How long do I have to keep walking?
Posted on 29. Apr, 2010 by admin in Brandon Faber
Apparently I didn’t get the memo.
While I was drinking and cavorting with femmes from the class of 96’ the world went and got ahead of itself. IT laaities, scattered in bedrooms across the planet, starting writing programmes that would change the way we communicate, the way we live, the way we are. Kids my age started taking over family businesses. Teens started to take over the internet.
While I was drinking and cavorting with the femmes of Rand Afrikaans University, sports teams started to pick younger and younger players to fill their senior ranks and the first Idols episode premiered in the UK, promoting a world-wide explosion of fresh new stars, with people like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera leading the way in the “I have too much money to care (pre 18)” brigade.
As I spent my early working years drinking and cavorting with the femmes from Account Management, those same IT laaities from my school days ran successful ICT companies around the globe, kids of Disney Club fame started cashing in, young entrepreneurs sprouted forth like dagga plants in the Natal Midlands and the age of the wildly successful at everything they do graced our newspapers, television screens and magazine covers.
All this has left me a bit bemused here where I sit, wearing a pair of jeans bought three years ago, worrying about my future wellbeing. What the hell is going on and who can I blame for my late awakening to the reality that I may have missed a few boats cruising by in silence while I was busy getting a bar tan?
That Eureka! moment has eluded me somehow. For some reason I am not driving around in a Ferrari F430 and I’d like to know what I’ve done to the universe to deserve this injustice? Frankly I blame television adverts promising wild success if I drank X type whiskey, Y type brandy and Z type beer.
I never saw those Armani suit wearing guys worrying about the mortgage as they clinked their glasses after another tough day moving and shaking the world. I never saw a stress induced grey hair on a soul, pouring himself a stiff double in celebration of a job well done. I’ve kept on walking too, haven’t I? I also consider myself a person of distinction that likes the finer things in life yet, alas, it seems the finer things in life don’t like me.
Perhaps I can blame it on the so-called profession I chose for myself and the notoriously kak remuneration The Suits pay us creative folk for the privilege of working in media and advertising – for the first ten years, at least.
I’ve been thinking about this for some time now. What would a failed man roundabout 30 years of age do to rapidly make up lost ground in a world where an inspired youth rule the landscape? Politics seems an obvious choice, but where would I find a league, catering for young people, that would allow someone heading for middle age to lead it?
I am willing to bet that no such Youth League exists and that, even if I did manage to squeeze my way into a leadership position of such an organisation, my influence over matters (and tenders) of national interest would be little, if nothing at all. Anyway, it would be wrong to use political influence to gain financially from government contracts – a practice frowned upon and not tolerated in South Africa, and rightly so. . .
So now, this leaves not very many options left. Unless Hugo Boss starts a range catering for rapidly greying writers that weigh over a 100kgs in the shade, I think we can rule modelling out of the equation too.
This basically leaves me here. Sitting behind my desk, doing the word-smith monkey dance for your amusement.
Feel free to send your words of encouragement or pearls of wisdom to brandon.96end@gmail.com
Donations are also welcome.
