kiss your girlfriend all over her face till she’s giggling with joy.
My friend is talking to a girl. He’s cruising through the conversation and she’s enjoying his yapping as evidenced by her wide smile. He’s dressed in a white shirt and black pants. His black shoes glimmer in the afternoon sun. He’s a lawyer. This smiling boy — child, even — is a lawyer.
She’s looking at her phone — good news from home. A smile creeps up her face; slowly at first, twitching at the lips, then quickly, stretching her face so wide. She’s connected to them by blood and airwaves. She wants them to be happy. She’s happy when they are happy. She just wants to be happy.
She’s trying her best to live, to be happy, to find peace and joy, to earn money, to buy stuff, to make stuff, and be a good woman, person, sister, daughter, girlfriend, and so on and so forth. Trying to exist and find a way through the maze.
That’s what he’s doing too. Trying his best to be a man, his own man, his father’s kind of man, some kind of man, some way, somehow, somewhere, where? Who knows? All that he can do is keep moving. Or give up? Who knows?
All we can do is try. This oblate spheroid is spinning round and around and somehow we can walk straight on it and fly in it over the roads and mountains and horses and rats.
We have asun shawarma! Do you know how crazy that is? You can even add chicken to it for a combo! We have food! Plants were growing in the ground and someone took them, chopped them, fried them, boiled them, grilled them, and invented something for the rest of the world to eat. Someone learnt how to season goat meat properly so I could enjoy asun shawarma.
There are a thousand lives you can live. You can be a guy who reads books and plays football and writes stories and kisses his girlfriend all over her face till she’s giggling. And after touching joy and kissing its mouth, you could be the guy who is enveloped by despair. That’s life, kiddo. Ups and Downs. That’s the name of the game.
Houses can be built on this spinning thing! Buildings can be built! We can make them high. Higher than the Tower of Babel was ever going to be! We have touched the sky. We have touched the clouds. They are made up of water droplets, ice crystals, water vapour, and air. Boring innit? Yeahh I know you always imagined sleeping on a cloud. It’s just water, kid. Imagine sleeping in a bed of water.
Speaking of wet dreams, we have finally built sex robots. Every day we veer away from the plans God had for us. Which one? Great question. Next question?
We are all trying to answer questions. Why me? Why am I here on this spinning spheroid? Why don’t supermarkets and shops close to me have my favourite snack? Why is Seyi Vibez so good at music? What is my purpose in life?
To live, kid. That’s all you gotta do. Just make sure you live and make it to the next day to live again. Live, till you can’t. However you navigate it is your responsibility. There are templates for you to follow. Lived experiences to reproduce. There are paths already trodden. Safe paths, guarded paths. Closed paths. Unless. Unless you decide that templates are not for you. Unless you decide to open closed paths. Unless you decide to try.
Live, or at least try to. We are all trying.
