The pinnacle of success or ‘making it’ these days is defined by among others pulling up in the village with the latest four wheel drive behemoth, or wealth flaunting through social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. The abnormal has segued into the norm whereby materialism, defined by the purchase of things we do not really need, is the trend in these modern times. Morals and down-to-earth tendencies that were once a prime characteristic of people of yester years seem to have gone out through the window. Why?  Materialism seems to have taken over. Do not get me wrong. I…

I saw this somewhere and I had to share: “Because of the times we live in, all of us, young and old, do not spend time and effort thinking about the meaning of life. We do not look inside of ourselves enough to understand our strengths and weaknesses and we do not look around enough – at the world, in history – to ask the deepest and broadest questions.” So, if we do not spend enough time reflecting and pondering that which is beneficial, what are we busy up to? The answer: we are knee-deep searching for the elusive graven…

“If you expect the world to be fair to you because you are fair, you’re fooling yourself. That’s like expecting the lion not to eat you because you didn’t eat him” Anonymous. Life is not fair. That is something we get to learn even from a young age. Like for instance, why do the good die young? Does Tom Mboya, Martin Luther King Jnr or even F. Scot Fitzgerald come to mind anyone? Is that fair? Why didn’t the hand of fate intervene when the Grim Reaper turned up to carry out his duty? These and many others are questions…

I had a grand time in Dubai during the launch of Rainbows In My Clouds and then the “Meet And Listen” session at the Change Initiative where I got to sign copies of my autobiography, Rainbows in my Clouds, for the eager readers. The heat notwithstanding, meeting and interacting with like-minded people was an occasion to savor. But life is not without its fare share of ironies. Once back here in Nairobi, Kenya, the weather transitioned from the heat that characterizes the UAE to a teeth-chattering and biting cold that is the norm in these parts of the globe during…

Imperfection is beauty, insanity is genius and, it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than to be absolutely boring! Who the above sagacity of pure wisdom draped in profound poignancy is attributed to, I do not know. But, the maxim best reflects how my life has turned out until this moment. The world we reside in is one busting at the seams with different cultures. These cultures act as identification for different people that dot the earth. Due to the political borders we tend to confine ourselves in, the cultures are interpreted differently by different people, and so are words. How…

“Are you mad?” Has anyone at any one time ever posed that inquisition to you? Maybe the remark could be directed at you due to a whiff of concern or in rather extreme cases, due to engaging or having engaged in activity deemed abominable. Poring conscientiously over the word ‘mad’, one – if not all – might tend to understandably dwell on the clinical condition that denotes a psychiatric disorder instead of viewing the word in terms of its eccentric, odd, foible or even peculiar nature. We all possess a ‘madness’ and it’s exactly that which earmarks everyone with a…

Growing up, there were a lot of things we looked forward to. Our fantasy was that for a while, we could fast forward time so that holidays could arrive a little quicker because we always knew that our parents would prepare the most sumptuous delicacies – especially in the case of mum who was the best cook in the family – and that presents would be in plenty. We were children then; kids who were clueless about the world beyond the confines our homestead and the small town we grew up in, but that was always understandable. But isn’t it…