“A Reasonable Affliction”: Matthew Prior (1664-1721)
On his deathbed poor Lubin lies: his spouse is in despair: with frequent sobs and mutual cries, they both express their care. A different cause, says Parson Sly, The same effect may give:
Poor Lubin fears that he shall die; His wife, that he may live.
My readers may wonder, and reasonably so, why I should waste their time pandering to such mundanity as inheres in these lines written more than 400 years ago (bearing in mind that pandering is also, in addition to its good meaning, an immoral or distasteful desire to gratify poor taste).
My motivation is in the humour of the situation, where the Pastor (slyly) suggests husband and wife are at opposite poles in their prayers.
Another example of such witticism is contained in the original poem, Enigma Sartorial. It describes a penguin as a gentleman in a tuxedo. The enigma lies in our inability to decide whether is coming from, or going out to a serious social event. It’s like arguing whether a zebra is a white donkey with black stripes or a black donkey with white stripes. It’s playing with words and finding some sanity in the disorder.
I find it necessary because my life has become enigmatic with the curse of load shedding. When I am ready and physically able to tend to my swimming pool, there is no power.
When there is power, something prevents me from doing what I intended. It applies to all aspects of my being. While watching a quiz-show, my screen goes blank because I can no longer trust the published or tweeted “no-power” schedules.
Am I making much ado about nothing? I don’t think so. We have become so inured to abuse and reification (the constant repetition of lies to the point where it becomes a truth) that we have redesigned our existence around this issue of power-outages. I refuse to call it load shedding. What load? Where is it shed? And can the shedded parts be recovered and recycled to make the damn curse go away?
It seems to me the only worker who is consistently punctual and on the job is the guy who switches off the light when and where he wills. If his child were asked at school: “What does your dad do?”, what would his answer be? “He switches lights off and then he switches them on again.” What do the workers on a generating site do while the generators are put on hold? Polish brass plaques? Play dominoes? While diabetics wait for dialysis or a family waits for food? Or we play roulette at four-way traffic lights to see who is going to blink first? That traffic light sure as hell is not going to blink at all. Check your schedule.
There you have my piece (peace) for the week. A distraction of whatever mundanity level just to help me regain the sanity that has been seriously discombobulated by the state-owned entity called Eskom.
Cyril Ramaphisa is touted as president for another term. Some people cheer. Others jeer. It’s like the opening lines of my piece. We no longer wish for the same thing or for the same reason or even at the same time. The damage is not as obvious as it sounds. It goes deep into the psyche. Hence my scurrying to flippancy in order to stop from committing a crime or some other dire deed.
Who is in charge? They have my money. I paid the account they sent. Yet I don’t get what I paid for. If I skip payment, I get a tsunami of admonitions, reconnection fees, scrutiny fees, re-alignment fees and fees just to pay for processing the fees. No, no, no, people! This is the route to insanity. Forgive my escape hole, but I need it at my age, that I am hopelessly helpless against the chaos that constitutes a day in the life of the land of my birth.
My readers may wonder, and reasonably so, why I should waste their time pandering to such mundanity as inheres in these lines written more than 400 years ago (bearing in mind that pandering is also, in addition to its good meaning, an immoral or distasteful desire to gratify poor taste). My motivation is in the humour of the situation, where the Pastor (slyly) suggests that husband and wife are at opposite poles in their prayers.
Another example of such witticism is contained in the original poem, Enigma Sartorial. It describes a penguin as a gentleman in a tuxedo. The enigma lies in our inability to decide whether is coming from, or going out to a serious social event. It’s like arguing whether a zebra is a white donkey with black stripes or a black donkey with white stripes. It’s playing with words and finding some sanity in the disorder.
I find it necessary because my life has become enigmatic with the curse of load shedding. When I am ready and physically able to tend to my swimming pool, there is no power. When there is power, something prevents me from doing what I intended. It applies to all aspects of my being. While watching a quiz-show, my screen goes blank because I can no longer trust the published or tweeted “no-power” schedules.
Am I making much ado about nothing? I don’t think so. We have become so inured to abuse and reification (the constant repetition of lies to the point where it becomes a truth) that we have redesigned our existence around this issue of power-outages. I refuse to call it load shedding. What load? Where is it shed? And can the shedded parts be recovered and recycled to make the damn curse go away?
It seems to me the only worker who is consistently punctual and on the job is the guy who switches off the light when and where he wills. If his child were asked at school: “What does your dad do?”, what would his answer be? “He switches lights off and then he switches them on again.” What do the workers on a generating site do while the generators are put on hold? Polish brass plaques? Play dominoes? While diabetics wait for dialysis or a family waits for food? Or we play roulette at four-way traffic lights to see who is going to blink first? That traffic light sure as hell is not going to blink at all. Check your schedule.
There you have my piece (peace) for the week. A distraction of whatever mundanity level just to help me regain the sanity that has been seriously discombobulated by the state-owned entity called Eskom. Cyril Ramaphisa is touted as president for another term. Some people cheer. Others jeer. It’s like the opening lines of my piece. We no longer wish for the same thing or for the same reason or even at the same time. The damage is not as obvious as it sounds. It goes deep into the psyche. Hence my scurrying to flippancy in order to stop from committing a crime or some other dire deed.
Who is in charge? They have my money. I paid the account they sent. Yet I don’t get what I paid for. If I skip payment, I get a tsunami of admonitions, reconnection fees, scrutiny fees, re-alignment fees and fees just to pay for processing the fees. No, no, no, people! This is the route to insanity. Forgive my escape hole, but I need it at my age, that I am hopelessly helpless against the chaos that constitutes a day in the life of the land of my birth.
* Alex Tabisher.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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