What i want for my birthday.

Sho. So this birthday snuck up on me.

Christmas vibes into New Year’s vibes into Cricket Test into friends-visiting-from-USA-and-Kruger-roadtripping vibes into arriving back in Cape Town last night with enough time to go to bed and wake up to my 45th birthday.

‘Age is just a number’ i like to say, but my number is certainly getting bigger.

In the good old days [not too long ago] i used to stretch my birthday for a whole week with multiple events including pool parties, improv shows, friend dinners and games evenings, but the nature of how this one sneakily crept up on me suggests there will be a chilled braai with one of my two birthday twins [Hannah turns 13 and i imagine desires a very different kind of celebration], Mahlatse, and later this week a birthday lunch with my family and trying to make use of a few of the free things that are offered to birthday people in Cape Town.

All of the Things

When it comes to presents, i do enjoy receiving things [gifts is definitely one of my love languages although i think i prefer to give good gifts that are well received] and the older you get the more you adopt the attitude of, ‘Don’t give me things, just show up’. While that is still largely true, for this year’s birthday i want a whole lot of things and so maybe you can give one or more of them to me:

[5] i want you to commit with me to asking more questions. 

When someone in life or something written or shared on social media makes you feel angry or defensive or hurt or attacked, i want you to breathe and to take a moment before reacting to consider some questions about the thing that is causing this response in you.

Why might that person have said/done that? [Even if i end up disagreeing with the statement or action, is there perhaps a deep pain or an awful living condition or a tragic circumstance in their life that i can try and understand better, or that might help me understand how and why they reached this place where that felt like their only or best response?]

Am i misinterpreting what they are trying to say or what they mean?

Is it possibly because there is a Truth here that is uncomfortable or painful for me to face?

Is there a response i can give that will help bring us closer together and not push us further apart?

Can i commit to having a drink or inviting this person to share a meal around my table?

What is there here for me to learn?

Before you rush in with a knee-jerk response, consider what is being said, done, shared and ask some good questions.

i spoke a little more about this over here.

[4] If you are a white person, i would love it if you took some time to consider the history of white people in the world and in the country you live in. 

If the idea of talking about race makes you instantly defensive, ask yourself some good questions about why that is the case…

Can’t we stop making everything about race? Absolutely. The moment everything, or most things, for some people are not affected by their skin colour, we can absolutely and must stop doing that. But while some people’s lives [not likely us as a white person] are affected by the colour of their skin on a regular, often daily basis, and most of the time not in a good way, all of us need to keep interrogating and unpacking race-related conversations and systems and structures until we see that change.

It is a privilege to only have to talk or think about race when you choose to.

As a white person living in South Africa, i compiled a list of 40 things [with a lot of help from my friends and family] that you can do to help you on this journey – this list is not exhaustive, and most of the things on it are actually quite easy [read a book, have a conversation, visit a place]. Work through this list carefully, and regularly, and if you have not yet, please share it with your people…

Sit with a black, coloured or indian friend or colleague and ask them how they experience the country they live in as a person of colour.

[3] If you are a man, i would love it if you took some time to consider the history of men around the world, particularly with regards to our treatment of women.

Spoiler Alert: It’s been pretty bad.

The Gilette ad this week brought this issue very much into the foreground reminding us that we need to be taking this stuff seriously.

i have written some posts that investigate this issue and largely share other people’s ideas and thoughts on the matter so commit to reading them with a curious ‘Is there maybe something for me to learn here?’ approach.

If you see yourself as ‘one of the good guys and this stuff isn’t about me’ then it shouldn’t be a problem for you to stand in front of the mirror and just make sure. But also what actions are you taking when the guys around you [at work, on your sports team, at a dinner conversation, at the pub] are being those guys or doing those things?

Sit with a woman you know or maybe work with and ask her how she experiences the country she lives in as a woman?  

[2] Be the change you want to see. 

If you have money, how are you using it to improve the lives of people around you? Is there a person, a family or an organisation that you could be regularly giving some money to, that will improve things for them? [tbV and i do all three of those – not a lot of money but a small amount given regularly starts to add up]. Is there a married couple you can commit to giving ‘date night money’ to once a month for the next year?

If you have time, how are you using it to improve the lives of people around you? Is there someone who could use you as a mentor, even just meeting for a regular drink and space for conversation and listening if you don’t feel like you particularly have many mentoring skills? Is there an organisation you can volunteer with, even if just once a month? Is there a lonely old person you can commit to visiting? Is there a single parent you can volunteer to babysit for so they can have a bit of a breather for themselves?

BottomUp and The LifeMatters Foundation are two organisations doing amazing things in the education space that i try to regularly give time to. It can be as easy and non-skilled as just showing up.

If you have skills, how are you sharing them to improve someone’s life or help out a non-profit organisation or connect with your physical neighbours?

Imagine, if instead of moaning about how things are, we all just made a concerted effort with whatever we have to be a part of the change our country desperately needs? i know SO MANY PEOPLE who are doing just that. Please make sure you are one of them.

[1] Become a BrettFish Patron.

Of the five things, this one actually is for me. But it’s for me for you.

Maybe you found it super helpful to suddenly have 40 ideas to help you as a white person answer the question, ‘But what can I do?’ or as a married person to suddenly have 40 tips on how to be married better. You may have really benefited from having a Taboo Topics page filled with stories of rarely spoken about topics such as Losing a child, Singleness, Infertility, Mental Health and Being a Parent when it hasn’t been easy.

You might find it challenging or inspiring to have videos pop up that deal with race or Christianity or being a man or Facebook Live chats that speak candidly about the latest issue affecting the country or even the world.

You might even be one of those strange people who enjoyed my Brad Fish character back in the day creating public service warning videos about Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect or my more recent Erik [with a K] badly German-accented poetry-shouting or just appreciate articles i post, jokes i post or interesting and helpful videos i share…

The point being that i create or source a large amount of content and make it freely available and for many of you that makes your life a lot easier or hopefully better and there is an easy way to commit to assisting me in that by making a contribution as small as one dollar a month. By becoming a patron, you become a part of helping me do what i do better and more effectively, but you also get a chance to have a bigger say in what topics you would like to see me tackle or speak into or write or video about.

So take a look at my Patreon page and see if this birthday of mine, you would be up to jumping in for the next year…

i love that quote so much because it reminds me to live in such a way that people who are alive after me will hopefully have a much easier and better way of it.

That is why we need to continue to tackle issues of race and prejudice and injustice.

That is why we need to continue to do better to ensure the safety and thriving of women.

If you have a moment on my birthday to send me a message, then it would make my day if you included a memory that you have with me – if we are friends in real life what is one moment or event or talk or camp we did together that had some kind of impact on you? If you are a virtual friend and we have never met then was there a post or a talk or an action or a challenge that sticks in your mind?

i am [or try to be] a follower of Jesus and the biggest command He gave us to follow goes something like this:

‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and mind. And love your neighbour as yourself. All of the law and the prophets hang on these two commands.’ 

That is how i try to live my life and i know i get it wrong a lot but it is what i am aiming at, and the ‘Love your Neighbour as Yourself’ bit has really been nagging at me for the last year or so. Jesus tells us that our neighbour is not geographical and it includes our enemies and the most marginalised of society.

How do i love them better? How do i live in a way that shows the greatest amount of love to the greatest amount of people around me, and somehow helps others to do the same?

Those are some of the things i contemplate on this, my 45th birthday.

i would love it if you could take up the challenge of those five things that i want for my birthday.

If, however, you’re looking for something more tangible to give me, you could do worse than finding me a version of this shirt: