Resurrection
Forgetting how to write, pushing like my president in the '80s...
The Rubik’s Cube on my worktable is a metaphor for life. Save for a couple of dents, the cube is perfect. The block of coloured bricks looks just as it did on the day I passed money across a counter and walked away from it. Each brick is in the right place…until you fiddle with a brick painted red on one side and white on the other and the entire box comes apart in seconds and drenches you in a small pool of tri-coloured bricks.
Is it obvious that I have forgotten how to write? Let’s take this one word at a time and see how much of the rust I can shake off
What have I been up to? A lot. I have been pushing like my president in the ‘80s. The last few weeks have been a carousel of deliverables, meetings that should have been emails, emails that should have been emails. I know that last one doesn’t make sense but bear with me. There has been a of “wetin be this one like this” moments. A lot of “God abeg, I don’t want to be a mechanic, I want to be a baller” moments. But for now, I have to be a mechanic so that one day I can be a baller like my president. Get it?
About a year ago, I had to submit a quote for my work profile. My pick? "You are on your way, just keep going”, a quote from Into The Spiderverse, one of my favourite movies. When I resumed for work in January, my first question for a couple of colleagues consisted for six words “When is the next public holiday?” For context, I had just gotten back from a three-week break but I was tired from here to Jericho.
On a lot of days, it is hard to just keep going. It is hard to show up and do the work. It is hard to avoid and ask yourself what the point of all this is. Hard not to ask yourself if this is really adding up and some politician isn’t stealing the fruit of your labour. And when you avoid these semi-existential tripwires, there a small army of distractions, there’s fatigue, there’s the Nigerian factor. Sometimes, I catch myself staring into the distance at 2AM and wandering how much different my life would be if Buhari didn’t win the elections in 2015. Buhari’s victory coincided with my graduation from university and…you know what, I’m not even going to get into that.
I spend a bunch of time on Instagram and Pinterest, and it is amazing the type of life you can have as an ordinary person without a green passport from the giant of Africa. The hobbies you can have, the things you can do. Someone I follow on Instagram up and travelled to Japan on a whim. As much as I have a fertile imagination, it is hard to wrap my head around the many moving parts that have to fall in place for some of these things to happen while I am on this side of the equator.
Like a certain philosopher once said, “the lifestyle cost, na you no know”. The lifestyle is costly and I’m not referring to money. Being Nigerian feels a lot like being from the outside looking in. You don’t have a lot of options to choose from at least, not without burning another hole in your pocket. You can either spend your money on fuel or you spend it on food or electricity. Like the hands of geniuses when a question is asked, everything is going up. It’s easier to just leave the country and live a proper lifestyle. The one here is too chaotic and there’s more to life than deliverables. There’s a lot of things you have to plan around and de-risk for. So, it’s just easier to answer emails and stare at maps while sipping overpriced cups of coffee at Eric Kayser. At least that counts as a global experience of some sort, no?
What will I do about my fatigue? Absolutely nothing for now. Like I told my friend a couple of days ago, I have in a manner of speaking made my peace with it.
See you in two weeks. Promise.
Cover Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash
What have I been consuming?
A lot. While I was away, I finished a book and started three others. Progress, yes?
Top three picks:
The Netflix show “The Gentlemen” is easily the best thing I have watched in a while. I also started watching “Work, what we do” A series voiced by Barack Obama.
Thierry Henry’s podcast episode with Steve Bartlett is the most vulnerable honest podcast I have listened to in a while.
This piece by Brazilian boy wonder Endrick. There’s so much hunger and suffering in the article and even though he’s signed for the eternal rivals of the club I support, I’ll always root for him.