Of Books And Life

I am not an educationist and I really don't know whether our education system really delivers. But I loved school. I loved school especially because it exposed me to all kind of people. And learning about people is one major life lesson. This is because people are the main component of life.

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My mother while commenting on books would say, "people are books; letters from God. You can learn a lot from people". And true to her words, people are a vast reservoir of resources and wealth. No wonder I love observing people. I love watching people. Tracking their lives. And, I do learn a lot. 

School exposed me to all kinds of people. Little flowers budding. No one really knew what life had in store for any of us. And every time I observe how life unfolds for different people, it gives me perspective. It really hits me hard when you receive the bad news that so and so is no more. Why does it always happen that those that I never imagined dead, die? Or you meet the guy who tied the knot on the number line every end term and he challenges you to the core. Life truly is unpredictable. And when the unknown becomes know in hindsight, it humbles me. Who would have known?

I have tried to reconnect with most of the people we shared something while growing up, some were my classmates, others were village mates, others were work mates while others were church mates. All kind of people. And it amazes me that I can actually pick out something valuable I learnt from them. One day I write out my lessons from different people and I am so sure many of them will not believe. I have learnt so much from people. Lessons they may never be aware they passed to me and that have stuck with me.

Last week I was thinking about this girl I schooled with in primary school. She was so academically challenged the school administration would push her to the next class just to have her clear school now that her age mates were way ahead of her. I caught up with her in class seven and she was pushed to class eight. This girl had never really passed any test in her entire life. It was such a surprise when for once she beat us all by passing the pregnancy test and graduated to the highest education, motherhood. I wonder how life eventually turned out for her. 

And as I keep reading books, interacting with people and learning from them, I have come to understand that true success is not in getting ahead of others. True success is in getting ahead of yourself.

The Tyranny Of The Next Thing

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There is a lie that humans tend to believe. That life will get better when we get the next thing. It could be the next job, the next house, the next car, the next big thing. The lie says that if only I could get this other thing, then my life will be much better.

Life is about moving forward and making progress. And true we have to keep aspiring and reaching out and getting the next thing. But when you are at it, don’t get caught up in the tyranny of the next thing that steals away the joy of the present and that postpones life’s delicacies to tomorrow.

Milk Gone Bad

I have just had a glass of sour milk. Actually truly speaking the milk got spoilt and could not make what it was intended to. Some of it was given to the pigs and we kept just a few litres for ourselves. Not everyone wants to take this milk. Some say, it is bad milk, others say it is smelly rotty. I think it is fine.

Did you know a ripe banana is a green banana going bad but we hijack the rotting process and eat them and say, hurray, that banana was yummy! That banana was fresh.

And did you know you can never eat anything fresh? Let me say that again, we eat dead things. Slaughtered animals or cut down plants. And is water dead or alive?

Others say you are what you eat. True maybe, but what are you when you are fasting. And is aging a process of keeping fresh or a process of rotting?

Things are not as they are. They are as we are.

Cheers to another glass of bad milk!

What a fresh drink!

Yummy!

Things That Change

It has been ages since I wrote here. Not just here, it has been long since I wrote an sms.  When was the last time you received a text from me? Sometimes one's crime levels upgrade and you are careful not to leave a trail of evidence behind. Or maybe I lost my mind and can no longer say something meaningful, or maybe there is no reason. It is just life happening where Instagram looks cooler than Facebook and Twitter more trendier than Linkedin. The same reason that makes milkshake more romantic than maziwa mala. Pop corns healthier than mahindi choma. It is when talking to strangers is more fulfilling than late night conversations with friends. When you scroll your phone and you have no one to ask for some loan. Thank God to *844# you can always get sorted. It is when fiction give better company, silence and solitude gives you better therapy.

There is no greater discovery than understanding what it means to be a human being. The larger percentage of the seven billion people on earth have no clue. There is just something way way way beautiful when a mortal soul touches the reality of what it means to have breath. Nothing else really matter much than being. Being human and being sure about it.

Maybe that is what I have been upto.....