Clueless Twenties

  Nothing beats the gorgeous chaos and human traffic that is a Nairobi Friday evening. The hawkers scattered all over the streets, some being chased by kanjo, dondas screaming at the top of their lungs their destinations and fares, the mats hooting, and nganyas with the loud bass music. The people leaving their workplaces are bumping into each other, rushing to either get home or, most of them, rushing to get to the nearest club. Basking artists with their huge speakers, photographers scattered in cute places hustling, ladies of the night with their gum and short dresses and skirts and shorts scattered in dingy streets whistling and hollering at the men and sometimes women passing by, and men with their famous "Why aren't you smiling?" among other cat-calling they think is clever. On a normal day, this would overstimulate me and piss me off, maybe especially the bumping and cat-calling, but for some reason Fridays inspire writings like these, and it is the day I put my pe...

Death of Individualism. Everything feels… edited lately. Not calm. Not peaceful. Just… reduced. Conversations that never quite land anywhere. Opinions that arrive already softened. People who are easy to be around but difficult to locate. It is not that there is nothing to say. It is that nothing is being said fully. You see, dear reader, I find it uncomfortable, the comfort we have found in losing individualism, in losing a sense of self . At first, it reads as taste. As maturity. As a collective leaning toward simplicity. But sit with it long enough, and something else begins to surface, a quiet absence. Not loud enough to alarm, but persistent enough to notice. A sense that in trying to become more palatable, more acceptable, and more universally agreeable, something essential has been edited out: one's identity. We have, in subtle and socially rewarded ways, learned how to present ourselves in neutral tones. Not just visually, but conversationally, emotionally, and intellectual...