I left work just before 5pm today to meet a chap I met on the flight to Cape Town about 10 days ago. Over coffee, we spoke about, amongst other things, Johannesburg's unique energy. I said that it is easy to appreciate when you come from somewhere else, and that the people who live here would probably rather live in Cape Town and arguably, at times, vice versa. And a lot of that energy, that adrenaline, possibly comes from competing with traffic and looking over one's shoulder. Really?
But what I found really enervating, thrilling in fact, was when I realised Gavin and his attractive friend [both employed by Emirates] hadn't met on a flight back from Cape Town [where I'd assumed I'd left them], rather Gavin was fresh from a stint in Tunisia, and his Argentinian sidekick was talking about a city about the smog, a sci-fi city called Dubai.
Dubai is more like a remarkable idea than a real place. That's what makes it a do-it-once, at least, destination, writes Linda Stafford
From there I met up with a lady who had visited Mauritius for an anticipated one week, extended her stay, and then spent a few months in France and Switzerland. I was supposed to meet up with another friend today, but he had to leave for London and said he'd be back at the end of the week.
I called up Gavin a short while ago and asked him if he ever says to himself: Hmmmm, I feel like going there in the world, haven't been there yet... He answered: Every two months. Emirates ask them to take compulsory leave every 2 months, and whisk them wherever they need [or wish] to be whisked.
I found these doses of reality quite dizzying. I sometimes encounter people at the gym who are Australians on short trips to Johannesburg on business from London, or a triathlete who is based at the Canary Islands and Lord knows what else.
The point of all this is that we are living in an extraordinary period of opportunity. It is wonderful for the privileged minority [known as the middle class, with a certain fraction rapidly transitioning to the 'former middle class'].
But it remains an extraordinary period, an extraordinary opportunity to see the world, to live a life the kings of old wouldn't have dreamed possible. Ordinary people can live lives beyond the wildest imaginings of Pharaohs and emperors? And yet instead of gushing over these wild possibilities, that we can sit in a chair in the sky, with a beverage and ice cubes, paging through a magazine, we somehow gripe about our comfort and time 'wasted' in a lounge etc.
The dark side of this is the transportation of pests and pestilence, but lets not go there right now. It's also fascinating to me that while flying to some faraway continent, we can watch fictional accounts of real world places, and real world forces, such as in the District 9 contrivance, and get to know ourselves and a country possibly better than via the real thing, because we are often unwilling or reluctant to face reality head on. This is where STORY is so powerful, and so enabling.
There is another fantastic technology out there which we seem to have accepted as cool, but no big deal. That's FACEBOOK. In the last 48 hours my profile has been unavailable, possibly due to my uploading quite a lot of photographs. It is when it was unavailable to me that I began to realise what a fantastic, useful - no, vital tool it has become to me. It provides a networking space without overheads. No phone bills, no office furniture, a nice place for clients and friends and colleagues and family to come and say hello. Of course it is ideal if you're a photographer, or a celebrity, less ideal if you're a banker, or a management consultant, say.
Before I headed home this evening I took a stroll through a boulevard in Melrose Arch that I haven't really had a decent look at. What a beautiful selection of buildings, what elegant walkways. What a pity more of Johannesburg is not dedicated to places that value human traffic more than the simple, and it has to be said, soulless accommodation of vehicles [think of Mall parking lots, garage shops, MacDonald Drive thrus etc]. Melrose Arch is warm and obvious effort has been designed to accommodate human beings, and make human beings feel comfortable, and safe but something else too. It is a space that values itself, as much as it values the human beings who move through the softened spaces, filled with deft touches. Each corner opens up an art work that you want to be a part of, you feel connected to... Spaces designed for cars do the opposite; and are designed to expedite you in and out.
While our choices abound, enjoy them, but not as entitlements, rather as a privilege no other generation is likely to see in the abundance we've been given to enjoy. We being those not quite at the level of bottom dwelling prawns.
I'm safe
Up high
Nothing can touch me
But why do I feel this party's over?
The quiet scares me 'cause it screams the truth
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