LONELY IS THE MIND THAT WONDERS

 

Heavy is the mind that wonders. We never quite claim our full potentiality. Imaginatively creating paths, deciding conclusions, and determining outcomes without knowing reality, because our decisions are visually determined by things floating casually through our minds, as if they were real.

Determining perspectives. Torturing our minds with scenarios only we can tell. Living out outcomes, punishing ourselves with concepts made available only through thoughts we have assumed to be real.

Doomed to repeat, fail, accuse, confuse, suggest… unwillingly. Sometimes, even visually blinding ourselves to what is actually there.

Time merges concepts, assumptions, and dreams, making them real. Merged as one, they become so convincing that you begin to question reality itself. You try to determine your course, as if it were a fate already suggested, multiplied in a time loop of constant reminders, sometimes even painful ones.

You tell yourself it is well deserved, so it becomes a constant. Assumed to be a punishment you deserve, you attack yourself with worry, creating division within your own mind. As if living in a constant high, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Yet you live through these experiences subconsciously, entertaining them, wondering about them, sabotaging yourself along the way.

Whether they will actually manifest, only God knows. But your mind seems to have already decided otherwise.

Only in our minds can we experience such a constant battle of envisioning, as if it were a doom scroll that keeps us up at night. One thought leads to another, one possibility opens the door to a thousand more, and before you know it, you are living through a reality that exists only in your imagination.

Your mind doesn't know how to shut off, the way your mouth does.

You are thrown into a world you have created, visually replaying, studying, and determining looping realities. Exaggerating possibilities, revisiting assumptions, and mentally rehearsing conversations that may never happen. You attempt to make sense of things that have not yet taken shape, sometimes convincing yourself that you are preparing for the worst when, in reality, you are simply living through it before it arrives.

And so, you keep going.

Replaying. Reconsidering. Reimagining.

Perhaps it is an attempt to gain control over what cannot be controlled. Perhaps it is a way of protecting yourself from disappointment, or preparing for a pain you believe you already know. Or perhaps, somewhere along the way, you became so accustomed to the noise that silence began to feel unfamiliar.

In the end, you have created a reality that only you can conceptually understand, and you find yourself paralysed within it. Not necessarily because the world has stopped moving, but because your mind has made movement difficult.

Lonely in your thoughts, consumed by your worries.

You choose not to say them out loud because, in your mind, they can still be controlled, reimagined, rearranged, and sometimes even undone. Once spoken, they become something else. Something that exists beyond you. Something another person might question, misunderstand, or see differently.

So you keep them there.

Hidden in the corners of your mind, where you can revisit them whenever you please, even when revisiting them is the very thing that hurts you.

But silence does not always make things smaller. Sometimes, what remains unspoken grows louder. What is imagined becomes familiar, and what is familiar begins to feel like truth. You may know, somewhere within yourself, that a thought is only a thought, yet that knowledge does not always stop you from feeling its weight.

And so, you wonder.

You wonder about what was, what is, and what could be. You wonder about the things you said, the things you should have said, and the things you might one day regret. You create possibilities, then question them. You question yourself, then create more possibilities.

A mind that never rests. A reality that never quite settles.

Perhaps the loneliest place to be is not necessarily alone, but somewhere inside a mind that has become too crowded to find its way out.

And perhaps the things we imagine are not always things we are meant to live through. Perhaps not every thought deserves a conclusion, not every possibility requires an answer, and not every imagined ending is a prophecy.

But how do you convince a mind that has already lived through it all?

How do you tell yourself that you are safe when your thoughts have spent the night convincing you otherwise?

Lonely is the mind that wonders, creating worlds it cannot always escape, carrying burdens that may not belong to it, and fighting battles that no one else can see.

And somehow, tomorrow, it will wonder again.

 

PURPOSE, AMBITION, HOPE AND FAITH

 

If I were being completely honest, I have started to wonder whether my purpose was ever really mine.

Maybe some of us are born carrying things we never consciously chose. Expectations. Dreams. Possibilities. A quiet sense that there is somewhere we are supposed to arrive, something we are supposed to become, something that will eventually make all of this make sense.

For a long time, I thought I knew what mine was.

Maybe it was to give those around me something to believe in. A reason to keep hoping. Something to look forward to. Perhaps my ambition became a kind of borrowed ambition, one that gave purpose not only to me, but to the people watching, waiting, praying, and believing alongside me.

And I have always found something beautiful about people who pray.

There is something about faith that keeps a person moving when there is very little evidence that anything is changing. Hope can be strange like that. It does not necessarily need proof. Sometimes it simply needs tomorrow.

But then you get older.

And so do the people around you.

Time becomes less abstract. You start noticing things you once ignored. The passing of years. The absence of people who were once here. The quiet changes in familiar faces. The conversations that become more meaningful because you suddenly understand that there may not be an endless supply of them.

You realise, perhaps for the first time, that we are all moving towards the same ending.

No one gets out of this world alive.

And somehow, knowing that makes everything feel heavier.

The ambitions. The plans. The things I thought I would have accomplished by now. The person I imagined I would become. Even the destiny I once believed was waiting for me somewhere ahead.

What if it was never destiny?

What if it was simply something I needed to believe in so that I could keep moving?

Or perhaps it was real, but I took a wrong turn somewhere. Perhaps I am still walking towards it. Perhaps there is no destination at all.

People start leaving this world, and suddenly the questions become less philosophical.

What have I actually done?

What am I still waiting for?

How much time is left?

And why does it sometimes feel as though I have spent so much of my life preparing to live, that I forgot to actually live?

Still, I find myself hoping.

Maybe that is the strange thing about faith. Even when reality becomes difficult to look at, some small part of you continues to believe there is more.

Maybe there is another chapter.

Another beginning.

Another life.

Maybe all the things I could not become here will make sense somewhere else. Maybe the things I could not finish were never meant to be finished. Maybe purpose is not always something we achieve. Maybe sometimes it is simply what keeps us going.

And if there is nothing beyond this?

Then perhaps that is the most frightening possibility of all.

That we arrive, we love, we hope, we struggle, we pray, we become, we lose, and eventually we disappear.

Maybe that is all there is.

Or maybe it isn’t.

For now, I think I will keep the uncertainty.

I will keep the faith.

I will keep hoping that there is something beyond what I can see.

Because perhaps hope itself is a kind of purpose.

And perhaps, for some of us, that is enough to keep walking until the lights go off.

 

FAILURE

We talk a lot about success, but no one really talks about failure.

I have realized that being a failure isn't something you wake up one day and decide to become. Being a failure is waking up every single day, trying again, giving everything you have to a task, only to fail... then doing it all over again tomorrow. Before you know it, you're 41 with a pile of unsuccessful launches behind you, and the voices in your head have become louder than anything your work could ever say about you.

Those voices become a constant reminder of your reality.

People mean well. They encourage you. They tell you to keep going. They tell you your breakthrough is around the corner. They remind you that consistency pays off. They tell you not to give up.

But you swim in failure.

You're used to it.

Failure becomes your constant. You wake up to it. You go to sleep with it. The world around you reminds you that this is your reality, that maybe this is all you're ever going to be, that there is no way out.

Why wouldn't you believe it?

If everything you've touched has failed, eventually the evidence starts speaking louder than hope.

You try again.

You fail again.

You try differently.

You fail differently.

Eventually you stop arguing with reality because reality has won every single time.

So you're silenced by the betrayal. You sit in the misery and let it swallow you whole.

The greatest betrayal isn't failure itself. It's believing the promises that consistency, discipline, and hard work always lead somewhere. You believed the formula because that's what everyone tells you.

Work hard.

Stay consistent.

Don't quit.

Simple.

Except... something never comes.

You keep checking.

You keep refreshing.

You keep hoping that maybe today will be different.

If not today, then tomorrow.

If not tomorrow, then next month.

If not this year, then surely next year.

But it's all the same.

The same disappointment.

The same silence.

The same cycle that you're desperately trying to beat, yet somehow never escape.

And maybe that's why they say expectations are the thief of joy.

Not because we expect too much from life...

But because somewhere along the way we imagined a version of ourselves that doesn't exist.

We imagined the career we'd have.

The life we'd be living.

The impact we'd make.

The person we'd become.

We grieve people all the time, but no one talks about grieving the version of yourself you were convinced you'd one day meet.

Maybe that's where the pain really comes from.

Not just failing...

But realizing you're becoming someone you never imagined you'd be.

You get used to people's encouragement. At some point it becomes background noise. It's a song you've heard so many times that you know every lyric. Eventually you start singing it too because that's what you're supposed to do.

"You've got this."

"Your time is coming."

"Don't stop now."

So you repeat those words to yourself just to get through another day.

But do you really have it?

Or are you simply a failure who was placed on this earth to be an example of what not to be?

Because somehow everyone else seems to know the formula, and it works for them.

You know the same formula.

You've studied it.

You've applied it.

You've followed it.

But for some reason...

It doesn't work for you.

Maybe you're the exception to the rule.

After all, every probability has someone sitting inside that impossible percentage. That tiny 0.00001%.

Maybe it's you.

Eventually you stop asking why.

Eventually you stop expecting different results.

Eventually you begin to believe that maybe failure isn't something that's happening to you.

Maybe failure is who you are.

And maybe that's all you'll ever amount to.

The sooner you accept it, the easier it becomes to stop expecting life to surprise you.

Otherwise...

You repeat the cycle.

Again.

And again.

And again.

A lifetime spent chasing a dream that was never meant for you.

Maybe that's what failure really is.

Not one moment.

Not one bad decision.

Not one unsuccessful launch.

Just waking up every day believing that if you try one more time, maybe this time it will be different...

...only to discover that it never is.

Or maybe...

Maybe it only feels permanent because I'm writing this before the story is over.

Maybe that's the cruel thing about failure.

It convinces you that you've reached the final chapter, when in reality you're only standing on the page you're currently reading.

And maybe one day I'll come back to this post and realize I was wrong.

I don't know.

Today, this is what failure feels like.

Tomorrow...

Maybe I'll have another page to write.

KNOWLEDGE IS TIME

 

Time is so construed.

The older I get, the more I realize how limited our time really is. Memories, our thoughts, they feel so linear. It feels like the other day, then suddenly years begin to feel like months. I think back and try to imagine what an entire decade feels like when it's reduced to a handful of memories. It's almost unimaginable how quickly time flies.

But for this blog, I want to equate time with knowledge.

This year I decided to learn a new language. French.

As I learn it, I'm taking my time with it. One new word every day, almost like a child learning how to speak. Learning a new language has become the challenge I've given myself to slow down time.

When you're learning something new, especially something difficult, everything feels slow. Progress is almost invisible. Your brain is trying to understand unfamiliar concepts, build new connections, and remember things that weren't there yesterday.

What makes the difference is time.

I think memories become anchors in our lives. The more knowledge we gain during a certain period, the richer that memory becomes. It stretches that moment when we look back on it.

At the same time, I spent a month learning a dance routine.

When I first watched the video, I couldn't imagine myself ever completing it. I saw the whole routine and thought, "How am I ever going to remember all of this?"

But by the end of the month, I had done it, with the help of my brother of course!

Now that I know the routine, it feels easy. The same dance that once seemed impossible now feels natural. The knowledge changed my relationship with it.

I imagine that's how it will be with French. My brain will eventually recognize patterns, grasp words more easily, and build sentences faster. Then one day, almost without noticing, I'll be speaking another language.

Just like the dance.

Everything takes time.

So for now, I try to anchor my life with the things I learn. I try to fill my days with new knowledge, new experiences, new skills. In some strange way, it feels like I'm extending time itself.

Maybe that's why I've always loved philosophy, ethics, logic, and the simple act of studying life. Wondering why things are the way they are has always fascinated me.

I think about Isaac Newton seeing an apple fall from a tree. Countless people had watched apples fall before him, but he asked a different question. It wasn't just about the apple. It became about gravity, mathematics, physics, and understanding the invisible rules governing our world.

It makes me wonder whether we have philosophers in Kenya.

I'm sure we do.

They just seem quiet, almost muted. Maybe it's because I don't go looking for them. Or maybe we've come to value philosophy only as something to be taught, instead of something to be lived. We teach ideas that already exist, but perhaps we spend less time asking new questions, challenging assumptions, or creating concepts born from our own experiences.

I often wonder what would happen if we thought more deeply about our own cultures.

If we reasoned from an African perspective.

If we studied colonization, not just as history, but as something that shaped our behaviour, our thinking, our institutions, and even the way we see ourselves.

Maybe we'd move further ahead.

Maybe we'd build ideas that make sense for our own environments instead of constantly borrowing solutions that were created for different histories, different struggles, and different societies.

Or maybe I'm simply an artist.

A wondering artist.

Always lost somewhere deep in thought.

Questioning the world around me. Looking for answers, even in places that don't matter, simply because I enjoy entertaining an idea and seeing where it leads.

So for now, I look at time and I equate it with knowledge.

Learning one new skill at a time.

One new word.

One new thought.

One new question.

Maybe that's what the old saying really means.

That with time comes wisdom.

Or perhaps wisdom comes from what we choose to do with our time.

 

ART IS DEAD!

Art is dead, not in a good way, but in a way that almost makes people forget what talent truly is.

The concept of artists has transformed over centuries. There was once a time when artists were deeply appreciated for their skill and talent. In a world where cameras did not exist, we needed artists to paint moments into memory. Artists captured frozen moments in time through portraits created in real-time, where one would pause, sit still, and an artist would carefully paint them into history. That was how people were remembered.

Then came the introduction of cameras. Suddenly, we had a new form of capturing time, a way to preserve reality exactly as it appeared in a specific moment and space. Yet even with photography, people still searched for ways to manipulate reality, reshape it, and mold it into their own concepts and imagination.

But even then, artists were never rendered useless.

There was still an appreciation for effort. For the hours poured into a piece. For the patience, skill, and emotion behind every stroke of a brush. People admired not just the final outcome, but the process itself, the human ability to translate feeling, memory, and reality into something tangible.

Now, however, we have entered an age where effort does not always translate into success, money, or even recognition. So how do we make it count? How do we make our art matter in a world where creativity itself almost feels reduced to entertainment and convenience?

Because what do you mean someone can type a prompt, press a button, and art is generated within seconds by a machine trained on the works of millions of actual artists? A machine that feeds off years of human practice, failure, experimentation, sacrifice, and talent, only to produce something "new" from a few words and a click.

And yet, we still call that art.

Art borrowed from the labor of many, stitched together to impress, and impressive it is. But somewhere in the middle of all this advancement, something quietly changed.

We stopped valuing effort.

We stopped valuing process.

We stopped valuing the human behind the creation.

And suddenly, art began to feel disposable.

Not just the talent itself, but the appreciation for it. Or maybe simply the lack of appreciation altogether.

Because we now live in a world where you constantly have to prove your worth. A world where machines can create faster than you. A world where millions of people, many more skilled than you, are placed in front of your eyes every single day.

And we see it.

We know it.

And somehow, we still cannot compete.

Our hands ache from the hours spent creating, but still, this is who we are.

A lot of us artists are surviving purely on the fact that our art is us. Our talent is not just something we do; it is who we are. It is the one thing we know how to give to the world in the most honest way possible.

And so we keep creating anyway.

Even when it feels unseen.

Even when it feels unappreciated.

Even when the world moves faster than human hands can keep up with.

Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that despite everything I've said, I still find myself using AI. Not because I believe it is better than human creativity, but because it is convenient. It saves time. And in a world where the difference between ten hours of work and ten seconds of generation often goes unnoticed, convenience becomes difficult to ignore.

And it isn't just AI. Every day, I see art being reposted, repurposed, reused, and shared without credit. The work continues to travel, but somewhere along the way, the artist disappears. The creation remains, yet the creator is forgotten.

Maybe that's what I've been grieving all along. Not the technology itself, but the loss of appreciation for the effort, the process, and the human behind the work.

And maybe, just maybe, one day the world will remember what it means to truly feel something made by human hands.

Because talent is still here.

Despite it all, artists are still here.

We never stopped creating.

We simply stopped being appreciated.

Art did not die because talent disappeared.

It died where appreciation ended.

THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL AND THE WEIGHT WE GIVE THINGS

 

There’s something we do so often without even realizing it…
We give things meaning. So much meaning that they begin to control us.

Our emotions start to shift based on whether we have them or not. We feel like we’re missing out, like we’re falling behind, like we should want something simply because everyone else does. And sometimes, when you really pause and think about it… You realize you didn’t even want it to begin with.

But the world is loud.

Social norms, expectations, the people around us, they plant ideas, subtly and consistently. They shape desires we didn’t consciously choose. And before you know it, you’re chasing something out of fear… the fear of missing out, the fear of being left behind, the fear of not fitting into a version of life that was never truly yours.

At the same time, there’s this need to control everything.

To control outcomes. To control people. To control how things turn out.

But control… is limiting.

Because the more I’ve tried to control everything around me, the more I’ve realized how little of it is actually mine to hold. I can’t control whether someone loves me or chooses me. I can’t control whether a company decides to hire me or work with me. I can’t control whether people see value in the things I enjoy or create.

I can’t force people to understand, to agree, or to stay.

And maybe that’s the lesson.

That the only thing I truly have control over… is myself.
My choices. My direction. My response.

So instead of trying to shape everything else, I’m learning to center my desires. To strip them down to what’s actually mine, without the pressure, without the noise of what others think I should want, whether good or bad.

Because influence is powerful.

The same way, as an artist, you can start with a clear vision of what you want to create… and slowly, without even noticing, outside voices begin to shape it. Opinions, trends, expectations, they creep in. And suddenly, what you end up with feels different. Not wrong… just not fully yours.

That’s the weight influence carries.

It can bury your original idea if you give it too much space.

And I’ve come to realize something else too, something that shifted how I see my work as a creative. Creating has never really been the hard part for me.

Starting something, building it, showing up consistently, that part flows. I can create over and over again. Ideas come, and I bring them to life.

And the truth is… people do see it.

They admire it. They acknowledge it. They even see the value in it.

But that’s not the hard part.

The hard part is moving from being seen… to being chosen.

To convince someone to take that extra step, to buy it, to invest in it, to make it theirs. That shift… is where the real challenge lies.

Because that part involves other people.

It’s like publishing a book, you can pour your heart into writing it, designing it, bringing it into existence… and people may praise it, talk about it, even celebrate it.

But getting them to actually take it home? To own it?

That’s a different kind of ability, nature, or force, a different kind of vulnerability.

And maybe that’s where everything connects.

Control. Desire. Influence.

Learning what is mine to carry… and what isn’t.

I can create. I can choose. I can show up.

But I can’t control the moment someone decides, this is for me.

So instead of holding so tightly to outcomes, to validation, to expectations, I’m learning to release. To create from a place that feels true to me, and to let that be enough.

To trust that what is meant for me will find me…
And what isn’t, was never mine to force.

 

BETWEEN WHO WE ARE AND WHO WE SHOW

 

I have this theory.

Everyone is cool… until you know them on a personal level.

On the surface, people shine. The way they carry themselves, the way they speak, how put-together they seem. Attractive. Impressive. Effortless. You look at them and imagine a life that must be soft, beautiful, maybe even perfect.

We assume so much from so little.

But the older I get, the more I sit with people, the more I listen… the more I realize something else entirely.

Everyone is carrying something.

Heavy things.

Unspoken things.

The kind of things that don’t show up in a smile, or a good outfit, or a well-curated post. The kind of things that sit quietly behind the eyes.

And the more I learn about people, the more it almost… breaks something in me.

Maybe it’s because I feel too much.

I don’t just hear people, I absorb them. Their stories don’t pass through me lightly. They stay. They echo. They settle somewhere in my chest like a weight I didn’t ask for but somehow agreed to carry.

And sometimes it feels like too much.

Like the world is heavier than it looks.

Like everyone is walking around with invisible baggage, pretending it’s light.

There are days I almost don’t want to know.

Not because I don’t care, but because I care too much.

Because knowing means feeling.
And feeling means carrying.

……………………………………………………

I think about this sometimes when I look at my family.

I know them.

Not the surface version, the real version. The layered, complicated, imperfect version. I’ve seen the good, the difficult, the quiet struggles… and yet, I love them deeply.

We still fit.

We still choose each other.

And it makes me wonder…

How long does it take to know someone like that?

To get past the version they present to the world?

Because with strangers, it often feels like we are all performing. Softening our edges. Hiding our weight. Wearing versions of ourselves that are easier to accept.

Masks, but beautiful ones.

And maybe… that is why we find ourselves going back to the people who have known us all along. Old friends who feel like family. The ones who have seen us in different seasons and stayed anyway.

Maybe that is why it becomes harder to “network” and build new friendships and relationships the older you get.

Because depth takes time.
Because knowing someone, really knowing them, requires patience, presence, and a willingness to sit with both the light and the heavy.

And not everyone is ready for that.

……………………………………………………

And maybe that’s why pretense feels comfortable.

It’s easier to believe in the highlight reel.

To walk around imagining that everyone is okay. That the world is lighter than it really is. That people are exactly who they present themselves to be.

Social media has perfected this illusion.

We all paint something.

A moment. A mood. A version of ourselves we’re proud of.

Even the people we admire the most, the ones who seem to have everything figured out, show us something curated. Something intentional. Something… incomplete.

And sometimes, we envy that.

We think, I want that life.

But the deeper you go, the more you understand what it took, what it costs, what it carries…

You start to hesitate.

You start to realize: maybe not.

……………………………………………………

And somewhere in that realization, something shifts.

You stop comparing as much.

You stop desiring lives you don’t fully understand.

You start to see your own life… differently.

Your burdens.

Your pace.

Your path.

And you realize something quietly grounding:

Your life is yours for a reason.

Your capacity is not random.

What you carry was not assigned carelessly.

Only God knows what is enough for you.

Not too little.
Not too much.
Just… enough.

……………………………………………………

And in that knowing, there is a kind of peace.

A return to self.

A soft acceptance.

That I am me, fully, intentionally, and not by accident.

With my sensitivity.
With my creativity.
With the way I feel deeply and see deeply, and sometimes carry too much.

Even that has a purpose.

……………………………………………………

Maybe everyone is cool on the surface.

But underneath?

We are all human.

Layered. Complex. Carrying things.

And maybe the goal isn’t to avoid knowing people deeply…

But to learn how to hold that knowledge gently.

Without losing ourselves in it.

Without forgetting this simple truth:

I am enough.