Congo

Forget cash is king, Resources are King!

Ironically it is located at the heart of the African continent, beyond its demographic location, Congo is indeed a true representation of the heart of the continent. Its abundance of natural and mineral resources is like the abundance of blood inside the heart. Like a wounded heart oozing with blood, Congo is oozing with blood and life because of its abundance in resources. It’s possibly the most abundant place on earth, with fertile land, rivers overflowing with fresh water, rain, sunshine and mineral resources. Congo is truly abundant, however, its abundance is its biggest threat.

In the land of abundance, it is embarrassingly sad to have the people of the land live in all sorts of poverty. Depending on international aid to existing. It is sad to see people come, exploit and leave without the people benefiting. It is sad to see the people denied access to their own land, access to work the land and feed themselves, create an economy and trade skills and resources. It is truly sad to have so much abundance but not be educated on how to exploit it for yourself. It is truly sad to be Congolese seeking refuge as far away from abundance as possible. But the big question is, who is to blame for all this sadness?

Most of what is happening in Congo is happening throughout the rest of Africa. It is not shocking because Congo is the heart of the continent, surely everything which is happening at the heart should also happen in the whole body. With a billion people on the continent is it still fair the blame thousands of government officials for our sadness? It is actually ridiculous. Thousands against a billion people? Surely we can take back our power if we were really eager to live in the abundance we deserve. I have never seen human beings really rebel against governments. Most of us are poor and there isn’t much we stand to lose. There is no government without the people, they will never kill us all. They will never jail us all because who will pay the taxes? And Who will be exploited labour? The world will protect us from ourselves because they need us to exploit us. They will not come here to exploit if we are not here. They will never dig out the diamonds themselves because they are lazy physically. As much as Africa and Congo specifically is abundant in resources. Its human resources is the most precious resource hence it is still being traded in the slave market.
They are patiently waiting, all capitalists around the world are patiently waiting for leaders to be elected and keep the people under control. They secretly fund parties to sell ideologies to the people. It is a small amount to pay in cash, compared to the resources they are likely to control should the party they fund take control of the people. Sounds like propaganda? Well it is because it is all about controlling the minds of the people. Deciding how much they should learn (making the pass mark 30%), will determine how much they depend on you even when they live in abundance.
The war on Africa is far from over. They had won when they colonised the continent, they controlled all the resources and they built up Europe to be the powerhouse of a continent it is today. How does a poor continent like Europe, with horrible weather most of the year, with no natural resources become wealthier than a continent with everything? It simply takes the mind. Africans are not lazy, they are uneducated, they don’t know how to use the potential of their minds. They call us monkeys because we use our minds exactly the same way monkeys use theirs. It has been proven that the intellectual capacity of monkeys is the closest to human intellect. You can teach a monkey to be more like a human being over time. But when they call us monkeys we feel offended, we never think deeper about why they call us monkeys. We forgot that we were conditioned to be who we are, and we are still being conditioned today because capitalists cannot afford and will not survive in a world of educated African people, they will lose the control they have over the continent.
Elections in Africa continue to be a circus, nothing ever positively changes to benefit the people of the soil. The elections in Congo will not end the wars surrounding Congo from within and from outside the country. I have learned to appreciate terrorist groups Such as Boko Haram and M23 because as much as they are extremely radical, they are in pain, their countries are failing them. They are mostly educated groups of people, however, they are too small a group and they fail to influence the electorate. From failure, they resort to extremism. What choice do they really have? Honestly, think about it.
Africa is the most beautiful continent to live in, however, it is the saddest continent to live in because of its abundance in resources which we fail to share and create a quality life for all.

This was a stream of consciousness and at the end, all I wanted to provoke was a conversation about resources being king over cash because cash depends on the availability of resources. I also wanted to highlight the struggles which are taking place in Congo and the rest of the African continent because of the resources we possess, We suffer because the world realized that we do not understand the value of the resources we have. And lastly, I wanted to highlight and provoke a conversation about education in the continent. We are a unique continent. We should design an education system which will help us create wealth from all the abundance we have, in a sustainable way. We need to learn because of that is the only way we can liberate ourselves from the world. When we stop depending on the world for aid we will stop giving away our resources for next to nothing.

I am a woke African.

Botlhale • Mos

Searching for meaning

I woke up so early in the morning after a night of tossing and turning. I barely slept 2 hours the entire night. I had a conversation with a friend during the night, I was telling her that I am finding it difficult to sleep. She asked me if I had stress. I told her “not that I am aware of”. I woke up with her question in my mind early in the morning. What if I am stressed and I am not aware that I am stressed? Already my body is communicating with me. It must have received that message from my mind but I have been ignoring it. The mind is so brilliant, it had to find another way of communicating with me this important message.

Recently I have went through extreme changes in my life. My closest friend moved to China. We live in different time zones and it is very difficult to communicate, even with advanced technologies. I was very heart broken to see him go but it was important to him that he leaves. He was searching for meaning and fulfilment in his life. It was important to me that I allow him to do so because I could see how much he need to take this journey.

After many years of not speaking about religion with my mother, I opened up to her about how I feel about it as a concept and that I do not believe in Christianity any longer because I do not relate to its teachings. She was shocked and thought of me as insane. I told her that I was Christian because I was born into it. Now I am learning about other religions and considering Buddhism because the teaching relate so much to what I believe in. She didn’t understand that as well.

I have been using cannabis for 9 years now and I believe it will continue to be part of my life for many years to come. I am opening up about my usage to the people around me more. Only my friends knew. Now I want my family to know because it is part of my life. Cannabis has been legalised in South Africa which means my cultivation and usage doesn’t place anyone at risk of being on the wrong side of the law. I suffer from anxiety, depression and panic attacks. Cannabis helps me to deal with these conditions. Opening up about my usage to my mother after opening up about religion feels like it would be too much for her to take in because she has health issues of her own. And my family doesn’t know about my health conditions.

Secrets yes I know. However my lifestyle “conditions” have negative stigmas associated with them which makes it difficult for me to live an open lifestyle with those around me. I need a psychologist and therapy but I am not ready to go, well I think I am not.

I am busy searching for meaning. We tend to try to find meaning in religious beliefs and in our careers. I believe meaning should be well rounded in your life. Mind body and soul. We need to take care of our well being in its entirety, so that our meaning can make sense. I see and live with people who have “everything” but live their lives with so much sadness because there are things in their lives they have not nurtured and are catching up with them. Life is unexplainable. Which is why we keep searching for meaning.

I am about to complete my second book which will help me and my readers search for meaning through conversation. It is an interesting coffee table book, however I am feeling so tired emotionally to complete it. My work is taking strain, my life is taking strain. And I only realised once she asked me if I am stressed. How fascinating is that?

Keep searching, and keep living.

Botlhale Mosito.

It is ours… Only if we can sell it our selves.

Photo by zkhiphani.com

Across the world human beings pride themselves with their arts, culture, traditions and heritage. However most people who have dedicated their lives as artists, culturalists and traditionalists are not well informed about the economic value of their practices. Outsiders come and learn their way of life then leave to sell it to the world without sharing the profits with the creators.

I find it very beautiful to see eastern societies such as the Chinese and the Japanese people protecting and trading their own arts and culture to the world. They even have policies which help preserve their arts and crafts within their own countries once they reach certain ages. I advocate for the arts because they are part of my life in so many ways. I would like to see African people taking pride in their Arts and culture more. I want to see them protecting it and exporting it themselves.

I was so proud to see Laduma Ngxokolo, founder of fashion brand Maxhosa fighting the European fashion giant Zara for knocking off his trademark designs because he was making waves across the world. Such courage gave me a sense of pride and happiness because I realised that we as Africans are capable and we are starting to stand up for ourselves against the world.

Greatness was born in Africa. It is just unfortunate that Africa was not educated in economic trade early enough. We were too humble and the world took advantage of us. We need to invest more in educating our artists, culturalists and traditionalists about the business behind their art. We need to encourage reading and travelling to see what the rest of the world is doing so that we can do it our selves. As a continent we have more than a billion people. Imagine the kind of market we can create of ourselves. We can be independent and stop the world from milking us. China is doing it, hence America is in trade wars with it. Currently we can not afford to be in trade wars as a continent because everything we have is owned by non Africans outside of Africa. From the Arts to the natural resources to the infrastructure and the land.

It is truly sad to see creatives create and not be able to trade their creations because they do not own their creations. Artists are being enslaved by western companies because they don’t know how to create production companies of their own. They don’t know how to create auction houses and they don’t know how to create museums and media houses to distribute their own art. If you don’t own the supply chain or at least a part of it you can never profit.
It is important that artists invest in business education and we as communities we should support and invest in them having this education. It is important that our universities create curriculums which are dedicated to business education in the arts.

Without our identity and heritage who are we?

Rebel Armies

Photo by: The Independent UK

“These people are not provoking, they are retaliating.”

I was too quick to judge, then I sat and gave it a clear thought…
Most of us are born in societies which are run by governments or monarchs. We have leaders which set the rules and we must follow them. Most societies are “lucky” enough to be headed by governments which are voted in by its people, however the luck runs out when the government is headed by greedy individuals who sell state-owned resources for individual profiting. We agree to pay taxes so that we can have “good” health care, education, roads, housing and other services our governments promised to service us with when we voted them into power. When resources are sold to the highest bidder, the people end up suffering the consequences when the service received by the people is of low quality. People end up uneducated, poor, unemployed and economically inactive. Saddest of all, people end up dying. When all this happens, people become desperate to live a “better” life, this is how Rebel groups are formed. When people have different ideologies to what the rest of society believes in.
I was like most of the world, I judged rebel groups and classified them as terrorists. Yes, their methods may be extreme, however; if you think about it giving someone a long rope to kill themselves is just as extreme as giving them a short one, the result is the same. Can we really blame these groups? They are dying of poverty, they are modern slaves in their own homes because they are uneducated. Their leaders have failed them and they have decided to become leaders by forging a new path for themselves. Can we really blame them? That is the big question.
Naturally human beings do not accept rebellion, they punish it severely. To succeed as a rebel, you need others to have the same mindset as you and live as you do. You need people who will defend and protect your ideology. Most of our norms today were once rebellious acts by others who believed in difference. However, when taking on a state you need to militarize your group because you will be fought by militants of state/s. Unfortunately, rebel groups end up using children as their soldiers and they expose them to mind damaging activates such as killing, alcohol, drugs and sex. But then again, desperate times call for desperate measures. During world wars one and two, the countries which were participating used “child” soldiers to fight the war. Sixteen-year old’s may not be the same as seven and eight-year old’s, but desperate is desperate.
One thing which many of us forget is that there is a lot of money to be made from conflicts and wars. People are funding these rebel groups with weapons, food, and money to keep the conflicts alive or hoping that the rebels will one day win because they have interests in the rebels wining. A change of government means so many things and just imagine the kinds of benefits you could have if you funded that change. We live in a conceptualized world, we think the way we do because we were influenced and conditioned from a very early age. I can understand that terrorism is a subjective issue, however; are we being objective when judging rebel groups? Maybe we are not objective because we are part of the people who terrorized the rebels in the first place.

So, who are the real terrorists?

Realness

 ​

There is nothing more inspiring than “real”. 
Life has changed so much that it has become so easy for us to create misleading perceptions about ourselves to impress. 
But reality is what we used to find in “rural” parts of the world, where people are not trying to create an online presence which influences their real life.
Reality influences my whole existence because it inspires my future, it inspires what I want to change and what I want to keep the same about my future.
I started to appreciate reality when I observed that I was living a lie…
I am influenced by someone’s “ideal” reality, this ideal is sold to me through multi-dimensional media. They made sure that I learn how to appreciate and consume my influences.
… I crave realness, not what I copy and call real; but what I create.
Botlhale • Mos

Mentors I don’t need to meet.

​

Part of learning and understand industries we want work and succeed in is dependent on being mentored by someone who is in the industry and succeeding already. This allows us to ask the questions which bother us and get practical answers from someone who has already had some experiences in industry.
Mentors are people we admire because of their success and I believe in the 21st century we do not need to physically meet out prospective mentors for them to mentor us, they do not even need to know of our existence. We have social media to assist us in mentorship.
What are the odds that your dream mentor could mentor you in traditional settings? Almost impossible, however through social media we can be mentored by following them on their personal accounts or through media organisations which focus on following peoples lives. The best media organisations will be capable of interviewing our prospective mentors and they usually ask the questions we want to know about the industries we desire.
Some prospective mentors are active on social media and they share their journeys everyday, they even answer questions from their followers. My point being that we do not need to meet any one for any one to be our mentor. We can use social media as a tool of mentorship, because mentorship is a social activity if you think about it; most of the “celebrities” and famous people we follow on social media are people who inspire us and motivate us.
I personally learn so much from the internet, most of the things I learn there are essential to modern life in general however they are not taught in schools and universities because those things are life experiences. I think some of these experiences should be taught as case studies because real lessons can be learnt from those people.

​

My mentors don’t know me however they are doing great work in mentoring me because they have great YouTube channels.
Botlhale • Mos 
Just using modern tools to empower myself.

Unusual beauty.

Disaster stroke when I was born. I call that moment of beauty a disaster because it was a moment when my programming began. I was programmed to do things in certain ways. Beauty would be learning how to do things my way from birth; however that is impossible isn’t it?
I grew to understand that I was robbed of a beautiful moment at birth, therefore I took it upon myself to find moments of beauty on a daily basis through rebellion. As much as I can, I try to do things in unusual ways so that I can afford myself the opportunity to learn. Doing things this way has allowed me to learn what I wouldn’t normally learn if I followed the prescribed methods. Even if I end up doing it the prescribed way, I get the opportunity to understand why it is the “prescribed” method.
I remember when I was in primary school my teacher used to emphasize that we should by all means be unique. Sounds simple enough however in a world were we are prescribed ideals in order to succeed in certain things. Uniqueness is quite a difficult thing to achieve.
After business school I had the option to choose between general management, human resource management and marketing management, because those were my three majors. I choose marketing management because I wanted to explore the world of brands. The best brands are original, and creative. For me to have the best opportunity to be authentic, I have to understand what it takes to be the best brand.
I found beauty in rebellion. It is beautiful because it is unusual, and that is what I found from the best brands they are rebellious.
It all started with me trying to steal my moment of beauty back, and it shaped my whole life. I am unusual because I am a rebel.
Botlhale • Mos 
I hate normal.​

A future based on inheritance

       
Been listening to a lot of interviews these days. I swear I should have been a psychologist, I would be excellent. When people talk about their live journeys and the legacies they want to leave behind, many if them mention securing a wealthy inheritance for their children and grand children, this is mentioned mostly by people who had a rough journey in life. They experienced the difference in living with and without wealth. This idea left me provoked about inheritance.
Studies show that many people who inherit wealth do not grow it, they actually spend it until they are left with next to nothing then they have to go find a job. Finding a job based on such a circumstance is not ideal because the motive behind the job is based on making money rather than building something which will make a difference or something which will fulfill you. Your life will basically be miserable from there on because all you will be thinking is bills and you will not be fulfilled. People rather do what fulfills them and find a way of selling it.
We are often informed on the news that billionaires are pledging most of their wealth to charity organizations rather than leaving it to their children, most of their reasons are based on the fact that they know that their children will figure life out without those fortunes. That is understandable because if your parents are billionaires they should have taught you how to make money, therefore your life is not based on the money but on doing what fulfills you as a person because financially you can secure yourself.
I asked myself a question, “are these people suffering from struggle mentality?” Maybe they are because they experienced the extremes of poverty, and they saw how the access to cash changed their “hustle”.
How much inheritance did you earn? What kind of lifestyle can it afford you? Will you still need to go find a job because it might run out? This is how our kids lives will look like because we are busy securing wealth for our kids. What are they going to do with their lives if chances state that they might not grow their wealth? How are they going to teach their kids how to create wealth if they don’t know how because they are enjoying yours? If your kids are not taught how to create wealth they are going to lose it. 
What will happen to kids which wont inherit wealth ? Will they be generational labourers? Possibly.
A future of inheritance can be dark if inheritance is not passed on with knowledge, it could be a burden which would place a kid without inheritance at an advantage.
I believe in teaching a kid how to fish rather than feeding them, because if you feed them you will have to feed them forever. Seems like this is a billionaire mindset since they are giving away their wealth. 
I was also provoke my a documentary by Jamie Johnson, called “the one percent”. I asked myself one more question; “will a future of inheritance really be bright for my kids if they wont grow it and if they will possibly do nothing with their lives ?”
Botlhale • Mos

Provoked ​

Summer

​

​
​

It is not enough

​

I got inspired and I saw it fitting that I should share these wise words with my community. As we are chasing our dreams we need to be in the right mindset so that we can achieve optimum results. Be motivated and share with others.
“There is no prize out there. The only prize is this one [points to self], and what you feel, and what you want to accomplish… 
I mean, to want and to be ambitious, and to want to be successful is not enough. That’s just desire. 
To know what you want; to understand why you’re doing it; to dedicate every breath in your body, to achieve… If you feel you have something to give, if you feel your particular talent is worth developing, is worth caring for, then there’s nothing you can’t achieve.
 You’re going to grow up with your colleagues. You’re going to watch them have success and watch them have failure, and you’re going to watch how they deal with it. And they can be as much a teacher for you as anyone here, or anyone who’s privileged enough to come here and speak to you.”
– Kevin Spacey