Thoughts of a Young Fool: Lessons from Club 23

Hello, world!

I am a 23-year-old ninja but not for long. In less than a month’s time, I’ll morph into a 24-year-old zen ninja.

Life has been interesting. If I had to illustrate my life in one painting, I’d draw a young man with very old eyes. They say the eyes are a window to the soul and I feel my soul has aged. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad but I rather like it.

Earlier in the morning as I was doing my laundry, I happened to be listening to Tulengua’s album Baja Funk and the track visiones caught my attention. The lyrics:

When you look into the mirror, tell me what do you see,

I see a vision of a man where a child used to be,

No a picture of perfection but blessed nonetheless,

I sort of found myself asking the same question? What do I see in the mirror? How has my journey been and who/what have I turned out to be?

I have gone through so many changes personally and professionally, too many for someone my age I might say.

Sitting here under my favorite tree sipping iced tea, I reminisce on the earlier days. Full of challenges and heavy dreams (the kind that makes your back hurt from carrying them around). But I also remember happiness, a wide smile that shone a light. A simple but intellectual mind that embraced the plainness of life and thirsted for greater things. My mind tracks back to the curious kid who was the first to learn how to use a phone (even before the adults!). It was a Siemens c316 and by the gods did I adore that phone! Back then I fed on curiosity, the innocence and power of an inquisitive mind.

Then years passed along with many events and I was a quiet young man with a few words and a thousand thoughts. A silent mouth with a screaming mind. For a while, I had forgotten the happiness and joy that comes with the little things in life. I was lost in books and words. Tales and journals of the minds of men who had walked the earth before me. Those who spoke of great wonders and evils alike. their words the only window to a world that seemed to never blink. Solitude, after all, was man’s best company.

Now, I scratch my beard and look up. Theseus the Third, a bird who perches on the mango tree next to my house gives me a slight chirp. He is an amazing fellow I must admit. I glance at the few tea leaves at the bottom of my glass and in a trance-like manner I find myself back in time. Back when I saved Theseus the First (who is Theseus’ grandfather from my educated guess) from drowning. I had just bought a new expensive phone and was out testing my photographing abilities. It is then when I found Theseus the First in what would have been his last seconds of life in my mother’s water tank. He looked like he had seen better days. The kind they told in the scriptures when the suffering became too much. His eyes were haunting, the kind that pierces your soul with holy fire. He looked like a bird with a long story to tell.

I cleaned his wings and set him on my palm to dry. He was still shocked, still trying to come to terms with his own mortality I believe. As we rested under the trees coming to terms with his near death, I told of all the great stories I had read as a young man. Those of ravens and men who bet the devil their heads. I told him of gods and wars and ethos and principles. I went through the apologies and arguments of Socrates, I told him of the skies and of men and their faults however many. But he was just a bird who had escaped death and cared not for the ramblings of a mad lad about his kind.

He eventually healed and built a nest next to my house on a mango tree. The same nest that Theseus the Third now rests his brownish wings. Three generations down and this little bird now chirps away lazily as the heat scorches the life out of everything. I wonder, is he aware of his own mortality? If so, how does that make him feel about life? About the necessity and lack thereof it of life?

Now I need to go and refill my tea. I nod to Theseus the Third as if telling him I will be back and would appreciate it if he didn’t leave. On my way back to the house, I stop to uproot some weeds from my flower bed. These flowers took me a lot of time. I was 21 then, fantasizing about the beauty of roses at my doorstep. Most of my plants died out of my sheer irresponsibility and lack of resilience. I took the pain greatly every time I had to uproot a flower but instantly replanted another one. I would smile to myself like an old fool and dream of the beautiful sunny days the flowers would beam like a beautiful damsel who bathes in milk and honey.

It has been long since I have been so infatuated by such silly activities. I wonder what Theseus the First would say if he saw the flowers now. from watching his last-minute escape from death and being the instrument of salvation, I pondered over mortality many a day. If he had indeed met his maker that day, what would have been Theseus’ highlight in life? And in so asking, what will be mine?

I almost spill my precious tea on the carpet. I have to tell you, there is nothing I love more than my homemade iced tea on a sunny day. Brewed with a mix of tea flavors from wild berries, Earl gray, cinnamon, and Jasmin. I also like to add a little bit of lemon and honey, a mixture of sour and sweet, expertly balanced just like how the great architect designed life.

I get back to my tree sadly to find that Theseus the Third has left his position. Well, a bird’s life is too short to ponder on mindless memories and fruitless philosophies. Oh, Theseus the Third, how I envy the simplicity of your life.

I think I need to become a simpler man. All this sophistication will be my death and no curse is worse to a man than that of dying while he still breathes.

I am a man who has quite lived professionally. It started out with a job I hated. Every day I thank the lord for that job. For I had to do a job I hated to understand the necessity for a man to love his craft. If I ever find myself in government, I just might sign into law that everyman must serve for a year in a craft that he hates with all his guts. That way, when everyone returns to their old craft, they shall embrace professionalism and pour love into those they touch with their minds.

I have also been a teacher of lads, lasses, and men. teaching the trade while I learned and studied the mind. Teaching being the noblest of all professions has taught me love, care, and empathy. Looking back now with the benefit of hindsight, I had grown to respect an open mind regardless of what it may currently contain.

I have since moved from the profession of stretching minds and packing brains. Now I am a visionary, an architecture of the future you might say. I know that you might be starting to get enough of the murmurs of this tired mind but indulge me quite some more I plead.

I am now in the business of creation of value. I have had dreams and visions, some of them even nightmares. I have been young and received bad advice. I have also been established, wise and given out bad advice myself. I have experienced joy in the most mundane of tasks and perceived greatness within the meekest of spirits.

Life has been kind as to grant me both a happy and sad life, a simple but intricate mind. In my 23 years of life, I have both lived and died a thousand times. Yet I am nowhere near Theseus the First. How do I take my mortality?

What do failure and success now mean to me?

I am still a young fool, so I won’t take offense if you don’t heed my utterances.

I am still as poor as a church mouse but mother Gaea has granted me a few riches and I shall offer them in terms:

Principle:

Principle makes a man. He who lacks it is like a soldier who raises no flag. There is no honor in what he does. A man without principle is a man without an identity.

Belief:

A man has to believe in something. Note that I do not ask you to believe in God although I am a follower of the faith. He who lacks belief knows not what it is to know peace happiness or the joy of something greater than himself. Be it a tree, a god, a child, etc. Live a life of belief and happiness shall not elude you.

Love:

For what in this world is greater than love? That for your fellow man and everything that has breath? The love of animals and that of plants. Love will heal all your wounds and cleanse your pain. Love will grant you strength when all is lost.

Money:

Man has since forgotten his wit in the presence of this cunning god. to such a point that money has become the end. What is the point of life is its end is worthless after all?

My dear friend, see to it that you live in a way to treat money as a means and let the end be the little things that beautify life however mundane.

Hard work:

The good things in life are not for the lazy. Work both smart and hard. Take great pride in your sweat and the power of your mind. you are built in the image of God who is a creator so in turn be a god and do your share of creating. I must insist that these creations must be of value.

Inquire:

Let your mind be that of inquiry. That you are always in the pursuit of knowledge. They say that with age comes wisdom but why do we have old fools? Wisdom comes to those who seek it, those bold enough to court it.

Be a light:

Finally, my dearest of friends, be a light to the world. These are dark times, and fools take the opportunity to shout at the top of their lungs: ‘These are dark times, they call for dark deeds!’. I beg you to please refrain from such advice and company. These are dark times indeed, but they call for light! So be that light.

It’s late and I can spot Theseus the Third flying back to his nest. I can’t help but wonder, like his nest, did he inherit that which was his grandfather’s? Did his grandfather sit him down and tell him of mortality and the looming end of life? Did he teach him to take pleasure in the small joys of life? Or is he cursed to learn from his own demise?

Will he be wise enough to use the collective wisdom of those who came before him?

Those questions I pose to myself as well. For I too though having shared a life with the late Theseus am still a child and blessed is he who lends an ear to wise words.

Ti’s dark now, too late for another iced tea. Perhaps I shall sit by the light and read of the devil and his wit.