Modern Love and Other Interactions in 2014

"We can never bring it about that we require nothing outside ourselves to preserve our being, nor that we live without having dealings with things outside us." 

- Benedict Spinoza, in Ethics.

Prior to writing this post, I've had to listen to this podcast on Modern Love [mp3], read the short story 'A Good Man is Hard to Find' by Flannery O'Connor, read about losing yourself in a relationship in this 'Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness' cautionary tale and made a searching and fearless moral inventory of my interactions with those who I've so far had any sort of affection for.

That said, today's post is simply an amalgamation of varying viewpoints, highlights and personal thoughts about this most interesting of human interactions - love.

A Love Most Interesting.

First of all, a question: Can love be endless?
I bet you'd also want to find out how a man can spend over a decade in love with a woman who doesn't exist. Even more interesting, what would you consider the worst first date of all time? Well, check out this podcast on Modern Love to find out.

Relationships with Others

Almost 4 years ago, I came across a document that profoundly challenged my views in regard to how we should relate with others. In our continued search for meaning, satisfaction and fulfillment which goes way beyond transient happiness, relationships are crucial.

Life is more fulfilling when one genuinely cares for others. Interestingly, a lack of true friends always becomes a very big crisis later on in life. Needless to say, human beings become depressed when they are alone for far too long.
It is partly thanks to the foregoing that inasmuch as I revel in my own company, I remain cognizant to the glaring fact that there is both a need and place for other people in my life. Interactions therefore, are necessary in life.

In 2014, my long-planned journey of touching countless lives, albeit one life at a time through my writing, begins in earnest. Every time I speak about things I am passionate about, I get to realize just how much there is to say and even more important, just how much more there is to learn.
Just like Flannery O'Connor, I now realize that it is by telling stories that I can best communicate. She says:

“A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is.”
― Flannery O'Connor

When we carefully examine how we live with others, it becomes apparent that there are many DOs and DONTs that govern how we relate be it with family, friends, colleagues at home or at school, acquaintances or total strangers. Whatever the interaction, some mutual respect and basic etiquette are always a good start to sustain any useful discourse.

Should this not be forthcoming from any or both parties, there would be no sustained dialogue or any communication at all. No meaningful interaction can then occur.
Doing the right thing is just one tenet of managing to live with others in harmony, and only then can one find true fulfillment in a world filled with others whose way or viewing things may be profoundly different. That is where virtue comes in. As Benedict Spinoza writes in Ethics:

"...the very foundation of virtue is this very striving to preserve one's own being, and that happiness consists in a man's being able to preserve his being. Again, it follows that we can never bring it about that we require nothing outside ourselves to preserve our being, nor that we live without having dealings with things outside us...There are, therefore, many things outside us which are useful to us, and on that account to be sought."

All in all, it is only by abandoning a foolish quest for the ephemeral rewards of happiness, wealth and power that you can begin to look for your true calling on this earth.
What it is that you will be seeking in 2014?

* * * * *

One Month Later...

I end this post by looking back at a day that was "touched by love." On December 7, 2013, "the harmony of love met with the melody of life to create a beautiful love song."

Exactly one month ago, I joined family, friends and well-wishers in celebration of Winni and George's wedding. It was a most colorful day, and my best wishes invariably remain with them even as they ended 2013 by beginning a new life together, a new family and all the good things that await them on their best days ahead. Together.

In sum, 2013 was a very good year.
It was the end of something. It was the beginning of everything.

A Simple Life. A Life most Uncommon.

"You laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at you because you're all the same."
- Jonathan Davis

Unconventional shenanigans

On Saturday evening, I was on phone with one of my best friends whose name for the purposes of this post will simply remain Shee.
At one point following a conversation inundated with laughter, Shee asked me why I deliberately opted to resign my Engineering job back in the day and following a brief freelance career in Web and Graphic Design, eventually decided reside on a small farm. She wondered why like many other people do, I didn't first work in Engineering for some years, accumulate capital, and upon resigning, go back to the village and live on the dividends of my hard labor in Engineering which in her considered opinion, is a very good profession with handsome financial returns.

This is a question I have had to answer innumerable times, and the answer is never standard. Granted, my answer in any particular situation is always an apt response to whoever asks it, since it is invariably a poignant reflection of how s/he looks at life. In fact, I believe Jonathan Davis's words quoted above (with the necessary inclusion of the word 'bozos' between 'you' and 'because') would be my most comprehensive epitaph.

Well, my life is largely a living example of going against the grain, being avant-garde, unconventional, borderline eccentric, and whatever other phrases can adequately describe anything that is not exactly in line the norm. It is a markedly significant deviation from what many people, considering my background, would end up doing in life.

Let me explain:

Pete the 'chop'

From the day I started schooling, I was consistently the best student and remained top of my class from Class 1 through Class 8. In high school, I was always in top 10 position, and anyone who went to MHS will know that I was a piD veteran ;-)
I then proceeded to pursue Mechanical Engineering at JKUAT and despite the realization (mid-course) that this was not what I wanted to do all my life, I still graduated magna cum laude.

In view of the above intellectual proficiency that such academic accomplishments illustrate, I soon got a job in a Building Services Engineering firm in Nairobi a month after graduation. Six months later, I resigned my position at the company and decided to go freelance, thanks to an enduring decision that it'd be in my best interests to fly solo.

Since January 2006, I haven't been anyone's employee. The only other time I seriously considered formal employment was in August 2006, where I did get a job in a Nairobi-based heavy earth-moving machinery company as a Sales Engineer but resigned my position only 3 days later.

Flying Solo

When I started out, I gave myself a carte blanche in managing my own affairs. It is the desire to be in charge of my calendar, my hours, my decisions, my goals and aspirations and to a very large extent, how I would meet my obligations and realize my aspirations that informed the desire to go freelance. I well knew there would be challenges, and I was ready to face them. And I continue to face them every day.

Much has however changed along the way. For example, I recently put an end to my freelance writing career, preferring instead to be a creative entrepreneur with the very intention of putting systems in place that will ensure that it is money that works for me. This is very much in contrast to the murky freelancing situation where one is always working for money by repeatedly looking for more work instead of creating value-adding opportunities both for himself and others. This very notion has been very well discussed by one Andrew Kiriti in the March 2013 edition of Complitly Connect Magazine.

To best understand how and why mine is essentially a very different approach to life, read once again, Jonathan Davis's words above. Perhaps you'll then realize that I have set for myself some very long-term goals which thankfully, I am satisfactorily accomplishing. Admittedly, some of the goals are lofty but heck, it's good to raise the bar really high at times. And for the record, I do not in any way compare myself with others. I actually revel in the fact that I am different.

Steve Jobs in his Stanford address (watch video and highlights on this Living in 2010 post on The Walkabout) was quite clear that:

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice.

That said, I am simply living my life the best way I know how. If anything, I never waste a precious second trying to figure out how others are living theirs, unless it directly and adversely affects mine. I have learnt to live and let live. That way, I have all the time to focus on whatever in my own life needs my utmost attention.

The Simple Life

How then, do I live?
Well, my stated objective in life is to seek and find meaning. Only then can I be more than happy and satisfied - I'll find true and enduring fulfillment.
I therefore unrelentingly seek enlightenment and every time I find it, I simply keep going. I do place a very high premium on doing things that are for the greater good, I have already that I'll accomplish my mandate of doing so by sharing useful information and even better, adding value to information. Perhaps this is why I'm always reading.

I am a renewable energy enthusiast. Informed by the realization that the most important things in life are not things, I am also alive to the fact that money should not be the only motivation in life. Life would then be so damn limiting, and a mindless pursuit of things only results in a vicious cycle where things that really matter are soon forgotten. My approach to wealth is not to accumulate a vast amount of tangible things, but to have the least wants having adequately, even ethically met my needs.

Towards this end, I live in a simple house on a small farm in Limuru, located in Kiambu County in Kenya. What I do here in line with my intention is to rear animals, grow most of my food, set up systems that will earn me money whether I sleep all day or not, and effectively manage the natural resources at my disposal by using solar, wind and biogas for my energy needs and as much as possible, reduce, reuse and recycle.

The best two examples of people who have come close to living this way are Robinson Crusoe after he was ship-wrecked on a deserted island and Henry David Thoreau as described in Walden.

Of most importance, I am keen to have had a lasting legacy in this world. Through my writing, I intend to make a positive impact on many lives - one life at a time. That way, if my writing entertains, edifies or simply makes you think, than my mission is accomplished.

Finally, the book!

Interestingly, simple, uncommon living has already inspired my novella Life Uncommon which is scheduled for publication on December 31, 2014.

In sum, mine is a simple life. A life most uncommon.

Enjoying the Journey, not just the Destination

At what point do you derive the most joy in your endeavors? Is it at the beginning, along the way as you progress or upon completion?
Depending on your answer above, today's post is especially for you. So join me and read on...

The word success does have many definitions, be it from a business, spiritual, societal or any other stand point. My favorite goes something like this:

Success is waking up every morning, whoever you are, however old or young, and bounding out of bed because there's something out there that you love to do. Something you're good at. And you can wait to get at it again today.

In this post, success is defined thus:

Success is not all about being in the right place at the right time, rather being at the right place enough times.

For me, success is deep. personal fulfillment in the process of or upon realization of specific set objectives. It is not an end in itself. One should feel good be it half-way of at any stage before completion. This will in most cases be possible if continuous inventory is being taken.

That way, success will not be an end in itself. Neither is it a process. It keeps happening as a necessary part of a process towards fulfillment.

John Mayer in his song 'In Repair' talks about being "not together but heading there."

Watch the video below:

Methinks we often limit ourselves and so deny ourselves the joy of acknowledging and appreciating progress and achievement when we:

1. only feel successful upon completion, and not before or anywhere near finishing, of specific tasks.
2. compare ourselves overtly with others, and thus neglect to acknowledge achievement that are commensurate with our individual circumstances.
3. peg success and achievement on the basis of predefined metrics, thanks to what has been done before. Think in terms of breaking records and super-ceding others.

At the end of every single day, I look back and ask myself if I have progressed in some small way. If I have made something better, not just for me but for others as well.

Such small positive differences are in my opinion what the following words were predicated on.

In sum, do you enjoy the journey or derive your greatest satisfaction and sense of fulfillment upon reaching your destination?