TWO LESSONS I'M STILL CARRYING INTO 2020

Well mjango, today marks another successful year in my blogging journey. Oh trust me it has crossed my mind several times about whether to still carry on but the fact that you, yes you – are still committed to reading me here is what keeps me going.
You folks don’t know what level of joy fills my heart and creative guts when I hear someone whom I would never have imagined would ever read my work does read and love what I do here. How it feels to show up somewhere and when my name, Mjango, is mentioned from the blues, some people turn to confirm who that is because they have heard that name before. And then comes the nods and small talks of appreciation of my craft. I am left flattered and dry of words.
On the day after my birthday, last month I attended an alumni reunion in my primary school. Well, an alumni is not necessarily someone who has made it in life and is now coming back to retrace his/her steps in their former school. At least that’s what we used to think in high school. Our high school had given rise (still does) to a number of big names in this country. Kabaa High School, so to mention. Most of those we got to know were engineers. They drove beasts and splashed money on our teachers saying, “Nunulieni vijana soda leo,” and that day would be reminisced for Kabaa knows how long.
Anyway, I was telling you one of the humbling experiences that come with my work. We had a tremendous time after the alumni meeting which was iced by our unplanned retreat to go to some lounge around the neighborhood. I must mention it’s mind blowing to see what about eight years could do to people. I’ll skip the details for now.
Later while we were leaving, a former classmate, Davie, big up wherever you are – begins a conversation about my blogs and it catches fire by the tail. When I thought it was over, he tells some friends he had come with, “Hey this is the Mjango.” People I had never met before accorded me so much honour first in their surprise and joy for what to them seemed like a ‘finally I get to meet him’ moment.
Believe me, for reasons like those and many more I am unable to mention in this limited space, I get the zeal to keep doing what I do best; and that is bringing you the realities of life on a silver platter in form of stories.
Stories that are not just stories but ones that millenials like you and me relate to. When anyone reaches out to me after I post a piece saying, “Mjango, honestly I can relate with that,” I take that as the bingo moment of my efforts. Again thank you everyone.
I know many of you loyal readers have been asking things like, “What’s next for The Mjango Series?” I either laughed it off or gave a political answer or told you that it’s just a matter of time and I’m working on it. Allow me, mjango, to reserve my words and speak in form of actions. Just remember before there was light, there was once darkness and void. Your loyalty to my work keeps psyching me up to find where the switch is.
I also haven’t forgotten that some of you have been whispering in my ear about writing a book.

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I’d like to share a piece of my mind, experience or story – whatever you want to call it. But I like to call it two things I learnt in 2019 that I am definitely carrying with me into 2020.
These are things that are almost not new to people who surround me and listen to me when I talk. They are things that have made me view life quite differently from the way I used to and just so you know, I love it. It has helped me and still does help me not to live in assumption or as I like to call it, oblivion.
Now stay with me here mjango, because you’re going with me to the Himalayas of my mind. I am not promising it will be smooth.
Fantasy is a drug that I strive to drain out of my system. It is the same drug that is related to expectations. We all know that son of a gun called expectations that has caused a myriad of heartbreaks in you and me in time past.
We put all our money on the horse that seemed to be promising. The horse was in good shape. Actually when they said as healthy as a horse they were referring to that particular horse you know by name. Not only was it filled with vigor and strength but also beauty and style. Leaving you drooling when it walks by.
That horse could have been your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, dad, mum, brother, sister, cousin, best friend and shi*. You had never imagined that that horse that had all the stars tattooed on its butt would be the one to let you down or best put, betray you.
I am not saying we are wrong to trust people in our lives. But I am saying we will be fools to be oblivious of the odds that life is a b*tch and an unfair one for that matter and it does not owe you crap! Anything can happen and that means anyone can happen too.
The sooner we learn that, the better we will be in dealing with the dynamics of life. Note that this is not really a disaster prevention ‘mechanism’ but more of a distaster ‘management’ ‘strategy.’ In other words, this will not prevent you from being heartbroken for instance. But it will do a better job at acquainting you with the possible outcomes which automatically your human response is highly likely to lead you to tread with absolute cognition; the psychological result of perception, learning and reasoning.
In other words you are made to perceive, learn and then reason out as you make yourself aware of the realities.
These are the two basic things that I have also used as slogans – associated with learning not to live in oblivion:

1. Never say Never.

This mostly applies and is related to situations. I chuckled when I reached this part because it amuses and amazes me every time I think about it. Part of the reason it amuses me is because if you’re close to me, you have heard me recite this over and over whenever we converse.
Let’s break it down. Read it slowly while thinking about each word. Never. Say. Never.
The surface meaning is: don’t dare to say ‘never.’
The deeper meaning is when you say “I will never,” what power do you have in place to ensure what you said ‘never’ to doesn’t actually happen? Okay, I figured you’d say you have the power of will. Which is a good thing. But don’t you think the universe has a greater power? Don’t you think people out there who have done things in their lives that they had sworn over their dogs’ lives never to do never had the power of will like you do?
In fact, so you may get what I’m saying, stop and think about the times you said you’d never do something and later you ended up doing it.
I said stop reading!
Like literally!
Hehe.
And reflect.
You’ll realise you’re laughing at yourself because you’ve realised that you have at one point violated your own decree that you held on too so dearly and even violently.
You have probably realised that you said you’d never get back with your ex even when you’re threatened with castration. And yet there you were or even maybe you still are. A slight massage on your balls made you give in and you forgot you had said never and even called her Medusa.
You said you would never date a player like him. You said all he does is snap off bras and pull panties. Today, you cannot explain how you fell for his charms. You probably even fell for him when you were wearing barely anything inside making it even way easier for him to ‘roga roga’ you.
I learnt this, quite amusingly after reflecting like you probably have by now. I realised that I had fallen prey to many of the things I had said ‘never’ to in times before.
Like in 2018, as I had said this is one of the things that I picked up last year – I had every reason to believe I had found my definition of perfect. Have you ever seen yourself in someone?
She knows everything you love and everything you do. She recites your own words to you and even picks them as her own. She thinks like you because you can’t even count the number of times you have said the same things coincidentally.
Just when you were thinking of calling her she calls you. When she was thinking of checking up on you, she tells you that she was just typing your number on her dialler because she has already crammed it like her own.
She feels like her world is crumbling down when you’re unwell even if it’s just an annoying flu. She’d literally have a bad day when you say you have to go to hospital.
When you’re hiding something from her she’d know just from the tone of your voice. After a fight, you wander off to cool down. When you talk again she can smell the scent of another girl on your t shirt. She can see the look of another girl that just made your evening on your face just by looking into your eyes. You’d deny that you had gone to hang out with your girl friends because that’s what guys opt to do when there is trouble in their own house.
She made you promise umpteen times that you’d never leave her and if you did have to, come clean with her instead of just walking away unceremoniously.
She was the only one who was able to drug you into giving her the keys of your highly secured list of things you cannot compromise. More like your Krabby Patty formula.
You two once asked yourselves about what could possibly deny both of you a future together. Seeing the evident intensity of your love, nothing stood out. Unfaithfulness was out of the question. Incompatibility was null and void.
Then that’s how I told myself that what we had was ‘never ending.’ I bet by now you’re familiar with what is likely to follow after the word ‘never.’ It did follow quite brutally.
I know you might say as long as you have standards nothing can change that. You will say your words have power so declare what you want it to be and it shall be. All that, my friend is all true and good. However remember what I had started by saying. Oblivion! Oblivion is not acquainting yourself with the possible realities because we are living in a world where anything and I say anything can happen.
So what to do now Mjango? It’s simple. Keep it to yourself. Don’t go about telling us you will do and you will never do.
That reminds me, the ‘Never say never’ I also tweaked it a bit and said, ‘Never say ever.’ Again, how many times did you say you will do and did not even come a centimeter close to doing it?
So in my opinion, because you don’t have to take it, either keep to yourself or add a ‘God willing’ or ‘so help me God’ at the end of your ‘never’ statement – if you want to say it. But I’d insist, if you don’t have to say it, don’t say it. And if you’re going to say it either to someone else or just your own conscience, well prepare yourself for any outcome. Recite the probable possibilities to yourself and hope for the best. Be optimistic but again don’t be assumptive. Period.
Si we continue with the second and last lesson next week as usual my country people? Wink!