Young, High, and In Love

Can We Be Young For Longer?

           There are many kinds of young in this city. Let’s begin by placing them in two broad cohorts. It’s lucrative to start with Young-good and young-bad but that is pretty much judgmental (which is not among my long list of virtues and vices for that matter). So let’s go with the ‘dumb-me’ kind of young and the ‘smart-me’ kind of young. The ‘dumb-me’ young is founded on the premises of confusion, misdirected-energy, bloated-ego, and loads of bewilderment. A typical ‘dumb-me’ young has a very little sense of life-direction. They know little about everything else except partying. Not that all of us who like good times are #team‘dumb-me’s but still they are a majority of party cliques.

            Then there is the ‘smart-me’ young. This young is exuberant too but in the right way. They live for goals and achievements. They know what they want. They listen keenly and talk less. The adore opportunities and love risks. They sure know the difference between stocks and bonds. They are not yet rich but know how to get to the riches. The savor the nights but won’t forget the gleam and wealth of the day. They are vast about highs but also understand the lows. They never yield to mediocre courses regardless of how luring they are. This young is passionate and intentionally directional. They don’t relent on their course. They know but they don’t have to show they do.

            Ok I know this is starting to sound like a speech but hang on we’re headed somewhere.

            I think you’re also starting to like this young. Probably you have someone in mind. Or better still you think you are in this category of young. Whichever floats your boat man. Moving on, my preferred of the ‘smart-me’ young are the think tanks - the ones that exude the Proverbs kind of wisdom. You’d mistake them for cousins of Solomon.  This kind owns the other kind. Let’s me first loop you in on the young with proverbial-wisdom capabilities. This is the kind that will look at a bird fly above them and they’ll instantaneously get hold of utterly deep life lessons. They see something in everything and no – not in the kind of way you see Pizza Inn and see Pizza. No, they’ll see an egg hatch and they will tell you about the power of breaking from within creating life and the way if you break that egg from without you kill the life. This will end up in insightful pragmatic lessons on growth towards investment and the ultimate rich island-owning lifestyles we all crave.

               So, you’ve been probably wondering where I am going with this, right? Well I have a thing for starting a piece and letting the words curve their way towards a certain gist. Amazing thing if you ask me. It is the easiest way of freeing the creativity harbored in me. Comparable to the feeling of skinny dipping – I never do skinny dipping anymore (story for another day). Now I wasn’t really sure about what the gist in this piece would be at the start but now I know. I want to write about the Young, High, and in Love; and no, not the Sauti Sol’s Isabella thing. Well maybe a little bit but stay with me here. I’m talking of the real ‘young high and in love’ of our society – of Nairobi. Why the young? Well because they are obviously the future of our nation (that sounds political). Why the high? The high because it’s easier to find camel milk nowadays than a young person that does not get high. Why the in love? We all agree love makes people do stupid things, right? So yes that why we have the in love category.

**

                They’re on a rooftop. It is chilly and the clock is edging towards 2 am. There is so much energy – it’s been like this since 10 pm. You can feel the music thudding a mile away from where they’re partying. They have to party you know. Having gone through university for four torturous years deserves a single night of fun. This you have to agree with me. At the center of the rooftop is a small table. On it is a white powder wrapped neatly in a manila paper. They’re sniffing on it one at a time – some are taking too much of it. There’s also booze everywhere – the cheap one mostly because they were short of money to buy anything better than Jameson. Someone’s lying on the floor – a blacked out chic. Many others are dazed. On the edge of the rooftop stands a couple sharing a bottle and deeply entangled in love – or so they think. Another couple is making out behind a water tank – it’s all that matters to them now. As they dance and grind the scene gets obnoxious as the night drifts away. Here comes the problem – this is not a single night of ‘fun’. They know they are going to have many more of these. They desperately want to be young for longer – forever if possible.

**

               I call such a situation a ‘miry clay’ fixture. It is hard to get out. The guys on the rooftop are probably going to be doing this five years down the line – heck even ten years. It becomes a habit. They will want to but then old dogs never learn new tricks. It becomes a cycle. Money comes in and it goes out but leaves them high and in ‘love’ but the young part is not constant – years go by. The sad bit is the rat race that ensues. The high will get you addicted and that means you have to fend for it or it will feed on you. The ‘love’ will be sour at some point – I remember a guy in Roysambu blogging about how the chic they were practicing the ‘high, young and in love’ madness fleeced him to the ground. Can you imagine weeks before your wedding and then she’s out? Terrible!!

            Let’s end with these song lyrics. I quote 

“I still fall on my face sometimes
And I can't color inside the lines
'Cause I'm perfectly incomplete
I'm still working on my masterpiece
And I, I wanna hang with the greats
Got a way to go, but it's worth the wait
No, you haven't seen the best of me
I'm still working on my masterpiece” 

              I am not a genius about life drills. However, I am smart enough not to repeat the mistakes others have done along the way. Can we be the ‘smart-me’ kind of young as we work towards our masterpieces? If you make mistakes let them teach you a lesson but don’t be looped in the mistake. I know you want to be great and change nations but how about you be strategic about it. I sure also hope that we have not seen the best of you yet. Or is getting high going to turn you into a walking dead in future? Finally, we are never going to be forever young. Be fun, do fun; actualize YOLO because this is good for all of us. But be intentionally strategic. Cheers to all of us that realize this!