Nation United

On the eve of the World Cup final it appears to me that when the microscope is exchanged for the telescope, our rainbow nation seems to carry a single voice.

Last night my wife and I acknowledged that we needed a little help with all the versus in our national anthem. Our daughter, Emma, knows the anthem and sings with effortless ease. We, on the other hand, are amongst the 30-something odd that start to hum along at the bits when it runs aways with you. We called upon Elda to help us out and practiced around the dinner table in the hope that tomorrow night at the final we wont embarrass the kids.

This act united the household. We stood as a single unit, laughing at our thick tongues collectively. (BTW Elda needed as much assistance on the "Uit die blou" part .. so we laughed at that as well ..) There is something special in the air when a single event becomes larger than the individual sects. Only then is there nothing to grab the big picture and cause the crap. Hence the telescope.

I like the idea of creating uniformity amongst everybody. Like wearing a funny hat. No matter who you are it's a great leveler. Everyone feels the same. Stupid. I often look for this when asking a creative team to tackle a job. We need to feel part of something. And when you're not familiar with what everybody is talking about, or if you don't support that point of view, you distance yourself and either attempt to convince everybody otherwise or walk away. A single event thats important to everyone can cut through the bullshit. But it takes an important event like the World Cup to do this. Everybody remembers 1995. And i'm hoping the same magic will happen tomorrow. In the meantime I'm thrilled to see every individual in the country take out the telescope and as a united nation view a single goal. It's apparent in the fact that no matter our colour on the outside it seems to me that on the inside our blood bleeds green.