I am by no means a wise man or best-selling writer, in fact if you ask me what of my dreams I have achieved thus far, I would have to say none. By this, I mean I have not yet come close to being the writer or story- teller I long to be. That is of course a lifetime’s work. So in many senses I am just beginning. Sadly this evening, I can’t necessarily share with you the secrets of success but I can talk about the journey, the journey I am currently on. The journey that leads one on that often long and relentless but never dull road, the road we must all travel to discover and fulfil our true purpose.

 I am however in my pursuit to be an excellent story teller– a very keen reader and as a result will be referring to a few great writers today to make my points, I hope that this will not detract from the idea that the most important life lessons are those learnt through living, the actual experiencing of things. It is after all personal experience that has made these writers I will speak of, the great minds and observers that they are. 

So what then you might wonder makes a great writer? Personally, I believe the same attributes that make any person of any profession an extraordinary human being. Years ago I attended a screenwriting workshop in London with the legendary American teacher Robert Mackee and it was from him, that I gleaned these pearls of invaluable wisdom. A good writer, says Mackee, has to possess….

The love of story – the belief that your vision can be expressed only through story, that characters can be more real than people, that the fictional world is more profound than the concrete. The love of the dramatic- a fascination with the sudden surprises and revelations that bring sea changes in life. The love of truth—the belief that that lies cripple the artist, that every truth in life must be questioned , down to ones secret motives. The love of humanity—a willingness to empathise with the suffering souls, to crawl inside their skins and see the world through their eyes. The love of sensation—the desire to indulge not only the physical but the inner senses. The love of dreaming—the pleasure in taking leisurely rides on your imagination just to see where it leads. The love of humour –a joy in the saving grace that restores the balance to life. The love of language- the delight in sound and sense, syntax and semantics. The love of duality—a feel for life’s hidden contradictions, a healthy suspicion that things are not what they seem. The love of perfection—the passion to write and rewrite in the pursuit of the perfect moment. The love of uniqueness—the thrill of audacity and stone faced calm when it is met by ridicule. The love of beauty—an innate sense that treasures good writing, hates bad writing and knows the difference. The love of self- a strength that doesn’t need to be constantly reassured, that never doubts that you are indeed a writer. You must love to write and bear the loneliness.  

It’s with these attributes in mind that I will be sharing with you all some of the helpful things I have taken away from my reading. Phrases and quotes I have kept scrawled in my note books, and frequently turned to when the world, as is often the case, no longer seems to make any sense. These writers I will refer to are all masters of their craft, women and men whose inquiring minds can help us better understand what it means to be a human being existing and dreaming in the world today.  So this is not a speech just aimed at the arty folks in the room, those of you who wish to go on into professions as writers, or poets, visual or performing artists, it includes those with mathematical minds, scientific or technological ambitions. In fact any one with brain and heart beat,which I’m certain includes the entire hall, I hope will listen up. For creativity, is in fact the centre of everything.

In an Anthropology course I took a few years ago, I came across a passage that has remained with me. It reads….

“If you consider that we came into the world as an incomplete species, we were not developed like animals who have in them the inborn ability to adapt to their natural environments. As a counter balance to these deficiencies however mankind was given rare gifts of intelligence and spirit, which enable them to adapt to their environment in a creative manner. The creative process you see enables people to be complete beings by supplementing their biological imperfections by a means of culture.”

 This idea boggles in my mind. Do you ever stop to marvel at what we (humanity) have done, are capable of. Let’s for a moment forget the flip side, the horror, atrocity and destruction and revel in the idea that every invention, every item of clothing you are wearing, watch, shoe lace, every brick in this building, light bulb in these sockets, are inventions forged as creative solutions by the human mind and hands.  From this we have the pyramids, the skyscrapers, communication, architecture, technology, transport- in fact everything that constitutes our world as we know it.

Creativity then is at the core of our existence, without it we would still be running around grunting like a bunch of Neanderthals for we would not have a language to share, naked cause god forbid the mega mall would not be standing to service our every need and in the dark cause Eskom might not exist- well in this country that might as well be the case. 

So every aspect of our lives, of our thinking is done through one form of creativity or another, so don’t let me ever catch anyone saying I’m not a creative person .I don’t care if you’re Vincent Van Gough or a house wife who decoupages bread bins as a hobby, we are all a creative species, it’s of course how we use this creativity to benefit and better understand the world around us that of course makes all the difference.

This is where I believe literature (in fact all the great art forms dance, music, theatre, film , music) can come in handy and why I’m going to encourage you (call me old fashioned)  to stop reading, watching and listening to kak. Life is too short and the brain too beautiful a mechanism to waste on fuelling it with junk.

Can I ask, what I think is a very valid question–Who are those people on the television and tabloids? Those aren’t real people guys and they aren’t necessarily very talented people, so why on earth are we so obsessed with them? I’m not talking morals here, I’m talking intellect, I’m talking about celebrating people whose brains happen to be larger than that of an emaciated pea. Why do we waste so many good valuable hours, watching and reading about stupid people and their addictions, their bank accounts, fashion crimes, bo-tox and boozing habits. Let’s not aspire to these morons, let’s not live in their diminishing anorexic shadows. When you cut through all the plastic, the razz ma tazz and money– they are ultimately sad, lonely and very lost souls. Instead of adoration we should be offering them sympathy.

 As I said life is too short, this stuff we consume is made to distract, to hide what beauty is really out there. Let’s cut through the crap , focus instead on growing your minds, your understanding, your relationships (not on facebook but in person)– use your short time on earth to, question things, to know more, to collectively try fix this awful mess the world continues to get itself into. Let’s focus on the quality and not quantity of life.

 So much of the world around is aimed at distraction- making us think we want, we need things all the time- faster cars, bigger houses, fancier gadgets, cell phones, technology. While this stuff is all handy, let’s not let it get the better of us, or worse do the thinking for us. What I’m trying to say, is we need to start relying on the good stuff, the meaty stuff –and it’s out there-more of it than you could consume in an entire life time. To achieve this, look no further then the great minds that have gone before. This is where writers become particularly useful.

 “Great writers” according to Nobel Prize winning Author Dorris Lessing, “Are more able to detach themselves from mass emotions and social conditions. They are people who are continually examining and observing the world around them and one of the most valuable tasks they perform is enabling us to see ourselves as others see us.”

How often do we step outside ourselves? See things from another vantage point? A different perspective or light. A great novel can allow us to do this. Can allow us empathise through another’s eyes.

“Writers” Lessing goes on to claim, “ comment on the human condition, talk about it continually. It is their subject . Literature is one of the most useful ways of achieving this ‘other eye’, this detached manner of seeing ourselves, history is another. Yet literature and history increasingly are not seen like this by the young- as indispensible tools for living.”

I like this phrase “indispensible tools for living’. What Lessing makes a point of in her essay, is how with technology as it is, with all the access we have to information, why is that we never seem to learn from it? Why are we not using it to better ourselves?  By looking back on history and literature can we not see the mistakes of the past? And are we not intelligent enough to avoid making them all over again. The lessons of course are all there, all the information we need to sort this planet out is bristling at our finger tips, but sadly we so seldom use nor learn from it.

Shakespeare is of course an excellent starting point. Don’t waste money on therapy or self help, just read Shakespeare to truly understand the human condition in all its complexity, horror, beauty, humour and tragedy. Mbeki’s recent tumbling from the presidential throne is classic King Lear stuff and perhaps had he had dipped into his complete works a little earlier on in his presidency he might have avoided been cast out into the wilderness as a doddering  old man. Mr Mugabe however I should suggest skipping Shakespeare altogether and rather reading “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest” to get a clearer idea about the state of his mind.

So I encourage you guys today as leaders, citizens, students, parents of the future to enjoy this explosion of information, of stories and knowledge that you have at your disposal, to take an interest in history, learn which leaders are worth following and those to avoid. Learn how others have lived, succeeded and thrived and from this create your own ideals, philosophies, life style. Borrow from the best. There is no reason why your life should be nothing short of excellent. Good books, film, theatre, in my opinion provide the blue-print to ensuring this.

 If you happen to be going into university then take full advantage of this time, read and question and nurture your opinions. When I was trying to make up my mind what and if I should study, I found great comfort in the quote from JD Salinger’s ‘Catcher in the Rye’. The protagonist of the novel Holden Claufield is a bit of misfit, battling to find his place or calling the world and this is the advice one of his teachers offers him.

 “Once you have a fair idea where you want to go, your first move will be to apply yourself to University, you’ll have to, you’re a student –whether the idea appeals to you or not ,you’re in love with knowledge and I think you’ll find once you get passed all the teachers, once you get past them ,you are going to start getting closer–that is if you want to, if you look for it, wait for it- to the kind of information that will be very very dear to your heart—among other things you’ll find you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behaviour. You’re by no means alone on that score– you’ll be excited and stimulated to know many many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them-if you want to. Just as some day if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement and it isn’t education its history, its poetry.”

I think criticality is a very important attribute to hone at this stage in your lives and one that should not be confused with being cynical.  Cynicism is of course a terrible attribute, a lazy form of criticality that comes with ignorance or not knowing enough. It’s far too easy to be cynical in this day and age, but critical now there’s the rub.  A cynic I was amused to find in my research derives from the Greek word from ‘like a dog’ because cynics back in the day were known to scratch themselves wherever and  whenever they felt like it.’ So we need to develop a healthy questioning or criticality about the societies that we live in. To harness and nurture our individuality and difference.

‘Know thyself’ warned the blind prophet Theiresius to Oedipus in Sophocles tragedy ‘Oedipus Rex’ and I think this is one of the most important things we each must achieve in our life time, an intimate understanding of ourselves.

 How many of us actually know how to spend time with ourselves? Alone, separate of friends, company, the television? How many of us ever learn through the course of a life time how to enjoy their own company? To stop and take stock of their life so far?

 There is a great quote, and I’m not entirely sure who said it, but it claims that 99 percent of the wars started in the world today are by men who don’t know how to be alone in a room with themselves longer than half an hour. And I think this is very true. It’s in times of solitude, silence that I tend to gain the best understanding of myself, work out what and who I want to be, what direction I wish for my life to take. To achieve a sufficient dose of solitude I find taking myself off (when finance and schedule allows) into the word for a few months of every year to be the best solution.

Over the last five years I have travelled extensively on my own, with a back pack crammed with more literature then it contains clothing. I’ve spent several months in India, Madagascar, Africa and South America. Instead of using the ‘lonely planet’ as my travel guide, I prefer to be guided by the literature from each region I happen to be visiting. This has allowed me to see India through the eyes of Salman Rushdies ‘Midnights Children’ or more recently, follow in the footsteps of the characters or Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘One hundred years of solitude’  in Colombia, South America.

It is when I’m thrown out of my comfort zone, thrust into a foreign city without the language or a clue that I feel the most challenged, the most alive. I can’t call home, or turn to a friend of loved one and so I have to turn to myself, which is a bit scary considering I’m probably the  biggest sissy I know. Still I’m constantly amazed what solutions I am capable of finding. The ‘creative faculties’ I spoke of earlier that each of us are in possession of.  To unleash these you have to take risks, to challenge yourself.

“It’s tragic” says Oscar Wilde “how few people ever possess their souls before they die. Nothing is more rare in any man –says Emerson—then the act of his own. Most people are other people’s thoughts are someone else’s opinion, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

The suburbs, god bless them, over extended periods tend to make us apathetic and complacent ,lock us into routine, bind us to all that bad news that thuds on the driveway with the daily newspaper. We need to break out of these cycles. Use our precious time to traverse this planet of ours, find solitude, peace and a place within it.

Of course by travel I’m not talking about contiki and pre-packaged student drinking tours, but rather encouraging you to make your own way. Don’t brush through experiences in life, don’t follow in the footsteps of the photo snappy tourist herds, don’t live through a lens but rather your own two eyes.

And lastly love whatever it is you do, whatever profession or career you now create for yourself- Love it. Your work becomes you, will consume a majority of your time here on earth. Do not be afraid to try new things and to take your time in doing so. I’ve dabbled in many things, settled for the moment on writing but it doesn’t mean I won’t keep exploring. So look hard for what is your calling, your true passion—use it to contribute to the world and those around you. This is your one chance, don’t settle for the ordinary but make every effort to be utterly extraordinary.

 I’d like to thank you for having me today, and I wish you the best on the next phase of your journeys out into the world.