Nairobi constantly screams, from matatus hooting and blasting off music to hawkers disregarding the concept of personal space. The world seems like a sound system. Peace often is misconstrued to be in relation to war and noise. People forget that once you are anxious about life, body weight, identity, and purpose, you automatically create a battlefield, and the trophy that hides in plain sight is peace.
As you cruise through life thinking about that overdue project at work or if your mom is physically okay or just putting on a strong face for you, that BMW X6 that you have been dreaming about slows down beside that bus you are in; you imagine how the owner gets to choose whether to listen to their favorite podcast while going to work or just silence prefer to reflect on their lives silently. They get to choose: what to listen to and when to do it, and consequently, peace!
Imagine going somewhere today without your phone. Our gadgets make a lot of noise; I don’t mean the default ringtone that came with your iPhone, I mean the plastered faces of models, the constant reminder that you need to be perfect all the time, the lifestyle that you dream of but live it through your phone instead of making an effort to achieve it. Celebrating the wins of your internet ‘’friends’ while yours is in shambles, laughing off dark jokes that stem from emotional damage while your heart is broken into pieces. I could go on…
The thought of staying without it for a whole day scares many people. People are used to distracting themselves so often or avoiding social interaction by listening to music, watching a movie, laughing off at memes, and reading the mad ramblings of comedians on Instagram. We have forgotten how to breathe, look out the window and experience it as it is. Nature doesn’t hurt; take that walk yourself (without headphones) and connect with the world. Give it a chance to speak to you…
In light of blocking off the noise that surrounds the world, we need to stop living our lives through others, through scrolling aimlessly on TikTok(Case in point: me) while ours are abandoned and collect mold and dust while waiting for us to act on it.
I read an interesting book recently: THE 5.00 AM BOOK CLUB.
At first, I could not fathom waking up at 5 or even starting to read a book that told me to wake up at 5 AM. It terrified me. Anyone who saw me read the book immediately started complaining and justifying their productivity despite their waking-up habits.
What we all did, unfortunately, is judge the book by the cover-literally, but now that I have read it, I can recommend it to anyone; one of the few books that have inspired me and mostly talks about the enemies of progress:
“You have 48000 seconds in a day. What you choose to do with them is entirely up to you.”
