The Garden of Morning Calm

This is where I sat on the 31st of December 2019 and reflected upon the year I had had. It had been the toughest yet for my career and incredibly challenging financially. It was also the year that found me on a boat at night, watching fireflies dance over the Loboc River as a birthday present thus ticking off the 5th continent in my bucket list of visiting all the continents. 

It was also the year I had fallen in love despite my best efforts and (literally) flown across the world to visit the love of my life and to know the country he had called home for the past 5 years.

But here I was, on New Years' eve, alone and without him but still the happiest, getting lost in the myriads of lights, watching overs and families fawn over the magnificence before us, deep in my thoughts, as I sipped my hot chocolate with a slice of cheese bread.

I had grand plans for the year ahead. 

Chasing a new job opportunity and a new life in a new continent - and not even the one I was in at the moment. It would mean the long-distance part of our relationship continues, but I had always known this was going to be the case whether I stayed in my home country or not. Before dating, we had discussed for at length if we were ready for a new relationship transversing between timezones. It had taken me months to accept this, but I knew once I said yes, there was no going back. And a thousand yeses I said.

In my 20s, I broke off a 2-year relationship because I could not stand the distance. Now in my 30s, having grown tremendously to the woman I am and evaluated what being in a relationship meant and looked like for me, I kinda enjoy the dynamism distance adds to a relationship. It does get hard, don't get me wrong. Extremely hard. But it's like hiking. It gets tiring, it gets frustrating but it's the trails and hills that make it exciting; that keeps you going back for sweet torture.


The beauty, calmness, wonder, and endless possibilities that I was surrounded by is what I thought my new year would be.

With a secret smile planted firmly on my lips, I left the Garden and took the subway to the city.
The plan was to watch fireworks from the tallest building in this country (and the 6th in the world). I had read that they shot off fireworks with an LED laser show for 7 minutes for the previous New Year and was hoping to catch a similar spectacle.

I got there early and found 1000s of people queuing at the entrance of the Skywalk from where one could watch the fireworks. But to go in one needed to have purchased a ticket beforehand and well, they were sold out. Unfrazzled and in the spirit of making lemonade, I contended to watching them from outside the building.

I picked a quiet corner sat down on the steps of the subway station, removed my book and waited. I do this a lot. The temperatures were in the negatives outside. I would have to sit in the warmth inside and get out some minutes to midnight to the perfect vantage spot I had scouted before. I people watched, read a bit then people watched again.

My sweet spot was waiting when I finally ventured outside, 10 minutes to midnight. And soon, I was surrounded by others with the same idea as me. Actually, everyone who had been inside the station had been waiting like I. And wait we did.

5 minutes to midnight.

A couple walked by and stood in front of me blocking my view. I exchanged looks with the girl next to me. We communicated with our expressions. Up until now, we had just been aware of each other without conversation.

3 minutes.

Exchanged another disgruntled glance. We were both short and the couple in front of us really tall. But then again, when you are five-foot-nothing, everyone above that is really tall. I didn't come all the way from my home far far away, scout a spot, come early, only to have two inconsiderate people block my view. I also felt like I needed to fight for this girl too. This new friend with a shared enemy. One last exchange.

2 minutes.

I channeled all my African ancestors that fought for our rights and freedoms, tapped the woman and asked them to kindly step aside to allow us a view. They moved. Not aside, but all the way away. Another exchange, this time accompanied by a smile of gratitude from her. I realized that if I had not been there, she would have not done anything. She would have accepted that her view of the fireworks, her plan to come earlier to secure her spot, would have all been wasted.

She was alone like I was and suddenly, I felt like her fairy godmother.

1 minute.

No one has started the countdown. She says thank you and looks up at the huge countdown timer projected on the side of the building. Excitement builds around us, phones held high up ready to capture this moment.

30 seconds.

I am now playing around with my camera phone settings, I want to capture them in slow-motion.

10 seconds.

The colors of the lights on the building change.

5 seconds.

I press record.

4..3.. 2..1. Midnight.

Nothing. Just a little smoke from the side of the building with what sounded like a muffled bang.

We cannot see the fireworks. But it looks like they just went off. We wait.

1 minute past midnight.

Nothing. Only at 5 minutes past do we all collectively accept that no fireworks are forthcoming. Except they did do the fireworks, just not in the direction we were watching from -  from the side that faces the Han river - for those in the building. Oh well. They paid, we did not. Fair, I guess.

We exchange our disappointment, her in broken English. We then talk about the last trains and walk back into the station. To get home, I need to change trains twice, and somehow, something that has never happened to me in all my years of travel, I get into the wrong train. I realize as it peels out of the station and jump out at the next. But that was the last train on that line. I see there is a bus scheduled to arrive in 54 minutes. It will be late, but I will wait. I decide to ask a kindly looking man closing his shop what time the bus comes around. He says no more buses are coming. I'll walk back, I decide. It's just one station over with well-lit streets. I am also trying to walk 1000kms by the end of the year anyway, might as well start accumulating them, minutes to the new year. There are still people milling about as I reach the station I had just left.

People are saying there is one more train, on the line I need. I lean on a column, take out my book, and wait. A girl comes to stand next to me. She looks like she knows there is a train coming and reassure myself.


Minutes later, I am doubtful and tell myself it doesn't hurt to ask her. But I am not in the mood for a chitchat and do not want to start a conversation at 2AM that includes Google translate. But then again, I do not want to be standing here for hours only to find out that there are no trains. So I ask her in English. She also doesn't know, she is chancing it. She speaks English. We wait a bit. We ask each other if we should ask the other people at the station and laugh. Neither of us wants to go through the hustle that language barrier creates.

We wait even more. A group of loud boys who look local arrives at the station. She asks me if I know Korean. I tell her I can read the alphabet only. She says she doesn't either and then walks to the boys and asks in broken Korean (I don't even know if it's broken because if you do not know a language, how can you tell?) They confirm there is a train coming. We realize we are both changing to Line 6 but heading to different directions. So we agree that we stick together, get off at the same station, and wait with each other for our respective trains.

Train arrives.

We talk and talk all through the 30something minute ride as if we have spent the day together. We get off and the first person we meet is a metro employee who answers before we even ask. No trains on our line. We decide to find a cinema and watch movies till morning. Luckily, we are near a couple of them. We are in Dongdaemun. That's supposed to be the heartbeat of this area. They are all closed. Hasn't anyone ever thought that some people would like to watch late-night movies in a cinema on New years eve? We both agree that we wouldn't mind such a plan. I am hungry. I haven't eaten since morning except for the hot chocolate and bread slice hours ago. Chicken and beer places are open all night, she says. I don't drink, she doesn't want to drink. We hope the first place we find will accept to sell us chicken without the beer. Normally they insist on selling both as a package.

We are in luck.

Two girls who met a couple of hours ago in the middle of the night, both new to the country they are in right now, both alone on New Year's eve talk about everything and nothing. She is in the country for a study abroad program from a neighboring country. Her new friends here wanted to keep drinking, she wanted to go back to her hostel. And that is how she ended up at the station so late and alone. I tell her of my travels in this country we find ourselves in, of my home that she has only ever seen on wildlife TV. She tells me of the experience of being born a girl in a country that wanted boys and her parents' disappointment. I had always read and watched such stories, never sat opposite a person who lives it. I feel privileged for her to choose to share such deep and personal feelings. But she is not seeking sympathy, she is strong, independent, wild, carefree and I love her already.

Since trains start operating at 5.30AM, we will sit in this bar until then. Taxis would be mad expensive for both of us, we reckon, and we can't be bothered to find buses - none of which will be a direct trip for us both. We'd rather not wait at bus stops in this freezing weather. So we talk some more. Just when none of us can stay awake any longer, it is time for the trains. We walk to the station, the trains arrive at the same time. We hug goodbye and promise to keep in touch.

Sitting in the empty train, I think about how crazy the night turned out. How serendipitous the circumstances that led to our meeting, how none of us planned to spend the new year this way. We had laughed at how it could be destiny that our plans did not work out as expected so that we could meet. I couldn't have asked for a better New Year's eve/day and she felt the same way too. We had talked about how this meeting could be the manifestation of how our new year would be. Full of surprises, but beautiful ones like the day we both had just had, albeit separately. We both felt it.

We know we will not meet again. She has exams in the coming week and the weekend she is free is the one my man is coming back home. I don't want to make any plans for that weekend. I have not seen him for over a month. The reason why is another story. She goes back to her home country the week after.

We don't talk again. I leave the country a week after Covid19 hits South Korea. Her country is the source. I never think to text her. But as I write this, exactly 7 months after our meeting, I wonder how she is.

None of my beautiful plans and dreams that I had meticulously planned in the 4 hours I spent walking around  The Morning of Golden Calm has panned out. I could not leave Kenya once I got back from Seoul. Borders were closed. I had to stay put and restrategize in the throes of a word pandemic full of uncertainties. Should I rent a house now that I was back home and wait? I had moved out and put my stuff in storage, knowing that after S. Korea, I would head to Europe and settle. But if I was to rent instead of staying at a friend's, how long would it be for? What if just when I settle in my new house, the world returns to normal and I have to pack and leave again? Should I just look for work here and shelve those relocating plans? I was leaving Kenya because I wanted a change in my career. But what if I settled here now that I was stuck, got a new job, would that mean that I don't still pursue my relocation plans? It was maddening trying to work this out.

So I hiked all the hills I could find near my friend's house. I took long drives to places where roads end. I would park the car and keep walking through the bushes until I could walk no more and took beautiful pictures. And when I was done with those hills, I left town and explored even farther away hills. National parks, camping sites, I went to them all. It's how I kept sane, you see. Nairobi was on lockdown and curfewed. I get cabin fever on normal days; a lockdown would drive me insane. While out there, I thought of nothing but the moment.

I will text her today. And hopefully, she has made it out unscathed.

I want to find out how she has been. How her family has been coping. But more importantly, I want to find out if she ever thought, as we sat in the dimly lit bar eating mountains of chicken and comparing notes on our favorite K-dramas, that this is the current situation was what the universe had for us. For the whole world. I want to reminisce with her how happy we had been that chilly dawn of the new year, how we looked forward to living the best year yet.

The Garden of Morning Calm might have not been the way to describe what my year has been so far, what the year has been for the rest of the world. But the events of that night certainly did somehow prepare me for what was to come and taught me a few things.

To ride the uncertainty wave, not to fight it, to go with the flow, to find moments of joy in chaos, to be my brother's keeper. 

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Sound of the River

It's a dark night, and it's raining outside. Gentle rain that sounds like a thousand tiny rasps on the tent, as if requesting me to let it in. I close my eyes. It is day 4; the last day. I am sitting cross-legged, a gentle light illuminating the roomy tent I have owned for the past 6 years. I am warm and fuzzy, both on the outside, and the inside. There is that sweet feeling of...safe, kinda amniotic sac-safe, womblike safe (Need to look that feeling up because I know it has a name)

Thunder rumbles in the distance. Not the loud bang that makes you jolt or your heart quicken; a gentle boom that matches your heartbeat. Just a few feet from my tent is a river, and if I close my eyes hard and concentrate, I can hear the water flow. A bit slow and sluggish as the silt makes it difficult for the water flowing downstream. However, I can tell its level is rising by the change in the sound of the river. And yes, rivers do have sounds. 

Is the river in a hurry? A different sound. Is the river full and heavy, burying rocks underneath, or thin and light, curving its way to avoid rocks? Those are two different sounds. You are thinking about it now, aren't you? And you are now smiling at the realization that you knew this info all along without knowing that you actually did. Pretty cool, huh? 

See this is why I hike and camp. For the sound of the river. For the sound of the rain begging me to let it in and the light sheet of the tent is the my shield against its incessant cries. The contradiction that's a thin piece of cloth is meant to keep you warm and safe, and it does exactly that. It's the laying here loving this, this being one of my favorite feeling in the world, and knowing that I also do not want this feeling to last. 

Because I want to be able to go back home and long for this feeling again. Close my eyes as I lay on my fluffy pillows and comfortable bed and wish I was out here, sleeping outside, on the ground, snuggled in my sleeping bag. I know someone will read this and not understand why on earth I would possibly be sleeping outside, in the wild.  And I am not going to try to make you understand. You either do or you don't, and if by now you don't feel it, you are never going to. 

Think of something in your life that you feel you can never try to explain what it makes you feel. Something you know is not worth a justification. Something that you love and you don't care if the whole world hates it, you would still love it. That's what this feeling is to me. 

I met the family who owns this place. A couple with their three kids and grandma. It's a little heaven in the middle of nowhere. The plan was to cook at the campsite which's also next to their house. But the rain huffed and puffed and we gave in. They let us use their kitchen. We cooked together; them their son's 20th birthday dinner, me our last supper on the last day of our amazing adventure. We talked about the local people who host them and now us, food security, travel, exploration, whether ants eat clothes (a serious conversation by just me and the 6-year-old), and my almost sprained ankle as I moved around the huge open kitchen. Sometimes we are all silent and the sound of pans, frying, stirring, crackling fire are all that fill the kitchen. But its comfortable silence. Were it a scene on playback and we pressed pause, and we each described what we were all feeling? Happy would be the word. At that moment, we loved being here, together, even though we'd just met. We were friends for this moment. We might never meet again, but none of us will forget this night. 

As the rain gets more agitated, the begging turns into heavy pounding. And instead of scaring me, it soothes. Normally, I will play this sound on an App to make me sleep. I would visualize this moment. Right now. And that helps me sleep. This time. I am experiencing it; and its a damn great feeling. The river is getting faster, no longer rapping at rocks, but swiftly flowing over them. No longer a gentle stream. I smile. I am exactly where I would rather be.

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I

I
Sat in an air-conditioned , new 4x4, I looked outside in awe. The rugged mountains, sculpted by God on a lazy afternoon. After marveling at the beauty that was Africa he must have decided to finish it off with this heart-wrenchingly beautiful landscape.

I
Fell in love with a man I will never have. But loving him is like a beautiful secret I get to keep. That I will never share with anyone. Infatuation? I don't know. Been a while since a hot man showed any interest in me. And Ethiopia has made me feel so beautiful. Never in my life have I ever felt so desired.

I
Also lost my heart. Not the part that wanted the idea of the man. The part that makes you look at the world and forget yourself. The remotest place on earth, these kids play.
I stare at them as we drive on, like the mountains, disappear through my car window
Will they ever know what the world is. I'd love to hear what they think the rest of the world looks like. Shared borders but could as well be Jupiter.

I
Bared myself to the fact that I am scared of poverty. When my heart aches the people that live with nothing but a sheet on their back, it aches at the knowledge that I get to go back to my good life. As a black person. I feel guilty for having, for experiencing what my fellow race, marginalized and last on the hierarchy of races, would never get to experience.

What makes me better than them?

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Eyes that speak

She sits across from me.

Her eyes will occasionally meet mine, then travel. At first, they will look at her feeble fingers wringing on her lap, then to the side as her head cocks as if to listen to a voice far away. Like a weary traveler, those eyes that have seen more than language could ever express, finally rest on the notebook in my hands.

I follow those eyes.

                                                                                    pic source

They beg to be followed. They promise to tell, promise to show. It's a nondescript notebook. But in it holds questions that reduce her life to a series of answers. Suddenly, I want to throw it away. It seems to generate heat, too much. It's a Moleskine. Nothing much. But as I look at it through her eyes, its the window in which her past is displayed. It's the epitome of all things evil, all things inhuman, all things she has been working so hard to forget.

I find my hands putting the moleskine down. I am surprised by this move, more than she is even. We both look at the object of her disdain and my new-found bane.

I have been asking her questions for the past 15 minutes. It feels like we have been talking forever.
Talking insinuates we have been discussing how healthy her goats are, or how fat the chicken are becoming. Talking makes you think we have delicate china in front of us on checkered table cloths with steaming tea and biting on finger sandwiches.

I doubt she even knows how to make finger sandwiches. I doubt she ever owned a china set. Her cups are old cylindrical tins that have hints of the colour they were when she first got them. That is what she offered me tea in.

I do not like tea with little milk. Yet, norms dictate that I never refuse such an offer from a woman such as this one. Now my tea sits on the ground next to my chair, flies covering the rim of the cup. I see them fight for a spot on that rim. I assume that spot is the least hot for them to perch on.

She clears her throat. I look up. Those eyes again. Now they are imploring. Asking me what I am thinking. If I am judging her.  I hold her gaze, trying to push back the current thought. Which goes like this - 'I am stupid for shifting my attention to flies, instead of what you are telling me. I am sorry.'

I pick the moleskine again. I have forgotten what my next question is. Shameful really. Because I have been asking the same questions to women in this area for a few days now.

'Are you afraid of dying?' I ask

Stupid question. Who isn't?

Eyes that speak answer me. No.

Why?  I ask her.

The cameraman who has been quietly filming this interview interjects.

She did not answer, he says.

I sit up and shift in my seat. Of course she did not. Her eyes did. She has barely moved.

I ask her again.

She bites her lower lip, and chews it slowly.

The woman in front of me is 40 years old. She looks 70. She is frail. Too thin. She is dying of AIDS. Because she was raped and infected during the post-election violence. She has 6 children, all under 15 years. No husband. She is alone. She is all her children have. They have no idea she is dying.

I seek out her eyes. And hold them.

No. She says.

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I have been here before, just not here.

I had what most would call a dream job for about 5 months this year. I was excited. I talked about it constantly. It was like being paid to be on holiday. But then it wasn't. I could not grow creatively and I had to make the hard decision to quit. Now that I am trying to unpack what exactly about that job did not work out for me, one thing is hazily manifesting. I need to work with people, I was not doing so on that job. I was not creating. I was processing created content. I create for a living. I weave stories and spin tales. Real human tales mostly. I need it. I cannot live without it.

Barely 3 weeks after saying goodbye to God's playground in the African wilderness, I was on another project. I had no time to regroup and gather my thoughts. What did I want to do? What was my next project?

So I packed my bag again and caught a flight to one of the remotest parts of the country. To tell a story. It's not my story, I am working with a group of filmmakers who conceptualised it. But it could as well be mine, it's the sort of thing I would do. It is my first time here, but not new to such a setting. I have been here before, just not here.

Everything looks the same. One road looks like next road, the trees merge into one. It's sun and sand; and not the holiday type. It is the beach without the ocean. I could take a million pictures and it wouldn't matter where I took them.

There's despair in the air. Pungent. Strong. A feeling of not belonging. For me and for the people I meet. Like we are all drifting. Except I get to leave. I get to live.

I am here to tell a story, one that I don't think I am even qualified to tell. Not professionally, but as a human being. What makes me the right person? As a filmmaker, I struggle with my self appointed duty to tell others' life stories. But its like a drug. I feed off their life challenges to drive me. It's a sick relationship. And yet. I am still here. Doing this. I am telling others' stories. Of things I will never experience, of a life I will never know, of tragedies I will never imagine, even with my overactive imagination. 

I have moments of incredible fear. Paralysing. Moments where I feel insignificant, worthless. Moments that I feel like a fraud. Like I deserve no paying attention to. Moments that I want to disappear and hope no one ever notices that I am gone. These moments that I question my purpose; if this - telling stories - is actually my purpose. Moments that I wonder if I am making a difference. 



I get to go back home. To my warm house, to snuggling with quilts on the couch and hot chocolate mugs with bits of marshmallows. To a life where my biggest challenge is figuring out whether I want to cook or order take out for dinner. To a life of a fully stocked fridge and claim to have nothing to eat. I sat down under a tree and listened to a girl my age tell me of horrors she has lived through. I was there with her. I was re-living the moments with her. My heart broke. But my broken heart is hardly an issue. That is my problem, not hers. Her heart broke along time ago, she no longer cares about her heart, just her hurt.

I will tell your story, I thought. And from this, your life will change. But will it? Or will I tell her story to people who only want to see others' pain so that theirs can seem insignificant? Can I look her in the eye and tell her that her opening up to me and to my camera will make her life a little easier? But that is the unspoken promise between a filmmaker and her/ his subject. Tell your story and hopefully,  someone somewhere will do something. And I hate to walk away with this promise hanging over my head, knowing that I might never fulfil it. 

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Coming back home

In more ways than one, I am coming back home. I have been away working in the Maasai Mara as an Assistant Director for a company that does live game drives - a very interesting experience for me but also a huge eye opener. Now that that part of my life is over, home is where I am headed.

This blog had been my where I brought my thoughts for years. From 2005 I think. That is a long time. I was a fledging then, and I guess for you to really know me, you would have to go that far back. 

Sometimes I do that, and constantly get awed by how far I have come. How much my life experiences have shaped me, what tenets I have kept and which I have let go. I have realised that what I thought was an unhealthy relationship with this blog, actually kept me grounded. And now, I am coming back. 

Home. To this blog.

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What a 23 year old me wrote -- Life

Life is what you wish you had but you don't. It is what you see from a far and yearn for, or in some cases, actually pursue it diligently, if only to have a taste of what you think other out there might be enjoying. Life wheezes pass you like that cab that won't stop when you hail, but will not hesitate to splash muddy waters on you on the pavement. And as you watch it speed away, you realize that you have just been dealt a very bad hand, and lady luck has retired, not for the night, but for the decade. Every morning on my way to work, I'm forced to stare outside the car window for long (long is used loosely as this could stand for 2 – 5 minutes) and sometimes, I do actually pay attention. Sometime last week, I observed, really observed. I become aware of a small pickup truck that I meet with at around the same time every day. It's a very nondescript car, and you are likely to ignore it. What made me notice it were the chickens in the back. The owners have constructed a mesh cage and horizontally divided in into two, thus making a double storied kind of cage. They pack chickens – hybrid broilers / or old layers on their way to the slaughters house – that is my assumption – in these two stories. The chickens sit quietly, almost demurely, as if cognisant of what awaits them.

Is this any different from my journey to work? Do the chickens also look at me and feel that fore boarding sense of worry and pity towards me? Do they look at me with their tiny beady eyes and wonder whether I know what awaits me, what the day that the night worked behind the veil of darkness to so deftly craft hold for me? Douglas Adams almost convinced me that mice do run earth. In one of these traffic snarls, my house mate and I got into a conversation, well more of a speculation about Mice and Cockroaches. I will give them first caps as this will somehow recognize their yet-to-be-proved dominance. Cockroaches will be the only surviving living things on the planet when we finally fry ourselves up with UV rays and other cosmic rays and their off springs, radioisotopes. And we wondered, is there a scientific research, maybe in the USA, or Russia or even Japan, to make a replica of the cockroaches shell for humans to wear protectively, when we can no longer make higher SPF's? And Mice actually do run the universe; that every little thing we do, no matter how ingenious is orchestrated by Mice. Which is what got me wondering to my housemate in the car, what of the mice that scientists conduct research on? He thought that those were the prisoners or pariahs of the Mice kingdom, and being subjects of us lowly brained beings is their punishment. I thought he had a point. Imagine the lowest animal you can think of on earth, actually, expand your thinking, in the universe. Now imagine you being condemned to be the subject of its meaningless research.

What I fail to understand is why you would allow yourself to be one of the dirtiest animals on earth, especially if you controlled Earth. I mean, look at all the advancement we have thereof. Even in my pea sized brain (I'm looking at my brain from a Mice Point of view); I would surely want to be a greater animal. It's like God choosing to send Jesus as a pig to rescue the human race. I would call that very bad mathematics. Anyway, he had a point, if far fetched at that! We could be controlled by the lowest form of life without our knowledge. Apparently even dolphins had a revelation of what the world was headed into (notice I said what not where), and have been trying to tell us for years. Can't blame me, and other human forms for not listening. Their language is harder than Danish. And take it from me, Danish is not a language, it's a advanced form of galactic medley of confusion (Sorry Hunny, you can kill me later, you know how best)

Happens that religion can explain most things and hence rest our troubled minds as to why we exist. Science can also do that. Big Bang is where the two meets. They fight to differ, and to me, the harder they fight the more similar they get. Like an old married couple. Think about it, if an old married couple to us is along the lines of 10 years to 60 years (life expectancy limits the bracket), what about centuries, and still forced to co-habit in the same house (read Earth), deal with the same kids (read Humans) century after century? I'm not a fan of religion. I was born into one. And somewhere along the way I felt like a groupie on some really confused rock band. I got the concept of what religion tried to do, but I saw it fail. Then I wondered why I was in the religion I professed to be in. I got one answer; because I was born into it.

When I really thought about it, I decided to get off the bandwagon and watch from the sidelines. I think this is when I should confess that my not so favourite pastime is thinking, and worrying. About things like; are there homeless children in Alaska, whether the ant that I stepped on accidentally this morning knew that it was going to die today, and if so, it say a proper goodbye to its family, (I worry about that with humans too) whether my pal knew her mother would be dead this time last year, and if so, what would she have done differently, whether I will celebrate my 30th birthday...anyway, that was not the line of thought I was going to follow in this blog.

You believe in the religion you believe in because you (your soul, your nature) cannot accept that death is finality. There has to be something more, otherwise, why do we bother living, why not kill ourselves and get over with. Well, I think suicide bombers have got that covered. That is why we go through the motions of life, because we have given ourselves reasons to, because we humans need justifications, reasons and answers in to Why, which when married to How, breeds very naughty children, namely, When, Where, and the twins, What and Who. We then devote our lives to finding answers, fighting about it, and proving the dominant faith and downplaying the rest.

Are the dolphins really that cleaver they might actually have something to say that if we do not heed to, will lead us to dire straits? If we stopped cutting into Mice and just observed them, would we learn something valuable and hence settle the Ultimate Question? I bet if I were to choose an animal, I would pick Ants. Sorry I know they are not animals... for animals I would pick the pig, for its celebrated orgasmic capabilities. But then, I figured that the only thing I have to worry about in this life is living to the ultimate satisfaction in everything I do, as I don't know what awaits me ahead, and if I spent too much time worrying, fighting and arguing about it, I'll lose on the best things.

Busy as I may claim to be enjoying the best of things, I do worry though; I'm still human, no matter how hard I fight it. Do I worry about religion? Yes. Why? Because it was ingrained in me from the day I learnt the difference between the beauty of fire from a far and the beauty of fire on my fingers. And just when I convince myself that I have safely crossed to the other side without the proverbial troll riding and digging deep into my back, it sinks it claws, from whatever end of my body it was hanging on to. But then I have that special innate ability to be stubborn, even unto myself. Don't' forget that other special gift of not being able to concentrate on anything for more than the time my brain will allow. It selective on what it really wants to concentrate on and there is nothing I can do about that, in this case, thankfully!

Making excuses is not my specialty. But I do like listening to them and wondering how best I would have put it, were it left to me. And by gawd, I would have an excuse for everything in the universe, and to me, everything interconnects. By some cosmic power of pulling elements towards the centre of the earth, all things hurtle towards each other, like the Bermuda Triangle, only at a slower pace. Religion, politics, relationships, business, war... all of it. It's all to satisfying so sort of deficient.

A quest by the human race to prove something to each other, to themselves. Unexplainable does not mean inexplicable. Just because something is unexplainable does not mean that paranormal forces must have been involved, only that we haven't found the explanation for it yet. I could start a whole school of thought and argument with true and untrue theories in accordance with that statement, but I'm not that inspired today. Take it as it is, mull over it in your sleep.

Living without knowing what you are here for, what your purpose in life is, where you are headed is frustrating. Which is why we have higher stress levels that any other living organism. That elevated stress level of animals, say a chimp will be to find it's tree cut down, or it's favorite spot occupied by a pride of lions. Why don't you try for a change, just not think about anything? Live today like you don't have another day like this. Actually, you don't. Today is never a continuation of yesterday, and neither will it ever be a prelude to tomorrow. Different entities, like you and your parents or siblings. You are related, but you are not the extension of any of your family, not even your twin. Think of the days septets, their mother being the week they fall in, their father the month. In the end you will have a father that has 4 wives, and each has 7 kids. Now take 11 more families like that and you have a clan called Year. The only relationship they have? Association by marriage, birth, nothing more.

This blog was not about religion, life, etc. It was about nothing really. It was my weird way of trying to prove something. Now as you were busy reading this, you failed to notice that the first words of every paragraph formed a sentence: Life Is What Happens When You Are Busy Making A Living. 

Get my drift?

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