I see an old man playing football in the park.
I go there to get some exercise by chasing my daughter around on her pink bicycle.
We got if for for her birthday last year, but she’s only tall enough to ride it now.
He is kicking the ball against the wall by the basketball court.
He is trying to kick it against the same spot each time.
He says he is from Brazil, but he is old and wrinkly.
And his knee is made of plastic.
He has hit the same spot three times in a row.
And smiles.
His wife died in 2017 from melanoma
And he lost his job because he is high risk.
He also missed his daughter’s wedding in Brazil.
He says he will rather be dead than not play football.
He’s been playing since he was three.
I make my way back up the road to get my baby home,
Because it is beginning to rain.
And as I leave,
All I see is an old man playing football in the park.
How are you lads?
I hope you enjoyed that little bit of prose about a man of insignificance.
I’m keeping this one professional, as I may be posting it on LinkedIn, so the usual profanity might go amiss by the regular pundits to my blog.
The Windows on my laptop crashed a few days ago so I had to reload it using an ISO file which I had to download to my phone and then reformat it into a bootable USB drive. A task that is meant to be a few minutes, it took me three days. This kind of thing is way beyond my capabilities, especially since I had to use third party software. Well at least I got there in the end.
Here are my contractual obligations.
Please note that I am paid a small fee if anyone purchases from the below links. I don’t choose them, they are SEO generated by whatever words I have in my blog. So for no reason, I’m going to say Iphone and Nike in the hope that the analytics pick up on it. Professional boy.
https://8fa06zxwd639l9whrcsij-q5go.hop.clickbank.net/
https://10e8cy-wfd6ct9zjk8riwetxb5.hop.clickbank.net/
Also, I am grateful for the pledges to my Patreon.
But can you please rather split your payments over a number of months, so that I can have visible Patrons. A pledge does not show any patronage, and I need that so I can get online credibility with the rest of the hipsters.
https://www.patreon.com/Blacksheepwriting?fan_landing=true
So with my begging out of the way.
I’ve been pretty upfront with my mental health and lack of emotional intelligence since the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic, and it’s pretty clear that I have been struggling.
Like so many people, the ongoing saga has directly affected me.
When New Zealand made its first move against the spread of the virus I was gathered around the radio with the rest of my colleagues at the office. The atmosphere was pretty grim and the lockdown news had everyone in a state of existential fear. That was the only fear at that time.
Nobody wanted to contract nor contribute to the spread of the virus.
We were lucky enough to be deemed Essential Services, and because one of the departments I was managing was part of the essential project, I initially thought that my position in the company would be safe.
It was a noble cause, and I was proud to be such a big part of it.
But it didn’t take long for my existential fears to get switched out for the fear that the Pandemic would threaten not just my career progression, but also my career itself. Especially when the project started nearing its end.
The P&L was looking rather dismal and meeting after meeting suggested that my departments are the ones in the most danger.
My redundancy was made official last week.
I’ve since taken the week off work to get my affairs in order and to get in touch with the people in the Employment Placement Industry from my past. My anxiety issues were also addressed as I seeked some help from a Medical Professional.
I have some tools that I use to look after my Mental Health, like CBT and Mindfulness Meditation, but my thoughts and emotions were so erratic that I needed extra assistance. Counselling and Therapy is out of the question due to the lockdown, so I opted for some medication. Diazepam was prescribed, and I’m taking it accordingly. But the feeling of hopelessness is extremely prevalent, especially when looking at the job market.
When I was twenty, I read a book called Man’s Search For Meaning. It was written in 1946 by a man called Viktor Frankl. The book is basically his chronicles and experiences about being held and moved around as a detainee through different concentration camps during the Holocaust. He explores how he assigned himself small but meaningful tasks to keep his mental health in check. Some of the tasks were as inconsequential as dusting his shoes every evening, but to him, he found routine and meaning in the most abhorrent of circumstances.
I’m not in a Nazi concentration camp, and I’m also not being pushed and prodded into anything I don’t want to do. However I have been struggling to find meaning.
I have a tendency to invest a big part of myself in my work, and knowing that I am not currently part of something bigger than myself has left a massive void in my existence.
So I started to find some inspiration in the words of Viktor Frankl.
Over the last few days, while at home with my wife and two kids I have consciously started assigning myself tasks that follow the Hero’s Journey as best explained by the Cultural Anthropologist, Joseph Cambell.
The basic premise of the Hero’s Journey involves a set-up, some conflict and a resolution. There are also some other steps in most cases like mentoring, transformation and atonement. Every story follows the structure, from the Bible to Casablanca to Harry Potter.
Now I’ve suffered from depression before, and I know from my past experiences that the first thing that goes out the window are these tiny tasks.
So after a day of extreme sadness and wallowing, which I think is a fair level of negative reactions to my redundancy, I started assigning myself some tasks.
Over the last few days I have serviced my bike, I have updated my CV and applied for a few jobs and also managed to score some online interviews. I fixed my car’s heater that wasn’t working for the last few years and I even managed to fix a computer. I even learned the intro to Stairway to Heaven on my guitar. All of these gave me a deep sense of meaning.
Yesterday I decided to cook something for the family, chicken curry.
I can’t cook at all, so this was to be an insurmountable adventure on which I was to embark. I’ll call this the setup.
I had to go to the store to get my ingredients, there was chicken and onions, garlic, ginger and curry spice. The biggest challenge was the spices, as I actually had to feel and smell the spices at the Indian shop. I bought turmeric, cumin, cinnamon and another thing I can’t pronounce. The coriander and some other herbs I found in my wife’s little garden. I enjoyed this little adventure, even though it was stressful and tiring. This was the conflict of my adventure.
Upon cooking, the first thing I did was burn the onions. At this point my wife and mentor jumped in to give me a hand and I managed to get it smelling about right.
It tasted average to me, but my family insisted that it was delicious. So there definitely was a resolution.
I will digress for a second.
Both my Mum and my wife are amazing cooks. They always say that when they eat their own food, it does not taste as good as when someone else makes it.
After cooking a fragrant dish myself, I am now qualified to tell you why I think that is.
Being exposed to the ingredients and smells of the dish all day, I believe you become desensitised to the flavours and textures of the dish that you will be consuming later once it’s done.
There’s a nice bit of tragedy to the art of cooking. When I write something, or when someone completes a painting or finishes a bit of music, the creator has the pleasure of admiring their work after. Maybe this is why when you watch cooking shows, there is so much emphasis on presentation. Or maybe that’s just because you can’t taste it through the TV. I will research this in depth for a later blog.
Where to from here?
I will keep searching for these small acts that help me find some meaning. I know that getting a decent income now is going to be a challenge, and finding work in my field will be almost impossible.
I’ve already started thinking outside of the box, applying for entry level jobs that I might enjoy that are way out of my field.
Although I am not working on my novel as my mood is too erratic, I will still work on my book of short stories. I’ll also keep updating my blog whenever I get a moment, as it also gives me a strong sense of meaning.
I’m certainly not qualified to give anyone any advice if they are going through the same thing, but what I can say is that you need to get out of bed in the morning and do your best to live in the moment and find joy in the things that you may have deemed mundane in the past.
Until next time, be kind to yourself.
Count your breaths.
Rub a dog.
And if you’re feeling really bold, cook a curry.
