We’re coming to the end of the year and my creativity is starting to behave like my hairline. So in order to keep the blog going, I’m going to let you into my diary – a place I talk to myself about myself. I will post an entry or two from my diary that I feel can be of value to most, you are free to use that information as you deem relevant. Please note, these are pages written by me, about me, for me, have that in mind as you read. Twende kazi.
ENTRY 17|10|2021
WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THINGS?
What a beautiful morning. Grateful for another day that I have the opportunity to stroll around the sun. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the nature of reality. It’s important to remember that the universe optimizes for the whole and not for an individual. This means that apart from your own selfish wishes nothing is inherently bad, because it was never about you to begin with, the universe does not optimize for you. It means that everything, just like in love and war, is fair game. This is why Ken Juma should never take anything personally.
The only way we can know other people is by creating a version of them in our heads. We will never experience others the way we experience ourselves and the reverse is true. Everyone has a version of themselves in their minds that only them can access. Does this mean that misunderstanding is built into our relationships and lives? That it is impossible to completely eliminate misunderstandings? How should this inform how Ken Juma lives? As a matter of experience, we can only impose our fantasies on to the physical forms of others, that person you think you know doesn’t exist anywhere else apart from your head, always remember that. Another reason you should be careful with how you engage social media, everyone you see succeeding at something is only succeeding at the things you are seeing, truth is, everyone is FAILING at something, regardless of the picture they portray or the picture you’ve built in your head.
This applies to everyone you think you know. We are always stuck in a paradigm since each of us must take a perspective in order to be functional. And by taking a perspective it means you limit how much you can understand about a thing or a person. It means you have to find one way to understand someone, mostly, we only have access to one way of understanding but everyone can be understood through many different ways; a father is also a son, a pastor is also a husband, a thief is also a brother to someone and a prostitute could have been an A student. Needless to say, our one way will never suffice in fully understanding anyone. Being aware of this will reduce how much we judge each other.
ENTRY : 14|07|2022
NOTHING LASTS..
Interesting times, even they will not last. Nothing was meant to be forever. Not love, not a ruler, not wealth, nor beauty; all is for the now. The feelings we experience in the moment, the ones yet to come, nothing lasts. Ken Juma, face every moment of your life with this approach, revel in impermanency. The best of us never lose sight of this; everything, everyone, everything about everyone comes with an expiry date, don’t forget that. This is not meant to invite sorrow into your life, it’s to invite freedom.
We live our lives as though tomorrow is promised and we end up taking for granted our unfolding lives. We are constantly searching, judging, planning, thinking thoughts without being aware of what we are doing. We shift from one state of mind into the next, from doing one thing into another. Most of the time our minds are half conscious, we are so used to living like this we don’t even notice it. You should not live like this; take time to be still, to be silent, to observe, to understand and to actually experience what Ken Juma has the ability and opportunity to experience. The only life you have is this one, the one you are planning in your head is imagination, the one you digging from your past is mere memory, life is happening here and now, wake the f*ck up!
Life is always on a path to it’s end (death), that is just the natural progression of things in our world. Everybody you see is in the process of getting old and dying. Even the most beautiful and fittest among us, if they are lucky, will live to become soggy, wrinkled and forced to face their imminent demise. To use an analogy; it’s like we are falling off a cliff to our deaths but are glued to our phones to even notice what’s going on.
Remember, being busy is not a flex, could actually be a sign that you are going through life in dream state. Try to slow down as much as possible; see things, listen to people, be present.
