Indiewood repost – Seth Godin’s ‘Accepting false limits’

I love Seth Godin, I find much of what he writes parallels my own thoughts. I had to repost this here because it follows so well my train of thought from my last post on finding your inner source of original creativity. I hope he will not mind. I like how he manages to compress his thoughts into just the right size. I apologize for how long my posts are, this is something I need to tackle soon in my own writing.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/03/accepting-false-limits.html

Accepting false limits

I will never be able to dunk a basketball.

This is beyond discussion.

Imagine, though, a co-worker who says, “I’ll never be able to use a knife and fork. No, I have to use my hands.”

Or a colleague who says, “I can’t possibly learn Chinese. I’m not smart enough.”

This is a mystery to me. A billion people have learned Chinese, and the failure rate for new kids is close to zero. If a well functioning adult puts in sufficient time and the effort, she”ll succeed.

The key to this disconnect is the unspoken part about time and effort and fear. I agree that you will never ship that product or close that sale or invent that device unless you put in the time and put in the effort and overcome the fear. But I don’t accept for a minute that there’s some sort of natural limit on your ability to do just about anything that involves creating and selling ideas.

This attitude gets me in trouble sometimes. Perhaps I shouldn’t be pushing people who want something but have been taught not to push themselves. Somewhere along the way, it seems, I forgot that it’s none of my business if people choose to accept what they’ve got, to forget their dreams and to not seek to help those around them achieve what matters to them.

Not sure if you’ll forgive me, but no, I’m not going to believe that only a few people are permitted to be gatekeepers or creators or generous leaders. I have no intention of apologizing for believing in people, for insisting that we all use this moment and these assets to create some art and improve the world around us.

To do anything less than that is a crime.

Follow the white rabbit – find your voice

The white rabbit is many things to many people, Lewis Caroll invented him, Jefferson Airplane wrote a song about him, and one more modern reference most people will remember is in The Matrix.

I’ve read many of interpretations of who and what Lewis Caroll’s White Rabbit is but I’m simply going to talk about the white rabbit inside of you that can, if you follow it, lead you down the rabbit hole and take you to Wonderland.

In both Alice in Wonderland and The Matrix we find two worlds… we have the world of limitations, of social conditioning, adult rationality and logic (perhaps sometimes the most irrational and illogical kind), of rules that shape and conform what we hear, see, smell, feel and experience into the recognizable, safe, comfortable… boring, predictable, imprisoning “reality” that is almost impossible to break free from.

Then we find another world, a world where everything we know is turned on it’s head. Up is down, left is right, right is wrong… but can become right again in a instant for very little logical reason. Reason and logic are unreasonable and illogical… and best of all anything can happen at any time. Rules can be bent, or broken altogether, goalposts can be moved at a whim, and you’re guaranteed to know or predict very little of anything at all.

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking and considering the source of truely great inspirational creativity and originality when it comes to the artists we love and revere and the works they produce.

For Jefferson Airplane the song White Rabbit is clearly about getting off your face on whatever chemical source of “inspiration” you can lay your hands on… anything other than the pills your mother gave you because clearly those don’t work. Red pills, blue pills, mushrooms, whatever it takes to send you to your own psychadelic chain smoking catapillar… just don’t end up losing your head.

In the words of Jim Morrison, the goal here is to “break on through to the other side”… to break the chains, the train tracks that hold us captive to the real around us… if just for a short while… long enough to see something in the mist, to comprehend and grasp something that the real shrouds from the mind’s eye… and most importantly to document it, so it can be pulled out of the mist and into reality.

Drugs and alcohol are a lazy man’s excuse for a ticket to the “other side”.

Have you ever woken up from a dream that was so vivid, so real that you were left for a few minutes in total wonder and amazement at the place you were just so rudely extracted from?

Those dreams happen far too seldom… but I have started keeping a notebook by my bed. Sometimes I look at it in the morning and an idea that seemed so clear to me a few hours before is actually not so great in the morning light… but sometimes I see something staring back at me from the page that is brilliant and that has clearly come from some unknown address inside me… where did it come from? how? what pulled it from the depths of my mind and why does it happen so rarely?

I’ve never had a out of mind experience, let alone one as wild perhaps as that of Raoul and Dr Gonzo in Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but I’m not convinced that place is the right destination to find your source of creative originality although for some artists it seems to have worked.

There is a white rabbit inside me, and at long last I think I’ve found him and the hole that leads to the other side.

I’ve begun to notice that when an idea begins to take form in my mind… almost immediately that it appears I try and put it into a mold. Here lies the first mistake… where did that mold come from? That mold is a pre-determined image of what that particular kind of idea “should” look like… and it’s based on what I’ve seen of other similar ideas and concepts.

If I start like this, my idea will inevitably come out of that mold looking like every other conventional idea of it’s type… I have failed before I’ve even begun.

This is not to say that we don’t all take our cues and inspiration from the works of others… we do, and should… ideas get better the more they are used and often there are legitimate laws and rules that must be taken into account but there is a quiet voice inside that will instruct you in fleshing out and defining your idea… your way. It’s instructions will automatically combine cues from your greatest sources of inspiration and result in something with a great deal of you in it.

The only framework you should take notice of is the framework that must define the function and end goals of your idea, because without those your idea has no purpose or will fail in its intended purpose and with no purpose you are well and truely in the dark… there is not much constructive that can come from a vacuum of purpose.

Once you have determined the purpose… the function that the end result needs to fulfill, and sketched in all the unmovable goalposts that you can, because there will be some, the key becomes hearing that voice… I’ve started to hear mine, and I’ve started to listen to it… and it’s producing fantastic results.

What are those immovable goalposts? How do I know that I’m not just locking my idea down into everyone else’s mold?

I’ll give you some examples.

If your idea is a story that you intend to become a movie, then you need to make some decisions that will define it’s outermost edges… it’s purpose. These form a structure in which you can work and will determine what it’s overall shape may need to conform to. If the movie for instance needs to turn a healthy profit and you know the overall genre in which it fits… if it needs to be the cornerstone of a viable business plan… then you need to acknowledge and research what similar stories have been successful at that goal in the past and look for common attributes that are most likely to have contributed to the success… you will start to notice repeated patterns… “laws” of economics at play. It can get incredibly complex with layers of interdependent attributes… but that’s the black art of producing, it comes with the territory and if you don’t know it, or don’t have any interest in it… then you should be writing for a producer who can help give you a structure ensuring your idea successfully fulfills it’s intended purpose.

Sometimes the reason the world’s mold for a particular type of idea looks the way it does is because it works… it’s tried and tested… and sometimes it’s the only known way it will work. If the reasons are based in physics… such as the laws of thermodynamics that govern the operation of a internal combustion engine, and you can’t change those laws, then your new eco friendly green engine idea or design is going to have to abide by those unchangable laws… that doesn’t mean there aren’t all kinds of possible areas for innovation but if you want your engine to work… you must abide by those rules.

In the case of aviation… a realm of engineering I studied and still hold very close, there are many examples. We all know and picture what we think an aircraft should look like… two large wings at the front, two smaller wings at the back, one vertical fin at the back with a rudder… all symetrical… at least one engine in the front, sometimes two or more on the wings…

Apart from the unchangeable laws of aerodynamics… and the physics of weight and balance there are so many variables that can be altered and still produce a working aircraft that flies perfectly well. The main lifting wings can be at the back, with the smaller wings at the front, the engine and be almost anywhere, the whole layout can be assymetrical, it can even just be one big flying wing… there is plenty of room for imagination and technical innovation but there are laws that cannot be broken or the aircraft simply won’t fly.

But… know what is changeable and what is unchangeable. This means you need to know the business end of your particular realm or sphere in which you are creating. If you are not a rocket scientist, don’t design a rocket… you will fail.

Fortunately this kind of base structure… the unchangeable laws and goalposts placed by the desired purpose of what you are creating is all head knowledge… it can be learned but it won’t make you a great designer or creator. It can make you a good copycat but not much more.

If you want to be a screenwriter… read books… get the head knowledge… Robert McKee’s “Story” is fantastic head knowledge… so are Blake Snyder’s “Save the Cat” books… and get the producing head knowledge you need too. All this will help shape your initial framework, give you your canvas… known and defined extents… but it won’t make you a great screenwriter… and in itself doesn’t guarantee that you will ever write anything at all.

Once that structure is in place then the white rabbit will show you the rest… it will take you by the hand if you let it, it will hold and guide your arm and stroke as you hold your paintbrush to canvas. The results in the end will surprise you… just as if you’ve re-read what you’ve documented half-asleep after a vivid dream and wondered where on earth it came from.

Your white rabbit will give you the heart knowledge you need to paint that canvas and it comes from someplace deep within you. You MUST tap into it or you won’t create anything that is truely your own… you won’t discover your voice.

You must discover your voice no matter what it takes. Learning to speak is the easy part… there are books, courses, degrees… the internet… but nobody can or will put words into your mouth.

It’s up to you if you are going to simply regurgitate the words of the creators who inspire you or if you follow your white rabbit… and find your voice.

I’ve found my white rabbit quite by accident… for me it’s the gut feel that has this kind of vocabulary when I’m busy designing or creating something.

“that looks right, I don’t know why and probably couldn’t explain it to anyone but it just feels right.”

… trust it, it is right.

“my mind wants this exactly centred… but my eye want’s it just slightly off-centre to the left… yes, there it is… feels good”

… let go, let it be “imperfect” to your mind… trust the white rabbit.

It’s in rythm, aesthetic balance and sensibility… all things that are slightly different from designer to designer… creator to creator… and most of the time if you’ve got any kind of natural ability in your chosen sphere you will find yourself abiding by the unchangable rules without even knowing you are doing it.

It’s not whether you take the red pill or the blue pill… it’s in allowing yourself to let go… to listen to that inner voice, acknowledging the important rules and not being afraid to abandon or break the ones that aren’t important.

When you do, you will hardly recognize the results, but others will and you can step to the ledge and people will see you… and take notice.

On another level, in time you will begin to see consistency in your own work… you will notice unintentional patterns, repeated themes… follow those deeper and they will lead you to your best works.

The Libertarian – Opening Script Excerpt

I want to share with you the first few pages I have written for ‘The Libertarian’. I don’t share things unless I am happy enough with it to accept criticism and I’m pretty stoked with this movies first few minutes. I’m also not scared to make this excerpt public… it’s a few pages and a few pages doesn’t make an entire screenplay… I’m not giving away any plot here.

Download the pdf here: The Libertarian

The greatest irony of all is that in a world where equality, peace, justice and prosperity for all is pushed harder and stronger than ever in the history of humanity, the reality could not be further from it.

This is a story about the real world we live in, beneath the veil of political correctness, social propriety and facade of media and politics, a world where every critical decision is weighed according only to the personal gain to be achieved for the one making it, regardless of human cost, justice, right or wrong.

It is a story about the haves and the have nots, it’s about lies, deception, control, greed, fear, obsession, prejudice, hatred, and genocide on a scale never before seen in human history.

Ultimately however, it is a story about truth, light, sacrifice and redemption. It is a story about freedom, about one man who sparks a revolution, The Libertarian.

The paradox of commerce and creation

I create because it’s what I do. The uncontrollable desire courses through my veins and I have no choice but to create, to design, to envision… in my mind and to hope against hope it will become real. This has been an obsession since I was very small… I hope at some point to dig up designs for things that I dreamed up 20 years ago. They are somewhere in the attic of my parents house.

From a very early age I was obsessed with designing and building a go-cart. This was no normal go-cart, this had a full sculpted metal body, independent suspension… the works, it was to be a miniature version of the full sized cars I also fell in love with from an early age… anything American and built pre 1960.

I used to sit in class at school and draw independent suspension systems, and I used to be made fun of and bullied for it. All I wanted to do was design… from concept to prototype.

I designed cars, aircraft, engines… all kinds of things. I remember one time thinking I wanted to build a rollercoaster in my parents back yard. I think my brother will remember that one.

I also used to document. I used to write up assembly instructions… I have no idea why because nobody was ever going to read them. I suppose that’s what my blogs are today.

My father brought home a full size drafting table which I kept in my room, and I was using TurboCAD on a 386 PC when CAD had not even fully made it’s way into commercial product design and engineering.

I dreamt and I drew, and had very little grounding in reality.

Nothing has changed.

I have come to realize some things the past week or so since I’ve moved my work home. When I am alone, in a space where I am comfortable and free with my time, I still do all those things to the point where I forget to eat, and go to bed past midnight.

As water if uncontained will follow gravity and find it’s course towards sea level, I have found that living alone, and working for myself is having the same effect. I gravitate towards doing the same things I’ve done since I was 10 years old. I think this is a force stronger than anything in my life… I dare to say that I may have subconciously sabotaged my own marraige because it wouldn’t allow me to do what I so badly wanted to do… and I won’t do that again.

Now I have developed a love for creating cinema, writing for the screen weaving story, character and plot which is a relatively late development in my creative palette but probably the most significant in my life now.

What I have yet to figure out is how to make a living from it all.

I don’t really do the mass production thing and yet that seems to be what it takes to make a buck in this world. In the context of movies, it’s all about making the next summer hit regardless of whether it has any artistic merit at all… as long as it sells. Get in, sell, get out quick before anyone realizes they’ve been scammed, or if the scam is really good have them coming back next time. Welcome to Hollywood.

It’s not just movies… it’s everything. I read this the other day and it put into words exactly what I’ve been thinking.

After the last great economic depression, in the 1930′s, governments hatched a plan – to generate economic growth through frenzied consumption. Interrupted by the Second World War, the plan took off again in the 1950′s. ‘Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life,’ wrote 20th-century economist Victor Lebow, ‘that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever increasing pace.’ Designers, manufacturers and advertisers siezed the opportunity to drive consumption by means of planned obsolescence. Instead of making things to last, they designed them to fall apart, and be replaced. Raymond Loewy went even further. He deliberately gave all kinds of products an up-to-the-minute appearance that was guaranteed to look old fashioned after a couple of years; suddenly, people wanted to replace thier possessions even before they failed. Asked for his thoughts on product design aesthetics, Loewy drily replied that this consisted of ‘a beautiful sales curve shooting upwards’. - opening excerpt from ‘What goes around’ by John-Paul Flintoff published in *Wallpaper 139

I’m starting to realize I don’t like that model for economic growth very much. Does that mean I have to settle for not growing economically? Perhaps it does.

I want to create art. I want to create beauty… things that are the epitome of form and function for thier intended purpose. Things that last… that nobody would ever dream of replacing.

That pretty much flies in the face of the world we live in. Nobody is going to give me a job creating something that puts them out of business.

There is a place however for artists. I read about accomplished artists and designers, writers, film directors, photographers… they are revered and honored, inspiring awe in the followers of thier work. This doesn’t necessarily mean they are materially or financially wealthy, but it seems a lot of them don’t do too badly.

How did they get there?

They did what they do… what they have to do, and somehow someone noticed.

My plan?

Spend as little money as possible living, make as much as I can with the work that I do, create the things I have to create and get it out there.

Maybe eventually someone notices.

The Fight

Please take a few minutes to watch this fantastic little short film made by my fellow filmmaker and friend Mario Sahe-Lacheante. It will put some important things into perspective. I think it’s message is applicable to all kinds of things but it especially resonates for me with what I’ve been going through, and how I am pushing onwards towards my goal.

This is the writer and film producer inside of me.

Stop. Take Stock. Re-Group. Move Forward. – Pt 2 – Take Stock

I don’t want to leave things on a negative note today with my last post. I have taken plenty of time to process all this before writing it down, and there’s a lot to share. That’s why I’m breaking this down into parts. I want to share the rest of the story with you… all is not doom and gloom and death.

Where there is death, there is grieving, there is healing and there is brand new growth.

Maybe someone reading this feels the same, is going through something similar, or has gone through this in the past and has never been able to resolve certain issues. I’ve had to break things down into well defined steps for myself in which I have certain expectations and goals that must be met before I allow myself to move to the next step. I am writing this down today, but this is not one day’s worth of process, this is a few months worth of process, refined and distilled.

I write because I want to share with friends and family that may have questions about what’s going on. I also hope that my experiences might help someone else.

It’s always been tough for me to find a line in this particular blog between my personal journey and my journey as a filmmaker. They are in fact one and the same journey, but the fact that what I write here in Indiewood is so personal in nature is the reason I separate it from what I write in my other blogs that are purely technical in nature.

This blog is about me, it’s about story, it’s about a storyteller, it’s about experience, and eventually I will look back through these posts and notice markers and milestones on my road to success.

I say success because one of my fundamental beliefs is that we all knowingly or unknowingly define our reality over time. It is a law like gravity, I cannot do anything other than create the reality around me that I see through my minds eye and believe in with such passion, intensity, perseverance and… TENACITY.

Pronunciation

* (UK) IPA: /təˈnæs.ɪ.ti/

* (US) IPA: /təˈnæsətʲi/

Etymology

From Latin tenācitās.

Noun

tenacity (plural tenacities)

1. The quality or state of being tenacious; as, tenacity, or retentiveness, of memory; tenacity, or persistency, of purpose.

Synonyms

*(state of being tenacious): retentiveness, persistency

“Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.” ~ Louis Pasteur

“Patience and tenacity are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.”~ Thomas Huxley

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.” ~ Amelia Earhart

“It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.” ~ Vince Lombardi

“Never Quit. “Don’t ever, ever quit. Recognize that stopping now, regrouping to try a new approach isn’t quitting. If you quit you’ll regret it forever.” ~ Rudy Ruettiger

So, I’ve stopped. I’m idling, in neutral with the parking brake on. I’m looking out over my life so far.

I wish I had a picture to post of the view from my new spot. It’s up on the Noordhoek mountainside and looks out over the whole valley with the long stretch of Noordhoek’s white sand dunes and beach stretching to Kommetjie. I get absolutely stunning sunsets and watch the sun sink into the sea.

I chose this spot for a reason and a purpose in mind. I knew it was the place I needed for this coming season in my life the minute I saw it. I didn’t even look for other options to rent, I committed to a rental contract on that same day. This location resonates with my inner being, I shed worry and stress every time I drive out there. There is nothing but other nature lovers, peace, quiet, fynbos, the mountains and the sea.

I’m looking out over the valley I have just been through… four years of marriage, my introduction to parenthood, failed business, failed finances, failed marriage… and I’m taking the time out to take stock and re-group… to ask, okay, what went wrong here?

There are some fundamentals in my life which have never ever changed. They are things I know of myself, and it is these things that I draw to at this time. I see it as getting back to basics, who am I? Who have I always been… before all this happened. What have I been denying for four years, and why? For what?

I’m going to do the things I love… the things that come as naturally to me as breathing, the things I do when nothing is standing in my way, and spend all my time thinking about when I can’t do them.

Those are the things I should be doing because those are the things I do best, they come from inside, and they are the best things for me to capitalize on to make a living.

I’m going to surf, I’m going to collect LP’s and build a record collection. I’ve got three garages and a large forecourt that come with my flat, and I have some projects in mind to get underway in that space. One of the first things I want to do for myself when I have some money to spend on me is to finally buy myself a mig welder. I want to design and build things out of metal and wood. It’s what I do. I have been designing things since I was five years old. I’m going to feed that, let it become whatever it is destined to become.

All of these things I have largely denied myself the past few years… and there is a list of core things that Christine has also denied herself. We have made each other completely miserable, non functioning broken human beings. When I look at it in this way, it had to stop. I certainly don’t want my little girl to grow up with parents like that. I have to believe that she will be better off this way and I believe time will prove this to be the case.

There is one thing however which I have never been able to deny, and that is my desire to write and produce films.

When asked if I was willing to drop this, I flat out refused, very little hesitation involved… that came as part of the package when we married. Some may see this as selfish… how can anything be more important than my marriage and family?

If I was a failure as a husband then, I don’t think anyone would want to see the defeated frustrated mess I would become if I tried to deny myself my one core sense of purpose and future. Multiply the mess by ten and that’s the kind of man I would be. That’s not a man and it’s not my future.

Above all, inside me somewhere is a storyteller with lots of worthwhile things to tell story about. I’ve begun to figure out what that is over the past couple years, and I believe that I am poised to begin a very fruitful season of writing… the first of many. I will also produce my first proper short film this year, and it’s been a long time coming.

Yes, a season of writing… and designing, engineering, making… creating… all the things that occupy my mind 24/7 regardless of what my hands are doing… washing dishes is the image that comes to mind when I think of the past four years.

When I consider these things, the things I am passionate about and care about, I see a new life ahead of me. A life that is perhaps a good deal truer to who I am than my past four years… a fruitful and fulfilled life that I can share proudly with my beautiful daughter.

Now seeing is one thing, doing is quite another but it all starts by seeing… and I have found that seeing only comes by stopping and looking.

Stop. Take Stock. Re-Group. Move Forward. – Pt 1 – Total System Failure

Pretty much the whole of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011 has been a black hole of chaos in my life, personally, and professionally.

Total System Failure.

Everything and I mean everything, has just come to a complete grinding halt. Well, more of a high speed freight train derailment actually. The past six months have been a blur that I can only liken to the final few seconds of panic before a major plane crash in which you’re pretty convinced you are going to die… not that I’ve ever experienced a plane crash but you get the picture.

I have visted places I never wish to visit again. I have been in a place, one night specifically that I will always remember until the day I die where I thought I was going to have a total loss of all control. That night was raw emotion that I have never experienced before, I screamed, I cried out, I was shaking uncontrollably, my heart was racing and in that place I could have done anything… to myself, to my wife.

One day I will draw something good from it. I will be able to portray a moment of breakdown, of madness because I have been there for that moment. Inside of this calm, chilled out dude is a murderer, I met him that night.

Thankfully my in-laws were with us and my father in law took control of the situation. We sat around the table that night, all of us crying, I just looked down at the table, shaking, I could not lift my head. That night I knew I would lose my wife and daughter forever. I asked God right then and there at that table, and the voice inside me, God’s voice that I hear with a unquestionable resolution in my spirit said one word… yes. That was it.

From that night on I knew that no matter how many times we talked ourselves around the merry go round of what-if’s and why not’s, there would only be one resolution.

The thing that made a huge difference for me is that amidst the chaos and emotional turmoil I knew that God knew we would divorce. This meant, in ways I will never, ever understand He has always known. He did not prevent us from marrying, He did not prevent us from bringing a beautiful little girl into this world, and He definitely didn’t prevent us from making a chain of irrecoverable mistakes, but God, my Father knew and in that moment of collapse He was there for me. I leaned and cried on my heavenly Dad’s shoulder that night.

It’s not something I would wish on my worst enemy. I died. I haven’t physically died, but there has been death, death of a dream, death of what could have been, death of a family, death of yet another marraige in this world of failed marraiges and in a way, substantial parts of two people that united and became one, have literally died.

In my own dreams and desires outside of my marraige there has been death. I have witnessed what is probably one of the worst, if not the worst year in the film, television and commercial post production industry globally ever. Some great career choice that has been.

However, post production has never been a career choice… it’s simply a means to an end. I look on my own ultimate dream in an increasingly cynical and jaded light. The dream of being a storyteller, a packager and purveyor of the human experience… of joy, loss, death, birth… wisdom, of writing and producing all this as commercially successful feature films. I just don’t know, my obsession with it is one of the causes of failure in my marraige and finances… but I just can’t let it go.

I will revisit this later in a much more positive context, as it is key to what I want to share about “moving forward”.

Let’s start with my personal situation and re-trace some important events.

July/August 2010 – A much needed break in the UK for myself and family. The calm before the storm. I am blissfully ignorant of the atom bomb that is about to detonate.

September 2010 – I am retrenched from Waterfront Studios. Oh Shit. Here we go.

October/November 2010 – My marriage fails spectacularly… in hindsight it’s been failing for quite some time… every day since our wedding actually.

When you run an engine without oil, it won’t just quit, it will keep running for quite some time… in my case most of four years. Just the other week I discovered the engine in my ’71 Merc was basically dry, and it had been running for over a week with only a dribble of oil in the sump… a bit hotter than normal, but it ran well enough that I didn’t really know anything was wrong. Thankfully I checked the oil one morning and caught the problem before the inevitable happened… the same cannot be said of my marriage.

In time, a engine with no oil will fail, it will either just seize, or something mechanical will give, and when that happens there is no choice but to strip the entire motor down piece by piece and rebuild it from the ground up replacing bearings, seals, and worn out components.

A choice must be made upon initial assessment whether to bother stripping it down, or to just scrap the motor.

A marriage without love is the same and I won’t go into the full diagnosis of what went wrong here. We have decided that we cannot strip our marriage down to the bare block and go through the painstaking process of repairing and replacing… of rebuilding. It’s not that it is impossible, but we have spent months getting to the bottom of the root causes of the failure, and holding those causes in front of a magnifying glass… inspecting motivations, dreams, desires, searching our very souls.

Why was there no oil? What was the cause of that? A lot of the answers fell on my shoulders, I failed as a husband and I didn’t even know it. If I can not, or am not willing to change in certain fundamental ways, our marriage will fail again even if we stop to rebuild it.

We have decided not to rebuild. It is quite possible that to do so would be not much more than a postponement of what we are now deciding. I don’t know, I am a bit more optimistic than that, but the decision is not mine alone to make.

This is just part of it. Our financial situation is dire, and we are facing losing everything. We’ve made huge financial mistakes in the last four years, one of which was to buy a property that is now worth less than a quarter of the original purchase price.

So during this time we decide to pursue voluntary sequestration as well.

December 2010 – My wife and daughter spend a month in Pretoria, we make the final decision to separate and divorce.

January/February 2011 – We make plans for our new lives and work towards taking action to move forward, out of our failed situation and into a new direction.

This process continues.

We are now separated, I have moved into a flat in San Michel, Noordhoek and Christine is sharing a flat temporarily until she finds her own place from 1^st April.

We’re taking one day at a time, figuring out how this works. Our car was repossessed but I still have my old Merc, so I need to help the girls out with transportation a bit until she gets a car moved down from Pretoria. Christine has started to get her business going and has a job in Cape Town. Thankfully Marita gets to stay at her beloved playschool during the days.

Stop.

So I am as close to stopped as I am going to be right now. I’m settling into my new place and will get used to living on my own. I have a few odd jobs heading in which should garner enough income to pay the rent, help the girls and eat something.

What I need to do is figure out what the hell it is I am doing and get on with it because there is no time to waste.