By the time we become aware of the precarity of life it is already slipping away. Uzuri ya akili, they say, ni kuzoea na kusahau. By the time we look this precarity in the face it is already slipping into a distant past. Immediately drawn back into the current sea of consciousness. This blessing from our minds makes it easy not to dwell. Curiosity driven understanding needs to tear everything apart to see what is inside.
The self(that which is curious) is an illusion created to enable a species to propagate. We are data points for our DNA, the root of our pursuits remain obscure to us at best. Our very nature is revealed to us every day. We mask this in language. We are learning, unlearning, working on ourselves, growing, et al. All these as terminologies to remind the world that every self is being revealed to its ego (or is it the other way round?) every day. Nothing is complete, no one is a real adult. We just carry on best we can, till we can’t anymore.
Knowing what best is when, as established, we barely know who we are hence becomes a two pronged journey of trusting our instincts and working with feedback. In this way we learn through and against each other. Maybe this has something to do with how violence occurs. As each self continues to calculate for the best possible outcome, society becomes the total sum of these calculations.
This must be even more pronounced in the hyperindividualised communities influenced by western capitalism’s I. This I that needs to exist and be defined separate from a we creates duplicity that leads to a desperate game for more. And it is this game that demands our attention, promising that it will shield us from the precarity of life. It is in pursuit of this security from illness, hunger, discomfort, desire that we forget that it doesn’t exist. And by the time we are reminded it is often too late to do anything about it – and there’s much left to be done.