Flurried Flowers

I turned twenty-one on the 27th of October. Until then I had been telling myself the same story about how little I cared about birthdays. In the past few years, I had behaved with indifference towards a particularly important day in my life and had consequently inspired the same apathetic feelings in my closest friends. If I didn't care, why should they? If I didn't care about their birthdays, why should they care about mine? The incurable disease of me was making me craft a version of myself that was a lie. It is embarrassing to admit that no one can beat me at deceiving myself. I would have thousands of medals if they were given to those who managed to craft and entertain lies about themselves, about their abilities and importance. While I have been traipsing around as though I am a whole human being, I am in fact broken and a real mess. 

In his remarkable book Digital Minimalism, Carl Newport points out how social media today is tuned to accurately provide us with a rich stream of information about how much, or little, our friends and peers are thinking about us at a particular moment. As much as this is really hurting our sense of internal worth, it has encouraged stratospheric degrees of solipsism. Most people are now convinced about their importance and are after making impressions, without realizing that it really isn’t the same as being impressive. Given that we can make a name for ourselves without doing any actual, reasonable or commendable work, many have opted for the easy way, which is not without its consequences.

While everyone is attracted to excellence, the thought that someone, especially our peers, is better than us is not something we seem to be having an easy time stomaching. How come their lives are so beautiful, so perfect, while ours has been reduced to scrolling and liking. The thought that my closest friends were making great leaps in their lives while I was still thinking of a clever caption to add to the best picture I had carefully selected from a clutter of terrible ones was disturbing. I was supposed to be the one going abroad, I was supposed to be the one receiving the honors for having come up with the best project, I was supposed to be the one being applauded. While I had frittered away time and procrastinated on my Pathology assignment by watching meaningless videos on YouTube, was I really supposed to be the one on the stage receiving the prizes in the first place?

When I came online I was supposed to connect, but here I was comparing, deriding those I thought to be loose for talking about their troubles, censuring and labeling, until I saw her meet delegates and discuss ideas that had the potential to change the course of the world, then I could finally see how useless and stupid I was. She was worried about her project while I was worried that though I had thousands of messages in my WhatsApp groups, my DM was empty; apparently people didn't even want to talk to me. It wasn't that I was stupid, in fact if our academic achievements were to be compared, everyone would clearly see that I was the intelligent one. But was I really? I was doing myself a disservice by thinking academic achievements equated to life accomplishment. Instead of applying myself to work, I was mulling over the thought of my capabilities and qualifications.

Notwithstanding, there are people on the other side of the divide, who instead of working resort to think of how incapable they are, most probably because someone insulted them or spoke with derision regarding their failures. Both groups of people — those who can't stop thinking of how good they are, and those who have convinced themselves of how terrible they are at everything — are no better than the other. In fact, they have one thing in common, they are not doing the work.

Talking about censure, I believe that we will never earn the love and respect of everyone, nor do we need it. The most important thing is that we actually get meaningful work done. We can actually turn people's smirks into a source of motivation and inspiration to work. When people don't believe in you, it  means you have the potential of disproving them. And I think that is far much better than disappointing those who thought highly of your abilities.

That friend who talked to you with derision, that teacher who said you would never do well in their subject, that disappointed parent who opted to focus on your other siblings, all these are people you can disprove, and such a prospect should be enough to get you on the treadmill. When we make mistakes, we receive important feedback about what doesn't work. We may never know what does work, but as we go along we will certainly have the opportunity to know what doesn't. After his masterpiece sculptor of King David, Michelangelo informed the awestruck Pope that he had only curved out the parts that weren't David. We could apply the same intelligence, and avoid endeavors that don't amount to anything. Yet we would only know what doesn't work if we fail. I want to fail. I want to make mistakes. Because I would have known the dead end. The wrong way to go.

When we compare ourselves, something that is impossible not to do today thanks to Instagram and WhatsApp statuses, we make ourselves believe that we are the same. We fail to see how the context and circumstances of our lives are not anything like that of the people we see to be better and accomplished. And this is the place I get to advance the particularly trite saying that life is an exam and we all have different question papers. Frost speaks of taking the path less trodden on, the beautiful thing that impresses me anytime I revisit this masterpiece (if you don't know of The Road Not Taken, you probably skipped highschool 😂) is when he said, “and that has made all the difference.” What worked for others may not really work for you. If we insist that we have to be like others, we will go to bed every night reminded of our unworthiness and inabilities. We need to love our flaws and our scars because those are what make us distinct and special, they are things no one else will ever have, at least not in the same way we do. You can't be as perfect as that friend. Someone else will always be prettier, someone else will be brilliant, someone else will always have the guys asking after her. These people may have what may seem to be a better life, but they are not you. They are not you because you do not know what price they have paid, what value they have compromised. He may have the cash, but he probably has a parent with cancer as well, he may always be the best in class but he probably also watches his dad abuse and hit his mom. You will always want to be someone else until you become that person, then you realize your own portion of the medicine was actually the less bitter one. We see people not as they are but as they appear to be; appearances are deceiving. A sense of complete achievement is something we will never have. We are not wired that way. Millionaires want to be billionaire's, so you probably know what billionaire's want to be…

Our worth showcases itself when we attach ourselves to a purpose instead of blindly following a passion. Passion deplete us, purpose defines us. While passions distract us, purpose describes us. Passion is what we want to be, purpose is what we want and have to do.

We all want to be something, but we don't want to do anything. It is what we do that will make the world a better place. We could become the next richest man on earth, but if we don't leverage that for the good of the planet, it was all for nought, and maybe we should never even have been born in the first place. When we want to be something or someone, we get busy instead of being productive. We begin to hate people who do well just because we aren't as accomplished and fulfilled as they are. However, when we begin to get things done, when we finally do something instead of trying to be something, we find peace and respite in our work. We begin to see that we are not what is important, we realize it is our work which is. That it is not us who change the world, it is our work which does. We are only vessels, and our work is the content. No matter how beautiful the vessel that carries trash is, the contents will forever remain to be trash. 

Instead of wanting to be like Henry, please do your work. If you get to know me you probably will shun me like a plague. My life is a mess. I am usually confused for nearly half of my wake-day. I am not sure about where my life is heading. I have ruined the best relationships I think I will ever be in. I have disappointed my mentors and insulted their efforts and sacrifice in coaching me. I have been careless with the relationship I have with my family, especially my mother. My standoffish personality has turned friends away from me. My life is not anything anyone will ever want. It is the quintessential portrayal of a messed up and carelessly lived life. A compilation of mistakes and compromises. I am hoping to convince you that I am a student of these things of which I speak. Be you. Do not be me or anybody else. Love your flaws. You aren't faultless, but you are blameless. I will employ a simple caveat at this point by pointing out that I’m not a Pollyanna trying to inspire complacency and inaction. By now, you should actually already have seen that I am very much against the epicurean attitude of loving pleasure and avoiding inconveniences. I am in fact asking you to do one of the most difficult things; own your flaws; accept your mistakes and inadequacies. Take responsibility, because as much as it may not be your fault that you are so messed up, it's still your problem anyway. No one is going to pop out of your screen and put your house in order for you, so you could as well as put your phone down and go work. (Enda ufanye kazi😂, feilya! feilya!) The parenthetic is a joke not everyone will get, but it's really relatable. Go work!

I believe I have learnt the greatest lessons because I have made the greatest mistakes. I love more, because I have been forgiven more. Woe unto the person who goes through the toughest trials and is no better after. Make sure to learn your lessons because life will never stop teaching. Don't let your darkest nights be your dumbest, the night teaches lessons the day will never reveal. Walk out of the fire better and braver. Emily Dickinson happens to be my favorite poet, though my favorite poem is actually Where the sidewalk ends by Shel Silverstein. In Success is counted sweetest, Dickinson carefully reminds us that success is sweetest to those who never succeed, and to know the sweetness of nectar requires the sorest need. Sweet victory is the afterfruit of a bitter battle. A good night's rest only follows a greatly tiring day. Life would be bleak if it were all roses. Appreciate tribulation, because it defines your victory. 

Do not give up. Learn to rest when you get tired. When you fail and get disappointed, stop and investigate the failure, then leverage the feedback for another attack. (Ukisema unaanza usiku, anza, usilale!😂) Try your best not to fall for the temptation of extrapolating your life. Do not use a single moment to define your life. I love how Roald Dahl kicks off the preface of his autobiography Going Solo, he says: “A life is made up of a great number of small incidents and a small number of great ones.” 

This moment is not your life, it is a moment in your life. Bad days are normal, be intelligent enough to know they will pass. A night may seem not to end  but we are sure there still will be dawn. The other side of the coin is just as valid; dark nights follow bright days. There cannot be one without the other. Because you had a bad day doesn't mean you have a bad life. We really don't know what it means to have a bad day. People with the worst lives don't have bad days, they only have days. We have bad days because at one point in time we had good days. To know what is bad means to have known what is good.

I hope to encourage you to get out there and do something worthwhile with your life. You will mess up, but you will be glad you tried something anyway. Always remember not to be anyone else but yourself, you have your own niche to fill. In your whole life you will never meet another Madaga. This is the only Henry who you will ever know. I am unique. I am special. I am a Child of God. I am not anybody else.

Neither are you.

Why I am still a Mess.

When I emerged eighth best in KCSE 2020, I thought my life would completely turn around. That was enough evidence of my intelligence, and in my experience the intelligent always ace it in life. My whole family had been enthralled; it was glorious to have someone so brilliant in the family. Swamped up in my own achievement, I forgot that it was only an affirmation of my victory at that specific checkpoint in my life, and well, I would still have thousands of such checkpoints in future. I could not see it at that point; I am tempted to think many people wouldn't. Needless to say, I am now envious of all those people who never made it to the top ten nationally at that time.

When almost three years after what was considered a colossal achievement and my life is still fraught with financial constraints and what I would call emotional dyscrasia — I beg the forgiveness of the medical fraternity for using the term, but I am typing this at 2 a.m instead of reading Haematology and I cannot think of any other appropriate word, not that there isn't — I can't help but wonder ( Eh! I wonder 😂) why life has been so unfair to me. Most of my once closest friends and fellow comrades seem to have made great strides in diverse fields, in a holistic sense that is, while I still struggle to keep afloat, especially financially if I am to be sincere about it.

Yet I have failed to realize that whenever I set my life in contrast with other people's, I am always reminded of my inadequacies no matter how beautiful my life is. Recently, however, it has become clear how endless comparison is responsible for our constant depression, disquieting feeling of underachievement, and resentfulness. By becoming overly invested in other people's lives we have stopped working on our own altogether, and have been blinded from seeing the flowers that decorate our own landscapes. We end up forgetting how far we have come, how God has been faithful, and how thousands of people were never fortunate as we are. Because we want to be perfect, to be seen as perfect we have only managed to become insecure and strangely fragile to all forms of censure or criticism. We have ended up attaching our value on other people's perception of us.

Apparently, we seem to have forgotten that even our most dearest of friends are fickle and undependable at times, and so are we ourselves. That doesn't mean that we should stop loving or hoping. To fail and be failed again and again and still live with the assurance that all will work out for our good takes the highest form of courage. To believe that we are actually made for success and are in fact worthy of good things takes more confidence than the resentment we nurse towards those who have done better than us. No matter what we achieve, there will always be someone else that will be better than us, in one aspect or another. We all have our races and could as well as stick to our own lanes. We should focus on improving ourselves instead of wasting energy comparing ourselves to others.

Personally, I think the people who live the most disappointing and unfulfilling lives are those who want to be considered flawless and seen as perfect by their mates. We have grown ashamed of our scars when in fact confidence comes from embracing our flaws and faults, and owning them. When we expect other people to affirm us and support us at every instant, we painfully set ourselves up for disappointment. We are our own best buddies and our own worst enemies. We are the only ones who are to blame for our mess, to point fingers is proof of how we have failed to love and trust ourselves. We have derogatorily labeled most people jerks but it's disturbing how we still  crave their approval.

We should never look down on ourselves simply because other people looked down on us. We will never earn the approval of the 7 billion people on earth and we could do ourselves a favor and well, dispense with it. In fact criticism is meant to advance us. We are the ones who take it as an affront when really it is an important feedback that is meant to inform how we are to proceed. Marcus Aurelius put it candidly when he said, “Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.” 

As we entertain glorious and high thoughts about ourselves, we would do well to remind ourselves that people do not think of us that way. Neither should we attach our self value to other people's opinions but instead focus on our work. We have work to do, and if we never take criticism positively, we may never know what it is that we need to improve on — criticism is important for recalibration, but it should be taken within the precincts of self-awareness.

I believe the choice is ours.

"To thine own self be true, thou canst not then be false to any man."

These were the words of Polonius to his son Laertes in Shakespeare's play "Hamlet."

Someone may almost think that to some extent, reading Shakespeare for leisure is in some sense masochistic. Who wants to inflict on themselves the pain of figuring out what Shakespeare meant with all his thous and thys? Sometimes the language is just too complicated to construe sense and meaning from.

I have always wanted to know why the name Shakespeare lives on, why we still talk a lot about a man who is no longer with us. I began to understand this when I laid my hands on Hamlet.

In the tragedy, Hamlet intends to avenge his father's death by killing his uncle King Claudius, who he believes murdered his father and who went on to marry his mother. It almost seemed like a conspiracy.

Because of the complexity of language, the plot doesn't loosen up on the first reading, and sincerely speaking, I am trying to figure it all out myself.

I hope to be able to share more critical and personal takes regarding specific instances of the play.

Regardless, I came across one of the most spectacular speeches by a father to his son. One that spoke to me in a rather special way. To me it seemed like the best advice a son would ever receive from his father.

...

And these few precepts in thy memory

Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportioned thought his act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar:

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them unto your soul with hoops of steel;

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

Of each new-hatched, unfledged Comrade.Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel;but being in

Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgement

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy

But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy;

For the apparel oft proclaims the man,

And they in France of the best rank and station

Are most select and generous, Chief in that

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;

For loan oft loses both itself and friend

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry

This above all- to thine own self be true,

And it must follow as the night day.

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

When I read this I was like, "Oh my goodness!"

I really got excited to see such dispense of wisdom.

It's almost like a summary of how to live life in the most reasonable and fulfilling way.

It insists on the need to be humble and kind, how imperative it is to be prudent in life's affairs.

The amazing thing is how the verse, I will call it so, has embodied and somehow clarified perspectives and stances that I came across in other books.

What actually led me to this play, Hamlet, is 'Ego is the Enemy' by Ryan Holiday. Where he draws reference to the few finishing lines, "...and this above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night day, thou canst not then be false to any man"

And how true that is.

Shakespeare through Polonius, insists on how important it is to restrain ourselves from speaking out our thoughts. But then he goes on to insist that we should not act out any thought that we have not deliberated thoroughly upon.

As he goes on he reminds us that everyone is worthy of our ears, but very few our mouths.

 It's important that we train ourselves to be silent. And this is exactly what Ryan Holiday mentions again and again in 'Ego is the Enemy' when he candidly explains how talk kills action by forestalling it.

There's the aspect of lending and borrowing.

How lending leads to losses of both the loan and the friend to whom we extend the loan.

The borrower is not a free man as well. His life is dulled by the responsibility of paying what he owes his lender. Surely this makes life, especially friendships, bleak and tense. And I have seen it in my life. Ryan in 'Discipline is Destiny', categorizes all this, in Cato's perspective, as the Superfluous, one of the things to be shunned as a plague.

There's the bit of entertainment. It's not quite clear right now why Polonius would come to say that an excess of it dulls the palm. But I will presume, at least for now, of how 'unrestrained entertainment' takes the place of real and meaningful work. It reminds me of how Tozer handles the evil of entertainment in his work, 'Root of the Righteous'. We must recognize entertainment for what it really is, especially when we become slaves in the hands of it's pleasure. This comes at quite a significant time in my life when I have been wrestling my compulsive habit of binging shows. I know what it has caused me, what it is denying me. And I hate the guilt it causes. But what has been more humiliating is the fact that I have oft returned to the vomit. And self-sabotaging has almost been something close to second nature.

Polonius speaks of judging others, it is uncalled for, so to speak.

He instructs how it is important to pattern behavior according to our resources, without attempting to be fancy and grandeur beyond our abilities. He points out to dressing. I infer then that dressing should be decent, strictly without being showy or smothering. It's obviously important to look good, but why should it be a cause of fuss and attention? Certainly not. Oh, I am learning my lessons. The interesting fact is that this is what nearly all the books I am reading constantly speak of. Simplicity. Minimalism. Enough. Restrain. Moderation.

There's no running away from the Reality of Life.

He points out how it is important to hold friends close, especially those who have proved to be real and true. It is important to avoid indulging ourselves in what our fellows approve of.

Then he goes on to speak of how it is important to avoid altercations, to be familiar without being vulgar(I will insert contemptuous here, derogation[disparagement for that matter] that oft marks our interactions). This would be an emphasis on how important it is to be kind, and not overbearing.

This verse here is a masterpiece. Given it is the first I have come across just when I decided to look at Hamlet, I am certain that I'm set for a great deal of learning.

Thank you so much Shakespeare!