I am not ambitious

Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.

It would thus be impossible that I do anything close to ambitious. I recall a psychometric analysis I did some time back as part of performance evaluation that showed I am laid back and lack ambition. Some people think differently but I will stick by the analysis, for now.

Unlike my friend shelldigger who has been building boats and motors, I believe in delegated responsibility and I stick only to what I know. You recall I said I built my own pc while in campus. It wasn’t ambitious and I guess anyone who can read a motherboard wouldn’t have a problem doing it.

Is cooking considered a DIY? But before we get here, if there is one thing I would want to learn to do would be to buy a rim and spokes separately and arrange them to have make a bike wheelset and maybe build a bike. But I am certain, this and servicing my car will remain dreams. Big dreams.

So back to cooking. It is much easy to buy bread. Walk to the nearest shop and select a loaf of bread or loaves depending on how addicted one is to bread. To bake bread is something else. I had to start by using a search engine to find the recipe that looked simple enough for me and one where I had all the ingredients. I got everything together, prepared the dough whilst making a mess of the kitchen, set the oven to the required temperature set a timer and got everything going. Somewhere in this blog, the photos of that activity can be found. I am too lazy now to be bothered to find it.

So there you have it. The most ambitious DIY project from the least ambitious person known to man.

Let me think

If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?

I don’t like banning things. Words especially. While some people seem to be bothered that specific words have been misused, overused beyond recognition or something, I am not bothered. Let people use words as they deem fit. Maybe we just burn the people we don’t like, especially when they use words we don’t like. This will go a long way to promoting freedom of speech we agree with.

What do you think?

can you have morals without religion

Yes but most people seem to struggle with this as is demonstrated in this article where the Rabbi is not sure where he wants to commit.

Proposal defense

What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?

But that’s so far into the future. I don’t even plan for the week ahead letting things fall into place on their own. Sometimes even what we think would be the biggest challenge turn out to be really nothing and what was not even in the radar becomes the biggest challenge. So while I might think of the PhD proposal defense as the biggest challenge, it may turn out not to be.

What’s important for now is to stay alive. That’s the most important determinant as to whether we will have any challenges to face. Talking of which, do the dead have any challenges? Maybe staying dead is their greatest challenge as they could be tempted to return to the world of the living.

What challenges do you see for tomorrow? 6 months is such a song time frame.

None that I can think of

What advice would you give to your teenage self?

Must sound crazy. But when I think back to my teenage days, given how faulty my memory is, I don’t know what advise would have changed the trajectory of my life. My teenage days passed quickly without drama. I was in school, boarding school, most of it with a few breaks in between.

My teenage self lived the best life he could. Did what I had to do which was play and study. Do teenage things and all. Nothing to really regret. Or nothing that would make me be like I wish I got this advise when I was a teenager. Or maybe I got most of all the direction I needed when and if necessary.

But I have many things I would say to a teenager if they cared to listen. Their most important duty now is to study. If there is one thing old age regrets over youth, is not paying much attention at school. Two I would tell them to play. Be active. Be creative. Be curious and most of all, to just be. A lot of body changes happen at teenage and many teenagers struggle with this. I would tell that is the way of life and they should face life as it comes with all its challenges.

They should be careful in the choice of friends. A little discerning in the advise they receive. And as Lincoln is said to have told his son’s teacher, to have the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone is doing it. I will advise him or her to discover the wonders of books but to also have time for the beautiful things of nature- a stream, a beautiful sunrise of sunset, and birdsong.

But finally I will tell them to choose what to follow from my advise. I think my teenage self got lessons in all these at different times of my teen days.

Many things, but mostly boring people

What bores you?

But come to think of it, half the time I am too busy to be bored and the other half I am in company of people I like. Then there is the time between these two halves when I am really bored. Either it is some boring presentation, boring person or boring activity- boring beyond watching paint dry.

I have noticed every time I have attended funerals, and weddings or any such gatherings, extended speeches, sermons bore me almost to the point of death. Especially if the speaker has no tonal variation, no sense of humour.

Nietzsche, that great German, thinks it is good to be bored once in a while, if not so often. He writes for instance To escape boredom, man works either beyond what his usual needs require, or else he invents play, that is, work that is designed to quiet no need other than that for working in general and elsewhere that even the gods struggle in vain against boredom which means at some given time we will be bored.

We end here, with another quote from Nietzsche

One receives as reward for much ennui, despondency, boredom -such as a solitude without friends, books, duties, passions must bring with it -those quarter-hours of profoundest contemplation within oneself and nature. He who completely entrenches himself against boredom also entrenches himself against himself: he will never get to drink the strongest refreshing draught from his own innermost fountain.

F Nietzsche

water

What is your favorite drink?

But I am an equal opportunity partaker of fluids. I prefer any that is made with love.

I have occasionally prepared fruit shakes using various combos of fruits; mango, banana and avocado; mango and pawpaw, mango, banana all this with a dash of milk- fresh or yogurt-, and nuts. Cashewnuts make a fruit shake taste heavenly.

I like my tea with masala, a dash of pepper, cardamon and whatever spices they make in India. I love tea, though I take more chocolate than tea whenever I am not in the house. I love coffee too, black and brewed.

I have seen people say alcohol is poison but given the many people who have lived to beyond 100 years while also imbibing some form of alcohol is testament to its healing powers. I love liquors, but I can only take a little. My bloodstream seems to have a constant battle with anything with alcohol percent greater than is naturally found in nature.

So as I said at the start. my favourite drink is water, cold water.

women

Who are your favorite people to be around?

Beautiful women! Who would not want to be around beautiful people? But I jest.

I like to be around quiet people. But mostly people who have intelligent things to say, are open minded, aren’t loud. Loud people tire me. I don’t know how they live with themselves! Don’t they find the noise tiring? I also like people with a sense of humour, who can laugh at themselves. Now these are great people to be with.

There are people who have sticky fingers. It is like they can’t speak without accompanying their words with touch. One time they are patting you on the back, another they are patting you on the knee and I don’t know where else. Now, these I prefer to sit two arm lengths away from, if we must spend time together.

Since my friends might read this, I will not say more lest they stop talking to me, and that will not be good aye.

My running shoes

Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.

All of them.

But before I start telling you the story of my running shoes, come, sit down, grab some pop corn and relax. You must be wondering what is it that can be interesting about shoes that we can talk about, but my friends, there is a lot to shoes that you only realize when you spend a lot of time in them. The way they make you bounce off the ground, feeling light and airy and all. But I go ahead of myself.

I have owned many pairs of shoes. Some I have bought myself, some have been gifts/ presents, and some I don’t know. I just had them. Not proceeds of theft in case you are wondering. I don’t splash on shoes. Rarely. Most of my shoes cost below $100. They are usually good steady shoes and last me a few years. They are not my favourite shoes. They are there just so I don’t walk bare-feet like a wild animal- cue iyanyo jathum to iwuotho ka le.

Before I tell you about my favourite pair of shoes, I will tell you about other pair of shoes I bought when I first ventured into running. I think it could have been 6 or 7 years ago. It is October, the marathon season in Kenya. So I register for Stanchart Half Marathon. At this point, if I had run any long distance continuously, it couldn’t be greater than 200m. I was convinced however that I could make it among the top finishers in the race. Running appeared to me to be one of the easiest things to do. I grew up in the village. And there, we were told only a bad workman complains of his tools. So I get into a Bata shoes shop and select some cheap canvas shoes. These shoes fit smugly. Forget about arch support or all the other fancy things new shoes do to your feet. Running I did run, maybe a total of 3 or 4km out of 21km. It took me 4hours to finish the half marathon and by the time I crossed the finish line, I wanted to throw away the shoes among other things. I learnt nothing about shoes at the time. I also didn’t run until the next StanChart Marathon a year later where I repeated the same mistakes. Let us just say, there was no fun.

When I started running seriously during covid pandemic, I got good running shoes. When I say good, I mean, first I spent a whooping $150 on a shoe. And $15 on a pair of socks. Those shoes redefined what a comfortable shoe feels like. There was space in the toe box for my toes to fit well and room enough for the feet to expand as I run. The laces tie nicely. The insole just properly engineered. I have run over 3000km since I bought these shoes. I have run in Kosofo and Atlantic City in Nigeria. I have run in Uadipur India. I have run along the coast of Kenya, lake Victoria, in Laikipia, in Rift Valley and thousands in Nairobi.

If you want to have a good run, and for long, get good shoes. This, my friends, is the story of me and my shoes.

I am not sure there is any

Share one of the best gifts you’ve ever received.

And I am not sure how i feel about it.

I didn’t grow up in a family where we gifting was practiced a lot. In fact, I don’t recall us exchanging gifts. We didn’t celebrate birthdays which I think is the most times people get presents. I need to say here that it wasn’t just our family that was not doing this, but even the families we lived around. It seems it was just the norm. I don’t even think anyone expected any gifts. Getting new clothes randomly or for christmas was more than enough we children desired and we were happy.

So the first gift I recall was when I finished high school and the results came back and I had not only passed but I had qualified for Uni. A relative got me a watch that I had with me for a number of years until it was either stolen or it got lost or both. In between I have been gifted books, shoes, wallets and all but I don’t know which of them I would consider my best gift. I must have forgot to mention a water bottle a friend gave me 15 years ago that still has a space on my desk. From the books I have received,a number me to mind- The Fountainhead from my CEO and the Great Speeches from my partner, the Human Condition from my current CEO.

Maybe I have forgot all the best gifts I have received and if any of the gifters reads this post, mea culpa.