Disclaimer: I aim to offend no one person with this blog, really, I don’t.
For the non-Zulu among us, first of all, sympathies that you are not spawn from the loins of men who belong to arguably the greatest warrior Nation on Earth; and you do not have royal Zulu blood coursing through your veins. Secondly, ‘sdudla’ means ‘fattie or a fat person’; I feel it is important for you to understand this up front so that you may (a) Be wiser and (b) Understand the title and context better.
Shout out to one Mnikelo for coming up with the concept which is the title of this piece and the subject of my thoughts today. I don’t really like you, but thanks dude.
Presently, let me take you through why I am writing under this title today. It’s about 19h07 on July 22 of the year of our Lord 2008. It has been one of the crappiest days of my life, barring the days that presented family deaths, a tonsillectomy and the day my older brother stole my fried chicken.
I feel worthless today; work was hard with a few minor breakthroughs. I am having a torrid time with the collective of woman that I hope one day would start the Sumo clan with me, Tito is hell bent on making my new motor vehicle ownership a living hell and the oil companies are playing accomplice to this.
But contrary to what my heart believes, this is not all about me. There are people out there trying to grow businesses hence my heavy work schedule with ever tightening delivery timelines. The woman surely are looking after their future children by taking a very close look at the genealogical make up of the mammoth Sumo that may intertwine with theirs to spawn little fat turds and maybe this is not such an attractive option. I can’t love an ugly baby — I cannot even pretend — therefore I understand a woman who couldn’t love a fat kid. Cold-hearted, but yeah, different strokes and the likes …
Tito and the petro companies are looking after the health of their markets and bottom lines respectively so you cannot really blame him or the greedy pigs that run the syndicate that peddles the liquid black gold. Both have people higher up to answer to; Tito has T-Boz and the Oil Syndicate has Lucifer who you will agree is a bastard to work for.
I mean the perks over at Lucifer Inc. may be good while you are in his employ, why with the no application of morals policy that he perpetuates and the encouragement of general evil deeds, which are far more fun and instantly rewarding than good deeds, by the way (Dark Lord). But the retirement plan is rather unattractive; everybody likes a good braai, but not when they are the ones with the skewers up their butts.
So, it would seem that the current sources of my anxiety are quite despite of me as an individual. Well, it would seem so to anyone outside my situation but me. I think it is human nature to react in a manner that internalises the adverse conditions around them resulting in a mindset that believes that the world is singling them out for punishment — a constant victim state of being.
It’s hard to be positive when it seems that the world is going against you. I feel like that today. Even my Play station and favourite game FIFA 07 turned against me today; I lost in the Cup, had my clubs board against me and a player refused to sign the contract extension I offered them and I failed to buy a player who was a free agent. Sigh. When your PS2 turns against you, you are truly screwed!
This is when I remembered the chant I heard through my coloured friend who told me that it had originated from one other who is a colleague of ours – a constantly drunk young man with an affinity for quotations when under the influence. He had coined “Sdudla – it’s bigger than you!”
I used the phrase and discovered that it went a long way into directing me to stop thinking emotionally about my current circumstances, but rather to start using logic and understanding. All my troubles are largely not about me, well, except for the one where woman are a bit put off by having me pass on the obesity gene to the children we will spawn together.
The phrase makes sense to me because (1) I’m fat and (2) All that is happening to me is actually not about me, I’m just an innocent bystander constantly riddled with semi-automatic rounds of life-fire, and they keep coming, as though the Universe locked a bull’s-eye on me, firing all the time and all the bullets are laser guided.
It is only in bad times that we start believing just how bad the universe has it in for us, or how much our Creator wants to punish us (Well maybe I shouldn’t have done that thing with that dude’s wife). I tried to resist, but she insisted. What was I to do? I’m a man, a fat man, with peculiar needs, or maybe I have been signed up by the dark side without my knowledge.
However, when things are going well, we tend to believe that it is because of our genius and good planning, but when frustration sets in – it is undoubtedly someone else’s fault; some incredibly powerful force that is bored with keeping objects in orbit and the universe expanding at a constant rate and hence has the time to toy with our little individual lives.
All I want to say on yours and my petty little self-pity drive is that ‘Sdudla – it’s bigger than you!’ Please believe that the world does not have it in for you. It’s not just you; life sucks for a loooot of people. Bad things happen to good and bad people alike.
Oh, and it’s bigger than you, Sdudla — the force that constantly kills your happiness, I mean.
I rest for now,
The Sumo
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