The deluding comfort in procrastinating

Lately I’ve been trying to determine why is't that I put off what I could do today for tomorrow. This to me, and I believe many can relate, is a painstaking battle which I tend to keep failing. Instead of doing the usual, finding a counter to the problem, I found myself thinking hard about why I’d do anything to avoid doing that which is due to be done. The answer, although obvious, was stupendous.

I came to the realisation that I put off projects, tasks and especially necessary action toward my dreams off for a paradox: Comfort. I say it’s a paradox because there isn’t real comfort in procrastinating work that is intended to add value in your life. Yet most of the time, I now believe, I tend to put off work just so that I can lounge a bit. So that I can do a bit of thinking. Have a long chat with buddies. Stare endlessly at the screen. All these simply delude me that I’m enjoying comfort and avoiding toil or pain, and labour of love isn't really pain.

The truth: remove the delusion and what you get is a rude awakening. That when the delusional comfort has passed, precious, invaluable time will have elapsed too. And the hard truth here is that once the delusional comfort has blown off like smoke, one will still have to face the need to start working toward achieving those very same goals they dodged yesterday. And it clearly won’t help the results to work on it at the eleventh hour.

There’s no running from it. What we set out to do we have to get down and dirty and do it. You've got to give it to Nike for getting the most difficult part of life right: Just Do It. The comfort that we seem to derive from procrastination is only there to work against the comforting feeling of achievement. The mesmerising smell of success.

The hard part for me is having realised that I can put my own preferred and ideal life (which should follow with the achievement of my attainable goals) and lives of those attached to me put on the back burner. I know when I work daily at my goals with consistent action, I get closer to realising them, yet the lounging, the procrastination seems to somewhat provide instant comfort. Imaginary comfort.

In short, such imagined instant comfort is, I’ve realised just recently, extremely dangerous and has planted in many of us what flirts very well with laziness. Very few overcome laziness, many, like myself, need to remember that procrastination makes an empty promise of instant delusional comfort. And perhaps we can recall the importance of discipline.

Procrastination keeps you today in the very same place you were yesterday. And it masterfully succeeds in this job by way of trade: you forgo, for now, your potential achievements for delusional comfort. In reality, at least for me, it makes fcuk all difference in my life this kind of delusional comfort. So it is my goal to stop all trade with this addiction called procrastination. And surely, replace it with addiction to action.

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Perfection can hurt you and your project

Today, or the past week, hasn't been a great one. It hasn't been a fruitful period. For various reasons things have been dragging. Too many questions ran a watershed on my mind enveloping it with thoughts of doubt. There has been emotions of frustrations. Almost like I'm back to square zero, although not quite so considering the successes of recent.

It is during this time that I was reminded that as humans we're not perfect and it is perfection that we must not aim for. But we can, by all means, aspire for greatness. And greatness has not much to do with perfection, for perfection is that which has no room for failure and new biginnings. Perfection is getting it right the first time round and having a set formula to repeat that success with each different endeavour. At the same time, be able to maintain the momentum of success throughout.

During the downtime whilst writing my book, I'd sob at my wife telling her that this is just not going fast enough. This is just getting too difficult for my taste. That I'm losing the chutzpah. And I was reminded that 'may be you're taking yourself extremely seriously. Take it easy on you and go with the flow'. I refused to hear this words. But now I know that I mustn't be too hard on myself. For it is when I'm hard that I'm caught up in the dangerous phenomenon that is the perfection trap.

Perfection can hurt you. It can derail your project. It can make you feel like you're not worth the job, because from the onset of the aim, it sets you up for a rude shortfall. When you hit a lower mark, you start feeling that perhaps somebody else could have done this better.

Don't allow it to make you feel like that. Instead, aim for greatness because greatness allows room for failure and starting up again, for it realises that we're humans and we're only aspiring to do better than we have done before. To stretch ourselves. Truth be told, our failures teach us a lot more than our success. Our success measure our progress, our shortcomings weigh our strength. Our rise-again power.

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Enter the zone and be high

During this course of writing my debut epic, I realised that when you have the opportunity to immerse yourself into a project, you have to always remember to maintain such good momentum. That you have to stay high and crazy about it as through-and-through as you can. The moment you take your eyes off the bull’s eye, off the goal posts, is the moment your mind and emotions wander and lose touch with the end product. With the destiny.

I try to immerse myself in my book although it’s not easy especially when you get a curve ball here and there, and then there and there thrown in every corner. But one thing I know for sure is that most of the time inspiration comes with being immersed. With being in the zone. With pouring yourself into your goal/project as deep as you can. It’s like that with the beautiful labour of writing and I believe it is so with many other projects and undertakings.

Think of something average as your gym contract and commitment to it. At the start of it, the newness and freshness of things motivates you. Inspires you. And you truly do commit and do what you set out to do – at least for the first few trips. But then the mood changes – that third wind stops carrying you. The excitement catches the side wind. And you’re left all to your own strength. The momentum is gone. At most, you let it blow over with the passing bad habit side wind.

Imagine if you always remembered that the momentum could be the good wind beneath your wings – at least the wings of your commitment. And with remembering that daily, you get to boost the momentum to inspiration and before you know it, your commitment has turned into second nature. It’s become a habit. Completely effortless.

I feel this applies in so many situations including relationships. That when the excitement blows over, you’re left to your barren self and you have to make ends meet or you go down. You start losing sight of the bull’s eye and your goal. With this outlook, I bet you’d never smell destiny. The pure, fresh feeling of achievement. SUCCESS. I do fall in the trap many a times. But I’m working on it.

So, once your realise that momentum has set in, keep it. Find ways to stay high and crazy about your project, commitment or goal. Then watch it become a habit, at which point it starts happening naturally. This is the case with my writing, gym and running – for the most part.

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The unique touch of your hand

It’s my lifetime goal to ensure that anything that I lay my hand on, anything which becomes the production of my thoughts and efforts has a unique signature to it. And for such a special mark, the mark of my hand, to shout or silently pronounce, Izz was here. To fly a proud flag that says, ‘I gave it my all and I couldn’t have done it any better’. Have you pondered lately around this very important issue?

I believe that people’s passion for life is expressed in their labour. In what they produce, either in words or the actual toil. So I guess that one has to ask themselves then, ‘will this project express who I’m when am done with it? Or will it just wallow in the myriad of the also-rans. That is the current dream that I wake up each day to pursue helping me stamp my unique mark on this world, especially to make a difference in the life of those around me?

I don’t think it’s of any shame to dump what one feels isn’t really what they should be doing on a certain day, month, year or being involved in something which one feels doesn’t really serve a good purpose. A purpose which must help us express our love and passion for life. Otherwise, we may find ourselves drowning in what we thought was an opportunity to make a difference and leave the mark of our hand.

I may not get it right most of the time, but I do intent to try harder to ensure that I pour myself into the life projects which can allow me to create a legacy of contributions. This by giving myself and energies to any good purpose labour that I get involved.

This forces me, or calls on me, to find ways to excel at what I do. At my job, at being a father to two sweetest princesses, excel especially at remembering to love my wife, at being a good brother, a great friend and making a difference by expressing my thoughts and strengths in this world and leaving a unique touch of my hand. With this, I can sit back after taking a deep breath and proudly say to myself, “damn, I love the work of my hand”.

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How will you meet your luck?

No, not your death, but rather, your lucky stroke. I hear many a time my friends family and others speak of somebody being successful because they were lucky. “Very lucky,” they’d say. And sometimes, out of naivety, I’d simply agree with them. But isn’t true that those who are lucky, on the majority, are those who had toiled hard prior to their success or crossing with their luck?

Of late I’ve been asking the One above to throw a sweet ball of luck my way. Contradictory, I reminded myself that if I got lucky today, would such luck change my life permanently or simply bring a fresh passing breeze of success into my life. What with the potential of abusing the luck and spending it all before I realise how to take advantage of it? With this, I realised that for me to meet my luck, I better be prepared to crossroad with it. That in fact, hard work and goodwilling toil do attract luck. The sweat somewhat whisks in lady luck into your life because you had been prepared for it and ideal to exploit it to the benefit of your life and those of others around you.

Wishing for luck is simply wishing for manna to fall right into your palms. I stopped that, just recently and I hope I don’t revert to such futile exercise. This particularly with the struggle with my debut book. And since I stopped wishing for luck, I’ve come to appreciate better the value of hard work and I toiled forward.

The value of running right into your fears and right in to that thin path – where others have said ‘it can’t be done’, ‘it’s impossible’ – is life altering. Believing and labouring at something of value in your life makes the world step apart to allow all the right forces to tag-team with you in achieving your goal. And I personally believe it is during this time that luck is met or grows on your thorny, lonesome and thin path. However, if and when you meet it unprepared and with the hard work factor missing, I doubt luck will build around your life and goals. It might pass you by and nest in the dreams and sweat of the next fellow. And what would you, “what a lucky fellow. Very lucky.”

Make sure that when your lucky stroke comes, you are damned prepared for your sweat to capture it.

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Bring out your stubbornness

Just when you thought you had fixed it all. That you had ironed out the major problems and inhibitions, they stem out their even uglier side. Their thorny side. That’s what happens with recurrent habits sometime. You kick them off so hard, when they return they come back a little thorny and ugly. I guess just to reclaim their home, their territory. They re-enter whilst we can’t help it during a down time when we’re sloppy. But it is really up to us whether we allow them to take over our lives again. That’s a time when we need to bring out our thick skin. The most ideal time to be stubborn.

Some of my life sapping habits are hard to die, I'm sure most people would relate. These habits keep making an unceremonious return because they're stubborn. But then again, they are stubborn because as people, we’re very stubborn ourselves. At least most people are. I thought to myself, since I don’t want to get back to a life of unproductive habits that I kicked, I started taking pride in my stubbornness. I’m known for being extremely stubborn sometimes. And on this, I thought then why not be stubborn against my bad habits and inhibitions. With my fears. With my sticking to my goals, to my plans.

As I was traveling back home, I thought quite a bit about the movie 300, ­which is based on the legend of the erstwhile Spartan king Leonardis and 300 of his bodyguards – Spartans who considered themselves (along with their brothers at home) as ‘the finest soldiers ever. Soldiers who descended from Hercules himself’. And I admire the courage and valor demonstrated in that, especially in the source graphic novel, 300 by Frank Miller. Leonardis is so stubborn he has balls to stage up and stand against an army of a million driven by a ruthless power-hungry emperor, Xerxes. And without doubt, he could have simply lost with shame had he not been as stubborn in attitude as he had been. And with his stubbornness, he taught the large army a thing or two about standing your own.

The morale, for me at least, is that amidst the consistent struggles to live a life of greatness, there’re times when I just got to call upon my stubbornness to help me stand my ground until my cause is achieved.

When the tough really gets going with your goals and projects, remember to stick it out and not only with faith, but be stubborn at it. Stubborn to even put a bull to shame. And whilst at it, make sure your skin comes out as thick as the rhino's. Stubborn can help you tip over to the other side. Just a toughen-up boost to lift you until your wings catch some wind.

Be stubborn especially when your good and worthy cause is threatened. You started it, be stubborn enough to push until you see it to the end. For at the end, the beauty of achievement awaits you patiently.

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Who're the aces in your book, Sir... Mam?

Who are the aces in your book?

Often it happens that we misuse and even abuse our biggest life asset: time. We find ourselves putting on the backburner what we could do right away. This particularly with spending time with family and loved ones – the aces. Not so strangely surprisingly to us, we get a rude awakening whilst on a wasteful path devoting our precious invaluable hours to the wrong people. People who wouldn’t care less about us even if their life dependent on it. Basically, we do find ourselves at a juncture in our lives spending time with people who don’t matter, don’t add value to our lives or the lives of those close to our hearts, or even worse, they simply sap all the right attitude and life out of us.

It’s not such a bad idea to sit back one afternoon and really ponder: ‘who are the aces in my book? Who are the people who truly matter?’ And, in fact, you could even ask yourself, as I’ve been asking myself this past weekend, ‘which people in my life can add value I to? Who can I make a difference in their life with my precious time?’ Doing this equals respecting your own time.

In that way, with that focus, one can be able to determine who they spend their quality time with without being headed for a rude awakening. You can determine whether you’ve been throwing your invaluable asset down a hopeless hole that shouldn’t be dug in the first place. This with a person who wouldn’t give a dime whether you spend time with them or not.

So, who are the aces in your book? You don’t have to pick them. Don’t tick and cross out. I allowed my heart to see those individuals and direct me to the important ones. The ones who smile when they see me. The ones who believe in me. The ones who feel I have a purpose on this earth and are ready to assist me in fulfilling it, even if I don’t even know as yet what I’m supposed to do. They say “it can be done Izz. You can do it”.

And these very individuals are the ones who allow me to do the same in their lives. To make a difference in my own little way and they say “thanks Izz. I really appreciate”. And I’m not only humbled by that I made a difference, but my heart is heightened to a trance dance because they said ‘thank you. I really appreciate it’.

You must see to it that you don’t waste your time with the people who only manage to find reasons to rub of their life sapping attitude. They tell us that life has nothing to offer us as much as we have nothing of value to contribute to it. That we’re just cruising by this planet waiting for the end of our days. Don’t collaborate with this parasitic pack to slowly and silently suck life out of you. Allow your heart to illuminate the names of the aces. And then double their seven star treatment to fourteen – and watch what happens.

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Here stands a man, or is’t a coward?

Today as I write this women’s day is seeing the last of the hours in South Africa. I wonder how it’s been celebrated by many. But more so, I wonder if most, particularly men, have sat back to contemplate on their contribution to the life of a woman. Whether this day says ‘acknowledge the need for a woman to express her talents and abilities’. Such a need is a natural need, and not an asking. It’s innate to humanity.

I thought about it a little and asked myself, why can’t each day be a woman’s day? Why can’t each day be a feminine day? I asked myself rhetorically after imagining the reality that, in fact, each day is a man’s day. Not because we carpe diem every time we wake up. No. It’s because the scales of humankind have always favored men. What we do as man, and also what we many a times fail to do, a woman does and often does even better with more care. But nevertheless, on the majority, the female species is going up against the odds. Against a whirlwind of disadvantaging walls invented by men before us and maintained tooth and nail by us each day whether knowingly or unbeknownst to us.

Methinks a man can be summed up by how he treats any other female person. Any man worth his two balls will know that he can’t respect himself enough as a man of worth if he treats a woman as less capable than himself. When a man can say he is a man and boastfully hit his chest to celebrate that, he first got to celebrate the level of his respect for a woman. In a non-patronising way of course. In a meaningful way. Then such is indeed a man.

I’ve been blesseth enough to grow up in a household where love prevailed in abundance. And such love was demonstrated by my father toward my mother. And I grew up witnessing that each day is a woman’s day. At least for my mother as she was (I shouldn’t say fortunate enough, but) 'fortunate' enough to spend such days with my father. And I’m proud to say that the man that is my enterprising father is what he is, every bit, because there’s a woman of strength and brains behind her, my mother.

So if a man shall stand one day and say I’m a man in the most meaningful of terms, I’ll look at how he treats female people in his life. And then if the treatment is queen-worthy, I’ll concur that indeed, here stands a man. Isn’t he a coward when he prejudices those that he has long labeled as a ‘weak’? Isn’t he the weak one he who can’t allow her to start anything on a par of resources? And better yet, won’t this global society that we live in today that lacks the basic of human necessities, love, be a better community when he whow is male can treat better her who is female! That’s not a question. But you can ponder upon it. Oh, and spread the love.

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Destiny, our doing or the hand of mystery?

I’ve been thinking on the word destiny in the past few days. In fact, contemplating on the concept of destiny itself. In the conventional wisdom, destiny is that which will be. That which lay ahead of our path already as a result of our previous choices or by preordained force – this bit meaning that we have little or no part in it except for puppetry. How you chose to define destiny, methinks, is utterly up to you. But I know, for my own good of course, a few conceptions and misconceptions about destiny that may break or make me, or at least the next fellow.

That destiny means that I have to add only a little bit of spice and salt here and there and things will work out fortune for me. That I don’t have to sweat my palm or break my back in toil to control my own destiny. That there is little and individual can do to influence what most spiritualists define as Maktub – ‘it is written’ (therefore it’ll be).

I believe otherwise. My conception of destiny tutors me each that it is the choices we make in the day that define our future. Our tomorrow, our very destiny. It’s the individual human being that alters the course of their life by every bit of action at each moment when they live out their thoughts. At this juncture, I must make mention that: select your thoughts carefully, for such is the seed of your life. The DNA of your future – is’t to be one of success of failure!

Of course, the Almighty has the might to influence our energies to make certain choices as much as provide us with the strength to make real our choices and endure them either in celebration or in pain. But the ultimate lies with you, with me, with us. The real deal, the doing is all up to the individual. Up to each and every one of us. I don’t think it’s negligent to state that many people day each day short lived not because it was written in their destiny that their lives be cut short. Many marriages today tumble not because God is part of the ignorance of the little bits of daily failings that went unattended. States war with each other not because God has a mission to accomplish on society as more powerful than the next. Many lead stressful and unhappy lives not because their destiny is laid with misery.

No. destiny is in the minds of each and every one of us. In our minds and hearts. We invent destiny by making the right and wrong choices each and every day. Fortunate are those who listen to their hearts and make the correct choices. Fortunate enough are those who realize they made the wrong turn and turnaround their choice at that very instant to correct it and choose and even happier destiny.

We fall each day when we lead our lives under the misconception that it is destined to be and we have not much to do with it. For me, I choose to arrive at my destiny confident that it was, in the most part, my own making and all the other mystic forces played cameo roles and God provided the strength and insight to getting it right.

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The test

There're times during our journeys that we just feel the juice to on has run out. That the chutzpah to continue blazing a meaningful trail has dried out with the suns each day past. That our minds can't stretch any farther than we've already exploited them. That our tired bodies can't shed an ounce more of strength to sustain our cause. That our courage has withered with the few storms that cornerd us at our most vulnerable.

It is during this times that we're in fact called to the test. We're called to break or make and during this very time, the siff starts to run its cause too. The wheat slowly separates from the charf. It is that point were those labeled genious hold their own, and those labeled anything else not resonating triumph being to wallow at the brim of a bottomless pit.

The testing moments such as these call for something that we can't see or touch. It calls for us to be faithful. Faith. To find and draw that innate voice that whispers, 'go on, it will be done'. That voice that says it was made yours the moment you had the dream to achieve, the moment you begun, the moment you shed the first sweat in your palm.

Almost like one can say it's the tipping point. The juncture where we get what we wanted and needed or we 'go home'. A road without tests is one that doesn't mould a person to greatness. Like the blacksmith would burn, burn again, then hammer, burn, hammer a metal until it takes a shape that is more beautiful and becomes a masterpiece.

Allow yourself to feel the faith so that you can give your dream and opportunity to turn this one corner, just as you will need to allow it to turn the next harder one. In this way, you get closer to your dream. By doing that alone, you'll feel triumphant - like I do right now - and imagine the feeling once the dream has been achieved. DESTINY!

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Tears of the heart

Why does it be, why,
Why is this heart so torn apart,
Ripped into countless pieces of an unfitting puzzle

Is this heart that loves so much to be punished,
Banished to infinite desperation,
Despair-ation which knows prayer but not answers

How does it be, how
How that I love man and hate my Creator,
Man exists with me to love and war with,
He who created me denies ... [read more]

Read the rest of the poem at my dedicated poetry blog: http://izzonlinepoetry.blogspot.com/2007/08/tears-of-heart.html

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Be damned good in your true passion

Life is vast. Interests are wide and many alluring. Our minds, hungry for demonstrating their prowess, want to take on any 'cool', 'chic' interest that comes our way. Especially interests that are the 'in' thing. Our hearts, ever focused and determined and genuine, cry of a need to express our true love and passion. To display the marvels that we were born to be. However, we almost always go with our minds for pop culture pummels into us that such is sense. And we do so at the peril, most of the time, of our true passion. We end up being the Jacks and Janes of all trades - good at mastering nothing, great at wandering and wondering everything.

It dawned on me recently that I needed to pick one skill that I have, or feel I was born to, and labour tirelessly to craft it, sharpen it, love it and in fact, perfect it. To let that one skill be my prime prive passion. Allow it to define me. I can demonstrate all my other skills and take care of them, but the volume of the time has to go to one skill, one love, one passion that my heart can sing with and dance on. It's more like focusing the laser that is the energy of the power of the heart so it can make better cuts and trims.

Since contemplating in such a way, I found that I love writing. I'm passionate about words and the way they weave together into a beautiful message that can laugh or cry. And with that, I shall spent my life devoting myself to labouring on words. To sweat my palms wet expressing the love of an art that I can one day perfect in such a way that the words themselves can start to seem to breath a life of their own. Almost like for them to become alive, breathing back their awe and beauty to anyone who reads them.

What's your one true passion? That one thing which you feel you do so well that you're convinced you were born to do? That one thing that whispers, "devote your entire life perfecting me - and I shall make you a genius". It helps to find out and zoom in closer to that passion. To focus and really go big on it in every way. I think in that way, we could all become geniuses in our own little spots, which when joined together, will make a tapestry of beauty that makes life a lot more enjoyable with happier people.

Find your passion, and pour every ounce of your heart's energies into it. Draw every thought of your mind to crafting it into perfection and watch yourself amaze even... You. My writing, although still raw and unperfected and wobbly - yet growing - is starting to amaze even me.

Bedazzle yourself, be damned good in your true passion.

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This thing dreams this, very mystic and non-chiccultured

I sit at my desk in my study now and I'm gripped by fear. Such fear that moments ago my eyes were watered so much that parts of the top brown wood of the desk turned white from the flooding of tears. I'd awoken only to continue a routine of progressing my novel, and strange enough, the chapter (four) I'm working on is titled "The strongest of hearts cries" named for the reasons that the emperor in the novel had a strong heart, but at a certain time, it was brought to its knees.

Now this room I sit in feels, all this sudden since 30min ago, so spooky. So supernatural. It flabbersgasts me that only an unusual phone call about a dream of somebody far away - and I mean far, brought all such aura to my room. What perhaps painted my walls with such dark mood is I was asked by a silent broken voice, "please pray for me this very instant", than "I had a really bad dream a moment ago". From the instant I heard that, I went into panic mode, in an auto kind of way. Everything around me suddenly felt supernatural in a scary type of way.

To make a pompous small confession of a hallucinated man, I'm one blesseth with having meaningful visions. Not too often, but each time I'm shown in my sleep things or events I'd never seen before, and on further investigation, fear grips me after finding out that I wasn't dreaming. I was being directed, by who knows what force, to something that truly exists. And as I'd seen it, there would it be, in front of my eyes happening just as envisioned.

I'm sure you also have your own premonitions and visions that visit you in your slumber. I'm not talking here of de javu. I speak of some not-so-natural phenomena that you don't fear for the quasi-events that happened in it, but for the supernatural feeling that accompanies them. The feeling that you just had your soul travel to a place or event in the future and come back and inform you.

On the phone call, I explained to my little brother that "don't fear... and don't face up when you sleep" - in a way, I was trying to calm myself too.

Now I ask myself, is this universe really connected like the alchemists before us said? Is this world inhibited by more souls than our own? Do our souls sleep and rest with our bodies at time of slumber or do they travel the girth of this planet into far away places - witness somethings, and if related to our lives, our conscious then notices and we then have visions of such, and because we are so real and faithless, we scare and imagine it's a nightmare?

I told my little brother, "remember what grandpa always said, 'our souls don't tire like our minds. Like our bodies. They have no day and night. They travel all the time all over the place and mingle with other souls.'"

I figure, that if that contains a pint of truth, and I can't see why not, then our souls could really tell us so many things we need to know if we quiten our conscious and clear our minds well enough. I doubt I can do that. I doubt my brother can do that. Perhaps you can.

Many a times, on the occassion that I do, I'd kneel down and say some holy phrases and my mind would play games with me that 'if anything near supernatural were to happen this instant, remember: fire up your heels... top speed'. You see, faithlessness. We even fear in our dreams. So alchemy is far from men and women of today. Many a times we disregard premonitions and our dreams and their interpretations as perfected mambo jumbo - popular common sense always shruggs them 'naaah, no ways'.

My point of this piece: releasing the fear that gripped me. And it's now gone. But the assertions I made in the above lines still stay solid like the one perfect vision I had in my sleep some time months ago, which others confirmed to have been real life (future) event. And I was oustounded to witness it happen later on as I'd seen it in my slumber.

This thing premonitions this! What to make of it. We're faithless man. We either misinterpret it or we're coward enough to disregard it because we're modern, civilized man who believe only in psychology that is preached by those with civilized university degrees - as they qualify to counsel us because they ticked the correct multiple choice answer. And we toss aside the alchemist in each of us. And yes, those words sound dilusional even to me because I'm as faithless as the next fellow brainwashed by supermedia into chicculture - a culture of dissident and common sense (of which common sense is pop culture sense), not innate sense like the animals in the jungle live by.

I'm awake now, you can stop reading if you got this far.

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ISBN for The Half Prince of Timbuktu

It may be a NO BIG DEAL to anyone else except one person. Izz. But hey, I just have to make a public announcement: I got the ISBN for my debut novel: 978-0-620-39285-3, The Half Prince of Timbuktu.

I celebrated. Not that it was administrative pain to get it, it was in fact too easy. The reason for the elation is because it was a real first step toward ensuring that I can publish my own novel - and retain all control of my work.

I'm still investigating whether to independently publish with Lulu.com or Booksurge (Amazon). But one thing for sure is that I'll be it doing myself mainly because I want to exercise my entrepreneurial spirit.

The book will be hitting and heating the bookshelves in early 2008 (although I finish writing in mid September) and hopefully I'll create enough media buzz for the novel by implementing my previous PR skills. The best plan is to perform magic so that it can be top 10 on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

By the way, the book already has two sequels planned: 'Sundiata' and '1884'.

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Mikhaela's tragedy

[]WARNING: Some readers may be offended.[]

What was I to be, a girl, a boy?
Was I to be light, dark?
Was my nose to be sharp, hair curly and rich black?

Sob, sob, what do the others conceived in my time look like, like me?
Do they today life and its spoils enjoy?
Was I to play with them?
Was I to give mama and papa joy, pain, joy, pain, perhaps ... continue

Read the rest of the poem on my dedicated poetry blog: Izzonline Poetry

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Pain teaches us the harder lessons

When times in your life come that you must go through pain, that your body or your emotions must take a toll because of something horrible that's happened, try and see the lesson. Try and see the message the pain may carry. It may be a success, love or miracle in disguise. And it takes a little bit of stepping back sometimes and looking, reassesing the pain with a new eye that you may realise, 'so, this is the lesson', or that 'it's this new fruitful direction I must take from hereforth'.

I felt it. Massive, grievesome pain recently. And because of that pain, today I appreciate life better - or at least started to. I look at life with a new cleansed eye. It's almost like the pain was there to say 'Izz, you getting wayyyyyy too sloppy at your game. At the game of life'. And it was of course a rude awakening. It made me rethink my ways of living with others. My ways of understanding things. My ways of speaking about things.

During, or rather, post that pain, I kind of thought of the blacksmith or shall I say blacksmithing (don't know the science's name). I thought of a metal that's taken an odd and unappreciative form of its own. And for it to change, for it to become a metal of better, meaningful shape, the blacksmith needs to put it through a furnace. An extreme, supernatural degree of heat and even after that, beat the hell out of it with a fiver pounder. Only after sometime in that heat and massive hammering will the metal give away its stubborness and release its ill-form and take on a new shape.

You and I are blacksmiths of our lives. Of our destinies and habits. But we need that furnace in order to change our metal to a form that is useful. A beautiful form that can be better appreciated. Pain tutors us to absorb the harder, more difficult lessons that we otherwise would not have the ability to understand in our normal merry state.

Basically, the long and short of it is that: Allow yourself to see the lessons, messsage, intent, reason or objective for that pain in your life to be. Why is it there? Everything in this world for a reason - don't the wise say!. So that pain is something else in disguise. Think upon that will you. I'm grafting on it as I write.

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