The back story

According to y'all, these are the posts you loved the most. Being the nice guy I like to believe I am, I will take the liberty of explaining to you the genesis of the genius and idiocy in these posts, from the most loved, and through the top five of your all-time favorite posts. To be honest, there is a couple of posts I believed y'all would have loved a tad bit more, but I don't know you as well as I thought I did. Anyway, here goes.....

When I wrote In Arsene we trust, I was going through the emotions of love and lies, the trust in a great team that makes me weak on my knees, the hope of re-living through the era of the invincibles, and fighting the knowledge that our past is just that, our past. I talk of how beautiful our football is, I protect the nakedness of my favorite team with it's glory days with tales of grandiosity of it's past but my excuses for them were sounding more and more like broken records. I guess I needed to convince myself that we can go back to the days when Arsenal used to give me that fuzzy warm feeling more than I needed to convince y'all. By the number of hits it's got, I can confidently say, am not the only one who needs reassurance.

Good girls magnet.........so I've heard,  wasn't me thinking out loud. It was the thinking of this cool dude I met when I moved to Molo,  who used to roll with my cousin. After he moved into my neighborhood, every once in a while, we'd hang out, light a joint and bounce ideas of each other or just try to figure out women, love, and life in general. One evening, in between sessions, he told me he had finally figured the whole "girls and bad boys" mystery.  According to him, every time he had tried to play nice, he always ended up single with dry spells running into months but as soon as he unleashed the dogs, women flocked. I know the post sounds kinda feminist, but he swore on personal experiences, those of friends and relatives, and to be honest, he truly believed women like a man they can take care off. I think their (the girls) logic is if they can take care of him long enough, he'll become dependent on her and she'll be in full control, but that's just one of my flawed logic....

Moving on,Don't send me to hell, I mind if you forget me was one of those "in hind-sight" moments. It was more of me wondering if it was within my power to control social cause and effect than it was an "in hindsight moment" when I think about it. It was the couple of things in my house that I can't seem to throw away because of the memories they carry. At the same time, losing religion had me trying to figure out what some of the religious concepts symbolized, especially the heaven and hell control. I guess my minimal understanding of death still haunts my sorry ass. Then there was the call from an old friend who called to say hi, after listening to a an old cd I made her for her birthday.

This was more of an out of the blue kind of story. We were rolling some at the beach with Mr. Lee and he was telling me of his history with drugs, the good, the bad and the ugly. At 70, he had tried almost everything, natural and synthetic. They lived in a small town where people always passed through, they never stayed, rarely stopped. When they did, on the rare occasion, venture into the local gas mart to ask for directions, they were met with kind smiles but not much conversation. It was a good place to raise children. One day after school, he was hanging out with this girl, the kind of girl that gets your name whispered around town, but she was the only pretty girl who'd talk to him. In an effort to please, he had his first cigarette. The first time he smoked a cigarette, at 16, he did it to please a girl. This was one of Mr. Lees' many stories. Retracing was my version of the stories of Mr. Lee.     

Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult. Spin, Run and Choose, I have no idea where this came from, but the direction it took reflects some of the fears I live with.  The fear of living a half baked life, the uncertainty of death both in timing and afterlife possibilities drummed in my skull and the possible outcomes of choosing either of the extreme uncertainties. Without religion, this is supposed to be an easy decision but it isn't. It is the choice between walking away from societal norms which enhances survival or be a lone back packer and live a full life. I know am not supposed to blow my own trumpet (please don't misinterpreting this ^^^), but I believe this is one of the best pieces I have ever written.

 PS: I,ve heard word on some awesome folks with some awesome stuff .You can swing by Kilimanjaro Art | Facebook  on your way from here and see for yourself.

PPS: The photos have nothing to do with the story.....

Tomorrows wonders today .......

There are many ancient beliefs and superstitions that ancient civilizations had we consider comical today. These beliefs have been “revealed” to be natural or scientific phenomenon, but many years ago their exact cause was misunderstood. One such belief was that most maritime disasters today are caused by navigation errors or weather phenomena. In early times, most maritime disasters involving lost ships and crew were the result of sea monster attacks. Ancient mariners believed that if you wandered too far away from the shore your ship could run afoul of large creatures, which would consume it and your crew mates. Another common one involves people today who are left-handed. Today, we know that your left or right-handedness is not a comment on your personality. In some Christian societies people who wrote with their left hand instead of the right hand were possessed by the devil. In Puritan New England parents would often strap their children’s left hand across their chest to prevent them from using their “bad hand” if they exhibited tendencies. Because being possessed was such a dangerous thing in the New England colonies, many people would even whip their children to prevent them from using their left hand.  Another superstition from back in history involves the weather. Today we know that natural disasters are caused by weather and tectonic factors causing natural disasters. In ancient times the commonly held belief was that natural disasters, such as famine, earthquakes or hurricanes were the gods showing their displeasure over people’s behaviors. Many civilizations across the world shared this belief and incorporated it into their religion, such as the Greeks, Native Americans, and Ancient African cultures.   

Today, we have a couple of beliefs that will probably sound ridiculous in 100 years time. One might be the belief that there are inherent differences between people of different tribes or races.  We're already losing this one to some degree.  Another might be that homosexuality is in some way evil or immoral.  I suppose it is possible that one day people will also think we were silly for thinking that men and women are inherently different in terms of mental capacity or emotional natures.  If history is any indicator, understanding of medicine and science should advance to a point to where our technology and treatments would seem extremely elementary.  We are unable to cure or effectively treat a multitude of diseases, and if those can be cured in the future I am certain our methods would seem childish. . Ideas of nations barely existed 400 years ago and there is every chance that people will wonder why we felt so strongly about a nation that some people were willing to die for it.

Looking back is a good model for trying to figure the things in our current culture which will be looked at in the same way by future generations. Figure out what once seemed reasonable but now seems rather outlandish and for predicting. What do I think will sound silly in years to come…….

1. That television and iPhones could have been so addictive that people spent the better part of their days mesmerized by them.
2. That we allowed the oil industry to control the world's financial structure.
3. That sports figures became the dominant "heroes" of society (except Arsenal Football Club heroes whose names will stand the test of time).

4.      That entertainment was considered as a passive activity that people sat and had done to them. Reality television and the idea that we can be entertained by artificial competitions in a variety of increasingly outrageous settings and challenges is going to make us look foolish and puerile.

5.      That one gender is somehow inferior to the other.

6.      That people could totally neglect the health of their bodies and then expects others, known as doctors, to fix all they damage they had done to themselves with that neglect.

7.      That what was reported to them through the news media was taken for truth

8.      That entertainment was glorified as of paramount importance and fame was worshiped.

9.      That beauty was mistaken for goodness

That's a short list, am sure you got a couple of genius ideas you'd throw in..... feel free to.