I had a free day last week (yes, it’s that bad…) and apart from occasionally rolling over to prevent bedsores, I did next to nothing and it was just lovely. Instead of working, I spent my time trawling through the many Kenyan blogs in search of the magic formula that will transform my visitor stats from the slow heartbeat they are currently (mostly flat with random spikes every two days, from spammers in Russia no less) to something resembling the equalizer pattern of house music (Apparently these days its called trance. Eh?). Don’t freak out, I’m not looking to get commercial on your ass with Kiwi ads and what not, I’m simply trying to figure this blogging saga out. See I’m a bit of a Type A personality, we compete even when there’s no reason to, it’s our OCD kicking in; ‘Must do better!’ is the mantra always running through our subconscious (courtesy of crazy parents no doubt), but I digress. I’m not looking for fame et al, I just want world domination is all, and I’m still 365,413 off the mark by my count.
Slight detour, the phrase world domination always reminds me of ‘Pinky and the brain’. Now those were mice with a brilliant (flawed) plan…
I was saying, so I’m sitting there reading all these blogs wondering, eh? Half of the time I had no idea what they were talking about (either too deep or not deep enough), and the rest of the time I was mentally correcting misspelled words and absent punctuation (my bete noir as a French speaking friend would call it, pet peeve to the rest of us…). And that’s when it finally hit me, I’m one of the older (oldest?) bloggers out here right now. Turns out, most of the buggers I’ve been reading are but tender younglings, yet to hit their 30’s. Damn you bastards, damn you! Ha! When did I get so old? In my head, I’m still a 25 year old, fumbling around in the dark trying to get my bearings, and then I read geniuses moaning about turning 21. 21? Sweet Jesus ! At that age, Tupac is as remote to you as Elvis was to me when I was growing up.
When did I get so old?
With this realisation, however, came a calm. I’ve realised that I don’t have to struggle to be heard in this din, I’ll never be heard, at least not by the masses, because the masses do not want to, or cannot, hear what I have to say. It’s simply a different market, no? I remember what it was like to be in my 20’s, I had no time for old folks, no interest in their experiences and their boring tales of ‘when I was a young man…’, I was a brash little thing with only one thing on my mind… you guessed it… world domination, and I wasn’t about to stop and listen to some old geezer tell me otherwise. Well, the joke’s on me now, isn’t it? I’m the old geezer, screaming to the world, ‘The end is nigh!’ and being resolutely ignored. And it’s a bloody relief. See, the thing they never tell you about getting older is how much easier life gets. Well, sort of. You no longer have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, unlike Atlas, you can shrug it off. And the world doesn’t end. In fact, it keeps spinning along on its axis, blissfully ignorant of the tectonic shift in your mindset. It doesn’t give two shits about you and your petty dramas, neither, for that matter, do most of the people in it. In my 30’s I’ve realised that not only does the world not revolve around me, I actually like it that way, because that means I’m free to do whatever (and whomever?) I like without the paralysing fear of what other people think.
Don’t get me wrong, its not that I feel nothing for the people around me, I’ve just learnt to focus on the people around me who matter. The rest? For as long as I do no harm as I go about my business, I’m good. I know, it’s a very insular way of thinking, ignoring the rest is tantamount to selfishness, or heartlessness. ‘Where’s your sense of humanity?’ you wail, offended by my caustic attitude. ‘Right here,’ I reply calmly, pointing at my chest. My heart, you idiot, not my boobs, useless deviant bugger… Thing is, I can’t change the whole world, and I’m done trying to. These days, I’m only interested in changing this minute little part of the world I inhabit. If, through my labours, I can make my life, and that of the few people I come into contact with, better, then that’s good enough for me, because I live in the delusional hope that they will do the same, and then those they touch will do the same, and on and on… Pay it forward, that’s my mantra these days. Simplistic? Probably, but perhaps simplicity is what we need more of, no?
Don’t get me wrong, its not that I feel nothing for the people around me, I’ve just learnt to focus on the people around me who matter. The rest? For as long as I do no harm as I go about my business, I’m good. I know, it’s a very insular way of thinking, ignoring the rest is tantamount to selfishness, or heartlessness. ‘Where’s your sense of humanity?’ you wail, offended by my caustic attitude. ‘Right here,’ I reply calmly, pointing at my chest. My heart, you idiot, not my boobs, useless deviant bugger… Thing is, I can’t change the whole world, and I’m done trying to. These days, I’m only interested in changing this minute little part of the world I inhabit. If, through my labours, I can make my life, and that of the few people I come into contact with, better, then that’s good enough for me, because I live in the delusional hope that they will do the same, and then those they touch will do the same, and on and on… Pay it forward, that’s my mantra these days. Simplistic? Probably, but perhaps simplicity is what we need more of, no?
This is not what I sat down to write about, I sat down to write about blogging, this was supposed to be ‘Blogging 301: lessons learned after 6 months of rambling aimlessly.’ But as with all things mental, I took a tangent, and now I have no idea how to get back to where I wanted to be. And thus we get to the point of this meandering post. Have you ever had one of those days when everything that could possibly go wrong, does? That’s the kind of month I’m having, and then some. Nothing too serious mind you, just that my professional and personal lives seem to have conspired to screw me over, simultaneously. If it’s not the deluge of work I’m drowning under, like a Nairobi street with blocked storm drains (insert bitchy cat sound here…), then it’s the peculiar men who seem to delight in waltzing in and out of my life, knocking me for six in the process. When it rains it pours, no? I’m still kicking though, so I guess I’ll live to see another month, and in the meantime I’ll have to be content with the reassuring knowledge that with time this too shall pass, and it will pass, even if I have to drag it out the door on its shitty little ass.
That’s my way of apologising, by the way, for my tardiness in posting the last couple of weeks. I know this isn’t a prison with strict rules and shit, but I have a thing for order, seeing as how I’m such an OCD idiot. I like a schedule (and a good list too, but that’s a story for another day), and I specifically like to keep a schedule here, because this is pretty much the only thing in my life right now that I can control, the rest of my time being spent acquiescing to irrational demands for my time from my crazy clients, and my mother (bless her, she’s driving me mad this week…). The last four months I’ve been posting twice a week, every week, without fail (I was late the one time, but I had a good single malt excuse, no?). Some days its rambling nonsense, some days its rambling nonsense with purpose (yaani, I’ve decided to bang a drum, kinda like today…), but on all days it’s a not too serious, upside-down look at my life, and yours by association. But this month… bleh… The cow has refused! I think the problem is that I had told myself I’d take this month off to recharge and reboot, and then I didn’t, and now I’m feeling like it’s the first week of school in January; you’re excited to be there, but you don’t really feel like doing much of anything.
Ladies and gentlemen, with your kind permission, naomba leave. I’m taking a couple of weeks off, two weeks to be precise. I’m not going anywhere, unfortunately, odds are I’ll still be lurking around, making a nuisance of myself in other people’s houses, just, I figure if I’m older then I get to say whatever the fuck I want, no? Ha! That felt good… I’ll be back on Wednesday 30th May, 10:00 pm, GMT +3. Really. The post is already scheduled, and it’s muchos filthy, but in a good way. Or not.
Be good, don’t break anything while I’m away.
POSTSCRIPT
You think maybe you could use this time to read some of the more neglected pieces of brilliance in my archive? I mean really, you just lenga’d the zebra saga, completely, and it was very educational! Shame man…
