We, the naïve, salute the ideal

Submitted by EMil Wentzel

Every week I read Thought Leader for interesting articles that challenge my frame of mind and particular bias; I’m pleased that my view has been expanded on or crushed and changed constantly.

It reminds me that we must stay malleable and exposed to the fine facets of our society through interaction; simultaneously remaining open to the prospect of having our point of view destroyed, or we risk becoming stagnant pools of lifeless rhetoric and monologue. But alas…

We are naïve.

We are convinced of the splendour of our country, only by averting our eyes from the poverty begging at our street corners, or accept that blatant corruption (hand-me-ups) and crime are needed to build a better nation, or are symptoms of an inherited society. We refuse to let go of the past injustices, using it to belittle our fellow man/woman/child offering to help pull us up from the squalor. And even when we refute the past and deny its presence, it is only because the past will hamper our hold on ignorance or deplete the illusion that we are in the right with our particular stance.

Those of us with independence of thought struggle to convince our brethren to join us in mutual argument; not for the sake of disagreeing or demonstrating our genius, but to learn and grow together. Worse still, some decline to see themselves as equal to the ‘unlearned’, the ‘uneducated’, the ones who do not speak ‘their’ language (English, isiZulu, isiXhosa, Tsotsi taal, etc) or by other discriminations. These people rob themselves of the great pleasure of sharing and challenging their ideologies and ideas and thoughts on how to accomplish the illusive goal: A better life for all!

Even with the current heightened debate, we have allowed ourselves to become idealists and fixed in our points of view. We go so far as to seek out those who would reinforce our own perception, instead of allowing our narrow thought to be challenged, and then say: “See, there’s the evidence, I was right all along.”

But in a country with 45- to 60-million (and indeed a world of six to seven billion) points of view of the beach ball that is our world, which colour is the first one?

We are naïve.

And that naïvety, whether for change or against it, will diminish our ability to learn, to find the middle ground, the grey where the magic happens. As long as we remain stuck in our views, nothing will change, nothing will grow, and everything we claim our ignorance protects will be lost. It is time we claim back our power, become the philanthropists of our own communities and build as one nation.

Vote if you feel compelled, but encourage the debate to heat up and remain open to hearing the unwritten, unspoken and suffocated voice. It is time that we shed our childishness, with all its tantrum-throwing waste of energy, and return to child-like vigour and play in the sand, building castles and telling, hearing and creating our stories.

We have to commit ourselves and build, starting now. Tomorrow is never to arrive, but always to come. Our naïvety should not be allowed to wait to be disappointed by tragic consequence, but rather disproved through learned wisdom. Or we will all perish with those naïve ideals and empty promises we fill our time defending.

EMil Wentzel is a desk-bound IT jockey who rides the waves in the restless sea of user-support and network uptime, while dodging managerial warships out to sink his budget. He wiles his way his free time surfing the news sites for anything from science and politics to art and cooking (baking included), along with the sticky stuff that links it all together.