. I’d surprise myself if I got anything above 30%. Even my mother would look at my report card and…