Letter to Life, the Sixth Conversation: Lessons

By Lone Felix _KUSA president .

Now, I am on this bed, a
culmination of that fatigue. It’s
when I just realize, that as you
succeed, anytime you forget those
who believed in you, you lose a
part that makes you, and the
closer you reach to failing, and
the faster you loosen the grip that
once made you, and the faster
your success looses meaning.
I have been in the seclusion of a bed
for the eighth day running now. In my
past 14 years of living, this has
become a tradition, Pangs of pain that
rob me of any comfort. Just that this
year, as I gaze at the hollowness of
this room, and feel the stench of its
medicine, I feel the nearing of end,
the end of pain. I must admit I am
scared of whatever face will start.
Good health? This pain, that I was
unable to get accustomed to, has
been my greatest motivation. Some
sort of a reminder, that I am moving,
and that with each step taken, I
should evaluate myself. That however,
is not what I will discuss. For anyone
who has been around my life, these
times draw tears, but imagine,
imagine I forgot that pain for the two
days. An inexplicable numbness
descended on me as I reviewed the
year, the year 2013.
It has been the year, which I have
perhaps received great applauses,
respect and admiration, but it is also
the year, which has left me with the
deepest sense of emptiness.
What a paradox life can be
sometimes. At almost the same time
last year, I wrote my fifth letter to life.
Then, I had attempted so much, with
the world totally failing to respect my
efforts. I wondered then, what the
world owed me. I felt that the sincerity
of my ambitions and dreams
necessarily meant that I should have
been listened to.
Deep down my heart, I held a sharp
rebuke at how naïve the world could
get. I could not understand why in the
world, truth, value, honesty and a
genuine pursuit of collective greatness
could not be appreciated. I attempted
to reread that letter; of course as I am
here, I cannot access it, I can only
imagine it.
But if I am to recall, in that letter, I
ranted at life. I rebuked how the world
wanted to force me into the streams
of existence, how, my desire to
disobey tradition could be seen as
deviance. Well, I still uphold the bulk
of my beliefs then, but I realize with
the advantage of experience, two
lessons that perhaps will redefine
what I am to become in life: The most
important person, is the one who
believes in you and you can never do
everything.
There have been two questions that
bothered my conscience this year. The
first was what is disobedience? You
see when one fails to obey; it could be
bad, or good. Bad, if what you were to
obey is good, and good, if what you
were to obey is bad. Sadly, life’s
challenges are not as clear cut as that.
In fact, what is good it-self is a
controversy. We can never say with
certainty what good. In fact,
everything could be good at some
point, and bad at some point.
Funny, how this confusion always
creeps in my thoughts. I remember,
as that day I sat before my lecturer of
Jurisprudence. She looked at me, with
a deep gaze and told me, Felix, this is
a good decision, but this is not the
best time. You should be focusing on
something else now. The second
lesson started here.
I need to give you a little bit of a
background. When I was in standard
eight, my sister Connie came home in
December. She had just finished her
first year in college. I recall, she had
quite a number of tales, and a sense
of admirable progression. I mean, she
had a Sony Erickson phone.
Rectangular and curved in shape,
cream in color and phony in feel. It
was the first cell phone I operated. I
had held a couple before, but largely
those ones belonged to my primary
school teachers who send me to the
market centre to have them charged.
Of course, I would try to operate
them. But in the village, a phone has
to be dead, so that it can get charged.
You cannot pay Ksh. 30 if there is a
little charge in it. Yes, I had actually
forgotten that sense of value for
money that runs deep in my village.
Funny.
Now, among the escapades that
Connie told me, is that she had met
the Chairperson of the Student Union
in Kenyatta University. That she made
sure she talked to him that his name
was Charles Wafula, by the way, my
dad’s name was Charles Wafula. Then,
for a standard eight, Charles Wafula
was the all mighty University Chair,
respected by all. And I told her, told
Connie, that I will be the chairperson
of my University Association.
Of course, my sister belong to the
honest type, who tell you stuff like,
you can, but it’s very hard.
Now, when I joined college, in 2010, I
sat in the masses as the then
President, Antony Maina spoke, the
guy was very intelligent. The next day,
I bumped into him, and just like my
sister, had to make sure I talk to him.
My reasons were different, I was not
creating tales for my younger brother,
I was gauging my resolves. I told
Antony, I would one day be like you.
He wished me well, and said you can,
and a bunch of other wise words.
In my first year in college, I contested
for Congress in my school, and lost. I
had set in my mind, some trajectory,
First year Congress, Second year
President and final year, of course not
a vice chancellor, but to run my own
organization.
When second year came forth, I gave
the presidency a stab. My internship
Manager Diana would say, believing in
the strength of my naivety. Sometimes
I muse, where the motivation came
from. I have always wondered where
that motivation comes from.
Some people see many things in
dreams. Many think those who vie for
such offices, perhaps come from rich
backgrounds, or are endowed by
extensive unique qualities. Well, I can
only speak for myself. I am neither. I
am a man of many flaws, and from
the humblest of backgrounds.
Perhaps, only endowed, in the words
of my Manager with the strength of
my naivety.
So, I tried to establish why I vied.
When I was in second year, I credit my
vying to two people, a friend, Henry
Paul, and a facebook friend, Anne,
from Nakuru. Funny, I actually now
realize that I never vied because I
thought I could make it, I vied
because Anne and Henry believed I
could be their President.
And with each passing noise, and
shouts of discouragement, any time I
felt I would be giving up or giving in.
In politics the two are different, I
always remembered their voices, they
always believed I could be their
president.
So, somehow, in the extensive
commitment to this pursuit, while I
was a vessel to try and realize the
dream, the creators of the dream
were remotely aware of it. Now, I also
wish I knew this then. I think, as I sat
down in long meetings, strategizing
and counter-strategizing the only
failure, which I now believe made me
loose the election then, was forgetting
who actually bore the dream I was
trying to realize.
And the resentment and
disappointment I felt after that loss,
was again because I never knew
whose dream I was trying to realize.
You see, dear friend, my sixth letter
has a lot of naïve conclusions. That
when a man dreams and aspires, and
that when his dream is as honest and
true, then the world should somehow
respect it. What I forgot, is that
whenever a man becomes as
constricted to believe that he can
dream, then he has lost it. I now
realize, I hope it’s not too late, that
true dreams are born in us because
another eye revealed it to us.
Now, I just reached a conclusion that
seems to contradict what I seem to
have believed. Sometimes, it happens
that all eyes that glare at us only see
failure. Does that mean that we are
failures? Of course no, the eyes I
speak of are not of approval and
consent. The eyes I speak of are those
that look at us, with a hope that needs
to be brought out. Sometimes, those
eyes may not even be looking at us,
perhaps, our physique is too frail to
warrant their seeing us, but whenever
a dream is born out of our hearts.
Whenever we conceive a dream not
for our sake, but through the eyes of
another, we have realized the purity of
intend.
When we do that, we do not need to
scream that the world should listen,
or should have listened. The world
listens. It listens to anything that is
pure and true, and purity starts, when
we take us, from the dream.
So, why did it take this long for me to
realize this? I thank God I did.
The reason is what numbed my pain.
In the making of this presidency, I just
never realized how important the
email I got from my friend Nicholus
Kamau or the Ksh. 200 my friend
Maina wa Ngoingo used to buy me
lunch was important. I never just
realized how much the waking up of
Richie to get my posters done, or the
taking of an hour by my manager
Isaac to listen to me meant.
And so, when I realized the
presidency, I was drained emotionally,
physically and materially. And in a way,
I forgot where my strength came
from. I started taking a day without
calling a friend, or failing to tell them
why I was unable to meet an
obligation. And the more I did it, the
more drained I became.
Now, I am on this bed, a culmination
of that fatigue.