Maybe I don’t know (Incoherent thoughts)
You might be wondering why I chose this title. I don’t know too. It just embodies what I’m going through at the moment. I totally have no idea why I’m writing this, but you can read it. That’s the beauty of technology. You can let any and everybody into your head, revealing too much or revealing so little, or maybe revealing a curated ‘you’ for the world, but I digress.
I’m working on a short story, I’m working on a drawing, a graphite pencil drawing, but I feel it isn’t coming out correctly. I haven’t drawn since 2018, and it feels like I can’t draw anymore or don’t have the patience to let the drawing draw itself.
I love art. I love to think I am an artist, a visual artist who has lost his touch; who do I have to sacrifice to get it back? Back then, in High School, I loved art history, both Nigerian and European, the Ben Enwonwus, Yusuf Grillo to Mich Angelo, Da Vinci, etcetera.
I am a writer going through writer’s block. I am an unpublished writer. I just have one piece, I feel it was basic, but it got good reviews. How do the greats do it? I believe in simple writing; there is no need to make my audience pause to look up words in the dictionary. We know you are smart. I like non-linear plots, tell the story from different perspectives. Just mix it up but don’t confuse the reader. Fine prose, unadorned prose. But what do publishers want nowadays? I wonder. I used to like poetry, I feel I still like poetry, simple poetry, funny poetry, like the one Moyo wrote. Poetry is the mind on paper or on a computer or on your phone, wherever you read from. I like poets who say it as it is, no much edits, raw, undiluted poetry.
In other news, I just marked my birthday on the 14th of April, Wednesday. I had an interview that day, the hustle. Dad won’t stop reminding me, wake up, son, you need to make money. I was grateful to complete another 365 days. Don’t be ungrateful son, you see another year.
I just completed Nigerian law school, the law school I always dreaded. I don’t want to talk about it. They say this is an elitist profession, ‘Lawyer’ Fela hated Judges. He sang, ‘Judge hin go kak wig and jail hin broda away, no be so’. The majority of lawyers are either middle-class or earning stipends for an elitist profession. I hate the word stipend. What’s that? Another word for the adjective ‘meagre’, then wig and gown in a stuffy courtroom, all too comical. Maybe I should talk about my mental health; it’s suffering, but I shouldn’t talk about it for claps or retweets.
On your mark…. Welcome to the rat race. That’s what’s next, isn’t it? Maybe I’m just lazy. Emefiele, I also need the money you guys are printing and allocating to states; I’m Nigerian too. I don’t want to be waking up by 5am to go to work and come back late to sleep after 12am and repeat the cycle for a whole week. Then party during the weekends, no I don’t like nightclubs, never been to one. Why can’t we all work remotely, except essential workers, and they should be paid more. What do you do for fun? I hate a repetitive lifestyle; that’s what this whole corporate thing is. But it pays off in the end; after 20 years or less, you might be an MD or a Partner, depending on which route you take. Isn’t that interesting? Life expectancy in Nigeria is 55. Lagos can shorten that. I just heard Prince Philip designed his own Hearse, that’s interesting, drip even in death, that’s what I thought until I saw it, a simple man he was. The world is created for the white man and the Nigerian politician and those part of the oligarchy; wouldn’t it be fun to be in that club.
How long will the rat race last? Is the price at the end your pension? When you’re all wrinkled, but you might have a legacy, your family, that’s what’s most important. What if you don’t want a family? What will be your legacy? Who would share the bounty? Charity hustlers? Social justice warriors? Doesn’t the world go round? It’s all a hustle. Everything is a hustle.
Maybe I am delusional for not wanting the usual, but there has to be more than just Lagos hustle. I’m not talking about religion; it’s hustle as well. God come and save us. Then the question I ask myself is, what do I want? I haven’t found the answer; I hope I find it soon. It’s fuck Buhari too over here. Why do you spoil everything your hand touches? You did that in the 80s, doing it in the 21st century; that’s consistency. Then they want Tinubu to succeed him. The circus is about to get even more destructive.
Written on 16th of April 2021.
