Being young entails living with some level of arrogance. The world owes you hope and so you go about with ironclad certainty.
You haven’t seen enough to know that it could all go awry. You understand little of the sea of life and the nature of its currents. You think it’s constantly smooth sailing because you’ve barely inched from the comfort of the shores. You are naive; innocently stupid and oblivious. You don’t know. You don’t know any better because you haven’t seen enough.
But that’s where you are and it’s all you can count for.
Operating from a point of pride and entitlement you carry on with this unassailable disposition towards the world.
It informs your habits; atomic habits as James Clear puts it.
You nibble on garbage for food. Born in the epoch of Ubers, microwaves and instant gratification where everything is quick, you prefer to eat fast. Burgers, fries and soda cans in the trash. Little do you know that it’s all sizzle, no steak; that food. Neither do you fret medical nor nutritional advice.Your body feels sound and intrepid. Still capable of warding off the consequences of carefree existence; at least for now.
Slouching with abandon stretching sinew after sinew because when you are young, your back is well oiled. It still springs like an elastic band – who knows if that will be the case in your senior years.
It’s a smorgasbord of intrigue; this feral fair age.
We demur in delusion and confusion for we are so sure of absolution from our careless sins.
We are so wasteful in our spending. And why not? Life demands less of us. At least yet. School fees, retirement, insurance yadda yadda…. is pure white noise and we are deaf to it. We are profilgate in our purchases and have no space for frugality. We don’t put anything away for rainy days, not when we are right in the midst of our sunny years. It’s summertime all year every year and so we don’t bother keeping a spare purse because winter is never coming. At the moment life is one relentless carnival and grand festival by the beach with nay worry – Nirvana.
We don’t call our parents to ask after their well-being. We have more road ahead of us than we do behind us and we think it’s the same for them. As I said earlier, there’s a coaxing sense that the future owes us. As such, we put things off, “I’ll go see Mum next week.. or the week after.. it can wait, I’ll go next month.” We are serial borrowers from tomorrow, one that never comes.
Ditto, for our friends, coworkers, lovers – everyone of whom we’d form intimate relationships with in our lifetimes. We leave our partners on read over trifling grudges. We fail to RSVP hangout invitations from friends because it’s cool to look aloof and busy. Busy building corporates, empires and generational wealth which we are likely never to see the end of. There’s actually nothing poetic about that sentence by the way. Have you guys heard of climate change?
We screw up our marriages, renege on our promises and turn our backs on people. Perhaps only because the sun seems to rise on our faces without fail. We keep on getting second chances which is enough reason not to do things right on the first attempt. We forget life is a one take.
I actually saw a billboard on Mbagathi way by Umash funeral home on taking funeral insurance. Blimey, I was taken aback by how quick I dismissed it. Like I’ll be here for good. Maybe there’s merit to that. For now, I’m bursting at the seams with essence. It feels like it will be this way for eternity.
“May the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrow’s…… I’m forever young.” said Jayz.
I’ll afford myself another chance to reference an artist. What insightful scholars would capture in volumes of books they do so in stanzas and choruses. They have a vast talent of condensing crucial lessons into very few words. Few words that are catchy, entertaining, memorable and informative.
Here goes the super poignant crooner, Passenger:
“When we were boys on the beach
Everything was in reach
I know it’s hard to remember
But oh how the years they vanish
I always wanted to learn Spanish
And travel round South-America
We used to never say never
Used to think we live forever
Flying free beneath the sun
Days go running and hiding
The weeks are going slippy and sliding
Years leave quicker every time they come
Remember when we were young.”
