I want to give up, crawl into a hole and watch TV like a good little consumer and not bother my beautiful little mind with all the complications of the world. Embrace the sound bites. Pretend that the borders of what I know is all there is. Main-line the opiates of the masses. Join the party and carouse until the end of the world. Nothing I can do about it, might as well enjoy the ride.

I hope I don't speak for myself if I say that it is often very tempting to just take the blue pill and stay comfortably plugged inside the Matrix. It's the red pill that carries the sting and the after-bite and two bad sequels.

And since I concluded, finally, that my personal values and belief in a social society & a common good - most of this forum stand for - are currently in this world in decline, the Overton window is shifting, and we've entered yet again a rise of fundamentalism and isolationism - since then I have been growing increasingly frustrated. This closely overlapped with my entry into South Africa, but there you go. Hell, if you wouldn't have written this epistle, I suspect I would have in the course of a few weeks - although I suspect only half or a third as good as yours.

There is whining here. And groaning. And ranting, and spouting, and bitching and moaning and bickering amongst ourselves like a university book-club. And I bloody love it. This is one of the best forums on the Internet to rapidly soak up information at an international scale; it's a depository of versatile inputs. And you better be proud on that you are part of carrying this forum forward and go to sleep with at least a little smile about this or I will personally fly up to Paris and hit your head silly with a Zulu shield. And they are pointy.

Information first.
Choice of direction second.
Action third.

So. I will write up on my little South Africa project which has been cocooning over the few weeks - because I want ET input.

Now please go on whining. It should be comforting.