27 Nov 2015

Marriage – or Forward to the Past


Marriage – or Forward to the Past – by P.K. Odendaal – December 2015

 

Whether it is forward to the past or back the future, I do not really know or care, because what is important is that we do not want to go here – a place we call today. I mean with regard to marriage, the family, education and cultural and social affairs. We have seen enough and we have had enough. Who will save us from ourselves?
When I wrote A Parody on Marriage, there were just too many questions, idiosyncrasies, pretension and contradictions to keep a rational person sane in the dichotomies which developed from the conclusions. So, I had to rethink and relive the whole thing. What was clear, however, was that the way of choosing a spouse today was just not working anymore and was leading us nowhere, if such a destination could be found at all. In fact, the remedies we are applying to save our marriages are exactly those which destroy it.

19 Nov 2015

The Market


The Market – by P.K. Odendaal - November 2015.

If there is one which interests me immensely, it is the Market, but for totally different reasons that you might think – and it is totally non-market related.
I was inspired to write this article after my excursion, in my previous article, into the realms of Cause and Effect, which led me to apply it to the Market and Economics and their offspring called Supply and Demand.

9 Nov 2015

Cause and Effect


Cause and Effect – by P.K.Odendaal - November 2015.
Up until now I have broadly written about cause and effect as if everybody knew exactly what it was, but on reflection I realise that I have buttered over its more serious and subtle aspects and paid lip service to its own cause and effect.
As a start we all know that every cause has an effect and some causes have a multitude of effects called ramifications, but I have not yet stood still to consider who or what causes these causes. We should also realise that many or most effects are again causes in themselves, if they are not corrected or relegated. They can in fact be managed and altered quite successfully, and the earlier you start, the easier it gets to change them.

30 Oct 2015

Finding ourselves


Finding ourselves – by P.K.Odendaal – November 2015

I have heard many people say that they want to calm down their lifestyle to find themselves and I have also in the distant past made this remark, but what bothers me really is that none of those have ever told me that they have indeed found themselves. This was rekindled in my mind a few days ago when someone repeated that desire in my presence, to which I replied: Forget it, nobody has ever found them self.
Or have they?

15 Oct 2015

The Gift of Flight - Part 5 - Learning to fly

The Gift of Flight - Part 5 - Learning to fly – by P.K. Odendaal – October 2015.
Twelve years later …
I have a Consulting Engineering practice and I work on diverse sites spread all over the province I live in. A simple building foundation inspection takes me thirty minutes, but I have to drive there for five hours and back for five hours. It cannot go on like this for long.
And then I had a dream ...

10 Aug 2015

The Gift of Flight - Part 4 - I learned to fly


The Gift of Flight  - Part 4 - The I learned to fly – by P.K.Odendaal – August 2015.

Last night I came back from a flight to Zimbabwe where we were for the annual church conference of our congregation there, having had to fly the President of the Mission to attend it. It is the last leg of our journey and I take off from Polokwane, where we went through immigration and customs and where we refuelled. It has just become dark and the lights of the city are so beautiful when I climb out after take-off and turn left onto my course for Witbank where I live. It has been some time since my last night flight and I have to concentrate to fly on instruments, because the night and country is quite dark as we leave the ambits of the city.

30 Jul 2015

The root of suffering


The root of suffering – by P.K.Odendaal – August 2015

 

I think we have lost the thread somewhere or we got blindfolded by the biblical axiom.
The biblical axiom says that the love of money is the root of all evil. If that is so then we are exempt from the injunction that we are the sinners – money really is; so that cannot be, as we know too well. Giving money the blame for all our sins will just not fly. I think we read that axiom incorrectly or our deduction of the relationship between sin, evil and suffering is wrong.

15 Jul 2015

Doubt and Fear


Doubt and Fear – by P.K.Odendaal – July 2015.

I have, like everybody else, my doubts about many things and I find that I know and believe what other people doubt, and I doubt what other people know and believe. I also know that doubt, like fear, pervades our whole existence and none of them should, as they should only be present to protect us from our own folly.
As for fear, I have largely learned how to fight it and to use it as a protection, and I might have made some progress in fighting doubt and using it for my protection.

14 Jul 2015

Love and Marriage – Part 2 – Here comes the Bribe

Love and Marriage – Part 2 – Here comes the Bribe – by P.K.Odendaal – July 2015.
I have written quite a few articles on marriage and although, when I start, I am adamant to write seriously about it, I always end up in satire. Why this is so I do not know, but I would think that a healthy dose of satire and humour is an essential ingredient to making marriages work.
Secondly, I am always uncertain from which viewpoint I must write about it. From my own viewpoint it would be quite farcical, emotional and chauvinistic, but this article is not a farce and neither should it be emotionally loaded and it should also be a balance between the sexes, because a successful marriage is a very delicately balanced institution.

4 Jul 2015

Wholism, Synergy and Symbiosis

Wholism, Synergy and Symbiosis - by P.K.Odendaal - July 2015.

So I am again delving deeply into things sinister and profound. What do these three things have in common and how does it affect us? Superficially I think that they are all important to us, but somehow this generation has sold them down the river, when in fact they are crucial to our survival - individually or as a race.
There are at least three definitions of Wholism or Holism and the one that I will be using here is the philosophical and political one which states that the whole is stronger or better than the sum of its parts. The extra strength is not in this case because the parts are just fitted strongly together, but rather the notion that the whole takes on a life of its own as it applies to groups because of synergy. In a group almost all the individuals are stronger than what they are individually because of the synergy which can easily develop in such groups.