Elonmanthoughts

 Let's attempt to dissect some politics, shall we? I am one of those people who pride themselves on 'not engaging in politics.' Some say that to appear sophisticated, out of the ordinary, because 'politics is a game enjoyed by retards.' I am not one of those. I just don't see the appeal. But. Hailing from a country like Kenya, politics is shoved down your throat, and you either swallow it in all its ugliness or puke it. Let's pretend to swallow it for a moment. Plato, the man who summoned philosophy and beauty from Mt. Olympus and poetry from down below, used them to make a concoction that has been keeping us intellectually drunk for more than two millennia, had a lot to say about politics. And he did all that, to borrow from Will Durant's phrase, in lordly abandon.  First off, he claims that in order to understand politics, we have to be acquainted with the nature of men, for it is the people who are the key pieces in the chess that is politics.  If we ...

 Let's talk about doors and windows. When you want to enter a house, you have a few choices to make: knock the door like a prudent person, break the door, or use the window.  A door is an opening of opportunity, a promise that your dreams and aspirations potentially rest on the other side of the door.  It is upon you to know which doors to knock, which ones to break, and which ones to ignore.  When you build a house, you need a door, the main one, those ushering you into the inner rooms, and potentially a back door. Let's talk about the two main ones- the front and the back door. Apart from serving as an opening for the house, it is also an aesthetic element - you can decorate your doors with designs that tickle your fancy.  It is a weakness in most cases because it is easier to breach a door than a wall.  That way, whenever you see a very secure door, there is a great chance something rests on the other side of it that's worth the trouble. That translates ...

Longing. Longing for that date with a pretty lady. Longing for that kiss. I read somewhere that longing for a kiss increases saliva. An increase in saliva helps clean your teeth.  So, long for a kiss, clean your teeth.  Longing for that promotion. Longing for that journey back home. As humans, we love novelty - perhaps more than we should, but who cares?  Longing. Like the way a farmer longs for rain after burying his seeds in the ground - watching how the dry clouds shape themselves into distinct shapes with the promise of wetness in time to come. Or how a child longs for her mother - tortured by the closed door. Or how a job seeker longs for that call after the interviewer tells him, 'We'll be in touch.' It is the longing that makes life worth it. The anticipation and the build up. The calm before the storm.  We get more stimulation from thinking about what could happen than the happening itself.  We fall in love with the woman of our dreams - a complete stran...

 Tell me about yourself. Well, my good friend, I have never really known how to answer that query—though I have used it on many occasions myself in trying to get a damsel to be softer towards me. Never really worked though. Now that I am on the receiving end of that statement, I feel like I’m in front of a panel of interviewers, and I don’t know where to start. It is always my intention, when I coin that phrase to a damsel, to leave it as open as possible so that the other person is free to talk about any aspect of themselves that they like—because there are some parts of ourselves that we would prefer remain buried and unknown. I’ll take it that way in this case as well: just blabber on and on about everything about myself that you might like to hear. Let’s start then, shall we? I am a man. A young man, though I’m not sure how long I can use that label. Minutes to me feel like days, staggering by slowly, and years go by like hours. Yes, that is a line from Skyscraper Stan’s so...

 I never thought I would ever attempt to write about nightclubs.  I don't go to clubs very often, but whenever I do, the only things I do there are: getting shitfaced drunk and watching people. Of course the people watching would start before I succumb to the deadly seductive power of more and more liquor.  Women have their make-up to hide their flaws and imperfections, and we humans have our masks to disguise our real personalities. We hide them under layers and layers of decoys because we are afraid that others might unearth them and expose us for who we really are.  The rain will fall, however, and the woman with the make-up will suffer because it will be washed up exposing all her flaws for everyone to see. For us, our masks fall off when we are drunk, and we are left with no choice than to expose ourselves.  It is amazing how people can consume the same liquor but morph into completely different individuals. One will resort to dancing like they are some rei...

  The other day I was in a matatu and I didn’t have a phone so my range of activities was reduced to people watching as an avenue of passing the time. I wasn’t at the window seat so my subjects were limited to only the people in the matatu with me. I would glance at the people around me, most engrossed in their phones, with ear pods so deep into their ears one would be inclined to think they were born with them. A few years ago, a ride in a matatu or any public transport was characterized by a buzz of activities, people talked, laughed, argued, slept – but not anymore. Now we have phones, and with that, we have muted our mouths, only our eyes and ears do the talking with a little help from our fingers endlessly scrolling through our little screens. Initially, it wasn’t surreal to find two or three people reading a book or newspaper at the matatu, it was the norm. For those who didn’t have any printed material, they resorted to eating, sleeping, or watching the outside world as ...

  Religion, which man whether alive or dead can claim to be an expert in such wonder, such mystery? Religion has been the force of great good, pushing the world to its limits through civilization, love, and great hope. It has also been the driving force for great destruction, deaths in the millions, slavery, and all forms of human ugliness. In a way, it opens up our psyche, leaving it vulnerable to outside influences, whether good or bad. For me though, I believe what I know of religion is an equivalent of a drop of water in the ocean, one puff of air in the universe, a grain of sand in a desert. Instead of focusing on what I don’t know, I will focus on what I know, which is pretty little. It can push us to better ourselves, to endure great suffering and still have immense hope, to forgive our adversaries when we shouldn’t, to help people when we need the help more ourselves, to love when hate is more than justified. On the flip side, it can cause us to hate each other,...

 Solitude = a simple word with a heavy meaning.  One can be tempted to confuse solitude with solace. Think of solace as a feeling of comfort especially when distressed with something - a warm balm over a fresh wound, and solitude as a condition or an environment. It's being alone both physically and mentally. Solitude is hanging out with yourself, enjoying your own company, making acquaintances with your wildest thoughts, understanding, sometimes reluctantly, that your company is all you'll ever own.  The thought of spending time with yourself is both scary and unimaginable, and I won't blame you for thinking that. Existing with your own thoughts means that you will have to think, ponder your emptiness of imagination or get in too deep and suddenly you can't find your way out. That mental distress is like forcing oil to make a deal with fire - making it believe that the fire won't consume it. Bertrand Russel said, "Most people would rather die than think, in fa...

  It has often been said that imagination is more powerful than knowledge, logic, or even judgment. Albert Einstein claimed that while knowledge might take you from point A to point B, imagination can take you everywhere. Step outside your house and look around — everything you see is not just a product of intelligence, but of imagination. Yuval Noah Harari suggests that it is precisely our ability to imagine what  isn’t  that elevated us to the top of the food chain. We are not the strongest, not the fastest, and certainly not the tallest — we simply imagined a world into being and then built it. Why, or how? Take a lion. A lion sees, hears, and smells what’s in front of it — that’s the extent of its world. But we — we imagine gods. We imagine afterlives. We imagine what will happen when we die. That imagination keeps us in line. We fear eternal punishment, and so we follow rules crafted by beings we’ve never seen. And because most of our gods demand cooperation, we work...

  Two days ago, I received a dreadful phone call — my high school best friend was dead. I was devastated. For a few minutes, I was numb. We all react to death in different ways. For me, it usually hits after a few months, not when it happens. I’ve spent time thinking — about him, the memories we shared, the kind of life he led, how he must be feeling wherever he is now, and whether the end was easier on him than his life. Most of all, I can’t help but think of my own death. It’s a scary topic, but just because it’s scary doesn’t mean we shouldn’t confront it. Death is the most mysterious stage of life. It watches us from a distance, creeping us out just enough to remind us of its power, yet waiting until we are oblivious to it before striking. And when it comes, it does so in one fell swoop, leaving those who love us in unimaginable anguish. I’ve had discussions about death with many people, and most pretend to grasp its gravity — but I see right through their bullshit. Nobody is t...