Twenty twenty-four
Musings. Metaphors. Moods.
January
Stories will save the world. It’s just occurring to me now that my fascination for storytelling goes farther back than I’ve often admitted. Back in primary school, when we were introduced to different career paths and made presentations in class, I was particularly intrigued by one word: raconteur. I think later on, I came across it inside The Student Companion as well. It was a thing of wonder that a career could be fashioned out of stories.
*
Walking down the street, frustrated about months of unemployment, he sees a bunch of young folks like him spraying white paint on the wall, all of them wearing bright orange t-shirts. ‘Job => 09015676624,’ the advert says in bont fonts. ‘Great, I don’t have to call the number since these people are here,’ he thinks. So he asks them what the job is and how he can get hired. “Excellent,” one of them replies. He reaches into a bag, pulls out an orange t-shirt and throws it at him. “You’re hired,” he says.
*
Centuries into the future when the winds of advancement have finally swept across all corners of the world and all the troubles of medicine and transport and climate and conflict and poverty have been resolved, there will be just one problem left. Boredom. People will have become one with machine. People will have become machines. Everything will be absorbed into the system. The world order of worldly orderliness. The world will become predictable. Avoidable deaths will be avoided. Transportation will be precise and efficient. Privacy will be an ancient concept and because of this sacrifice, there will be great — almost absolute — levels of safety. Every memory is uploaded into the cloud in real time. You cannot commit a crime and get away with it. Punishments have become creative, too. There’s things worse than the death penalty, such as immortality. You can be condemned to eternity as a second-class citizen. When you are sentenced to a thousand years in prison, it won’t just be for dramatic effect. You will spend every one of those years because human life expectancy is now limitless. Your age can be updated so you spend decades as a minor, unable to drink or drive, let alone drink and drive. You can be blacklisted from the metaverse or blacklisted from the real world, whatever is left of it. It is a perfect world. The only utopia man’s insatiable hunger for knowledge and control is able to create. But amidst it all, people will begin to get bored. All the new games and recreational experiences generated by artificial intelligence will not be enough to satisfy their yearning for more. They will read about life in the 20th and 21st centuries and they will wonder what it is like to live in such a world. And so, a group of people will gather to establish a realm that is isolated from this world order, a secret getaway. A realm of lawlessness. Where might is right. It will be difficult but they will eventually get the Security Council to sanction the project. In this world, bribery will return. As will classism and racism and violence and politics and poverty and inefficiency and premature deaths (though only as make-believe). Many people will pay for this experience so they can oppress others. Many more will pay to be oppressed. In this place, they will feel alive and human again. It’ll be their little paradise. They will call the project ‘Nigeria’.
*
In a world where poverty travels faster than wind and sinks deeper than water, what is genuine must be questioned. Truth gets slippery like the sand dunes of the Sahara because, in this world, anything can be bought from social media followers to protesters to divine miracles. In this world, anyone can be bribed, from police officers to God. In this world, truth must be slippery for it to have any value in the constant trade by barter. For a few shillings, you train your eyes to see differently and your tongue to speak the language of the piper’s patron. In this world, dignity must be sacrificed on the altar of survival.
*
Salary wasn’t paid yesterday. I want to die.
*
The thing with therapy is you first need to see those things as problems and not quirks. But when you finally see them as problems, you may still not feel motivated to solve them. Like yeah, and so what? I don’t answer calls from strange numbers or people outside my close circle, so what? I don’t trust or like people enough to become intimate with one for very long, so what? I’m constantly drifting away from people. From convictions. But at least I’m still holding terribly on to my will to live. Yeah, so fucking what? How’s that anyone’s problem?
*
Journalism is a business of trust. The reporter has to trust their sources and the information they’re getting. They have to filter not for the juiciest parts but for the most reliable. The editor has to trust their reporter. Then, the reader has to trust the media brand where the story is published. In this business, integrity is the first virtue.
February
About competitions, I just want to say that I hate those award ceremonies with designed suspense. The winners do not know their fate until the announcement at the event, same as the losers. It reveals strong emotions. Excitement. Sadness. Jealousy. If you’re the loser or the runner-up when you were expecting to do better, you have to struggle to keep a plain or happy face and believe me; it is a struggle. I think such events are unnecessarily cruel. Another thing about competitions is that we tend to really be entitled concerning the outcomes. We think we’ve put a lot of work into our entry and so we deserve to win. But I’ve come to be humble about these things. It is really when you’re at your surest that you get the most disappointing results. And the truth is the other entries were good, too. Oftentimes, they also put in a lot of work. If you take time to peep outside your cocoon, you’ll realise there are many like you out there who are also doing great work. And they also deserve to be recognised.
*
We wish all the time that we had more time. If only, we think. We would be unstoppable. We would eat up all the work we need to jet up the corporate ladder or launch a multimillion-dollar business. We would spend hours every day with our loved ones, over phone calls, over lunch tables, over games, and unending conversations. We would hang out with our old friends all the time and make new ones every week. Above all, we would still have enough time for ourselves, to sleep, to watch our favourite shows, to nurture our hobbies. But the more I think about it, the more it hits me that time is only valuable because of its scarcity. Well, like everything else, actually. The only reason our moments with loved ones, with work, and with ourselves mean anything is that we choose to spend them that way even though a thousand other things are demanding our attention. I could be spending this time doing this other thing. Instead, I’m here. Now. With you. If there was a world of love languages, this would be king.
*
Heard a line about God taking his time to create someone because of how beautiful they turned out and it got me thinking. Which is worse? To think that you are ugly because the creator just didn’t care enough about you to take his time or that you’re ugly because he devoted his time to bringing about that outcome — but, you know, he had his reasons and everything. Your ugliness is for a greater purpose.
*
Going out at night in any city is always some experience. You see the place in an entirely new light. I needed to get gifts for my nieces, so I decided to check if the supermarket opposite the hotel was still open. I mean, after all, this is Lagos. I stepped out. The hotel receptionist was trying to catch some sleep on the sofa. One other man was leaving the hotel. When I got out, I realised why I’d been hearing music and movements from the room even at this odd hour. There is a club just outside. A bunch of cars and people were just arriving. I saw a young woman dressed in a glittery blue dress making her way in. A plus-size woman wearing leopard-patterned leggings was sandwiched between two men a few metres off. “Where are we going?” she asked heartily. It was already obvious, but she feigned ignorance anyway, maybe as a way of saying, “I’m not that bad a girl and don’t usually spend my nights this way.” I asked the guard at the gate if the supermarket would still be open. “No,” he said. “But try Adiba.” It’s not far from here. Cross the road and look towards your right. What’s the worst that could happen, I thought. So I followed the path lighted by his finger. This is a neighbourhood where okadas and tricycles aren’t allowed. This is Victoria Island. There’s so much movement and so many eyes. It gives you comfort, but it is also the cause of your worry. Some of those eyes don’t look harmless. I had two phones in my right pocket, which created a significant bulge. I could feel eyes scanning me and probing what could be inside that pocket. I kept walking. Even at night, Lagos still smells like damp shit. Like smoke, gunpowder, and regret. There were roadside traders. A Mallam selling suya, a woman selling bite-sized liquor, and another woman selling noodles were by the junction. Then there were the homeless people, sleeping close to each other for comfort and security, by the gutter, by the bus station. A minibus slowed down beside me and honked twice. My soul flew outside my body because I’d seen a video where kidnappers went about in such a contraption. They would stop beside you and draw you into their mobile office. I finally got to Adiba and it was truly open at half past midnight. But it wasn’t the kind of place that would have children’s wristwatches. When I got back to the hotel, the lady in a blue glittery dress was still outside the club. I guess she wasn’t going in, after all. This was her duty station.
*
One of the worst parts of adulthood is how problems just sit with you and refuse to go away. You keep throwing money at them and they are just like, no, I’m comfortable here, thank you. Like your laptop’s keyboard malfunctioning. Or your shower breaking down. Or the pumping machine having a heart attack. Or your car’s one hundred and one faults. They sit with you. A day without problems is a day after death.
*
“I was once like you,” Tony says after clearing his throat. He has a modest smirk on his face as he addresses a hall full of attentive youngsters. He holds the podium with one hand, beaming with the confidence of a cat that has just come into the possession of an enchanted mouse. He is the star of this show.
“I was broke and hungry and distracted. I was always in debt. I jumped from one girlfriend to another. I was either unemployed or underemployed. I was a pawn in other people’s chess games. But look at me today. I have a school and three streets named after me. I drive the best cars money can buy. I have a house in every state in the South-south. I have five thriving multi-million dollar companies. I’m close friends with all the relevant people in business and politics in this country. I have even married three Misses Nigeria. You’ll look at me today and think I was born with a silver spoon. But the only silver item that touched my mouth was the ring on my father’s finger anytime he slapped stubbornness out of my head. I was once like you. And if I can make it, then it means all of you here can as well.”
The audience claps as if they have been promised some money for every applause.
“I still remember when I finally decided I had had enough with poverty,” Tony continues. “I was on YouTube and I had to endure a 15-second unskippable advert on waist trainers because I could not afford premium package. That was when everything changed. Those 15 seconds changed my life.”
*
This sweltering heat is enough motivation to get rich quickly so that I can create a never-ending air-conditioning bubble for myself while contributing more significantly to global warming.
March
I’m afraid of the unreachable horizon, of the endless staircase, of eternal strife, of eternal anything.
*
Depression is a baby that won’t stop crying — worse, two crying babies — and a damp, dimly lit room and a spouse who won’t stop nagging — worse, she’s superhumanly quiet and understanding — and a generator that won’t start and a bank account that echoes with emptiness and access to the Internet that’s just strong enough to see shiny existences running parallel to yours.
*
Everything can be interpreted as a sign of madness once doubt creeps in.
*
Labels deprive us of the freedom to easily change our minds whenever we choose and the freedom to exist at unusual intersections.
*
Watched the first episode of this WWII docuseries on Netflix and learnt that one of the reasons it was so easy for the US government to strike Japan with the atomic bomb twice (with some even calling for a third strike and overwhelming support from the public) was the dehumanisation of Japanese people in the media, their visual depiction as sub-human. I also noticed that most headlines and placards simply referred to them as Japs or Nips, never calling the full name.
*
We’re all just pendulums dangling between extreme probabilities, hanging by a loose thread.
*
Some of the world’s most atrocious injustices have stemmed from a group of people bestowed with some power convincing themselves that another group of people deserve to be treated horribly and somehow it is for the greater good. Some of the world’s most atrocious injustices have stemmed from men’s hunger for self-preservation. Ironically, nothing threatens a people’s existence more than the evil they commit in the name of survival.
April
It is like the key to sanity and the key to happiness are locked in different boxes many miles from each other. You either pick one or the other.
*
I developed a habit of asking questions from a young age. The intention was to help with my public speaking skills. But I picked up other things along the way.
*
Home with mom and Bro. T and it’s been many hours of laughter and memories and food. Mom reminds me one of my names is Onaopemipo. She tells me I was born around 2 am. I joke that if I had not delayed my birth by a few hours, I would have been born on 9/11 instead of September 12. My brother laughs hysterically. It takes mom a while to get the joke.
May
Not sure which is more enjoyable, zooming past the traffic light during the last seconds of green or being in the first row and blocking other cars from moving when it hits red.
*
Yesterday, I saw an injured bird. This morning, I buried it. The eyes were the first to go.
*
The goal is to be able to confidently say, “Money doesn’t solve all your problems,” after making a ton of it, and to be able to say that awards are overrated after winning a truckload of them.
June
There’s a temptation to drown everythig in music, including ourselves. Whenever I board a taxi and the strereo is silent, it feels like something is missing from the experience. I could never drive my own car without playing something. Music comes naturally. Listening to podcasts comes with effort. Some people turn on their television, then ignore it and call it white noise. The most revolting thing is how this creeps into social media experiences. Instagram now allows people to add music to single frame posts. Why? I have no idea. Except perhaps they’ve figured out that it’ll help lock people in for longer. Recently, I’ve tried to reduce my habit of looking for songs to match my story uploads. People should just get the raw experience, except when the song is actually adding something, when it speaks to you, or when it’s subtle. I thought I’d restrict the song additives to videos, but now I think even those should be shared in their raw form in many cases.
*
My life goal is to write stories that are not easily forgotten.
*
My people, I swear this is a democracy. Don’t you see it? Your leaders are now called that, leaders, not rulers. They no longer wear flowing robes and diamond-studded crowns. Instead, they wear the best suits money can buy and keep the diamonds in vaults. The leader doesn’t stay perpetually in power without your consent. Every five years, he allows you to vote for him to remain in this position. His children no longer inherit his authority as a matter of birthright; you will voluntarily vote for them as well. Can’t you see? The reign of the absolute monarchs is long gone. Your leader does not have the power to make arbitrary decisions. He has the law to confine him. Even if the law gives him the power to make arbitrary decisions, it is still better than having no laws at all. We do not arrest dissidents anymore. Instead, our secret police invite them for chitchat — though it may take a few months to reach an agreeable conclusion. Don’t you see there is a judiciary? Never mind they are all the leader’s family members. Don’t you see you have elected representatives in the legislature? Disregard, for a minute, the fact that they are all the chosen one’s lackeys and lapdogs. This is a democracy. You are free, if you choose to be. Your hunger is an illusion. Your chains are a culture item; wear them with pride.
*
I hope for the steadfastness and drive to be creative at least every weekend. To scribble. To write poetry. To write a personal essay. Something, anything that connects me to roots of the world, and the clouds of the world, and not just its lucrative rims. Something, anything that makes me bear witness to the ordinary things that surround me, the ordinary experiences I’ve had. Anything that stirs my love for art, not merely as an observer of it but as a creator.
*
I want to be the guy who randomly compliments people, who winks at strangers in other vehicles from inside a moving car, who walks an elderly person across a busy road, who speaks what everyone else is afraid to say, who is not afraid to dance, who appreciates the smallest gestures and the commonest things of life, who lives certain of death and dies certain he had lived.
*
She asked what it’s like when I fall in love. I said to fall in love is to tie your mental health to the other person such that you’re happy when they’re pleased with you and devastated when they’re not, and whenever you have a fight, it feels like your world is collapsing on itself and nothing else will matter until you do whatever it takes to put it back into order.
*
Had my most terrible accident this morning. I was heading to Garki to see someone before their noon flight. As I approached the T-junction, I saw that a black Corolla was already close, so I slowed down to allow it pass. Suddenly, a brown Sienna hit me from the back. If that was all that happened, it would have been a small matter. My car jolted violently from the impact and then it hit the black corolla in front of me. Second impact. The glass of the second car shredded and its front door on the right had a hole in it as if someone punched a piece of paper. As I explained to the driver that I wasn’t at fault, the Sienna driver flew off without making eye contact. For a second I thought I might have imagined things because I totally expected him to hang around to take responsibility (which thinking about it now sounds silly). Many bystanders saw what happened, so it was easy to convince the second victim. He complained about having to replace his glass and how costly it was to fix a torn door. I sympthaised with him. I was unhurt (thanks perhaps to my seat belt) and I was still able to drive my car to the side of the road. When I got out, I saw that the back of my car was fine. But the front looked like King Kong had mistaken the car for a burger and bitten into its side, which is plausible considering the golden brown paint and round shape. This will definitely cost a lot of money in repairs even if the engine did not take any damage. I called my mechanic and panelbeater and drove to their shop just metres away. I went back to the highway to pick up the remnants of the car by the side of the road. As I walked back to the mechanic workshop, hands full of these materials, one young dark man stared at me, his hand raised and palm facing towards me. I nodded, thinking he was consoling me after witnessing what happened. Then he curved his hand, bringing the fingers together, and then motioned towards his mouth, the way people do to signal that they’re hungry and beg for money. Didn’t even know what to think. I just kept walking.
The panel-beater has asked me to budget at least N200k and a week for the repairs. This would’ve been a beautiful day. In some way, it still is.
July
The dilemma of whether to go charge your devices at your neighbour’s who’s put on his generator or to wait and see if power will be supplied. The burden of dependence or the fickleness of hope.
*
Sleep is terrifying, in anticipation and in hindsight. It’s surprising we do it so often. But when you’re doing it, you’re too busy sleeping to realise it.
*
I’m supposed to go along with a drink, card games, and a book to this BBL hangout today. I’m going through all the books in my library and I can’t find one that I hate and love enough to give away. I pick up this Teju Cole’s essay collection and think, finally this is perfect. While it’s a great book, I found the language hard-to-read and the topics too esoteric. Certainly at this hangout there’ll be someone intelligent enough to cherish it. But then I open to a random page that talks about Selma and its red earth and its history of brutalisation and civil rights movement and I read how he describes the pedestrians as few and fading like people in a Google Streetview and I check the next chapter and see that it is titled Bad Laws and that it talks about the 1948 recognition of the state of Israel in spite of the unjustness of it all to the people of Palestine and now I think perhaps I stand to gain a lot from this book, at least many of its chapters, if not all. And now I’m back to square one, searching for a book I hate and love enough to give away.
*
You need to read until you’re full of certainty. And then read some more until you’re full of doubt.
*
You must at the same time live as though you will die before the next dawn and that you’ll live for a thousand years, as though you know it all and that you know nothing at all, as though you have all the money in the world and that you are miserably poor.
*
And for my final trick, I shall remain in your life forever.
*
I see a short, round, roasted corn fall to the ground from the grill. I pick it up and hand it over to the vendor. She does not even dust it before returning it to the burning assembly of its peers. The non-chalance suggests this is not at all a chance event. I feel sorry for the person who’ll come to buy this fallen corn. I feel sorry for myself for how sure am I that the two corns that have been selected for me haven’t suffered the same fate?
*
You can achieve neither deep empathy nor true reason unless you’re well-informed.
*
You don’t get it. It is because I am such a people pleaser that I avoid them. You can’t get on a person’s wrong side if you’re nowhere close to them in the first place.
August
Yesterday, I gave a lift to a man going to Mararaba. He said he is a driver who earns only N65k. He has no choice but to remain in this role. It is better than nothing, he said. He can’t just stay idle. He’s got a wife and children. Their school fees alone is multiples of his salary. He said he doesn’t remember the last time he ate to his fill. His wife had just finished cooking the last portion of rice in the house. Every month, he takes a debt of at least N20k until his next pay comes. He is frustrated. Transportation to work alone gulps a lot of money. But his faith in God is strong. “This month, I’ve told God I don’t want to borrow any money. I know he will do it.” A call came in. He told the person he would call them back as though he was busy with something important. All he was doing was unburdening his problems, and probably hoping God might use me to answer his prayers.
*
One of the perks of living in a conservative, probably communist society is that the burden of making decisions for yourself is taken from you. They’re like this is how you should dress. This is what you should study in school. You’ll join the army for five years. And then, this is the job you’ll do for the rest of your life. None of this anxiety about whether you need to start looking for a new job or considering changing careers.
*
Global hegemony doesn’t come cheap. If you believe your people’s morality is superior to others, then you’d better be rich enough to propagate the hell out of it.
*
Being shy and unintelligent is such a deadly combination: saying only a few things and yet still finding a way to make them dumb.
*
And writing without an audience is like cooking the sweetest meal and having no one to share it with. Like having the most beautiful dream and no means of photographing it. Like planting a seed a day before the world ends.
*
I like travelling. But I’m not curious enough about the world to spend my own money to see it. All the joys I need are within a very small radius. Or maybe I’m just poor.
*
I want to write a story that imagines Nigeria as a failed state that is now being torn apart by warlords. There is no strong government at the centre and half the population has become displaced. A group of people in a truck heading for the border stop to refuel before continuing their journey. They come from all sorts of backgrounds. Politicians. Professors. Police officers. Journalists. Activists. Business moguls. Market women. Students. Youth leaders. Clerics. And so on. At night, they gather around a fire and start to trade blames concerning who was responsible for the downfall of the once-great country. Everybody points fingers at everyone else but themselves. Someone then suggests that since the argument seemed pointless and since they would only be together until the next morning, they could instead entertain themselves by telling stories of their adventures and indulgences during the time of peace. So one by one, they volunteered stories of all the remarkable things they had done — remarkable, at least to them. By the time were done, the first light of morning had started to shine and the campfire had all but burnt out. They shuddered in response to a sudden breeze of realisation and guilt. And it became painfully obvious to all that everyone was blameworthy. Everyone robbed the pillars holding up the country of bricks and iron, though some more than others. Everyone contributed to the ruin of the once-peaceful, prosperous country. Or maybe they don’t realise right away. It is only when they reach the borders of Cameroon and bid themselves farewell that one of the professors calls their attention to it. And then their hearts ache even more, knowing that if they had acted differently, maybe all this could have been averted.
*
We’re flying through a dark sky full of sizeable drifting clouds and the experience may be compared to canoeing through the eerie, brothy rivers of Hades, the smokey clouds representing the souls of dead men who have been found wanting. If you close your eyes and spread your ears, you can hear them wailing. Or maybe that’s just the plane’s engines.
(As the plane descends, we finally reach the bottom of the bottomless pit, the tiny flickering lights representing each soul’s hell. You can tell by their sizes which ones contain the biggest sinners. There’s as well a vast expanse of pure darkness waiting for occupants, waiting to be fertilised with the tears and agonies of suffering men.)
September
How do you say “I love you” to a poet? When they’ve read all the romantic metaphors and hyperboles all the best writers from different centuries have had to offer. What more can you say that will impress them for a lifetime of bonding? Yes, you may get it right once or twice or three times and blow them off their feet but how long can you keep going? No matter what you do, you’ll always be a side chick to Shakespeare and Coleridge and Poe and Keats. Someone playing catch-up until a better wordsmith comes along, who will serenade them in the language they understand and connect to the frequency of their soul.
*
12:52 am. Going to bed and closing your eyes, waiting for sleep to come, is like finally making up your mind to kill yourself and then standing naked at the edge of an ocean or in the middle of a highway. But then, several minutes later, you’re still there. The ocean does not crash violently into you nor does a truck come rushing by. You’re just there, second-guessing yourself. “Maybe I should check if there’s anything new on Twitter,” you consider. “Just one last time.”
*
Texas Holds Em comes up in the car stereo. “You don’t ordinarily listen to Beyoncé, do you?” asked the other person in the car. “No, actually. I listen because Beyoncé is like a goddess to someone dear to my heart.”
*
The silence of the day after your birthday.
*
And the years they fly hurriedly by
And the days trick you to think they’ll never depart
And you go on living, giving your best, though it’s never enough
And you go on living, collecting coins of regrets
Wondering if you’ll ever get to spend them
Make your burden a tad lighter
*
You have to immerse yourself in every story, such that you are no longer an observer viewing it from outside but are locked within its walls, such that time slows down for you in these walls and you can see all the moving parts and all the angles and you can move and piece them together with a clarity of purpose as though you had trod this exact path before, as though a step-by-step manual were placed before you and you were not simply writing a new thing. A good story is a jealous lover; you have to devote your full attention to get the best out of it. And that is extremely hard when you are juggling several deadlines at once. It feels like you are having an affair and you know you will be found out and punished for it.
*
Every great artist agonises over the little things, I think. The tiniest details. They can pick up on errors that seem perfectly normal or invisible to others. But they are also rebels who delight in the purposeful violation of rules so-called.
October
The gods, they get high, they exhale, and they spread their white smoke all over our skies. How blithe are the gods. How beautiful is their smoke.
*
I’m grateful for random guys on the internet who make me laugh.
*
These days, nothing makes me sadder than seeing beautiful, educated, and finely dressed young people on the streets under the sun, holding out flyers for drivers. Perhaps nothing is more symbolic of the wasted potential of Nigeria’s most agile and promising demographic.
*
While we were boarding, one of the pilots hung around to make a phone call. When he started speaking Hausa, a lady sitting nearby looked up at him with disgust, contorting her mouth and eyes into an ugliness. And this wasn’t just a brief thing. She kept staring at him with this expression at intervals, almost as if she were shocked a Hausa-speaking man could be wearing such a uniform, status, and responsibility. She should’ve entered the ground.
*
As the plane dovetailed shakily to its doom, I held my wife’s hand and I realised that only mine was fidgety. Hers was as calm as ever. I looked in her direction and saw her waving a satisfied smile. Then I became calm too, happy even, as I remembered what an amazing psycho I’ve spent the last seven years of my life with. It was really in character for us to go out like this.
*
I want to paint resistance art all over Nigeria.
*
That stage of falling in love where you see your lover’s face in every random attractive person you run into. They’re wearing the same dress and doing a similar pose. And when your pupils dilate because of this fine stranger, they’re really only getting attracted to your person, wherever they are, all over again.
November
E reposted a tweet that said, “Oh! To marry a chef. The dream 🙂↕️”
I guess now I have to go to culinary school or something.
*
Seeking out the moments worth living for, the tiny moments that make everything worth it — including the transience and brutal unfathomableness of life. Like a carefree dance with friends. Like a video call with mother after weeks of not speaking. Like a weekend of watching a favourite TV show with someone else on the sofa. Like a cat snuggling up to you or a baby blessing you with a wide innocent smile. Like receiving pictures from your friend in Zimbabwe showing the progress they’ve made with their house, which they’re about to roof. Like holding hands with your lover in a quiet, infinitely expanded moment of complete awareness, complete appreciation.
*
Today, I started using a MacBook and I’m already frustrated. Signing into my Apple account is taking forever. Updating my Chrome app is taking forever. And figuring out how to type # instead of £ on the keyboard took forever.
*
Turns out there’s no problem with the car starter motor or ignition or some other crucial component. A CD just happened to be stuck in the stereo. I googled for a solution.
White guy on YouTube: “All you need is a tiny screwdriver, but I can only help you if the CD is sticking out a little. If it’s completely in, you’ll have to bring out the stereo and pick it apart.”
Indian guy on YouTube: “Here are four things you can do if the CD is completely in the stereo.”
I try the first hack and it works.
*
What I really want to spend my life doing is telling stories that do not matter, but which are interesting as fuck.
*
I don’t need the spotlight. I just want the camera to seek me out from the crowd.
*
The greatest tragedy of adulthood is that things break down, and you can’t simply ignore them or wait for someone else to come fix them.
December
I fell asleep to the hour-long YouTube video of the neurosurgeon who was sad for two decades of his life because what he really wanted to do was philosophy and poetry.
*
Why do we question perfect things that come to us without competition?
Yesterday, I jumped across the highway to buy a smaller travelling bag in preparation for my trip to Lagos. I had this shop I’d patronised before where I got quality second-hand products, so I returned to the shop. But this time, they didn’t have as many options. It was as if they had not even restocked since the last time. There was a red backpack I saw that I’m sure was also there the last time. Also, now they had electronics in the shop as well, so maybe they were transitioning. Anyway, they didn’t have many options. Just a few bags, not more than five that had tyres and a retractable handle. Some were too big. Most were horrendously pink. But one was just perfect. Black and portable. Only problem was there wasn’t any other bag I could remotely want to buy, something I could compare it against just to be sure this was the bag for me. It had no competition. So, I lingered on that decision for longer than necessary just because of this fact. What if I’m passing on a better bag out there, in some other shop, by buying this one? I really do like the bag, but then, what if, right? (At the end of the day, I bought the bag and am satisfied with that decision.)
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It’s not the end of the world. You’re only sitting in the plane’s middle seat, next to the roaring engine.
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The Temu app is really interesting. It’s got an overkill of all the psychological sales tricks. I fell for it, bought a bunch of things, expecting to get a nice voucher. I had spun a wheel. It told me I was entitled to spin again so as not to make it seem like the result was predetermined. Then I spun again and allegedly won some significant money. Only that that money wasn’t immediately available. I had to first buy some things from a list of items to earn my own win. I did that but then the requests kept coming. Oh you’ve won something else and you have to do these five other things. Oh, now you’re really close. Don’t stop now, otherwise you’ll lose this huge win. Then I realised I fucked up. Even if I want to uninstall now, I have to first wait to get the first batch of products I ordered. I’m also really intrigued by the app.
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Reviews are a great way to really get into things. You have to read or watch or listen intently and then probe your own mind for related thoughts, memories, and opinions that can be shared. You might even have to read or watch or listen to the thing multiple times so you don’t miss any important details. Writing the review trains you to think deeply and to craft words effectively. But oftentimes, you don’t want to have to think deeply about something. You just want to enjoy it, and, if you’re lucky, learn a thing or two from it.
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The lady at Mims, who’s always smiling at me, gave me a free pack of table water yesterday. Don’t know if it’s a confession of love or just a sales strategy. I don’t even know her name. I should ask next time.
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I just finished reading ‘In My Head is a Market’ by Akinyemi. So heavy on the mind, yet so gently delivered. I want to appreciate the writing, the metaphor about old pianos in old houses, but the writing is only so good because it is spiced with trauma and reflection. Not spiced even; those are the main ingredients. How do you tell a person you enjoyed the meal they served you when it is their heart on the plate? Their sour, sore, throbbing heart.
(Ps. I cannot connect with him on the basis of his life experiences without sounding sympathetic and I cannot reach out with compliments about his writing without sounding psychopathic. Such a dilemma. All I can do is retweet the link, hoping others are touched by the article the same way I was. Or in other fundamental ways.)
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Many insults are effective because they compare the victim to existing negative stereotypes. They don’t work if the victim doesn’t believe in those negative stereotypes. Why should I be sad you compared me to the second gender or someone from another race or someone far older/younger than me or someone with disability or some animal? Do you know how awesome those people/things are? You should only be mad if someone calls you an objectively terrible thing like a Nazi. But then again, if it is not true, why bother? And if it is true, why bother?
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I’m afraid of what’ll happen if I reach any deeper into my mind. I’m afraid of what I’ll find.
