Episode Nine: Out of the rat race
Tim Conibear ponders surf, wealth and the pursuit of happiness in Africa.
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When I left England in early January this year there were suggestions of an economic slow down. Suggestions that were, by in large, disregarded and shrugged off as media hype and political manoeuvring – scoffed at as the bumper bonus payouts continued regardless, the borrowing became even more wanton, and the repackaging and re-distribution of debt became straight-up irresponsible.
In many ways the crisis was inevitable and it is no less ironic that for the many former city workers I have bumped into out here in South Africa, the crunch that cost them their jobs has been a blessing in disguise. All have left their late employers on healthy payouts and are now looking to spend some time away from the cocoon of the city and step out into the wider world, “making up for lost time”.
For the most part we are the same age, meeting on beaches and in car parks, sussing out waves and weighing up options, chatting through dusk surfs and often continuing with a drink at the bars of the more modest surf camps and backpackers that now take the place of corporate hospitality and bulging expense accounts. Mainly we talk about the pros and cons of the city lifestyle; the rush of big deals, big payouts and the peace of mind offered by long-term financial security. And the trade off against long hours, lost time and - for those that I have met out here - a loss of purpose. It seems as financially rewarding as the lifestyle is, there comes a point where you no longer have the amount of time you need to enjoy the fruits of your labour, nor the space to fully detach from the financial world. For those that I have met here, therein lies the problem.
“Context and reason”, reads a note on my jot pad from a chat in a Transkei hostel. I forget the man’s name but he was a financial strategist for a large multinational bank. He told me that for all the payouts and bonuses he still couldn’t find purpose or satisfaction. He found security and comfort but ultimately he left frustrated and had come to Africa to pursue something a little more real. For him it was learning to surf as he travelled the coastline, weather he will find what he’s looking for in the waves or not remains to be seen but one thing is for certain; for all the material comforts and security offered by a life in the city there is a very real emotional detachment, one you only really learn to appreciate once you leave.
Since arriving here in Africa - continent of poverty, hunger, mass unemployment, HIV, crime and corruption, where the majority live on or below the breadline and have little contact with the social elite - wealth is a different ideal. Wealth is in people and friendship, family and faith, love and loss and in taking joy from each day as it comes, enjoying the bare bones of life. There is still want, there is still need and the above may well be a gross oversimplification of a far wider reaching crisis to which an injection of money is one of several solutions, but wealth here in Africa has yet to totally obscure and corrupt the compassionate nature of some the continent’s poorest inhabitants. Whichever way you choose to access this, through travelling, surfing or otherwise, there is a lesson to be learned here. From the sprawling townships of the Cape Flats to the close and claustrophobic confines of the Transkei’s mud rondavels, there is a passion for life that you seldom see in the first world. There is poverty and there is need, but the quest for financial stability and security has yet to take absolute hold.
Somewhere the discrepancy between need and greed has been blurred. Society and culture dictate what we need to survive, yes, and there are varying degrees of comfort and material success to which we all aspire - degrees of wealth that will ensure security and comfort once we have surpassed our earning capacity and which deserve our full attention now. But too often this quest becomes covetous, competitive and grotesque. There is only so much we really need to live comfortably before the rest becomes superfluous and our spending unnecessary, money that could be put to better use elsewhere. There is only so much we can take with us when we go and only so long we actually have to spend it, a cliché maybe, but one that rings true with those that I have met here who are no longer willing to trade fading years for an uncertain future.
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Episode Nine: Out of the rat race (text) by Tim Conibear is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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