The first act

Dr Fahim Chand | Monday May 12, 2025 14:25

But, practicality nudged me back to the road, the grey tarmac winding ahead, indifferent to the beauty beside it. The colours were striking, not just vivid, but complex. In dental terms, we’d call it hue, value, and chroma, though those clinical labels barely scratched the surface of what the ocean was doing.

It moved with a calm confidence, rolling forward in waves that struck the tan sand with a rhythm both powerful and restrained. There was no chaos, no storm, just a steady, muscular grace. It wasn’t just the sea that impressed me. It was its demeanour, its refusal to demand attention while being utterly impossible to ignore. The sea may have commanded the attention but it wasn’t the only star of the show.

A thick carpet of green vegetation clung to the sloping cliffs beside us, reaching up to the retaining wall that bordered the road. The plants looked almost too green to be real, thriving in the salt air and morning light. Overhead, a clear cerulean sky completed the scene, blue, green, and ocean all working together in a kind of unplanned masterpiece.

Inside the car, music played vibrantly as Shabana and the boys, Ayaan and Azeem, settled into the drive. There was an easy rhythm to the moment; windows cracked just enough to let in the sea air, the coastline unfolding with each turn.

We’d never taken this route before, but Google Maps handled the details. Its calm directions gave me space to take it all in, tension slipping away as we made our way toward the coastal town of Hermanus. I smile, thinking back to the days when GPS was just a folded paper map, a handful of hopeful neurons, and the constant challenge of figuring out which way was actually north. I used to take a quiet pride in my ability to navigate, with reasonable accuracy, I might add. Still, now and then, we’d stall at a crossroads, staring at landmarks that didn’t quite match the map.

The usual next step was clear: pull over and ask someone. The women in the car were typically more than happy to do so. The men? Not so much. Why is that, I wonder? Is it ego? Stubbornness? Or just a deep-rooted belief that if we stare at the map, or the horizon long enough, the answer will reveal itself? Psychology postulates that men don’t avoid help because they think they know everything, they avoid it because they’ve been told their worth depends on it. They fear becoming small in someone else’s eyes, or worse, their own. So they soldier on, bandaging wounds with silence, building walls with stubbornness, and maybe praying someone will see past the fortress. Maybe the first act of bravery isn’t solving the problem, but rather admitting there is one. And in that moment, strength looks a lot like surrender. When we sit silently in our own compressed prisons of negative energy, it’s only a matter of time before the mental strain begins to take a physical toll. Anxiety doesn’t like to stay in the mind. It finds its way into the body, our habits, and even our relationships.

Left unchecked, it shapes how we live, how we react, and how we connect with others. But what if we flipped the script? What if, instead of retreating inward, we reached outward? Asking for help, real help, not directions to the nearest Nando’s, isn’t weakness. It’s a decision rooted in self-awareness, in the understanding that strength isn’t about enduring in silence.

It’s about knowing when to speak, when to trust, and when to let others in.

There’s confidence in that. Intelligence too. And perhaps, most importantly, the possibility for real, lasting change. The world today hurtles forward at a million miles an hour, every millisecond clawing at our attention.

Our neurons, overwhelmed and overworked, dart in every direction like panicked commuters in rush-hour traffic, each thought colliding with the next in a near constant state of mental gridlock. What we need, now more than ever, are internal traffic controllers, something to slow the chaos, to manage the relentless surge of information we’re expected to absorb and respond to.

Technology races ahead, far outpacing our brain’s ability to process and regulate the world it’s created. We’re wired in, switched on, and stretched thin. And yet, the antidote may be disarmingly simple: slowing down, carving out space to reflect, to connect, to help one another. It makes me miss the slower pace of Moshupa, those long, golden afternoons when my brothers, Iqbal and Zaheer, and I would sit in the dust, taking turns throwing pebbles at an empty Coke can, perfectly content to see who’d hit it first.