Passion

I visited one of the Community TV Channels I work with this morning.  As I drove into the township, I stopped at a traffic light.  The cows next to the road were staring into the nothingness while chewing away the grass.

It’s in an old school.  It’s a couple of class rooms dedicated to telling the stories of the people of that township. 

I like visiting the Channel. It’s a colourful place – its just around the corner from famous Nobel prize winners home and the setting for many documentaries.  But to me it’s almost a miracle - it’s a place where the people have a different outlook on life. 

They hustle.  They play.  They work.  They laugh.  They dress up - never mind what the weather does, nothing will stand in the way of a fabulous outfit. 

It holds very little resemblance to the corporate world I know – there is less politics.  Less emphasis on how to behave and more on getting the job done to the best of your ability.  There is an almost touchable passion from the make up girl, learning to speak a new language because she is actually a trained stage actress.  The classrooms are all painted bright colours and little groups of people have their morning coffee and magwinya’s in the sun. 

I realised as I drove out, to me it shouldn’t be about the politics.  The BEE status or the profitability of a company.  That’s someone else’s passion.

It’s about doing what makes you happy – telling peoples stories, creating something from a heap of chaos, advocating for knowledge. Whatever it is that makes your heart happy - do it. 

There are people to whom the politics are important – not me though.  To me it is just about enabling a storyteller to create beautiful, truthful Community TV.