About Me — Obinna Anyaibe
I am; therefore, I write
The hardest part of talking about myself is often deciding what exactly someone needs to know. A prospective client might not care that I love riding my bike in the evenings to clear my head. A bus driver may never need to know I’m a freelance copyeditor. And I’d definitely skip mentioning that I once dropped out of university when introducing myself to the mother of a girl I like.
Introducing yourself gets even harder when you’re letting go of the beliefs, lifestyle, or career path that once defined your identity and figuring out who you really are. At times like this, I’ve found it’s best to share not just facts about myself but also the changes I’ve undergone lately, how and maybe why they happened, and the path they’ve now set me on.
On That Note, Who Am I?
My name is Obinna Anyaibe, and I’m the eldest of five children. I was born in Lagos, Nigeria, where I’ve lived for most of my 25 years. I spent most of 2019 in Benin City while studying biochemistry at the University of Benin. Then, in March 2020, I dropped out of school to pursue a degree in English, though I didn’t take the entrance exam or gain admission until last year. (Switching to English is the first of several steps I’ve taken to reclaim my life and pursue my passions instead of my dad’s expectations of me.)
As for my ethnicity, I’m Igbo, and while I understand the language to an extent, I’m ashamed to admit that I can’t speak it as fluently as I should. When my siblings and I were kids, our parents insisted on communicating with the Queen’s English. They only spoke Igbo around us when they were angry or wanted to sideline us from private conversations.
Learning Igbo as an adult has been particularly challenging for two reasons: First off, embarrassing mistakes are inevitable when learning any language, and adults, unlike kids, are often too self-conscious to allow for such mistakes. Also, it’s easier to overlook embarrassing mistakes when you’re surrounded by others making similar mistakes, as is usually the case in a classroom.
Unfortunately, this is one luxury I can no longer afford as an adult. So, if I’ll ever learn how to speak Igbo fluently, I must first become comfortable with making mistakes, even if they invite teasing or mockery.
Concerning Faith
Besides proper English, my mum also tried her best to instil Christian doctrines and values in my siblings and me from our early childhood. Emulating values like kindness and forgiveness wasn’t nearly as hard as accepting doctrines like original sin and the Trinity, which I didn’t understand at all. It didn’t help that whenever I asked questions about the confusing aspects of Christianity, people often rebuked me for being “arrogant” or “blasphemous” by asking such controversial questions. This comfort in ignorance, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christians who didn’t practice what they preached, made me take a step back from Christianity in 2018.
I spent the following years searching for truth, even identifying as a deist at some point. Interestingly, my quest for truth (as I often call it) led me back to Christianity. And despite how hard I resisted submitting to God because I had many grievances against Him, I found myself giving my life to Christ in 2021. Four years later, I’m still grappling with several unanswered questions, and I’m still trying to figure out who I am in Christ. But I’m also learning to channel my curiosity, uncertainty, and frustrations into intentional steps towards learning more about God (and who He says I am) through Bible study, research, and discussions and to find peace in whatever findings I make.
A Peek Into My Writing Journey
If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.
— Toni Morrison
Writing, for me, has always been what the rabbit hole is for Alice. It’s a portal that transports me from reality to a fantastical world where my wildest imaginations come alive, and I wrote many fantasy stories as a kid. Most of them were reimaginations of alternate ways some of my favourite stories could have played out. So, in my versions of these stories, Harry fell in love with Luna, instead of Ginny (J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series); Prospero was reincarnated in the 21st century (William Shakespeare’s The Tempest), and the Mad Hatter found a way to visit Alice now and then in the real world (Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland).
I also wrote some “original” stories and comic books, including Electro, which I realize now was just a scientific spin-off of Shazam, and The Witch of Dimsdale Alley, a story about a teenage witch who discovers she’s a descendant of Morgan Le Fay (whom you probably know as Morgana), a legendary enchantress prophesied to possess one of her female descendants during the night of her ascension rites.
I didn’t start plotting or writing good stories until 2017, after I’d started reading the kind of compelling, relatable stories I wanted to write, like Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games and Francine Rivers’s Mark of the Lion series, as well as insightful guides by renowned writers, like William Zinsser’s On Writing Well, K.M. Weiland’s Structuring Your Novel, and William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White’s The Elements of Style. It was around this time that I started my first blog, Shards of Bards, where I shared writing and blogging tips, among other things.
I still haven’t written or published most of my best stories due to imposter syndrome. But ever since my story, “House of Ash,” won a short story duel on Facebook last October, I’ve felt more confident about putting my stories out in public. I hope to write more fiction and share some on my Medium blog, but stories aren’t the only content I plan on publishing here.
What Will I Write About on Medium?
Apart from fiction, I’m also very interested in conversations about reforming the (Nigerian) traditional education system, and I’ll write essays on this theme occasionally. I’ll also share some writing and editing tips from my experience as a freelance copyeditor and my thoughts on certain trends in the writing industry, like AI use for writing and writing primarily for algorithms rather than human readers. Sometimes, I might share personal reflections or my thoughts on topics of general interest I feel compelled to contribute to.
I believe the things we’re most passionate about are a true reflection of our hearts and, by extension, our very selves, so I’ve decided not to box myself in a single niche. But does that mean I plan on writing about everything I’m passionate about? Not at all. I’m not a fan of being the centre of attention or writing content that only exists for the sake of it. I only write content when I believe it’s valuable to the reader or a story that needs to be told. If this sounds like your jam, please feel free to follow me.
What Do I Like to Do for Fun?
When I’m not working or studying, you might catch me reading a novel or an essay, watching a movie, series, or fingerstyle guitar song covers, fumbling with my guitar, imagining tiny people doing parkour on power lines, solving puzzle games, playing a text-based roleplaying game, or simply playing Sky: Children of the Light. I look forward to all the wholesome connections and experiences I hope to enjoy here on Medium.
