1.Inspiration: The beautiful world is made of characters, each playing a role. Some are destined to be big and important, others less and lowly and yet others a mix of both. Whatever your station in life, play your role because you never know what God has in store for you.
2. Education: You will come to discover that the reason why you are in school is to expand your mind. It might not guarantee riches but a treasure trove of better strategies, philosophies and untapped human potential.
3. Mathematics: In the murky world of figures, lies mathematics. Of X and Y, of trapeziums and triangles, of decimals and fractions. And the paradox is to seek relevance of X, Y, trapeziums, triangles, decimals and fractions in the reality of our daily lives.
4. Love: Before you love somebody else, love thyself. Others may call you vain or proud or boisterous. But be in love with yourself.
5. Expectation: They tell you to set your goals high, to raise your expectations and expand your horizons. It gets trickier when you don’t achieve them. I keep my goals low and shrink my horizons so that I don’t get disappointed and most of the time I achieve most of my goals.
6. A Lawyer: A lawyer’s role is a thankless job. You are treated as a shyster, a chump, a cunning fox. You weave arguments, trace facts and authorities, link law to facts and bring solace in the paper jungle that is law and the common man in the streets thinks you are a con. That is the paradox of the legal profession.
7. A teacher: One thing I miss about teaching is how my words were being taken seriously as if the lives of my pupils depended on them. My words were my authorities. I could mention a fact and it would be relied on. Right now, I say something true yet I am called to say where I read it, in which edition, of which year.
8. Politician: I have come to realize that a politician is an honest man. He says something and when you look him straight in the eye you can only conclude that if he himself believes it then why should it be a lie.
9. Obituaries: It has been said that people read newspapers for various reasons. Some read the news, others sports and yet others business. As for me, I read the obituaries. That way I keep a tab of both worlds, of the living and the dead. And some of the words in those pages are inspiring even to the living.
10. A poet: We give poets a difficult title. As a matter of fact, they are easy to understand because they don’t have layers of untruths. If a poet is mad or angry or perturbed, he vents his emotions. If (S)he is happy you can see it in the tone and mood of the poem.
11. Death: I sometimes wonder why people cry in funerals or give those saddening eulogy. Should Lorot Son of the Hills die, God forbid, I would like people to sing and dance, not sulk and fret. When my coffin is being lowered, I would be happy if somebody shouted: Sons and daughters of the hills, why are you crying among the living? Lorot is not dead, he is alive.
12. Being a child: Being children, we played chamama na chababa. I digress. Not for once did I become an Uncle ( I was always Daddy). We played and asked questions. We were a curious lot. I even wanted to be a pilot. Almost 25 years down the line, I ask no questions, I seek no answers and have stopped being curious. The pilot dream flew out of the window the moment I discovered that nautical miles and maps were not my kettle of fish.
13. Mascu-dom: Real men don’t cry. They should shut sorrow within their chests, hide their emotions within their ribcages. At best, to be ‘romantic’ or ‘emotional’, he might heave his chest, grunt or break a glass or two but not cry. This is sacrilege in Mascu-dom. The pseudo-men might be allowed to cry but in the safety of their bedrooms.
14. FCUK Case: Facebook is a well-calculated scheme to destroy relationships, not build them. An update is reseached, viewed from different angles, prepositions and suppositions given. Those that are tagged are examined with fine toothcomb. A comment dropped for so-and-so is traced and tendered as evidence of infidelity. That is how Lorot Son of the Hills was left by five former girlfriends in a row!
15. Afande: With due respect to our folks in the disciplined forces, we need to call upon us to view the duty as a calling, not a last-ditch attempt at eking out a living. I should join the police with a B+ and truthfully so because I feel called. But not a D+ holder with no hope, no vision, anger leveled against society, venom for elites and loathe for civility. If you ask me, that is a dangerous person to keep us safe or to investigate our crimes.
Lorot Son of the Hills Bonus
Poverty index: The safest bet to gauge a person’s poverty index is in his shoes. You see them daily on the feet of a distraught job-stalker, a beggar on our Flyovers. You see them in our posh offices, sleek corridors, and tinted cars. But again there is a dichotomy of a rich man who defies this neat classification, but they are rare.
Be afraid, be very afraid: Be advised, watch the underpants you are wearing for you don’t know the day and the hour when a carjacker, a robber or a gang might order that you run with them to your nearest safety hole. And it would be a disgrace to the Hills if you be spotted with a shred running smack in the middle of your back patio.
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