The legend has it that once a young Polish king Wladyslaw, after having been defeated by the Ottomans in a disastrous battle on the outskirts of Varna, could not show his face anymore to his disappointed subjects and having fabricated news about his death, secretly traveled to Portugal. He became there one of the pioneer sea navigators, king Henry the Sailor gathered in his school and helped to pave the way for future Portuguese discoveries with Bartolomeu Dias’s final rounding of Africa in 1498. Hence the title. Although it is not just that simple if you don’t believe me yet.
Wladyslaw later known as Warnenczyk, was destined to become a real star on the firmament of European Royalty. At the age of 16 he inherited The Crown of a new, growing, and already powerful Polish-Lithuanian Empire with one of the biggest territories on the continent. He was young, he was extremely handsome, very well-educated, and absolutely brilliant in every aspect of his majestic performance. Still, he lost it all. Considering the above legend just a mystification, he probably was killed on the battlefield and the Turks cut off his head as a trophy. In either case, his glorious destiny which seemed to be almost sure and secured, was shattered to pieces by one lost battle, and saying precisely by wrong decision, made in the heat of that battle. According to a book I was awarded a prize for being once the best student in my school – it was him, himself, motivated by the chivalry notions of honour and his noble learning that he jumped right in the middle of a clash of the biggest armies in Europe of that era, only to find his own death there. Unless of course he wasn’t killed.
I didn’t die. Sort of “could have”, being fairly close a couple of times. At some point, my feeling of guilt for what I had already done with my life, reached the point when suicide really seemed like a good idea. Fortunately, I didn’t have that courage that motivates some people to choose non-existence rather than shame and dishonour. I lost most of my battles in life, even though my fairly lucky beginings. I thought at that time that it was entirely my fault. However, just like Warnenczyk I was simply a young lad who had been misled by romantic notions of what was righteous and what wasn’t. I bet I still am.
But let me start from the point where my life was still a success story. If you meet me at the age, let’s say 24, you see a very bright, talented young person (always good in blowing my own trumpet) Fairly handsome I would say but most importantly extremely adventurous and very intelligent in his enterprises. I was already a teacher while still studying, soon I became an area manager of a new fast-growing educational company. And no, it wasn’t a position they offered me. No, they gave me “an area”, roughly the size of two middle British counties and a car. In 2 years I built for them, from scratch a structure employing 20 teachers, running courses for more than 4000 people, with 3 computerized classrooms. Now let me elaborate on the last bit. We’re talking quite a backward interior of Poland in the 1990s – there wasn’t, at this time a single computer in any public school in this area – and all the computers in my classrooms were assembled, from second-hand parts, by me (yes with my own hands) And they were connected in a working network (one of a hundred skills I learned in my life without “taking a course” and “getting qualified”). Anyway, having developed one business and not feeling appropriately appreciated (we’re not talking money – I wanted them to listen to my idea of developing the organization further – they just want to harvest what I had already built), so having done that well – I just changed the business. I walked away from this just like that. Still, I thrived in new places as well – in 3 years of working in marketing I became quite a recognized freelance marketer with jobs assigned by quite big international businesses. I give you a taste of the scale. For example, I organized the whole marketing of an exclusive Danish industrial floor technology dealer in Poland (roughly 10 million USD turnover). I was for a while a special case project manager in the biggest business data intelligence company. Then I ran coaching sessions for the management of a big transport company, teaching them marketing (aged 27 – no graduation yet, not to mention I never studied marketing at all) and helping them to develop new successful coach lines. Plus, I did a thorough Polish market research for a big German factory from Cologne (DM 100 million turnover). I particularly liked the last one because it required creating a false business identity and literally spying on local competitors, pretending to be a possible buyer, contractor, or investor. All expenses covered by the Krauts. Lots of fun.
Anyway, what could possibly go wrong at this point? Well, everything. First and foremost. That sort of experience makes you proud. And the old Biblical proverb says that: “pride goeth before the fall”. You may believe in karma or God’s wrath, but it is true that your pride will always get you in trouble. Plus, if you’re young, you can’t really see that your difficulties and problems may be a more permanent issue. Yes, you have them, it would be foolish to deny obvious facts (although that sort of denial is not that uncommon), but surely you can learn how to get over your limitations. After all, we all know that there are some schools for wizards. There, you can learn some spells how to use a magic wand, and even how to fly a broom. The question is how to get to those Hogwarts places. I am being slightly sarcastic, but Harry Potters were just booming at that time. And I would read them in two languages. And watched the films as well, being already an adult man.
However, if you had confronted me then, I would have seriously been offended with a slight suggestion that my thinking and my perception of the word is somehow sketchy, naive, and infantile. If you also added a remark that the knowledge, I was getting from all possible respectable sources was in much part of it quite superficial and hugely theoretical and therefore detached from reality and oversimplified, then I would simply treat you as an ignorant simpleton or madman with no credibility. I can see that disdain in the eyes of young, successful students today when I am telling them just that.
After all, I was studying and growing intellectually in places where the intellectual elite of my country was gathered. And I was also following the trends from “Big Word”, reading top magazines and books recommended by their editors. At the age of 25, I happened for example to “have clanged” champaign glasses with two current Polish Prime Ministers and a score of their cabinet members. I also realized that I am usually quite intellectually superior to them as well as to most people I would meet at university. I couldn’t in any way imagine that I might forever remain in positions inferior to those people. At that time, I would be polite and obliging in those interactions, but I simply knew better. I was surely destined to rise above that crowd.
Still, I wouldn’t get anywhere nearer the positions I’d aspired to. My employers or contractors would use my skills, paying me the asked wage (I could really ask much more, but money never powered me). Local politicians and MPs wouldn’t even do that – they were used to the fact that young prospects work for them for free. So, I gave up on them. My university teachers were quick to appreciate my intellect, but they were not interested in promoting a young competitor who could endanger their position very soon.
Of course, now, I know that there was a way to rise up, through diligent work and grinding. I could easily join one of the big corporations, which at this point were getting established in our market, and start climbing the career ladder in them. I am sure I would get in top positions sooner than others if only I had complied with the corporate way of treating other people as a means to facilitate your own progression. Well, a couple of examples from my life at this stage showed me already that I could do it. I didn’t like it, but I was very skillful in manipulating others into doing things my way. Still, I thought I was better than that. I wanted to be independent and free from the bondage of other people and relations with them. That excluded my career in politics very quickly as this is a wolf-pack-dominance game and I wouldn’t get involved in all that petty “pecking for order”. I was much better than that, I thought. Still in business, I could surely rise through shire competence. Later life experience cured me even of that illusion.
We’ve just passed 1492 words in this story – according to the Word, if I don’t do any further editing which unfortunately probably will happen. Still the number comes in a quite symbolic turn. So, let’s get back a bit to the times of great discoveries. What made the aspiration of Christopher Columbus or the Portuguese navigators so challenging? There were two problems in both of those cases. Firstly, they didn’t know how far they had to go. They have some calculations, some estimates but in either of the quests for India, the distance was hugely undervalued. And of course, they didn’t know what to expect on the way because they were exploring completely new territories.
Let’s do a small mental exercise to show you a bit of a psychological simulation of that situation. Imagine you are new in a different country, and you have to get from one side of a big capital agglomeration to a point somewhere on the other end of it, of which you have only some vague ideas. You know the general direction and you have heard some basics about some orientation point. Nothing too sure and too vividly obvious though. You don’t know the language. There is no sat-nav or even a map, and you are traveling on a push bike. Does it sound like an adventure? Well, I know that the majority of people neither have the liking nor in many cases the courage to do something like that. For me that is the essence of life. I have done similar simulations just for fun during my journeys. And it is never an easy task. You never go smoothly from A to B. More likely you get lost a number of times.
Columbus was just extremely lucky. His voyage could end up with a total disaster like many other similar escapades in history. The tasks of the Portuguese seemed to be a bit more straightforward. All they needed to do was to keep sailing to the south, around the coast of Africa, and probe from time to time how far they could go East. Seems easy, doesn’t it? No, it isn’t. They didn’t have a clue how gigantic a continent they had to circle. They didn’t know where it would end if it would end and what shape it really was. So, they were probing bit by bit. It took them several decades to finally reach the point where Bartolomeu Dias could finally freely sail to the East. He called it a Cape of Storms due to extreme weather challenges he met there. It was only later that his followers gave the place the name of Cape of Good Hope.
There could be some fascinating books written about the voyages and dangers his predecessors made before. How much they despaired about reaching country after country and not being able to pass it around. How many problems with the people they met they had. With weather and illness. How many of them perished in those journeys.
My life had similar huffs and puffs. After having crashed my career in Poland over (to be perfectly honest) my own inability to deal with my emotions and constant search for new challenges, I jumped on a journey to make it a success in a different country. And that was a disastrous decision if you look at that from many angles. Firstly, I was unprepared for such a big change. Too much academic knowledge in my head made it difficult to stoop and accept the role of a humble immigrant. Even though I hadn’t started here from the very bottom. I came for a ready job, being headhunted from Poland in accordance more or less with my qualifications. But my position in that institution here turned out to be a very low one. Still, I took it and worked diligently trying to grind through the organizational structure showing my commitment and competence. And I did it for more than 5 years. And I showed commitment and competence – nobody could deny that. And nobody was neither interested nor impressed. I was only used on thousands of occasions to do work instead of other people. I will definitely one day, write a whole chapter about that one “workplace”. However, just to give you a taste of what I mean. I happened one day doing alone a job of 5 people – 2 of those people were present there (2 didn’t bother to turn up) but they wouldn’t do a diddly squat of work for the whole 8-hour shift. Yet when I complained it was met with an honest dismay – why is that “commie from eastern Europe” winging, he is here to work, and he should be grateful for that opportunity.
When I say I was unprepared for emigration I didn’t mean just my own problems and shortcomings which were “a legion” at this time. I also did not have the practical know-how about the new country I tried to conquer. Funny enough I had extended knowledge and experience about its high culture, about Shakespeare, about Churchill, about Monthy Python but I didn’t know what DVLA was and how to deal with thousands of life’s nuances and trivialities here. I learned that quite quickly and in later years I would help many new arrivals to set up their anchorage on British shore. But all the learning took time and resources. And so did dealing with my personal problems.
Language turned up to be another barrier. You are reading my writing now and you probably have a picture of an eloquent person, who can converse with anybody with ease and humour. In fact, if you meet me in person, you may be disappointed as my verbal skills in English still don’t match the fluency I get in writing (granted – with some imperfections). I am doing still better and better, but it has taken me years to “polish” my English (pun intended).
And let me drop here just a small remark for all those righteous “indigenous” people (those who know a bit of history, can laugh at this claim). I was a highly educated, legal immigrant from a culturally close European country, with a decent level of English and a ready good job I arrived to. Still, I found it quite difficult to “acclimatize” to begin with. Imagine in what position are those thousands of other less fortunate and equipped immigrants. And ponder for a while what social problems that can produce. That however is not a topic of this story.
Nevertheless, after I had quit that first job I pushed “further south” to use our useful allegory (actually I moved north – to Bradford), trying a new place after another, new job after another. Not fully accepting my low positions, however, I would on a few occasions be offered and I did for a while some managerial or clerical work. Had I managed to stick with any of them I would have been already in a comfortable financial position. Still, that was not the level I got used to in my home country, so I kept looking for a different deal. It was always me quitting a job and some of my employers were really determined to keep me in that job, although not to the point to offer me a position adequate to my level of education and competences.
Again, all my adventures are worth exclusive chapters, and it is possible you will find some of the stories published later. Important to note though that I definitely got very tired throughout all those years. I also lost that bit of hope that my tide will change or in order to use the light motif of this story that I will finally find that place where I can sail to the East unrestrictedly.
I am quite sure those Portuguese sailors in our story, had also many moments of desperation and hesitation. They would see no real change in their position while trying to circle the huge continent that blocked them from the route to India. They only started to realize how huge that task was and were constantly stumbling on various difficulties their journeys would bring. Like most normal people many of them just wanted to settle down somewhere and get finally some comfort and prosperity in their lives. And many of them did just that.
I had those moments two. I was twice in a relationship, and I would just find well-paid physical work to provide for my partners and to be a responsible man. That didn’t work in either case, but I lost a couple of years doing just that. Then came other family obligations. Then unsuccessful business – not that much failed but still not successful enough to become a good income source. Finally, my health problems of mine and those of my dying parents reduced my aspirations to a bare minimum. In the end, I became a broken, middle-aged man with no real intention to make some more progress in my life. I would do easy and fairly comfortable physical work while exploring some ideas only mentally with a lot of reading. I would still at this time plan some future projects but without much motivation to get them really rolling. I became what is called in one of my daily readings – a mental loafer.
One more detail I have to add to the picture to make it finally complete. It may be regarded as an excuse, but you can basically judge by yourself. I have mentioned some personal and emotional difficulties I developed still back in Poland, which contributed greatly to the break of my professional career. Well, not getting into details, it also took me quite some time and effort to overcome those. I also needed a lot of help from other people in this process. And that help was given to me in abundance by many good human beings. I also used professional help, but most of the support I received came from volunteers, who had gone through similar problems before me. So, in natural way, once I got better, I felt obliged to return the favour by working in that field voluntarily myself. Well, here we come, as I don’t do half measures, I have given it my whole heart and soul. For pretty much most of those years since, I have been working without any pay in various capacities either helping other unfortunates directly or building an organizational system providing more structured help to them. I can’t give you any sure numbers, but we’re talking about thousands of hours spent doing just that, thousands of miles driven and in effect, thousands of money either spent or not earned by me. Does that make me a saint? Probably not but I simply wouldn’t sometimes have any spare time for anything else. Do I regret that? No, I don’t. Especially since some of the work I did in this area really created an avalanche effect and contributed to the development of some projects. They should still though remain anonymous.
Anyway, all of that finally ground my ability to mobilize further. Probably the last experience I mentioned above gave me the strength not to fall into the abyss of depression of sorts. It gave me instead some feeling of purpose and accomplishment after all. Plus, all the work I’d done in life really toughened me up. Most of the time I feel unbreakable, but the paradox lies in the fact that I have already been broken so many times, so it made me simply emotionally flexible like a piece of rubber. And I know my worth. It was just the task life brought for me (or rather I chose myself) that turned out to be bigger than it initially seemed to be.
I once read a biography of Karen Armstrong “The Spiral Staircase”. She very clearly stated there that it wasn’t until she failed in everything, that she planned for her life and became a depressed unemployed miserable, lonely person – only then she became ready to write something really valuable and her true rise to career began. A similar experience is reported by J.K. Rowling. Still, knowing this I couldn’t get into any progress at all.
Now, something changed a couple of weeks ago. All of a sudden I felt a sudden breeze and then a full storm started. Scary at first but I quickly noticed it is a phenomenon of a different kind. The strong wind I am facing is definitely of different, oceanic nature. And it looks pretty clear to me that I have come across a point where two different sea currents are met. Is it that point at the end of my struggle around that obstacle continent that blocked me from the journey to my destiny. Is it my “Cabo das Tormentas” as it was for Dias. The whole situation is truly tormenting me, but I have found a lot of inspiration in it. My mindset is changing dramatically and I am feeling like a poet who has finally found his Erato. I choose to call that my Cape of Good Hope. And I hope I haven’t bored you with that story.