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The Tired, Thirsty, and Hungry Fox Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyard, for our vineyards are in blossom Songs of Solomon 2:15 Once upon a time, when the sun had shone in its strength for days without end, and the rain had not softened the ground for months, so that a devastating famine had taken hold, a tired, thirsty, and hungry fox, Foxy was his name, was walking around, desperately hoping to find something to eat. For two weeks now, Foxy had had nothing to eat. In the sky a crow, Crowy was her name, with a generous and deliciously looking slice of meat in her beak, was flying, trying to find a tree to perch on. For Crowy, food had been hard to come by as well, and she had just snatched the slice of meat from a goat herder in the fields. Foxy, tired, thirsty and hungry, decided to rest under a tree. So it happened that Crowy perched on one of the branches of this very tree, under which Foxy was sitting, tired, thirsty and hungry. The movement of the branches roused Foxy. He looked up and saw Crowy, in her beak she had a delicious slice of meat. Until then, foxes and crows had never spoken to each other. Foxy knew this was his only chance. “Wow!” He said. “What a beautiful bird! You have to be the prettiest bird of all your kind.” He went on to praise the color of Crowy’s feathers even though they were black. He praised her beak and said she had beautiful eyes. Crowy’s heart swelled with pride, she felt as though someone was finally interested in her, for until then, no one had ever actually paid attention to her. “I wonder how sweet your voice is,” continued Foxy, “will you sing for me, please?” Crowy was excited, she was excited that the fox had said her voice was sweet, forgetting that she had the most annoying caw and made the most disturbing voice among all birds. Here was somebody who thought it to be beautiful. Crowy did not know that the fox was only tired, thirsty and hungry. Crowy gathered air in her lungs, she then opened her beaks wide to give out the most beautiful tune in the world. Just when she opened her beak, the delicious slice of meat fell to the ground. Foxy quickly dashed for it, and immediately ran off. Crowy was surprised to see Foxy running, then she remembered her slice of meat. She would have to sleep hungry today, again. While we are often drawn to think of theft, murder, or fornication when we talk about sin, most of us, however, have had our hearts ensnared by what we would probably never have regarded to be sin had we not put on the lenses of scriptures. Foxes might be the most cunning creatures on earth, or we would never have said, as cunning as a fox. And after we have established how cunning foxes are, we see them addressed in Scriptures in this specific instance, as little. Here we have, cunning little animals, who ruin the vineyard that is just in bloom. To say they are cunning, is to emphasize that they are deceiving and manipulative. It may be precisely because they are little that they cause the greatest mischief, as no one would regard them seriously. The term little foxes, therefore, consists not of the great sins of heresy and apostasy, or even fornication and adultery, but the little items in our lives that shift our attention from God to themselves. This may be in our normal routine, reading, chatting with friends, or even watching certain programs. It is the innocence of these things that provides a leeway into our hearts, and cultivates a coldness of God in our spirits. The fact that we are not hungry for God, as John Piper would say in the preface of his book Hunger for God, is not that God is unsavory, but that our hunger is already catered for by many other lesser things, we are stuffed already as it were. The Bible says in James that the Lord tempts no one, but all of us are tempted when we are drawn by our own desires. We would say sin is born of a ‘little’ mistake carelessly regarded. The little foxes creep in insensibly and ruin our grapes that are tender, and our vineyards that are in blossom. In John Owen’s approach to sin, temptation and the Christian life, he clarifies that we all have peculiar lusts due to our particular constitutions, education or prejudices. Satan tends to attack us according to our particular personalities, moving against a confident person more differently than an anxious one, but tempting both nonetheless. For example, the rich man may become proud of all that he has, thinking that he is full and in need of nothing. Even though this is a thought that may never come out loudly, it is one he harbors in his heart and that reflects itself in how he lives his life. The poor man may not have cause to be proud, but instead he may become embittered by his many  misfortunes and unenviable circumstances. He may secretly distrust God in his heart, and cease to have faith in God’s assurances. These men have sinned, and we would not be wrong to say they have been tempted differently. We must learn our dispositions, for in so doing we are more prepared to avoid stealthy arrows directed at us. To Owen, we must be killing the little foxes, or they will be killing us. We must catch the foxes, or they will ruin our vineyards that are just in blossom. There could be habits we ascribe to our nature and personalities, yet it’s these very habits that create a fertile ground for error and sin. Many of us who believe we stand should look carefully lest we fall. Our hearts can often be nagged by little things, and as our hearts happen to be the greatest deceivers, we find ourselves in messes that it is often impossible to wriggle ourselves out of. We are to guard our  hearts, with all vigilance, for from them flows the springs of Life. To be able to enjoy God and worship him, there has to be a degree of need and hunger in our hearts that draws us to seek him. There are so many things in the world that rid us of this hunger and need for God, so that our fellowship with God becomes to us nothing more than just another task we need to get out of the way. The time we give to God in such a constitution of mind always seems unnecessary and if we are busy pursuing our goals, it often feels like a distraction and a waste of time. These things are the little foxes that spoil our vineyard of fellowship and love. Catch the little foxes. Matthew Henry in his commentary declares this to be a charge that particular believers mortify their own corruptions, their sinful appetites and passions that work to destroy grace and comfort, quashing good emotions and crushing good beginnings, hence preventing their coming to perfection. The little foxes are to be seized, the first risings of sin… In Hebrews the instruction is, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight that clings close, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus as the pioneer and the sustainer of our faith. Catch us the foxes Little foxes that destroy good beginnings Little foxes that thwart good resolves Little they are, so we may entertain them, Pay no attention to them, Or Doubt their abilities to mess up our lives. References Holy Scriptures Desiring God - John Piper Matthew Henry- Commentary Overcoming Sin and Temptation - John Owen

As could be expected, my eremitic tendencies led me to the solitary and farthest corner of the library, where I sank into a seat and sat without moving, suddenly subdued by the torpor of death. Without was the silence of a graveyard, within was the irrepressible din of a football stadium. When I made up my mind to come to the library, it was to do anything but study. I had come to mull over what my standing on the table of love was, and if anything, I knew I was at the precipice of relegation. Speaking of football, it felt as if my misfortunes had something to do with me being surrounded by friends who were Chelsea fans, for Chelsea had, quite clearly, established itself as a dependable source of disappointment and bad luck. As we had a Pharmacology paper in two days time, I got to see some of my classmates struggle to squeeze value out of the slippery evening hours. Even in a bid to salvage the semester, their efforts could be nothing more than the frantic kicks of a dying horse, for they had the innocent determination but clearly unattainable goal to study in a single night what was meant to be studied in a whole semester. I was supposed to be worried as well, for I could make no claims of preparedness, and even if I was a little ready for the paper, I could not confess that to anyone since as medical students, we had taken a silent but invariably binding oath to vehemently deny and dispel with any claims whatsoever of having studied, leave alone being ready for an exam. Affirming that you were prepared for a paper was tantamount to submissively walking yourself to the gallows, but we were ready to fight for our freedom with every ounce of energy in us, so no! I wasn’t ready for my Pharmacology test. But the terrifying thought that I had done the unthinkable thing of asking the wrong lady out nagged at my heart and seemed to rack my nerves with such unremitting insistency that left me miserable and wanting to bang the table. In that moment my mind was a simmering hodgepodge of emotional turmoil and academic anxieties that threatened to tip me into madness. “Huh?” Ashley had asked, surprised at such an unforeseen request. A little unflinchingly, Brenda and Ashley stared at me as I croaked an embarrassing and incoherent string of phrases meant to highlight the error. I quickly tried clearing my throat but some saliva must have gotten into my trachea for I suddenly burst into what might have been the most terrifying fit of coughing. When I came to, the mortifying look of pity on their faces made me rethink the earlier defense I had intended to enact. I opened my mouth but only air proceeded from it. As it were, the universe had conspired to thwart and utterly decimate every iota of hope I had in me, or in the world, of ever winning, or even just getting close to winning the heart of the lady my heart bled for ( I beg clemency from the medical fraternity, for a bleeding heart would certainly be the most worrying case of a hemopericardium, and I am certain if it continued unabated, my love could only continue in a grave ). “I wouldn’t mind a chat over coffee,” Ashley, deft as she was with any conversation, adroitly picked it up when it became glaringly apparent that I was struggling to reign my thoughts and convert it into a meaningful form of discourse, “Brenda will certainly come along, right?” she went on to ask in the most courteous way that for a moment, felt like salvation from the tormenting nightmare I had been in for the few minutes I had stood before Brenda. It was precisely for that reason that I had intended to leave the Microbiology practical immediately, before Ashley intercepted me and set me up for the most embarrassing moment of my life. “No, I won’t come.” Brenda had replied in a manner that to me seemed to, strangely, bear the most disarming and breathtaking nonchalance that suddenly made her even prettier, and then with a demure smile that bore in it the potential of grabbing my whole being and tossing it off a cliff into the sea, she added a little emphatically, “it’s you he asked, and…” she continued while looking into my eyes, probably to tease me, “spoiling Henry’s date is the last thing I would want to do.” “Brenda!” Ashley lamented as Brenda suddenly burst into a hearty but very brief laughter. I had wanted to explain myself, to swear it with my life that I could never take any lady aside from her out, as long as she walked the earth, but my heart had been all over my body, and my voice was on a holiday of sorts. I was clearly living for a day that would never come, and I thought of what could possibly come from my infatuation. The poignancy that came with facing the reality that however great I thought my love to be, it could never make Brenda adore me if she never did. Brenda was too perfect to have me in her life. It was only years later, when I was happily wedded to L―,  that I would come to what would be the most counterintuitive realization, that I as well, had been too perfect for Brenda to have me. I might have foreseen this forthcoming awakening about a decade later as I sat there, pensive and with a crushed spirit, bemoaning my misfortunes, for I made up my mind to cut-off Brenda from my life. I had been dancing on this show of love with every sap of effort I could master, yet my audience of one had declined to come up the stage and join me. When I got home that evening, I was going to block Brenda, and delete her contact. It was time for me to leave the stage. “Henry,” “Huh!” Startled, I looked up. She stood right beside me, with the most incapacitating smile painted upon her countenance. As you would expect, I was mute, and I believe I wore the most blank and confused look at that moment. Had Brenda followed me to the library? “Can I give you a call later tonight?” she asked as she bowed her head a little, pressed her lips shut and raised her eyebrows. The cue, meant to confirm my affirmation, made her look glorious. “Sure!” I snapped.

As was my habit, as soon as the microbiology practical session was done, I quickly rose to my feet and dashed for the door. Anyone keen on my movements could have quickly surmised that I was rushing somewhere else, to probably get some important business done. I certainly had a lot of work to do, loads of it, but that was never the main reason for my prompt exits after our physical classes. It had been a little embarrassing for me, when I came to the realization that my liking for group discussions in general, and conversations in specific, was hinged on the deluding idea of  self-perceived intelligence and importance. There was the insatiable need to be thought indispensable to a discussion, to be regarded as high and mighty. But who really cared about another’s importance when it was in fact the personal goal of everyone to be thought of as witty and interesting. Everyone was in some sense on that spectrum, with a few of us, at the extremes. Yet discussions become interesting when we lay our importance aside and revel in the conversation. When we enjoy each other's company rather than strive to make others enjoy ours; when we get interested in who people are instead of trying to get them interested in who we are. It was a little unnerving to be around some of my classmates, especially those I wanted to impress. It was much easier to talk to them online than in person. This kind of edginess was the result of an incessant striving to be thought as perfect by my colleagues. But did anyone really care if I was impeccable? Flawless? I was suffering because of my pride, always beleaguered by the thought that my foibles were glaringly apparent to those around me. It was probably a characteristic of us humans, to assume that other people were thinking of us as much as we were thinking about ourselves. It would have been liberating to realize that everyone else was also thinking about themselves. That’s how broken we all were. And because of trying to be keen about the words I would speak in such settings, they came out awkwardly and in a way that was clearly artificial and inauthentic. And why all this? Because I was afraid of being found out. Afraid that they would soon realize I wasn’t as brilliant as they thought me to be. I guess I enlisted among those who appeared bright until they spoke, then it slowly dawned on everyone that appearances could really be deceiving. “Henry, where are you running to?” I stopped and looked over my shoulder. “Uhm…” I grunted the usual stammer that always came before my answers. “Have you gone through the slides?” She cut in with a question before I could explain that I was heading home to get done on an article, and text those people I couldn’t talk to in person. Only that I would definitely not say that last part.  Looking into her face, it was easy to notice that wholesome and hypnotizing serenity that found its way into her words. Ashley always seemed sprightly and exuberant, no matter the circumstances, but the kind that was beautifully and gracefully restrained by modesty. Her occasional laughter in between conversations made it really calming to engage her. “Kelsi will send the pictures, won’t she?” “You would rather look at pictures than practically observe the specimen?” A demure smile meant to make me feel guilty spread across her face. “Come.” she said as she turned back towards the laboratory. The word come was uttered with all the kindness in the world but with such a peremptoriness that revealed how convinced she was that obeying her would be my only option. The other students were still walking around, looking into a microscope and the next, with several of them still clamoring for the signing sheet that was meant to be a record of our attendance. I walked behind Ashley silently and obediently like a duckling following her mother. When she finally spoke, coolly and without turning her head, it was as if she meant to confirm that she knew I was behind her. “I guess you have been to the museum?” From the time I had known her while we were in High School, our conversations mostly involved her talking while I groaned my ahas and laughed for most of the time, the kind of laughter that was meant to calm my nerves that always felt frayed and rankled anytime I stood before beauty. The Brenda-kind of beauty. Ashley had a kind of view about life that added verve and delightful animation to all her talks. She was bright, and it was no wonder to find ourselves in Medical School. “Henry?” she turned back to look at me and then I realized that I had not answered her question. “Yes, I have been,” I said with a grin. I had not been keen to notice that we were already standing by the side benches, where the crabs, one of the intermediate hosts for Paragonimus westermani, were on display. It therefore came as a shock that made me all edgy and uneasy when, with a kind of teasing nonchalance, Ashley said, “Brenda, what’s usually up with your friend Henry.”“Hmm,” Brenda carefully placed the bottle with the crab on the bench and looked up into my face. She wasn’t smiling, but it was that kind of a look that was meant to tell me in advance that what she was about to say was supposed to be a joke. Yet it was the most beautiful and incapacitating look, and I was certain that no smile in the world could beat it. Just to regard the grace, the light, and the peace that exuded from her calm countenance was torture for any man who was apt enough to notice beauty, real beauty. “Well, he’s been avoiding me. And it seems you are much better company for him.” Ashley immediately laughed heartily at the claim. “Nooo!” I snapped but immediately cooled down, embarrassed at how forceful the interjection had been. “I had not seen you, you know I always say hi, don’t I?” I defended myself, in a little more composed tone. “Yes you do,” she said jestingly turning to Ashley, “That kind of hi that always kills anyone’s vibe. Wait, you had left already?” she asked, suddenly turning back to me. “What were you rushing to do today?” “To write something, probably.” Ashley said and then silently waited for me to deny the statement. When I did nothing else but smile, a little sheepishly I think, at the accusation, perhaps as a confession that I was guilty as charged, she went on, “we love it when we read something you have written, but does it have to always rid everyone of your presence?” Immediately I joined campus, I realized that I had a problem interacting with new people. It felt uncomfortable and I avoided conversations with people who I had not properly known before. The new friendships I had had taken days to build, and that was because the other party had endured my usually indifferent and pensive air around new acquaintances. Many people therefore, probably, thought me disinterested in society. But the problem was that I did not know how to think as everybody else thought. I longed for deep conversations that weren’t meant to end when our practical sessions ended. I wanted someone who I could talk to about all the books I had begun to read but never finished. I needed someone to share with about my ambitions and about the books I wanted to write but never knew how to begin. I hoped to find someone who I would confess my fears to, I hoped Brenda would be that person, but I never knew how to direct the conversation or she didn’t look interested in those kinds of stories. If Brenda didn’t care, it meant little if someone else did. “Henry!” Brenda called. “Have you listened to anything I said?” “Of course,” I said in a start recovering from my reverie, and tried to force a smile. “Well…” “Well, what?” “Would you want to go out with me for coffee, sometime?” I asked with bated breath and then patiently waited for the reply that would either ruin me or … ruin me. It was as if I had set a bomb, and I was counting the seconds to its explosion. Yet what followed made me wish that a bomb would actually explode. “What?” Ashley asked. It was then that I realized I had just asked the wrong lady out, if I had even asked anyone out. I wasn’t sure anymore.“Are you done, guys?” Kelsi asked as she excused herself to take pictures of the specimen on the bench. “Hello Brenda?” She greeted Brenda, noticing Brenda had been part of the trio. “Hi Kelsi.” I looked into Brenda’s eyes. Did she know it was her I meant to ask out? Was it right to correct the mistake and let Ashley know that the question was meant for Brenda?

When it comes to Medical School Christian Union, memorable moments of brouhaha, as our Luo brother quite candidly put it in his famous supplication, is certainly not something you could leave without, even if you wanted to. The third day of the third month of the year saw the Adams, the young men of the union known far and beyond for their stentorian roar “Ahuu!”, put together what would be an unprecedented gesture that was, as I gather, a little unforeseeable to our precious sisters, the Garlands, as we have proudly come to call them recently. And garlands they truly are, for I am convinced that anyone who saw them today could never dispute. They all looked radiant, resplendent in dresses that dazzled in a blindening coruscation of blue, as though they had been subconsciously attuned to the main event of the day right from their wardrobes. I hear that ladies know when it is going to be a good day, yet not quite when it will be a bad one. Isn't that pleasurable, to live through each day positive and happy, unwearied by the troubles of humanity? “Rejoice, again I say, rejoice.” The idea of gifting the garlands with beautiful yellow roses could as well as turn out to be the most ingenious move of the season. It is one thing to show kindness and love as a community of men driven by the passion to treat every young lady in purity as a sister(1 Timothy 5:1-3), as Paul exhorts us through Timothy, but to have to stand alone before the same lady in a different setting even with the pure intentions of Scriptures is a wholly different story, for it calls forth faculties and resources that have proved to be lacking in the typical comrade today. Such chickening out, might have been the result of the embarrassing dust these comrades have gathered in their simping escapades. Had they heeded to my imploration that they read Joshua Harris’s remarkable book I Kissed Dating Goodbye, the story would be different. Wading through the murky waters of attempted love was the option they were willing to stomach. At the first look, it seemed as if the Adams hadn’t come up with, or even figured out the strategy they would use to give their roses. Yet in a few minutes, virtually every lady had a flower they were either sniffing at contentedly, pressing closely to their bosom, or beautifully placed on their laps. Some even had two roses! How the Adams were able to enact such a feat in a matter of minutes is probably incomprehensible, but maybe they have just been underestimated all this while. Talking of underestimations, my fly-on-the-wall observation of the whole activity probably gave me the honor to take a keen look at our brother Henry Madaga. Several MSCU members chant MDG everytime they have to make a reference to him, (eh mailod) I wonder what the acronym infers. I hear he has a blog he calls Litnerd Letters, which I am definitely having a look at after my observations today. Henry was clad in a shirt that had to be the brightest shade of blue. Yes, it's blue, even though he was innocently convinced, even a little embarrassed, that the shirt was green, when the dress code was supposed to be shades of blue. How disappointing! He held the rose and looked at it with a little more passion than his counterparts who seemed a little carried away by the idea that they were even holding roses in the first place. To him, there was something personal about that yellow rose, and the card he carried in his other hand. A pleasurable smile settled on his face after he had surveyed the congregation of graceful garlands, and then after he seemed to have settled on his target, he took off with what appeared to be calculated and sure strides, quick strides they were. My own rose dropped from my hands and as I picked it up, I ended up missing the moment I had really wanted to see for myself. We had been praying for our brother, and seeing things finally play out in his favor would be such a pleasurable thing. He walked briskly back to his seat and settled in it with such a peaceful and serene look on his face. The calm and contented look slowly transformed itself into a dazzling smile that was unlike Henry. The peculiarity and poignance of the whole thing made me silently wish I had seen the lady Henry had ‘flowered’.  Henry could be quite discrete about such things, and I was sure no amount of persuasion  and coercion could make him reveal who it was he had gifted the rose, yet the wise man I am, I tactically explored the environment of his mission and took note of the potential recipients of his kindness, for lack of a better word. I am not sure about the state of my own affairs when it comes to romance, but world, stay alert because I am certain of one thing, Henry is cooking!

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.

From the look in her eyes, I could tell that it was bad news. The expression on her face was disturbed and anxious. Her lips were half asunder as if she meant to speak; and she drew a breath, but it escaped in a sigh instead of a sentence. She raised her winsome eyes to mine and gave me a kind of solemn and distressed gaze that immediately sent tendrils of paranoia down my spine. My heart exploded into a frantic crescendo of beats that forced an embarrassing gasp out of me. The world around me had descended into the sadistic and stifling silence of a graveyard at midnight. I desperately searched for assurance in those dove eyes that seemed resolute on dashing and annihilating whatsoever form of equanimity I was struggling to evince. Still, I was unable to understand how fast I had moved from detesting this angel of a person to desperately yearning for her in every second of my existence. The first day we met at our Anatomy Dissection Table, I loathed with perfect passion the sight of her imposing figure and the impressive mien of control she exuded. In contrast to her riveting poses and carefully worked out intonations that made her explanations astoundingly succinct and wonderfully apt, I hated how I would drone on incoherently while struggling to put together the scrappy and expatiate points in my argument. Her smile and graceful nods then were unsettling and would plunge me into an abasing abyss of discomfiture, as if to emphasize her own indubitable composure set against the backdrop of my pitiful confusion. Even though I had expected her to be haughty and hubristic, her replies to questions from our table mates were kind and down-to-earth. She was witty and humorous in a manner that disarmed every soul that engaged her in a conversation and made it impossible not to love the salubrious and rejuvenating air she effortlessly infused into her surroundings. “Henry,” she calmly called out to me one afternoon while I tried to clarify the difference between Crohn's Disease and Inflammatory Bowel Disease. I grunted something close to a reply as I tried to find sobriety at a moment that suddenly seemed so critical. Excepting her glossy hair that was usually held by a black velvet band with a spray of white pearls in front, she preferred to showcase her beauty au naturel, jilting all the overtly adorned features, outfits and elaborate ostentatious styling that was typical of the repulsively coquettish ladies in our class. I did not know for how long I had been lost in the heaven of such incomparable beauty until I had that sweet and familiar voice again. “You agree with me, right?” “Yes!” I whispered in my mind, unaware of what she meant. “I agree that I am in love with you!” I shouted silently as a sheepish smile spread over my face and drew the flabbergasted gazes of my colleagues. For six years of Medical School I surrendered myself at the mercy of insatiable riptides of love and infatuation that lurked beneath the veneer of what seemed to be a placid demeanor. I saw Brenda return her adoration for me in furtive glances that lingered and brief smiles that became the highlight of my long, arduous and exerting days in Medical School. I was only starting to realize how wrong and blind I had been while I knelt before her, having voiced out a proposal that was not a little bit romantic as I had envisioned now that I was being roused to a horrible awakening of my unrequited love and the misery that would mark all my forthcoming days. She shook her head apologetically and I watched her lips settle in shape as I prepared myself to confirm her say the “NO” I dreaded hearing. “Yes!” She enthused, “I will marry you Henry!” The heart-rending surprise at my sudden felicitous turn of fortune was enough to startle me out of the dream I had been having. “Oh my goodness!” I gasped involuntarily as I sprang out of bed. When I realized I was an hour late for my Pathology end of year exam, I knew it wasn't Brenda's pretty face I was staring at but the unnerving grin of a Supplementary Exam.

Had I been keen, I might have seen how her eyes lighted up anytime she looked at me, which was many times. Instead, having resigned myself to the silent moans of desperation of a heart sick with love, I had been wallowing in the thoughts of my incapacity and unworthiness as to be able to win the heart of a lady I adored so much, with a kind of fervency that seemed to border on the extremes of insanity. Phrases I had rehearsed over and over in my room, the exact words that I intended would direct my discourse if fortune honored me with her presence, became nothing but incoherent and embarrassing grunts that left me bashful and discomfited. For several times, my obviously irritating buffoonery had proved me to be an intolerable nincompoop. That consciousness of my inferiority, in contrast to Brenda’s apparent impeccability, found its way into everyone of my conversations for which she was a part of. I would be gnawed within by a kind of strange and inexplicable wretchedness that made me miserable and uneasy in her presence. While her beauty was endless, with everything about her being large and intense in that manner that it was impossible to disregard or overlook, it was in fact her irresistible stately mien and statuesque deportment that made everything about her both appealing and maddening. Even the mischievous boys of Mavine’s ilk who seemed to be always caught up in some vain expostulation and unnecessary altercation regarding which lady happened to be the prettiest in the whole of med school, were clearly awed by the thought of Brenda’s graciousness. She seemed to transcend every requisite of comparison that my male counterparts occasionally instituted to guide their judgments when it came to beauty. Simply put, she snapped the scales. The mere mention of her name caused a distinct hush among them, reminding them of their impertinence and galvanizing them back to reason. For almost a year, I had trained myself to be harsh and to loath her with such intense vehemence that went against everything I preached and believed in when it came to love. To me, it was so demeaning to have someone so good as a table mate. How was I to stand out when she was stealing all my light with her unmatchably sharp wit and incomparably lofty brains. There was always something about how she thought and reasoned that asserted her intelligence and declared her insanely robust abilities. As I walked outside the examination hall that afternoon, with Brenda beside me, I rued those days when I had chosen to be rude to a lady who never had any intentions to shame or paint me in a lesser light. The thought that I had been insensitive enough to deliberately come to the decision of being discourteous to such an angel of a person made my intestine fill with cold broth. I wanted to turn back the hands of time, and grow myself emotionally as to not feel insecure and threatened by someone else’s greatness. Rather unfortunately, what I was oblivious of was that even in my current remorse, I was still holding on to the same delusion that had dictated my immature and shameful behaviour in the earlier days of our acquaintance. Until then, I had been unable to see my impassionate loathing for what it really was, a coping mechanism for a crush I was battling with every ounce of energy in me. Beneath the veneer of my belligerence was the silent and helpless wail of a battle I was losing. The battle of love. I hadn’t been wise enough to understand that it wasn’t with indifference nor impoliteness that love was repressed, in fact, if anything, I was activating a domino effect that would only leave me miserable in the years to come when I would be properly and thoroughly enamored by my infatuation. What was so heartbreaking was the idea that Brenda would never love me as I loved her. Yet this was only but a theory I had crafted for myself, and lacking the cojones to face my fears and confess my love, I had strove to convince myself that my love was the most ridiculous and irrational thing. As I was busy whining over the pains of unrequited love, I forgot to see the passion that burned in Brenda’s eyes with such intense coruscation every time her gaze settled on me; I didn’t hear the implicit excitement that was in her voice anytime she addressed me; I quickly dispensed with her piquant and dazzling smile that had always been meant for no one else but me. I even forgot that she probably had a hundred better people to walk besides, but to her, I was a better than all those hundreds or else she would be somewhere else. Had I been keen enough, I would have realized that she had waited to see me finish my paper, so that she would steal a minute of my company as I was wont to avoid her, which was largely because of the pain I attributed to my unfortunate love. The prospect of the following day being 14th of February, Valentine’s day, was one that excited many of the students who were gladly and briskly walking out of the examination hall. Tomorrow they would have opportunity to rid themselves of all the anxiety and trepidation that the Pathology paper had instilled in them, except if they were unfortunate when it came to love as I was. And because I was unable to lift myself from my prostration, to master the necessary machismo and speak out my love; I would never know the desperation with which Brenda expected my proposal; how she waited patiently for me to ask her out; the longing desire she had for me to take her hands in mine. I would only get to know of that after my intern posting, four years later, when it was too late and we now had to part ways. She had been posted in Mombasa, I in Kisumu. May be I had been wrong to regard Jitu’s quote as some dumb philosophical cant when he said, “a man who stays silent around a beautiful lady ends up fetching water on her wedding day.”

Even though his life was devoted to medicine, it was consumed by literature, medicine was his lawful wife, but literature was his mistress... Getting into 2024 with my blog finally on its feet has been among the most delightful thoughts for me. Jumping that precipice certainly took a lot of courage and pushing. Among the many things that have encouraged me along this path, is the desire to be a voice worth listening to. As I continue to learn my craft, I hope to be able to write in a manner that’s real and authentic. Sincerely speaking, I have been a little surprised to have amassed an audience even when many of my stories and articles are a little bit amateurish and unpolished. I was afraid that I would write and be the only one to do the reading, but right now, especially when my mentors and friends have urged me along, my passion has in some way been rekindled. For these three months or so that have gone by, I have had to question whether I was in some sense qualified to speak on and address any of the matters I thought myself to have an opinion on. But I am realizing that the most important and right thing to do is to be real and sincere in every one of my discourses, only giving an honest review of whatever topic I handle. Quite remarkably, and a little counter-intuitively, I have had to also learn from my earlier articles, a proof that personally, I am also not out of the wilderness I often vividly describe. Having a platform that gives a number of people beyond your ordinary circle of friends and classmates an opportunity to peak into your life is a little intimidating. It is as if I have subscribed to a level of performance which I fear I may not measure up to. After my essays and articles draw feelings of awe and delight from readers, it sure will be a great disappointment when they finally get to see how dorky and uninteresting I am in person. But that isn’t a big deal, because personally, I believe I am a great guy. Wait! Did I just lie? I hope I didn’t. Having a platform that gives a number of people beyond your ordinary circle of friends and classmates an opportunity to peak into your life is a little intimidating… Most of the feedback so far has been positive, aside from a little expression of discontent about the high-planed jargon that becomes distracting once in a while and sometimes makes my arguments esoteric and indecipherable. I hope to definitely work on that.  Notwithstanding, the appreciation and ‘wows’ has been a source of great encouragement especially considering the doubt that almost made me want to keel over when I set out for this particular journey. As I forecast on how this particular commitment to write will pan out as the months of this year unfold, I am mostly unsure if I would have made the impact I hope to make with writing, especially with all the dedication to academic work that my third year of medical school seems to be soliciting. Anton Chekhov, that great Russian writer alongside Leo Tolstoy, is a great inspiration to me in this regard. Even though his life was devoted to medicine, it was consumed by literature as one man put it. Once, he said that medicine was his lawful wife, but literature was his mistress. It’s clear that my desire and quest to be excellent in both frontiers will be a tough and challenging one, but I am hoping to learn great lessons of stamina and persistence. It’s already clear to me that I can go far in neither pursuits except all of you have my back, and I humbly request for help. As you read, please do not withhold any form of feedback even if it seems as though I may not like it. Every critical review will go a long way to improve every argument and keep me on track. I am not expecting this journey to be static and without any surprises, I know I may have to step into uncomfortable places that will challenge me to learn and grow. If I happened to be the one following through these articles, I would have most certainly expected nothing short of excellence in the man behind the pen. But even while I regard excellence as one of my core values, my experience so far might have been everything but that. That has made me question a lot and inspired some sought of imposter syndrome that might have precipitated the mental breakdowns I have had at some points in my life. I have mostly expected myself to perform exceptionally well in the areas I committed myself to, but as that has not always been the case, it is now a question of whether I would manage to keep a reasonable reading audience, especially now considering how people would rather do anything else than read inane and unpromising articles. This uncertainty has been  a little disturbing, but in these few days I have gotten to speak to some of my closest friends who have been keen to urge me to keep at my work. In some regard, they have been the voice of God that has reminded me that it is the Lord working in me for his pleasure. I am getting to see that what I have to do is to obediently answer to His will, and strive to be a blessing to every person my writing will get to. I am therefore confident that this endeavor will turn out amazingly well, not to mean that it will be without its ups and downs. Even if it does not, I will be glad I took the journey, and I will be happy to step back and probably re-prioritize. Whatever failure I will stumble into, it would certainly only be part of the many lessons I will get to learn, and it would be therefore careless and ungrateful to whine or fret over them. As you read, please do not withhold any form of feedback even if it seems as though I may not like it. Thank you so much for being one of my readers, please stay with me in this journey, and let us grow and help one another, for as iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of another. Once again,  I confess that I really need everyone's feedback despite how inconsequential you might think it to be. I would really be grateful if you could personally reach out to me as regarding anything about this blog, or even anything aside it, we never know what will come out of such conversations. Furthermore, I am a firm believer that if someone has something to say, the most prudent and courteous thing to do is listen. I learn so little as I talk, or even as I write, but I know I will learn so much as I ponder on everyone of your suggestions and input. So, let’s talk! If you have a story you would love to share, or if you would love to do an article as a co-writer once in a while, please reach out to me. Thank you for all your kind and encouraging words so far, I hope we always have fun together. Let’s make every story come alive, because this is Litnerd Letters. I am writing a piece that I hope will be my first short story soon. It is a story about the experiences of a medical student at the University of Nairobi, Henry, who has to face the challenge and demands of med school with great commitment and courage, while at the same time bear the disappointment of his unrequited love for a lady he has grown to adore so much to the extent of helplessly associating every single one of his misfortunes with her. It is a story of growth and transformation, as  Henry expresses how medical school has reshaped his perspective on intelligence and hard work, and how loving someone who doesn’t love him back teaches him the true meaning of love. The title of the series is a little facetious and may draw people away from the story, but as Henry shares his story, it takes a keen eye to see how his pain and failure prepare him for the next season of his life. The story is inspired from my real-life experiences, and from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s literary classic Love in the time of Cholera, where Florentino Ariza waits for more than fifty years when Fermina Daza will finally let him into her life again. Make sure to subscribe to the blog so that you never miss an episode, nor miss the excitement and suspense that every episode builds. Read every episode in order from the links below. Episode 1 Episode 2 Episode 3

With fervid determination, I was still scribbling what was to be the last sentence of a test that had from the very first leaf drawn silent tears of desperation from me, when a tap on my shoulder startled and rose me to my feet in an instant. I proceeded to hand over my paper as I let out a sigh of deep resignation, not deigning to look into the face of its recipient. My heart was still clutched by an unrelenting spasm of agony that I was careful not to intimate by the wild supplication of clemency that was probably painted upon my countenance in that moment of embarrassing disillusionment; and that would obviously be spurned and rebuffed with a contemptible and derogatory indifference. As it was, I had strangely managed to maintain a streak of misfortunes and I was determined not to allow a disparaging verbal thrashing from a cantankerous lecturer add to the concatenation of humiliation and suffering that seemed to be sedulously pursuing me since morning. And so it was that as I silently bemoaned my unenviable circumstances, I was unconsciously drawn into reverie. I regretted to think that if I was in some sense brilliant, then it might have been the most insignificant addition to the work and dedication med school demanded of me. It had been a little careless to forsake the indefatigable plodding that had been the most defining aspect of my academic excellence since primary school, and to allow myself to fall victim to the paralyzing and delusional idea of self-proclaimed intelligence. My high school success had been the sum moments of intense and beleaguering work that did not afford the space and time to yap to others. There weren't any promises to be made, there was only work to be done. But having allowed myself to drink so long from an inebriating siphon of praise and veneration, I had forgotten the diligence that had earned me a place among the smartest students in the country, and I was never ready for the precipitous fall from grace that would follow. I had taught myself to disdain any form of average performance, however, the struggle to keep afloat at this point now seemed to be most exacting, even traumatizing. I had nursed that thought of perceived intelligence with unrelenting vehemence and was convinced of my abilities so that the unexpected awakening to reason and realization of the reality that I wasn’t as good as I thought made a personal reassessment of myself necessary and impossible to disregard. I could see everything that I thought to be but was not find perfect expression in a lady who even with the unmistakable grace of mien and soothing serenity in her air did not think herself uppity. With wonder and awe I watched my initial vilification thaw into great veneration and an inexplicably ardent feeling of adoration. It was as though scales had dropped from my eyes and I could now clearly see her endless beauty that always seemed to be chastened by a restrain of maturity; beauty that was not in her dresses, nor her earrings, nor her necklaces, nor her make up; but in her radiance, her movement, and her passion. There was nothing artificial in her eyes, instead they were windows of a heart so large and a grace so passionate, their depth seemed to exude a commitment to excellence that manifested itself in an impressive deportment that made it impossible for her colleagues not to instantly like her. At least I now knew, even accepted, that I wasn’t strong enough not to as well. Yet I couldn’t help but wonder what it was exactly that my love meant. Was it even love, or was it the sparks and crackles of a fire that would soon go out? I had loved no one else, yet when I finally did love, it seemed to be shamefully and embarrassingly unrequited by a lady who would never compromise her principles to meet the whims of an unimpressive course-mate who was pining after her like a luckless idiot . Clearly, Brenda would never resign herself to regard any statements of fealty from a man who was yet to find his way in the world as sincere and dependable. And since nothing I would ever say would make a difference, it would be much better if I kept whatever I felt to myself. “Henry,” I knew that voice; the tone with all its refined propriety was definitely familiar, it could only be one person. I raised my head to confirm what I feared, and there she was, the organ of my veneration, with a dazzling piquant smile on her face. I wanted to say something, but I could not find my voice. I think I wore some kind of ridiculous look as she would not stop smiling as she looked at me. I had thought of how pleasurable it would be to have her attention all to myself, but I have never been as miserable and discomfited as I was in those few moments that I stood, silent and solemn, before the incapacitating gaze of the prettiest person in the world, my world. “The lecturer needs your paper.” “Oh!” I gasped.

I squirmed uneasily in my seat as I struggled to bring my breathing to a calm rhythm. The incessant perspiration made my skin clammy and my apparel― the blue AMSUN t-shirt that every time I wore I would bump into the same people, which almost made me want to explain that it wasn’t the only clothe I had, even though that wasn’t entirely false― uncomfortable. With such poor ventilation the Examination Hall wasn’t so forgiving and I wondered why my colleagues who sat by the windows had not deigned to open them. But who had the liberty to worry about windows when the fear of unpreparedness and the likelihood of failure threatened to draw a holler of desperation from you. The promise to study at home was one easily reneged on except if you were Njoroge Maina, who from the look of his calmness and composure seemed prepared and ready for this exact moment of his life, I envied him. I looked up like a luckless idiot and irredeemable fool to the invigilator who was just handing me the list to sign my name, and as I was yet to recover from the traumatizing reality of almost missing my paper, I was unable to find the words to explain why I neither had my student examination ID nor my school ID. “Write.” She instructed a little pensively but still firmly and in a peevish tone so unlike her beautiful and kind countenance that seemed to go ahead of her nasty and foul attitude excellently deluding single, desperate and miserable male comrades who for their apparent knack at mistaking kindness and courtesy from lady colleagues to be love, had been very disappointed and heartbroken in that particular frontier. I wondered why doctors had to be so irascible, or probably a beautiful face didn’t necessarily mean a beautiful heart. The moment she laid the paper before me, a drop of sweat broke from my chin and soiled it. Once again, I abashedly looked to her face, prepared to meet the most irritated and basilisk glare, but when she saw the expression of bewilderment and suffering that was painted all over me, she smiled; a piquant and reassuring smile that made me retract my irrational censure a few seconds ago. She handed me her pen when she realized that even my stationery seemed to have ganged up on me at that humiliating moment. With her stay extended at my desk, I could feel the piercing and questioning glances of my colleagues towards me. It was impossible to know what they were making of it. When she finally walked away, I heaved a sigh and shut my eyes as I rehashed the events of the dream that had so risen my hopes only to dash them down again. I felt broken and cheated to be denied something that I had desperately yearned for eons now. I had thought myself an alexithymic and the most apathetic and socially awkward yet contented person who had no need for love, believing Medical School to be engaging and demanding enough, and to have myself pining and simping after someone was not something that seemed prudent to me to do. However, I knew it in myself that this was a disposition inspired by timidity rather than priggishness, and afraid even of the opportunity to fail, I wittily avoided such miasmic musings regarding romance. That was until I met Brenda. No. Until it became impossible not to love her because I know I hated her first. But did I, really? Her graciousness had infected and soaked every atom of my life. She had broken into the parts of me I had been embarrassed to face and admit; that everyone needed love in one way or the other. Even those people that had been hurt and disappointed, those who had been betrayed and repugned, who were used and abused, they needed love to heal and be whole again. “When I feel like not studying, or this or that, I stop thinking about it and sit down and study.” I overheard her explain to Kelsi one day as we were coming in for our Histology Practical. Since that time when it had turned out to be insufferably difficult to rid myself of the thought of her, I had always hovered around her like a hungry vulture around the carcass of a buffalo, only that I never came down to have a taste of the meat. So, even though I never told my love vocally, if looks had language, even the merest idiot would have surmised that I was head over heels; and I have occasionally been tempted to think that behind her bedazzling and incapacitating smiles, she understood me― but I would always shrink icily into myself, like a snail, and tear away my glance from her eyes that seemed endless and intense in their depth in a manner that was so hypnotizing. Even though it hadn’t been real, the thought that she had accepted my proposal made me want to see her desperately. “You have half an hour to go!” boomed a stentorian voice from the other end of the hall. What! I gasped as I looked at the Pathology essay paper I had barely begun, and it slowly dawned on me that my infatuation would be my nemesis; aside a broken heart, I would be carrying a failed grade back home.

There is a lot of perspective I have gained from the humility University Life has so much endeavored to instill in me, and I am still learning my lessons. When I have occasion to reflect upon my High School days, I do it with lots of nostalgia that paints it in a light that makes it appear perfect, when, in fact, it was everything but perfect. It is among the events in my life that have been beleaguered by uncertainty and the fear that things weren’t going to work out; yet they did! Figuring out the directions of our lives is certainly among the imperative yet most difficult things to do, especially when the effort we put in just doesn’t seem to pan out. Our lives aren’t linear, though most times we actively seek out the opportunity to see or define them as such. The temptation to round off the edges is one that exists for most people. What if our lives weren’t as messy as they are? What if we were just disciplined the way so and so is disciplined? What if we were in control? Some people seem to have figured out the directions of their lives, most of us haven’t, the truth is that we aren’t worse of for it. I seem to have a terrible problem with my communication. That means that I have been unable to maintain some of the relationships that were so dear to me. My taciturnity butchered them, my apathy buried them. They have remained to be relics of a passionate past. I still wonder how I manage to clock months without getting to hear of how some of my closest friends are faring on. Though I believe I never love them less even after months of incommunicado, I have been tempted to think that their love for me has waned. But after a while I realized something that has really changed how I see my life today, or how I try to see it at least. Whatever it is we feel we are not receiving could probably be what we are not giving. While we crave love and attention, are we giving them in the proportions we desire it for ourselves. The bane of our existence is rooted in our solipsism. Self-absorption earns us nothing but needless anxiety and disillusionment, even in the people who love us the most. Some of the people we want to appreciate us may not be good at it, but that doesn’t mean they spun our achievements. Are we able to appreciate them ourselves? When we only think about ourselves, its so easy to be disappointed. It so easy to judge ourselves and other people, when in fact we could ask ourselves what it is that we could and would do. In order, to give ourselves the opportunity to find peace and fulfillment, we have to teach ourselves how to make heaven for other people. May be the way to find joy would be to create that joy for others, and while we make them smile, we will definitely smile as well. It is more blessed to give. While our lives are fraught with frustrations and pain, we don’t lessen our suffering when we project this frustration at others. Other people aren’t to blame for the darkness in our lives, neither are we. When we bully others because we were bullied by our bosses we set out a domino effect that causes a mess in the world which in some way eventually gets back at us; the cat spills the milk we worked tirelessly to bring home because he was kicked by the kid who was slapped by her mother who had been insulted by her husband who had been reprimanded by his boss. We are strong to the degree that we can smile at others even when our lives aren’t all roses and rainbows. So many people have come to the realization that the easiest way to happiness is to make others happy. You have no right to claim what you are not giving. You cannot earn other people’s respect when you are rude and patronizing, you have to respect others first. When you do the right thing, when you are kind and courteous to others, it is a small thing when they do not return it. What matters is we do the right thing, whether the world meets it with indifference at best or insults our efforts at worst should not worry us. People don’t degrade us when they insult or slander us, they degrade themselves. To love is the most courageous thing to do; to know that someone will hurt you at some point, but to still love them anyway. Those who don’t want to be hurt cannot love; those who cannot love will never be happy. It is the same thing with forgiveness. People are not perfect, it is both unfair and impossible to want them to be so. There are millions of people on earth, it is almost impossible not to step on each others toes. What we do not know is we ourselves have hurt many people while we thought we were joking; we have vociferated stinging comments that have harrowed the hearts of our victims to date ―we have caused wounds unable to heal. Yet, when people wrong us, we have never been willing to bear it. We have called it disrespect or even insubordination. To be free we need to forgive. We need to let go and let God in the most literal sense. Vengeance is his; let’s not claim part in it. Forgiveness isn’t what you do for someone else, its something you do for yourself. Love yourself enough to forgive. With that If I have ever hurt you in any way, in my words, actions,or even inaction, I am sorry. Be kind enough to forgive me. Life is meant to be messy, people are meant to be messy. We live because we love, and its true the other way round as well. So choose love.

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!