KINGDOM COME

Volume 3: Why (?)

There’s this thing I do that pisses everyone the fuck off. I believe it’s called the “impertinent why.” I always want to know why. If you tell me you did something, I want to know why you did it. I would never ask you why if the reason was obvious, but if it’s not then I ask. Why? It annoys the fuck out of people because when people tell you some shit, for some reason, they don’t tell you why. It doesn’t make sense to me if I don’t know the why. I remember my ex-girlfriend pissed me the fuck off by doing this. I consistently and persistently asked her why for about 3 weeks and she later said she wished she didn’t tell me.

Duh.

It’s like telling me I’m your child. Yeah thanks, but why am I your child? Then it has meaning; then it’s not just a fact. Then you can do something with it.

Hello diary. I’m back yeah. Every time I come back it’s always cus there’s something wrong. See now don’t you feel better now I told you why I keep coming back? Now you can do something with it. Perhaps get offended and never listen to me anymore because I’m a user and I only come back when shit is ugly.

The only reason you could do that is cus I told you the why. Imagine if I said “Hey diary, I always come back.”

You’d be like “Dude what the fuck is wrong with you? Are you ok? Sick?”

You’d say that because that’s an incomplete sentence. Just like a sentence can never have life without the verb and the object, your words will never mean anything to me unless you tell me the why.

So I’m saying sorry to all those people I’ve pissed off with my impertinent whys. If you weren’t dumbasses I wouldn’t have to be saying sorry.

But some of you are not dumbasses. Some people don’t want to tell you why because the why makes them uncomfortable. It mostly happens when someone tells me something that has a confessional factor to it. In my experience confessions have always been abrupt. It takes a lot for the confessor to come up with the confession, and when they finally say it, they feel uncomfortable continuing. If they tell you why, they would be reliving the confession and that is not something that they want to do.

But I always ask why. Most of my friends never confess directly to me; I always hear shit about this dude from another dude. They don’t want me to ask why. One of them said I’m troublesome.

Most times I ask why, I already know why. Especially in these confessional situations; but I ask why to be sure because you can never be sure with human beings. I also ask why to allow the confessor to confront their deed. It helps to say why. It gives you closure. Sometimes, I ask why just to make the other party feel stupid; especially when they’ve done something unreasonable and unnecessary and there is absolutely no reason for them to have done it.

I always want to know why. It is my niche in your life.

The most important why of all I have ignored; the why that belongs to my life.

Ok let’s revise this. The most important why-the-fuck of all I have ignored; the why-the-fuck that belongs to my life.

Why the fuck am I alive?

Uh?

Why the fuck am I such a fucked up motherfucker?

Uh?

Why the fuck am I here?

Uh?

Why the fuck am I so unlucky?

Uh?

Why the fuck does this shit always happen to me?

UH?

Motherfucker why?

UH??!!

Whenever I’m here, down in the dumps, lower than the earth, I always like to believe I’m talking to someone. I have to be talking to someone because someone put me here. I did not give myself life so I have to be talking to someone. It only makes sense, doesn’t it?

It would also make sense to ask my parents but they’re not really the ones that put me here. Fuck if they know why they’re here anyway. They just fucked and I came out. You know, diary, Nigerian parents, scratch that, African parents, just have children because that’s what everybody else does when they get married. To them you’re just an investment. I could go to my father and tell him all this shit I’m thinking and if he’s extremely nice, he’d listen to me for a while and nod his head sympathetically.

Before he goes “Boy, what the fuck is wrong witchu? Do you know how much I put into your education? Get your fucking head on the fucking right way. Be gone.”

Man, I respect my parents and all that but I don’t think I could ever love them, so to speak. Because they never loved me; they didn’t have me for the right reasons. How many times do I hear do you know how much money this, do you know how much money that?

Come the fuck on. The money isn’t supposed to matter. Why the fuck did you have me in the first place? I want to have a child because I want to have a child. My child can’t fuck up enough for me to go all investment daddy on him/her. Man fuck that shit. I don’t even want to know why my parents had me. I have closed that chapter of my life now. Fuck that shit.

I am so fucking tired of living this shit life. Every day is a fucking drag. Every day I have something new to curse my creator for. Every day I say “it can’t get worse than this” but the next day it does. Every-fucking-day something fucks up my life more and more. Every-fucking-day.

Last week I heard the term “slippery slope” in three different, very fucking unrelated places. I mean, it can’t be a coincidence, can it? My life is a slippery slope.

The only things in life that have any meaning are those for which I know the why. I know why I love and have music. I know why I smoke weed and I know why I fell hard down this slippery slope for Geeky Girl. Nothing else has meaning and maybe that’s why everything else is fucked up.

These things that have meaning are IN my life but my life as a whole still has no meaning. How much longer will these things remain in such a fucked up place? In such a fucked up life?

Man I’m going out of my fucking mind trying to understand all these things, beyond my control, happening to me. Going out of my fucking mind trying to understand why they’re beyond my control. Going out of my fucking mind trying to comprehend why they can’t just go away with the same seeming simplicity as they just happen. Going out of my fucking mind trying to put everything together into a meaningful entity.

My life is so unstable. Everything is so fragile. It could be there one moment and the next is gone. It’s like I’m trying to hold on to air.

It would all be bearable if I knew why. I wish there was someone I was talking to. The progenitor of this shit that’s happening to me. Someone just come forth and tell me that they’re responsible for all the fucked up shit that happens to me and it’ll make it all better.

At least I’d know why.

Maybe I’d even be able to turn this shit around.

You know diary that I wouldn’t talk crazy like this if I didn’t blame myself already. I have tried to blame myself for all this shit but some of them I just can’t pin to myself. It’s just not my fault. So why?

I wish there was a God. I remember when I was in primary school my favourite hymn was “Take it to the Lord in prayer.” I loved it because it gave me the illusion that I could tell my shit to someone and that someone would listen.

But no such person exists. No one will listen to me because they also have their own shit to deal with. No one on earth will listen to me. And no one exists outside earth.

It pains me to be an atheist. It really does. It means that I am all alone.

Fuck. I haven’t been smoking as much weed as I’d like to. I have been on earth for far too long. I have to get away. I had forgotten why I smoked so much weed. It’s so that I don’t have to be in the fucked up place that I am now.

I need to know why my life is like this. I’m just stuck in a rut; not moving backward or forward because I don’t know why. I don’t know what the fuck I should be doing.

I know though, that I have to survive this. I have to overcome it. But I don’t think I have the strength. Sometimes I just feel like it’s the right moment to break down and cry. But that shit doesn’t make you feel better. It doesn’t change shit and it doesn’t point you in the right direction.

So tomorrow when you see me I’ll smile and I’ll crack a joke and we’ll laugh still. But I’ll still be sad.

And when you all leave I’ll frown and I’ll scratch my brain out for answers. And I’ll be proper sad and I’ll think and I won’t be able to sleep and I’ll die of these thoughts. And the demons will peck and peck at me until I am a bloody speck on the surface of the earth. And I’ll die.

Every night I’m on my own I die.

And every morning when I resurrect, I don’t feel as good as Lazarus or Jesus felt.

It’s all cus I don’t know why.

Tell me why and you’ve brought light to my dark life.

Tell me why.

THE BRAIN AND THE MIND; A GIFT AND A CURSE

I used to say to people “You know how I’m sure the mind is not in the head?”

Then they’d say “How?”

I’d tell them “Whenever I’m tired of thinking and I want to clear my head, I shake my head. Very hard.”

I’d let the suspense build. Some of them think I’m just stupid and they just want to indulge me, but still they’d say “And?”

Then I’d say “And nothing happens. I’m still thinking shit.”

The joke is kinda old and I’m tired of telling it. But it makes a point. The brain and the mind; they’re two different entities. They do two very different things but they come from the same place; the brain.

Our brain controls all the shit in our body that we can’t control ourselves. Imagine if you had to control your blood flow, your breathing, your urination, your digestion and all those little things. You’d have gone mad. You wouldn’t be able to talk. Every minute you’re trying to monitor your breathing and your blood and some motherfucker is asking you “What’s one plus one?” You can’t do all that shit at the same time. You need a CEO for your body. You’re the Chairman; you own the shit. However, you need someone to monitor the day-to-day activities of your body. That’s where the brain comes in.

The mind though. The mind is yours and yours alone. It’s the tool that gets you the majority shareholding of your body. Your mind is why you’re the chairman. You have control of your mind, and you have control of your body. That’s why you’re the chairman of your body; because you own the mind. Ever wonder why a junkie is a slave to that drug? Wonder why he itches when he can’t get the needle? Wonder why every minute of every day of every month of every year that junkie lives for that drug? It’s because his mind is no longer his own. There’s been a hostile takeover. His mind is now controlled by the drug and therefore, that’s all the body wants now.

The scientists tell us that our brain is what sets us apart from the common animal. No, my friend. It’s the mind. It was the mind that invented electricity. It was the mind that created civilization. It was the mind that created language and country borders and maps. It was the mind that created peanut butter. The mind is the key component of the human being. Without it, we are but animals.

Sure the brain is a factor in this. Our brains are the largest not because we are the most complex species in the world, but because we have minds. We need a big ass generator to monitor our bodily functions and support the mind. This is why I think the brain and the mind are in the same place. The brain is the base of the mind, but the mind is not tissue or physical. It’s abstract, intangible and it takes a big ass power, namely our big ass brain, to generate something so elusive; something we can’t see. Something so intangible but yet something that has more power over the tangible. Our brain generates that very thing that we’re all looking for in religion. That thing we can’t see but yet affects all. Our brain generates that kinda shit. Our brain generates in us all little Gods.

So you see, Einstein didn’t have a marvellous brain; he had a marvellous mind.

Our brain is the gift because it gives us the mind. The mind is a beautiful thing because it gives us all these beautiful things. It showed us how to turn an ugly rock into something as beautiful as a gold ring. It showed us how to build houses and create cars. It showed us how to use a useless chemical like Neon and make our cities beautiful. It gives us all these beautiful things. But the mind is a curse because it also invented the nuclear bomb. It invented guns, and tanks, and knives. It showed us how to take a perfectly peaceful chemical like arsenic and use it to kill our fellow man. It instilled in us greed, hate, and destruction along with virtues of charity, love, and creativity. The mind is a curse because it showed us how to destroy ourselves.

The brain keeps us alive, but if we let it have its way, the mind will kill us. It is a counterproductive symbiotic relationship. Only those who have mastered their minds survive. Only those who have superior mastery over the mind come out on top. This is why all those years ago, the white man conquered the black man easy as if it was a war between human beings and ants. The white man had greater mastery over his mind, and that is why he won.

The mind brings all sorts of trouble to us human beings and that is its nature. The mind is an evil being by nature. Perhaps that is where the notion of original sin comes from. A human being must tame his mind and put it in a cage if he/she hopes to survive in this life. Every “good” human being in this world has willed himself or herself to be good, because they were originally “bad.”

My brain can reason for me. My brain can do arithmetic and process logical statements. My brain can keep a vast vocabulary and memorize the periodic table. My mind is the one that asks “Why the fuck am I doing arithmetic?” “Why the fuck do I want to know the periodic table?” “Now that I know it, what can I use it for?” It is the mind that brings all these thoughts into being.

Pretty young thing just left your room. You’re broke. You haven’t caught up with school work. You don’t know what career to choose. These are all facts that your brain provides. But the mind tells you “Dude, you’re not the only one she’s fucking.” “Dude, you’re gonna be broke forever.” “Dude, just leave the school work; you were gonna fail anyway.” “Dude, just forget about it all. This career thing is overrated.” It is the mind that brings all these thoughts into being.

All these thoughts that creates a headache. All these thoughts that cause physical pain. All thoughts. The mind creates all thoughts. Just because there are a few good thoughts, like the pretty young thing that just left your room and the sweet nothings she whispers in your ear. Or the optimistic “I can do this!” thoughts. Or the thought that God is with you and you will never want. Just because these thoughts are possible, does it justify living with the other thoughts?

I’d rather have none than have both.

The brain does great things and the mind fucks up those great things. A gift and a curse.

The brain has no bias; the brain is a machine. The mind is biased towards evil; it is a living being. A gift and a curse.

You have to fight the mind to survive. First question is “Did you know this?”

Second question is “Is life worth the fight?” Ask yourself.