Who am I ? A question that runs rent free and unparalleled in my mind. Cogito ergo sum, “I think therefore I am,” Is an observation by Renè Descartes submitting that man is a cerebral being. Therefore, any form of living that preludes the engagement of the human mind, is but a secondary form of existence. In other words if the contents in between your ears are hollow, you are no more than human debris. And a considerable waste of life. Such is the fate of the man who desists from thinking. At least judging by Cogito ergo sum.
The bane of our lives is to muster meaning within ourselves, transmit it to the world external to us and bow out when our time on earth runs dry. The possibility and plausibility of achieving such a feat without engaging your mind is a debate that I would nay dwell on. Whether you choose to use your mind to think about it or not is your prerogative. It’s a no-brainer (pun intended)
As a man, an artist and a writer, I grapple even more with the question of the veracity of myself. How natural, authentic and indigenous am I to myself? Is JaTura one of his kind or is he an outcome of a myriad of factors that ultimately shaped his mien. We often flatter ourselves with the notion that there is none like us and that there never will be. That perhaps each of us is a limited edition and there won’t be a sequel of any of us. Of the 7 billion of us present today, each is a one-off occurring once at an appointed time in the universe.
But how true is this. My appraisal about it broaches many a protestation. Especially in my writing, I jostle with the potential reality that my words are never really mine nor my thoughts. Look, sometimes it is as if what I do, say or jot is a rendition of stuff I have constantly fed my head over a sustained period of time. It could so be that I am only a replica of my muses – a sum total of my experiences. Nothing more or less than a good carbon copy. A perfect copy paste.
In Uganda, an adage goes, “He who has not travelled thinks that his mother is the best cook.” And so with the things we expose ourselves to, we continuously knit this utopian peculiarity we all direly desire to call our own. To call ourselves one of a kind and say there will never be another like us. Otherwise we are born same. In psychology this concept is referred to as tabula rasa – when born one’s mind is a clean slate. In the end what separates us is the series of botched and successful experiments we’ve undertaken in the course of our lives to keep on adding to this jar of distinctness we so ardently want to have. Because remember my son, surely there is nothing new under the sun.
“If I have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” said Isaac Newton. It would be more rational to attribute our unique individuality to the numerous contributions made by the many forces at play in our lives. My late father would fondly remark, “No man is self-made.” Everyone was sired by a different man, gestated in another woman’s womb and eventually weaned off different meals. Ironically in this breath we are totally different, every last one of us, is his own star in the constellation of mortals. Collectively anomalous in image and likeness.
So much so Kenya hosts more than forty two diverse tribes but still insists on a common ethnic dialect as it’s national language, Swahili, unifying a motley of peoples. Our national flag has four varying conspicuous colours but speak to one thing – a nation. In the view of functionalism all societal organs, as dissimilar as they may be to each other, strive for the homogeneous working of society. It should augur no absurdity that sometimes in life uniformity is derived from forming a conglomerate.
Eventually JaTura will have to reconcile himself with his truth. As he learns his trade as a writer from seasoned Dambisa Moyo and veteran Charles Onyango-Obbo. He gleans his ability to articulate from reading Oyunga Pala’s literary wonders. And just as there’s no Burna Boy without Fela Kuti so is Biko seminal to JaTura’s work. When you conflate these influences on him, a new thinker of the distinct moniker JaTura, is born out of this vortex. He will resemble a picture because in one picture is a story of a thousand words.
But still I ask. Who are we? Who are you? Are we a confluence of factors or are you a being of singularity? In my village they say, “Nungo piny kirom,” – the waist of the earth never meets.
