Bewildered:

Silence cloaks the stage

Everyone has gone away

I hoped for a still page

For I still want to play

I’ve been masked so long

I don’t know where to belong

I don’t know which face was mine

Which mask is me; which laugh genuine?

Which of my hearts can break?

Which of my smiles is fake?

I am in a hall of mirrors

Each showing different horrors

Each image is a different me

Each image is right,

Each image (is) wrong

How shall I sleep tonight?

What’s real Lord, am lost

Which me can I take home today

Which I can take me home today?

The show is over, what do I do?

In the silence of the stage, where do I go?

Choosing Choices Chosen:

The path split ahead of me

So I chose to stop; stand still

The choice waited to see my will

This simple choice was not easy

Though I made no move,

The split came closer to feet

I looked for help above

But it was already at my feet

One way would curse me to solitude

The other would start a bitter feud

One would quake my magnitude

The other would break a multitude

Is it time to change the world?

This action surely will have an effect

One path would transform my world

The other would the whole world affect

God help me choose, the right choice

Make me wise before I send my voice

Misery of me is a small price to pay

Misery of she cannot be fair I say

Misery of we cannot be the right way

A Sleeping:

I was sleeping in a room

Everyone was watching me

Their eyes filled with gloom

 What could this all be?

I was dressed up smart

Everyone was in black attire

Tears welled up every heart

They said it was my retire

I couldn’t open my eyes

But could see all their lies

I couldn’t hear a single thing

But knew what they were thinking

As the proceedings began

None woke up me

The truth was a stun

None woke up me

‘Twas later reality’s dawn

They laid me under the lawn

Everyone bowed him head

For I saw that I was dead

Patient Fraud: (Matthew 25: 31 – 46)

I was waiting for my Lord

I was meditating on his word

I was sharpening my sword

But my waiting was a fraud.

When he came, I sent him away

He was a beggar in my way

He was tarnishing my white array

And wasting my time to pray

When he came, I whistled past

Didn’t take time to quench his thirst

He was messing up my weekly fast

I was busy for my soul came first

The prison, I’d never visit

Those criminals must be punished

How could they not resist

Yet my Lord did and perished

Then my Lord came, but received not me

Saying as a beggar, you sent away me

I was thirsty, but you quenched not me

Imprisoned but you visited not me

So how am I to set thee free?

Rage!

Rage! I feel it! A burning sensation in my chest that is bubbling up my throat ready to be expressed in words that can only surf on fits of rage. The fire rages; an inferno from within that desires to grow and engulf everything around me. I want to set things on fire. I want to cause damage. I want to break something. I want to transfer my pain and change the invisible emotion to something tangible; something I can hit back; something I can attack. I need to express that I am not as helpless and weak as I feel; as the cause of this rage has exposed me to be. I need to be back in control; to show that I am still at the reigns of my life.

That’s just it isn’t it? Control. A loss of control results in rage and rage results in loss of control. Ironically we use rage in an attempt to regain control or at least feign control; exhibit an image of control. Think about it, when was the last time you were enraged? What had happened? Were you betrayed? Assaulted? Robbed? I was conned! A serious con, I actually just found out about two hours ago. So now a few drafts later, am calm enough to make sense of it. The con set my sense of control in turmoil. Panic dangerously mixed with notions of revenge welled up inside me, drowning my soul in bitterness and anxiety. Disbelief of my folly and regret of my actions had me knocking at the doors to depression. All this negative energy in motion (emotions) inside me blended together ready for ignition. All I needed was a detonator for the dynamite. The proverbial last straw. In this I noticed the gunpowder residue from unresolved anger collecting around this new sticky bomb readying itself to share the pain. All I needed was one fool to step on my toe; one sap to take my anger out on and an audience to watch the fireworks; to see me back in control.

We all have our own special ways of disarming the explosive. Anger Management. Goosfrabba, Unagi. Whatever helps you sleep at night. This was a big one, so I needed a cocktail. I spoke to someone I loved, let her make me smile. Then texted with another person who loved me. That cooled the hateful intentions replacing it with love. Then locked myself indoors to cut off possible contact with detonators and exposure to catalysts. I turned to Adele and John Mayer for some perspective. Angry Birds to vent out some steam. When the fire breath welled up in my throat had cooled down and I had painfull swallowed the urchin words I had wanted spit, I inked up my pen. Writing always releases my emotions. Expressing yourself in words helps the emotions leave your mind in peace. I will crown it with some cold milk chocolate drink and a violent movie. A happy movie would do good but am not quite there yet. Hot chocolate would be better but its summer and am in a coastal town. Hmm, I’ll go try the view of the sea, I heard it has healing properties. Yeah, the view is magical, the peace and quiet makes my issues seem so trivial. Still, I am a city boy and too much silence freaks me out. So bring the noise! I have been saving my copy of ‘The Mechanic’ for a moment like this!

Have we lost our culture?

http://mwixelligent.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/of-many-worlds/

Its interesting, how young people are bludgeoned for losing their culture. We are crucified for losing our roots and labelled traitors. There is a Swahili proverb that says ‘Mwacha mila ni mtumwa’ simply translates, ‘He that leaves his culture is a slave’. So what is my culture and how have I left it?

Culture is instilled in the first five to ten years of your life. Then you develop the culture from these initial building blocks. From the first language you learn to the first friends you make by your own deliberation. The music you listen to and songs you sing. The pictures in the first book you read and the jokes that people around you laugh at. That is your culture. Everything else you do from then on is based on these firsts. Your dreams and aspirations are formed by the hopes of your parents and people you look up to. Your hobbies are coined by the activities you are exposed to. In a nutshell, you don’t choose your culture, it chooses you. So children raised in rural setting are praised for maintaining that which city kids have shunned.

I am a city boy, born and raised. That statement alone causes some memebers of my society to scowl and sneer. I must say, the traditional life of ‘my people’ mesmorised me and sparked some interest. So I paid attention to the language and tried to learn it. You see, in the city, my first friends were from all parts of the country. An assortment of cultures. We all had to learn to compromise. In school, they taught us in english, so we spoke in this common though foreign language and blended all the words we knew to form a new tongue of our own. We were forming a new culture. Once, I visited ‘my people’ and tried to speak ‘my people’s language’… my new culture had already become such an integral part of me that I sounded wrong, too wrong to be corrected, only wrong enough to be laughed at and ridiculed. The result of that damage was that I am very good at hearing and understanding the tongue but not so good at speaking. Therefore, I classify as having shunned my culture. I am an icon of my generation. Torn between the culture we should uphold and the culture we have formed.

What’s interesting is that, culture, like history, is dynamic. Every few generations experience some drastic changes that force changes in the way of doing things. Nobody dresses in animal skins anymore, well except for the Eskimos and at the rate this globe is warming up, they are in for some major make overs. Culture and traditions change, especially when parents don’t hand them over to their children. Parents should take up the role of sensitizing their off spring on certain things they value rather than waiting hoping they figure stuff out or ask the right questions. Oh! And those lies we tell kids when they ask us stuff we don’t want to deal with don’t protect them. They only protect us from the challenge of exlplaining things. Where do we get off filling their minds with lies about Easter bunnies and Santa claus then complaining they have lost culture? In most traditional African culture, sex education is taught before the onset of pimples on your face. By the time voices are breaking and shapes are forming, you know what the society expects of you. Now things have changed and this knowledge is needed much earlier.  I for one needed that knowledge much earlier because of the crazy kids that I grew up with, thank God for his grace.

I got a little off track there… emotional stuff. What was I saying? Culture. Yes, culture is dynamic. The foundations need to be set at home. Especially if a parent decided to write him/herself off the scene. Hiding truths from kids to protect yourself from embarassment only exposes them to repeat your history. Explin things in a way that new information later n life strengthens their mind and hearts, deception only plants seeds of distrust that cause us to shun all aspects of our cultural building blocks when they sprout. Put in all the valuable ingredients in with the blding blocks. You cannot coin a culture. Manipulation of cultures result in revolutions. All you can do is instill all the right values, righteous, respectable values into the mix of the foundational structure in the first five to ten years of a child’s life. Then guide and advice so that the new culture he forms will be worthy of praise ather than scorn, something you can be proud of.

All Or Nothing

So I tried my hand at extreme sports. A lot of you would just call it sport, but it was pretty extreme for me! Canyoning, that’s what they called it. You basically climb up a mountain using the walk-able side, then adventure down the steep side by way the canyon cut by a river. This descent is made in a series of what they call, slides, jumps and drops. Its quite simple really, on the slides, you find a slippery rock and lie on your back as the water pushes you down over the edge into a mildly deep pool. Jumps have you throw yourself off a rock or cliff into a deep pool. Drops are more interesting, you get to use the safety gear. A rope is tied to your harness and you scale down a waterfall like a true mountaineer. To me, that sounded extremly extreme. I was the only African in the crowd and believe me when I say very few of us do stuff like that for fun. I wanted to be among the number.

It was pretty cool once I got the hang of it. Actually it was more thrilling than I expected. I found myself wondering why I didn’t get out more. All those hours I had wasted on computer games when I could be this good at crazy… sorry extreme sports. My mind had conveniently editted out the part that the bulk of my group was doing this for the first time and the guides had chosen the simplest of trails.  It was all smooth sailing, I had one of those gold medalist smiles on my face because I was keeping pace with the tougher guys in the group, the ‘menly men’.

I really thought I was a natural. The guides had mapped out the trail such that it got more exciting as we went and led us on to a climax. It was meant to build our confidence or psyche or morale or whatever was motivating us in preparation for the final jump. I had no idea! My legs had been rather shaky on the previous jump. It had been the highest point I had ever jumped from and the rock was not so easy to clear. I was breathing easy because I thought the worst was over and I was acting all tough and nonchalant. I think everyone heard the splash as my heart cannonballed into my belly  when the guide brought us to the edge of the cliff that would be the final jump. It was more than twice as high as the previous one and over looked the valley down below. There was an option to slide down the less scary side but my mind was still in control of the mouth, still in that manly man mood and I had said I would jump. When I stood there, at the edge of the highest rock I had ever been on, I knew I wanted to take the leap, but my heart weighed anchor. My feet developed roots and drilled into the rock with utmost tenacity and the rest of me froze. My body had had enough. Logic and reason was clear, the jump was safe and since the others could do it, I could too. Unfortunately my body wouldn’t give in. There was a revolt launched that required all my components to stand still until my mind realized persistence was futile. I compromised, took the slide down then tried again for the jump.

There are many battles that we fight. No matter how many things you are good at, there are some things that are beyond you. Defeat often means, come back when you are ready, try again later. Sometimes there is no second chance, defeat means work harder on the next thing. Sometimes defeat means, this is not for you. I couldn’t make the jump no matter how simple it seemed. One friend said I just wasn’t ready for it, another said it was much harder than it seemed. I still don’t know why I couldn’t overcome that fear. I am not disappointed in myself or ashamed, I learnt something up there. I learnt the smell and taste of my fear, a fear I can overcome and when I am faced with it again, in any other sphere, I know that I will face it and battle. Whether I come out victorious or not, is another story, all I know is I will give it all I got. We all have fears, though I didn’t overcome, I’m glad I faced one of mine. 

The way I see it, if you keep facing your fears, over and over again, you stop being afraid of them and then you start winning some battles and before you know it, you have overcome completely.