Wanjiku’s Eye

  Close your eyes and picture this. I know you did not close them since you are reading this, so go ahead and betray me but do keep imagining. It's early Monday morning, a little before 8am and parents are dropping off their kids at a certain elementary school. The kids line up at the gate as they wait for the principal to let them in.  Suddenly there is a loud bang, followed by another then another. Pandemonium ensues with children screaming and bullets flying. The principal is killed as  he tries to help the children. It does not stop and in no time a custodian also dies as he tries to pull one student to safety. The police arrive and parents are being shouted at to quickly drive off as they arrive to drop off more kids. The police manage to barricade the line of shooting with a garbage truck and twenty minutes later there is silence. The damage is far done as two adults lay lifeless with eight children and a police officer wounded. You could stop imagining and crawl ou...

THE GRIND NEVER STOPS! SECURE THE BAG! LET’S GET THIS BREAD! RISE AND GRIND! SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK! I’D RATHER BE TIRED THAN BROKE!  I can bet i’m not the only one who wakes up to this phrases screaming in red, capital and underlined all over. While they may be intended to inspire and motivate, which they often do, I find these to be euphemisms for the burnout, exhaustion, overworking and toxicity that underlies the hustle culture.  The Hustle Culture is a trend where work comes before everything else in life.It encourages a fast paced environment that feeds off long working hours and putting your all into working hard is deemed to be the only way to earn respect from others and even yourself. How i see the narrative is that you can achieve anything if you grind hard enough and give up everything and everyone in this pursuit of material possession. The hustle culture and all it stands for is our generation’s rebranding of the rat race. The rat race is the modern way of living ...

 Quick disclaimer: This is a blog that shouldn’t have been. I have been ridiculously uninspired to write lately and i got a reminder that this blog doubles up as my elite diary. This is one of those ‘Dear Diary’ entries that has found its way to you because I believe we are all so intricately connected, you just might relate. The plan has been to write a story on humanism, not as a philosophical topic but as simple devotion to human welfare. The past one month has however been a series of sad and tragic news of death that is really overworking to familiarize itself with me. Death has clouded my mind so much in two weeks, way more than I have had to think about it for over twenty years of my life. After much thought, I could only describe the human story as one of loving and losing. A certain guy I know went to study at Trinity College in Cambridge. He was a poet and joined the prize poem competition while at Cambridge. There, he met Arthur who was also a poet . A strong friendship ...

  There are things you come across in life that stick with you forever. Some scar you for life and cause a paradigm shift in your entire existence. I once read a story by Bikozulu and from the blues he mentioned that he had discovered that Kiambu women can’t pee silently. These words echo in my mind every time i have to get to that business which is way too many times for anybody. Now understand that i have dedicated my life to drinking water and minding my own business. The latter comes automatically when you religiously do the former and have to spend most of your time flushing the toxic and bad energy out of your system. I came across the phrase ‘Midas Touch’ while flicking through my dictionary on one night in high school. You know how everything suddenly becomes interesting when you have school- related study to do. I was ready to cram every capital city on my Atlas and test myself on where Avarua is located on the world map rather than tire my brain with enthalpy and extracti...

Are your twenties roaring? Why does such a phrase even exist? The period between 1920 - 1929 is what is referred to as the roaring 20’s. Germans prefer to call them the Golden Years and in French they were the Annés Folles (The crazy years ) Here’s a little walk through history to give you context. This period from 1920 was just after World War I and it was characterised by great economic prosperity. Consumerism was at an all time high with there being a shift in culture. There was great demand for appliances and  high fashion. This era birthed Charlie Chaplin, the legend as people flocked theatres to enjoy movies when they were not out partying. You might have heard of the Jazz Age. This was precisely it. New music and dancing styles were introduced in America and influenced culture all over the world. In France , the cafe society cropped up during these years as creatives gathered in cafes to share their art . The show stoppers of the day were the flappers. Flappers was a new bre...

Heeey Faam! We are family right? Friends that became family, right? Family is just not blood , you dig? So we are going to do a thing that families do. Let it be known i consider you my siblings by extension. You see how you have a fight with your siblings and then go quiet for a while and bounce back with no formal apologies? You find a common thing to laugh about and the beef is gone, that's what family is. I am well aware i deserted you for a while, didn't pop up for Valentines even. As the self proclaimed creative I  am becoming, i went up to Himalayas for creative inspiration. Now who would be mad at a girl who has spent her mornings running for kilometres up the mountains seeking to be at peace within herself? The sunrise has been finding me on my yoga mat channeling the creative genius within all for you. Whether this happened in my daydreaming or is a deep desire of mine is absolutely irrelevant to the course here. You recall me mentioning that this is basically an elit...

  Just hold that thought right there. I know what came to your mind the moment you read that title. I can bet you already have an image of Mitchelle Obama in her plum- colored  turtleneck, wide legged trousers and the matching over-coat. I also know that you have chosen to remember the snatched waist with the gold circle buckle and the curls on her hair over the seemingly handsome man who is holding her hand. That alone says everything you need to know about human beings.   We are getting to Mitchelle in a minute but what good would I be if I did not give you unrelated deep captions for your Instagram posts? If you thought mantras of personal power and affirmations came with the introduction of Facebook and evolved to Whatsapp then made their way home to Instagram, you could never be further from the truth. According to Pausanias, a Greek traveler and geographer, the words 'Know thyself ' (gnothi seauton) were inscribed in the forecourt at the temple of Apo...