Death to Santa VI [2014]

Dear diary,

Another year I haven't died. Suck on that Satan, this soul may actually end up not falling into your ironically cold claws. Who would have guessed!

I am thankful for my family, Lord knows this year started off on a really messed up note, which I hardly remember but they have to live with the stress I put them through.

I am thankful for all my friends who stood by me through the 5 years I had clinical depression further complicated by the bipolar, which didn't make me the easiest person to be around.

I am thankful for my girlfriend for dealing with me for three years! A record for any of my relationships... Probably a record for anyone dealing with my type of mind! Sad it ended, but I shall forever treasure the times.

I am thankful for getting my mind back after being dissociated from my memories and experiences for most of the 5 years.

I am thankful for everyone that came back after I pushed everyone away all those years.


While I got a tonne of morbid jokes, I'll save them for 2015.

Maybe Santa isn't such a douchebag, maybe I should finally make peace with this adaptation of St. Nicholas. But is Santa a wave or a particle? Is he able to deliver all those gifts in one night because he's figured out how to exploit quantum states but doesn't want to share the knowledge? That pisses me off because that carries the answer to me travelling the universe... earth is too small in the cosmos scope. Well...fuck him, you know...

Sorry, I digressed.

You now what they say about habits dying hard...they really do. I guess all those vices and habits were hidden somewhere in my brain just waiting...waiting. And come back they did. My attention span is now that of a goldfish... I get bored just as easily as I get excited. An lulls in the conversation don't make me feel awkward, I just move on to something I feel is more interesting. Maybe I should change that.

But my mind has opened up again and I want to learn everything! While I'm not willing to go as far as Faust, I want to know as much as I can!

Most people I've come across are talking about narrowing down the circle of friends. Why the heck would wanna do that? Small circles are mediocre ,and boring, and lack variety... I want a larger circle, I want to know people everywhere, while my circle of trustees will stay small, I want to be friends with everybody if possible! I wanna dig into every nook and cranny of their memories and see all their ideas, dreams and views about reality. I want to know what gives you the strength to wake up in the morning and get out of bed and out of the house. I want to at least have an idea why we as a species are so unique in that we're capable of all these amazing things yet at the same time the most vile and evil beings around.
I want to know why we have love, and can tell each other we love yet go back on our words and backstab the shit out of the people who trust us the most. I want to know what drives us to turn around with that knife still bleeding and hug and give them the chance to do it again. Is that what defines love? Is true love the act of having the love go both ways, or is it the ability to overlook betrayal in the name of love?

I'm not as closed off emotionally as I was before the depre...that thing. Nor am I as closed off as I was during. Probably the other way round. I'm more open minded, more open to new ideas than I have ever been in my life... Maybe It's because when you're introduced to the world of quantum mechanics you realize nothing is what is seems and reality maybe just an illusion where everything is hidden away from us forever...or as Humphry Davy put it,

Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose our views of science are ultimate; that there are no new mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer

Anyway, gotta go diary. Hope everyone who reads has a productive 2015 that'll bring you closer to your dreams. A new year gives you the opportunity to shed off every undesirable thing about yourself. A habit takes roughly 6 weeks to change. Which gives you until valentine day...coincidence? Probably... Maybe I conveniently doubled the average time required to change a habit.

Either way, make those over-ambitious resolutions but try as much a possible to change them...for example if you decide to lose weight, at least make sure it hasn't doubled by the time you carry over the resolution to 2016. Fatty fat fat fatties are disgusting, plus your heart is struggling. Whatever your resolution, here's to an awesome 2015, diary!

Black sheep come home

Earlier this week, when I got to work, one of my pals told me, "I have a favour to ask you."

As usual, I said, "Shoot!" Didn't know what I'd gotten myself into, but, as long as it wasn't anything too 'illegal', I was ok with not knowing what till he came to collect the favour.

Later in the morning they called me to the boardroom where Francis(the cameraman) had setup his equipment. A request I found odd was asking if I had carried my phone. Of course I didn't have it. Why do I need my phone anyway? Nooo! You want me to reveal saucy texts? But but I don't have anyone to send those to...

"No. We want you to call your dad on camera and tell him you love him"

"Huh? You want what!?"

Yeah, it was confusing, a mixture of emotions. See, while I'm not the dictionary definition of a black sheep, I come pretty close. For most of my life I have been cut off from most people emotionally, especially my dad.

Without revealing too much, all I can say is my memories of being a teenager aren't exactly pleasant, and I'd rather go through life never admitting I have ever been a teenager. With good reason too!

To cut a long story short, after growing up feeling abandoned and making a lot of mistakes, I came to realize that bitterness will never get you anywhere. Especially looking at how I'm slowly managing to shape me into the image of what I believe is the ideal person, I think I have more to be thankful for than to be bitter about. Which includes not allowing hate to be a part of me.

I guess if being clinically depressed is what was needed for me to quit being a little unemotional bitch, then it was worth it because while it may have taken away four years of my youth, it also made me eventually realize that I'm not alone in this world. This year has been especially trying on my family, with me almost dying twice. Ok, maybe I've exaggerated the second instance, since it involved surgery. Point is, they have been through a lot. I'm lucky because I lost part of my memory so I don't have to deal with most of the emotions that were involved at the time.

So here I was standing in front of a camera, I'd been asked to call my dad and say those three words. The topic of men not being able to express their feelings verbally has been the subject of countless articles and hence already familiar to many, therefore I don't have to discuss them in this entry. As the call was connecting I had enough time to think.

My dad has not been there for most of my life, physically he was, but emotionally no. In retrospect, I think he just didn't know what to do with me. I was the first born, so it would be unfair to judge him by it, especially seeing the good job he did with my brother and sister. It would be unfair to judge him remembering the numerous times he tried to set things right with me when I was in campus, and I was the one who consciously and knowingly resisted.

When I was depressed I guess it made it even harder for them because I cut off most people and moved out because I wanted to be alone. I could see they could sense something was wrong with me but I didn't want them to, this was my burden. Of course I knew I was depressed, but I also knew it is an expensive disease and I wanted to handle it on my own.

The call connected. My dad's voice. During the small talk as I tried to find a way of introducing those three little words into the conversation I remembered the events of this year. 

This has been the most dramatic year of my life. It counts as the first year since 2009 that my mind became my own again. The idea of killing myself isn't that new so I can casually talk about it. I guess. But the gravity isn't lost to me. My family didn't take it lightly, and only my immediate family(and now the world) know how close I came to allowing the world to beat me into a corner and giving up. And I owe them for always being there for me. For once in my life I decided to open up myself to my family and allow them to see me as the person I have become. Deep inside I know I've always loved them. The heavy veil of mental illness couldn't snuff that out. I just had to look and admit the fire was there.

As we were talking I knew that while I never tell them verbally that I love them, everything I've done this year has been also been geared at showing them I know what I put them through, I know they never left my side even though I couldn't see them. I owed them the verbal confirmation.

I forgot the camera was there and just said what I have been meaning to say most of this year. I'm sad it took being asked by a third party to do it, but like the depression, the end justifies the means.

No more black sheep

Cogito Ergo Sum

Am I scared? Actually, no. A bit apprehensive, but nothing more than that.

I guess, I made peace with myself and I am aware of my mortality. Anyway, I'll get back to that later after I get something else off my chest.

Some doctors really annoy me, they do their best to fleece insurance companies through their patients. I guess for the most part they can get away with it, but for some people, myself included, this ends up hurting us too, not just the insurance company. I have known for a few weeks that the only solution to what I have is surgery, and the doctor I went to last week knew that also, so why did he waste my comfort, time, and money with stupid follow up consultations instead of just going ahead with the surgery and not waste the money on medicine that didn't do shit to ease the pain I am in constantly.
Last month it was the dentist. Barring the fact that nothing has been right with my body since the last time I was in hospital, the opportunism exhibited by these physicians is worrying and annoying! Let me give an example of the dentist hospital. When you're paying in cash a root canal procedure costs 9 thousand Ksh. When they discovered I had insurance the cost bloated to double that, and despite my insistence they never explained where the extra cost came from. See, even though it's the insurance that's paying, there's a limit, and I need my insurance intact because my need for bipolar medication and access to a psychiatrist is constant so when these fuckers in their pursuit for unfair profit do their thing, they end up messing me because at the end I have to pay from my pocket.

Anyway, I'm supposed to go in for minor surgery in the next day or so. Though it's called minor surgery, if there's anything I picked up from the Wahome Mutahi incident, it's that there is nothing like "minor surgery". As long as they have to put you under anaesthesia and cut into your body, there's nothing like minor surgery.

In preparation I've scheduled this entry to post 2 days after I'm expected to leave the hospital. If I don't stop it from posting before then, well, we'll be sure something unexpected happened. Also in preparation I've reset all my passwords to something generic that can be guessed by all who know me...just to keep things easy.

Back to Rene Descartes. Pain always serves to remind us that we're mortal beings and that our physical presence is temporary at most, until the time we learn to manipulate our conscience being into another form or find a way of making it persist indefinitely.

Ever wondered what happens to you after you die? What if our conscience doesn't mean anything, what if there is no 'after'? What if there is no God to receive your soul? What if the idea of having a soul is just a result of the behaviour/reward conditioning that led to humanity gaining morality? What if cogito ergo sum only applies to this mortal state? Would you be scared to die then? Would you take your life more seriously if you knew that when it ends that's it for you? Or would you be more callous, knowing there is no punishment or reward awaiting you when you die?

Is this all?

I guess for me all I ever needed was love. Love for me justifies all. As long as I loved in this existence and gave as much as I received I won't leave with any bitterness tormenting me. I'm not worried for me, I worry for those around me and especially those that love me. I know that whether there is an existence past this or not, I lived this one as true to myself as I could...no grudges, nothing but the emotions that drove me to care which is all that life is about, right?


~ for Abby, my fam, my pals and everyone I love or have ever loved