Ubusizi ntiburi kure y'ubusazi , gusara utisize no guhanga ugahangara ibyahizwe bikagirwa iteka burya se si bimwe? Cyangwa nijye ?
A compulsive thinker, I have to sometimes let out the steam of ideas that could probably amount to great things or just be prosaic garbage.
Bienvenu dans ma poubelle!
Identity crisis
Who am I?
-I think I know who I am…
-I know who I am…
-I know who I am not…
-I don’t know.
-I am trying to find out.
It seems to be a simple and basic question, some would go as far to say it’s a futile question. One of those questions you never really ask, like “am I a boy or girl?” or “do I eat food or throw it?” Obviously some kids might have asked their parents such a question, the point is perception differs by person.
The more you think about it you start to realize the depths of the question.
The more you think about it you start to realize the depths of the question.
I am
-Am I?
-Well I guess I am…
-I am not
My name, age, gender, goals, relationships, background, choices?
Or I am just defined by the virtual line separating my words from my actions?
Within this question lies a sum of questions that sum up common lifelong quests.
-What do I want?
-Why am I here?
And many other thoughts one might assume are the first symptoms of a deep depression.
The first common reaction is to question the question and its origins.
It’s almost as if it hits a wall because one feels like the answer is innate.
You should know better
Family, church, society taught you better.
- Quoting Tal Bachman, in the lyrics of "Aeroplane“some questions have no answers and some answers have no truth”.
Is this true? Should this be our common attitude?
Leaving the challenging questions blank, because “duh!”
Either everyone knows or no one knows.”
If so how can we verify the authenticity of our opinions, are they originally ours?
Or are they a replay of the different sources from which we pull information?
How sure are we of the certainty of what we know?
#showerthoughts
The art of listening
“Look
around you, everything from bodies to beings to nature always speak in a
language that takes more than one sense to hear, are you listening?”
Ever had a
feeling that all your day was a network of interconnected events trying to tell
you something? Or have you ever just lived in a moment and felt like it’s a Deja-vu?
It could
be, two completely different people mentioning the same thing. Or the same
word, topic or thought occurring simultaneously in a very small interval of
time.
I have a feeling like it’s a cycle that happens every day, call it a hunch,
a superstition, delusion or a subtle manifestation of what’s in my subconscious.
This can be viewed differently based on your background, or any other factor
that affects your belief.
But
whatever belief, you relate to the most, at some point words like spiritual,
realm, ghost, the dead, subconscious, being and many more will come up in your
conversation. If it is clear where am getting at, you will at some point
believe there is more to life , reality , and this world than what we know or
see.
In our long
search for truth, lies, or whatever the heck is on what we call the “other
side” . Humans have found or made or assumed ways to communicate with such realms
or portals through such worlds or dimensions. Whatever ways there may be, I
personally believe the being in question is always broadcasting or dimension is
always open.
And thus
you can find the answer to any question through anything in this world. Through
friends talking, rocks, advert billboards, Facebook posts …. The answer
is anywhere your ears are tuned to.
Anyway I
have took some time to realize this, because some of these moments , or
occurrences feel more and more frequent , however in that lapse of time there are a few
moments that passed me by that I didn’t record . That makes me feel like those
are daily life lessons or clues that I missed out on or let slip.
So to be
fair to myself and equally balance my fairness towards the reader of
this post or whatever it is , I decided to record/document every moment I suspect could be more than a
coincidence, but still keeping my level of rationality .
With that
being said this is in some way an experiment as I set out to record , some
might be mere coincidences , inconclusive or at some point overly superstitious, but if this helps someone after me to somehow get a better notion of life
than I did then it will have served its purpose.
The Art of listening Lesson 1: Keep it 100
Kicking of my Sunday with some hip
hop music, to steam myself from the energy of the kicks and the melancholy and
the mixture of emotions in the sampled melodies. I had a very simple day, going
to edit the film I am co-working on with a friend. As I was about to get the bus,
I borrowed 200frw worth of airtime from my airtime reseller, “Ubu noneho ndi ku nkoni
nzayaguha” I said.
A few meters away, as I was trying to call the friend, a skinny dark-skinned guy with a bald shaved
head and red eyes walked up to me. “Yo Rasta!” One fist bump, and needless to
say he was hungry asking for barely a coin to eat. He is a former “Chaguwa” reseller who was jailed for selling illegal products. Apparently, he had just
got out, that’s why he hadn’t eaten for a day.
This had become so frequent that I was
numb to his pain, at the same time I had just borrowed airtime and was counting
my coins on the way to town. The answer was no, the former Christian in me felt
bad for a while, because the man could’ve rushed or robbed for the 100 hundred
he kindly asked for. I stood aimlessly
in the street for a while but soon got over it.
As I walked to town to run an errand
before the rendezvous, I listened to “Keep
it 100” by Joyner Lucas. A hip hop song that basically
documents the relationship of the working class and money through the exchanges/transactions
that a 100-dollar bill with a phone number written on it goes through.
It starts from him getting it as a
salary from the ATM, the bill going from wallet, strip club, purse, church… Basically a realistic picture of people under
Capitalism through one note. I kept thinking about its playful yet simple lyrics, like the “…she wanna retire soon she
swears to God, she looked up and seen the Hand of God, Oh my God … Forgot she
had a pimp…” I should probably write a review for it…
Anyway, one line clearly stuck with
me as I thought about the prostitute who could easily be anyone doing a
distasteful job. It was simple “You
gotta do what you gotta do when it’s time for paying bills”.
The words faded as I went to work,
even as 3 other people begging the “Rasta” for a coin, seriously Is it me?
It all came back as I ended the day finally
watching “Deux Jour Une Nuit”, one of
the many masterpieces from the Dardenne brothers. A film portraying a situation
where people are caught between a rock and a hard place.
The protagonist who suffers from
depression is trying to convince her co-workers to vote for her and give up
their 1000 euros bonus checks for the extra time they worked while she was sick
(yet to finish it as I am typing this …)
Clearly again people have to look out
for themselves and their families, and you really have no way of pointing
fingers at any of them. One of the sweet miseries that come from competition stems from capitalism.
Life in the city of Kigali, like
many in East Africa or all over the world is getting more and more expensive. Capitalism is the same everywhere,
Situations where people are confronted for their survival in the concrete and
corporate jungle are only a few years away.
It can and probably will get messy
because “You gotta do what you gotta do
when it’s time for paying bills”.
The Art of Listening Lesson2: Umunnyi azira undi
Ever had an unexpected saying /joke turning all your worries
upside down for a minute? 60 seconds of bliss, laughing stupid in the dark
motto helmet and thinking “This is stupid yet deep”.
It was around 7:19 P.M. as we zoomed across the dark hills of
Kigali filled with a million light bulbs, at least that’s what they look
like. We were coming from the former
Biryogo market going to Gikondo (ku rya Gatanu).
I kept thinking about the nauseating smell of the hospital’s
ICU I had inhaled for the past 6 hours.
The images of different patients who are quite peculiar characters kept
coming back. The guy with multiple bone fractures no medical insurance and
a very dark humor. “Let me rot outside,” he told the nurse who was asking if he
had Jesus’ insurance since he is serious about not having a health one.
The blind skinny bearded guy who was petrified when his
family wanted to take him from the ICU to the ophthalmologist. He screamed with
the most terrified look in his still eyes, “Why do you want to kill me? I am blind, can’t you have mercy? Let me go,
if I offended you I am sorry!”
Was it dementia? Trauma, torture memories? I don’t know.
Pain really brings some faces out of people.
It did have a toll on the fully naked woman who was dancing at
6:30 P.M. right in front of the College Camp Kigali’s gate, across the street
actually.
She was jumping to the ‘Igisirimba’ beat that came from the
former police station building below the street apparently a praying room now.
She kept repeating “Imana izankiza, maze njye kurera abana
banjye! Yangize mama wa Jennifer na Peter.” People, mostly women were staring
at her, hands on their mouths.
I can’t believe all
this happened in a span of twelve hours.
“Ibiciro bya essence byuriye”
says the moto guy. he mentioned "It will take time for the moto bike drivers to
adjust the prices" he added. He was referring to the fact that he was the only Moto guy to accept 500rwf after the 6 others who had refused.
He continued about the prices of sugar and rice expected to rise,
and somehow the economy along with it; "statistically" and sarcastically speaking.
I kept thinking, “I know this guy”! He sounds like the
married moto guy I once had a conversation with about the ills of religion and how
man’s search for meaning is a personal journey.
“Let me ask him” I thought.
“What will I say? Are you married? Do you have kids? Nah,
weird” We quietly rode up until going
up the Rwampara slope. As he was curving, we found ourselves right in the trajectory of another bike going towards
the dirt road leading to Kimisange.
The other guy saw us and turned his bike and passed a meter
away from us. “Wagenze neza!” he
screamed followed by an insult that didn’t make it into my eardrums as he
passed us!
I didn’t mind as it is his job to ride not mine and frankly I was too exhausted to be anxious.
A few
seconds later, he dropped the bomb; “umunnyi
azira undi”! The punch line took time but it hit hard when I visualized the
saying.
It was so simple, deeply stupid. I laughed for about 6 streetlights as we passed by.
I couldn’t handle it, when we reached I asked him, “Have you
ever driven me before?” He nodded, and it turned out
it was him. The moto guy with an extra interest in esoteric knowledge.
When we reached home, and he parked his bike we reconnected before I paid him.
I noticed the Pisces
sign on his speedometer and mentioned it. We had a small conversation about
Jesus, Pisces, and the contrast in the bible, beginning with man becoming one
among Gods(something about fruit) and ending up with God becoming a man(weird
birth).
After nicknaming him Pisces; I left.
I missed that version
of me, the adventurous, curious stupidly brave anti-religion version of me.
I got home and started thinking, about how God is praised and brags about being a jealous God but shuns men for the same behaviors, or that it was such a noble act for God to become man but when some men reach God-like status it's hubris (Babel tower).
The joke got spiritual,
it clearly is convenient when it is you doing the shitting.
The art of listening Lesson 3 : Hell is a loop
Today is the 1st of July 2021, I have not written in a long , long, long time . and as of today my memory is fuzzy , i do not know for sure if this train of thought started today , but for a while i have been interested in time , the way memories are loops of images played over and over and i have been wondering on how to experiment with it.
I started my morning on the video of a judge, brown who was talking in favor of Bill cosby , and one word stuck , he said a lot of things, but what stuck with me is “you can’t protect people from being stupid”.
And somewhere I lost that train of thought and kept wandering on IG ...
Later, I was thinking about how heaven and hell are a state of mind. This is an old quote from one of my early preacher days in highschool. When I was transitioning from fervent christian to moderate agnostic i used to say “heaven and hell are states of spirit”.
I got stuck on the paradox of free will , How we literally are free to do anything but the catch is to face the consequence.
I remember thinking that if we as humans hear from 20 to 20000Hz as our frequency . Heaven could be a vibrating frequency we can’t listen to, My question became whether heaven vibrates around a higher or a lower frequency ?
Just minutes later , I was watching an episode of “Lucifer”. In this particular episode , Lucifer was doing his Hell duties and a newly dead person, he is stuck in a loop that is his hell . Lucifer compares the slowness of time in hell as compared to earth , “time is relative” i kept thinking .
We are 11:43 p.m. and I am watching episode 4 of Loki , and he just got sent to a Loop of regrets … Well I can't help but think the whole point of this day was about the way heaven and hell are just frequencies on which we are resonating back and forth in an endless loop, or are we?
#showerthoughts
Ballin : A note for a future self
I have been reflecting a lot, today is another one of those Saturdays where we get to play with Titi (my youngest brother) He is 13 years younger. Yep, I saw him grow up. I now enjoy these moments a lot, for some reason.
They get to ground me and make me accountable more than I make myself.
I like to talk a lot but achieving has yet to become second to nature. But whenever we meet, we stop time, play ball, and trash talk. He is getting more confident, his shot is more lethal, he is technically already taller. It is a ritual I wouldn’t miss for the world.
But the world keeps turning faster and faster. He is at school, am at work, The space of waiting for the games to happen keeps getting bigger and bigger.
I anticipate it to get harder but I commit to being available and seeing the talent that he has grow to the farthest it can go.
While that happens something is on my mind, happy in my thirties. What the hell does that mean? I for sure know I am going to be more committed than ever. Committed to myself, and to the family I have or will have made.
Committed to succeeding, so the question remains what does that look like, does it mean more work and no play? More rest? More stress? More love? More silence? More science or more religion, more routine.
I always say I want a kid by 32 or 35, I want financial stability, and that will come from managing my insatiable impulses, and stabilising my unstable lifestyle. Ironically for me to be formless, I will need a shape to form around, a routine to utilise.
There is a fear of taking responsibility because I am afraid I might like being the person who sacrificed their dream and see their seed flourish. Get home exhausted and watch tv for a while and faint? I have seen most of my uncles even the coolest ones drool in front of TVs, trying to keep up but the tiredness from work had the best of them.
Being accountable is hard because you walk with a constant mirror of your goals and wear your mistakes upfront, I guess it is the narrow path that the prophets talk about. Because there is no better righteous than the one who owns their dirt and washes it in the light, most of us would hope for a dark moon that shines during the day and veils only us while others are stripped naked and their sins are seen and shunned while we scratch our Pharisees’ scrotums.
#Showerthoughts
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