I was born in a small town along the eastern coast of South Africa, and I was raised inland in the country's capital. I live in Cape Town in a neighbourhood at the base of Table Mountain.

My writing is very much influenced by my surroundings—the things that I can see, the chance interactions with people that I cross paths with, the faces, the places, the trees, the leaves, the oceans, and the mountains. The more time I spend nurturing this relationship with the physical—developing the awareness of what my eyes consume and absorb—the more I learn about the abstract and intangible layers of the human experience that exist beyond our sensory perception.

Drawing inspiration from the metaphysical world as well as the physical world opens oneʼs eyes to the idea of eternity—an idea of something so great that the human mind and heart simply cannot fathom. It is only in our nature to question such ideas and to pursue their answers, yet the conscious human doubts whether such answers exist at all. It is the pursuit for them, however, that is important—a pursuit that, anyone who has had the courage to embark on knows, is one that is most rewarding and adventurous.

I consider writing to be a deeply spiritual and profound practice. It is an ancient art that is sacred and powerful. The very act of putting pen to paper takes one into a meditative state where the door between our conscious and subconscious minds seems to open wider and wider the longer we stay there until there's no difference at all between the two and the words that end up on our paper have poured down from some place that can only be described as divine. I don't think this state is accessed exclusively through writing. I've found myself in similar places when painting, singing and dancing, playing the guitar, practising yoga, surfing, or simply sitting comfortably and purposefully focusing my attention on my breath. It seems its more commonly reached through spiritual or creative exercises where one spends a significant amount of time giving up control to something that one perceives to be greater than themselves, but of course these places can be accessed by anyone at any given point in time, I too believe.

Most of my days are spent in these places, in fact. Places of existential and philosophical ponder. It's possible that referring to this practice as 'pondering' is my way of convincing myself that I'm not unproductively daydreaming. It's not necessarily my intention to actively force myself into these spaces of contemplation—it's simply a matter of my days not requiring much of me as I age for reasons I do not know. The logical thing for one to do with such time is to turn the energy inwards and to sit with the thoughts and ideas, regardless of the discomfort that they may cause. Iʼve gravitated to writing as my foremost medium of expression because of this. Attempting to make sense of these thoughts and ideas while striving to transform them into anything that another being can comprehend and potentially connect with is a brilliant and wonderful challenge. I suppose the painter attempts to project the image he sees out from his head onto the canvas, and the musician the melodies he hears out from his and into the air.

There are the rare occasions where the needs of my days happen to be great—typically when Iʼm travelling or immersed in my projects—and I'm left with neither time nor energy to ponder and write. I very much welcome these periods. They're subtle reminders encouraging me to drift out from the hum of my inner world and to settle into the simple truth of the present. When one is truly living, one need not think about living. The act of living is simply done instinctively and intuitively. Being present means living attentively inside the physical body instead of inside the mind, but by its nature, introspection keeps the writer in his own head, submerged in inner dialogue, gradually leading him to adopt a stoic and somewhat solemn view of life over time.

But when I am gifted with these moments of presence—moments where I'm grounded in my physical body—I rediscover how seriousness isn't a requirement for meaning, how lightness and playfulness are engrained in the child within, never being forgotten but only gently remembered when we let ourselves be still. Sharing laughs with friends and family, exchanging a smile with a stranger, running around with children in the park, embracing a loved one, listening to the starlings sing in the trees outside the kitchen window—all life's smallest moments that remind us of her fragility and beauty, that not everything needs to be understood, that not all the questions have answers, that the mystery of things is precisely what makes them beautiful in the first place. The sun always rises in the morning, and now is all we have. How we decide to spend our now is perhaps the most profound contemplation we can have as humans and as thinkers.

I dream of a world where people are true and courageous and where we all strive to fill our days with magic and wonder. When I think of peace, I see an ocean and a mountain and a yellow shimmer on the horizon. The sky is a deep blue with streaks of purple and orange, and the water is still because the wind has ceased howling for the day. The sun is golden and warm on the skin. I'm not too sure where I'm going because I haven't been there yet.