The news cycle is so fast these days that many dozens of talking points have come and gone in just the last 48 hours.
But the one thing that sticks with me is the announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa last week of temporary increased social grants for some of our most vulnerable citizens.
He increased child support grants by R300 next month; and by R500 a month thereafter, until October.
Other grants were increased by R250 and the unemployed will get R350 a month, as a special Coronavirus grant.
These are of course necessary steps to help struggling families.
But I couldn’t help looking at those amounts and wondering how some of my country folk make a living for themselves.
I have had lunch appointments where between myself and one other person, we have spent substantially more than R500.
My family’s current weekly Friday night take-away treat, conservatively, comes to around R350 for one meal.
If nothing else, this lockdown has put my own financial privilege into sharp perspective for me.
But it has also let me question how we as a society have allowed things to spiral this far out of control.
How does my weekly lunch bill amount to more than what an entire household considers a life-saving bail out?
And how is it that we are going about our daily business, seemingly oblivious to this dire situation that becomes a human catastrophe in times of crises?
That is one line of thought.
The other is the handout culture that South Africans in general, and some coloured communities in particular, have become accustomed to.
These days being a Sassa grant recipient seems to be a source of pride, rather than a temporary condition, that should be humiliating at best; and stop once you’re back on your feet again.
In some of the worst cases, government grants have become so generational, that young people genuinely consider it a reliable source of income to aspire to.
ANNOUNCE: President Cyril Ramaphosa
I consider it to be one of the great successes (or failures) of apartheid; the thinking that if you need a house, then government will provide; if you can’t afford your basic necessities, government must provide; if you have children that you can’t afford, then government must provide; if you want good schooling for those children, then government must provide.
And then you have the audacity to complain when the government doesn’t provide to your satisfaction.
You can call it the food parcel culture; handout culture or Sassa culture.
The fact is, it has taught our people to lie around waiting to be handed fish; and to toyi-toyi and loot if it doesn’t arrive, instead of teaching ourselves how to fish.
We must be grateful for the increased social grants.
But we must also interrogate the smiles on our faces when the measly R500 was announced, while figuring out what we are going to do when it is withdrawn at the end of October.
As long as we remain reliant on Sassa and food parcels, we will always be ripe for political manipulation and never reach our full potential.
I hope this lockdown helps people to appreciate having an independent income.
From next week, this column will appear every Monday in the Daily Voice until further notice.