Mentally, I'm here.

I have questions what I don't know how to put into words, so I beat around the bush called mind till you get it.

I do not like to do things systematically. I find it predictable and boring, I like boring…only sometimes. Not that I have anything against the guy, I understand that boring-sometimes, maybe most times-gets the job done.

So, mentally? I'm here. I find myself not necessarily stuck, but fixated on why systems work the way it does, on why people prefer the familiar to the strange. Because it works? That's viable..I guess. I'm not trying to impose anything on you…Ah 😅 Me saying I'm not trying to impose anything on you, looks like that's exactly what I'm trying to do. 😄

Why am I questioning this? I want to create, but I'm being told I have to do the way it's being done. Learn a skill the normal way? Design the normal way, write the normal way? C’mon?!

I like the abstract, the unconventional. Why grow in a manner where I will come out rigid and sturdy, forced to not explore and stuck with the familiar faces, when I can branch out and still come out refined? Oh..refined but disorganised? I know. Organization is not necessarily associated with systems and patterns. The layout seems like it is. It looks like it. Even the words used screams organization.

How do you expect me to be an ant in a circle? Knowing that there's a world out there, but the system doesn't allow it, because of the ever recycled “That's how it's being done” story.

I do not understand a lot of things, and when I pick up a book to read on the thing.. I still do not understand, not what is written but the way it is written. I come to question a lot of things, and I cannot find answers. When I do, I'm perplexed by the way it is so half-baked and surface-level.

You want to grow, yet fear becoming prideful and look down on people. And that forces you to be normal, not to escape the unfamiliar. I'm trying to understand why it is so. It's like I can feel what I become in the foreseeable future. Man, all I’m striving for is to be a terrifying intellectual without compromising my faith in Christ Jesus.

You must be wondering how we got here.…We started with questioning the systemized process, wondering why growth can cause us to leave people behind. But it's all the same, we like the familiar patterns and do not want to step out because we believe the outside to be a strange new world.

And when we find out the SNW’s gate is open to all?W then fear embarrassment and fear being rejected by this so-called “strange new world" who on the other hand are only just settling in. Because when we put stuff out, these new settlers are the ones we meet at the mouth of the boundary, so we get rejected by these people because they think the space will not accommodate the breakout.

But the longtime citizens of this strange new world no longer fight those trying to cross the boundary, since they've figured out there's space for gazillions of people to pitch their various tents and be fruitful and multiply. 😄

Then we get back in because we have the notion that this strange new world rejects what you put out, what I put out, on our first try o. Unfair right?Because one group thinks we're messing with their minds and are only testing the waters, when infact it was like that when they first put something out, but they don't see it like that, only a few of them do.

They see it as a desperation to be validated by them, we, on the other hand, see it as rejection. They see it as "Let's see if they'll try again, let's mess with them five or ten more times to see if they are cut out for this strange new world of ours”.

While the other beat us back inside. So after the ninth try, we stop, and we recoil back into our shells of familiarity and safety.

We then proceed to create our world within this world, and outside the strange world. An invisible but familiar space which we turn into a familiar sanctuary, we turn such space into a resting place. It really is scary how familiarity creeps up on you unsuspectingly.

This now propels me to do a lot of things. Press towards certain skills people see as limitations. Examples yea? Public speaking, Writing, Graphic Design. etc. And I wonder, why don't you do these things? Elisha? The system is built in an interesting way, in a way that makes abstract concepts like Distractions overpowered.

(Distraction is a topic I'd love to write about in my next publication)

This system has made me scared to try out new things, things that I can do, when I try..not if..when-things that I know that I can do. Skills that I will obliterate the now professionals with when I sit with it-but I'm being told if you don't follow the system, you will not break out. Mind you, I see those who followed and still follow a patterned approach, and when I see stuff they put out..I be like.. C’mon, I can do this, I can do better, I can do more.

So..Mentally, I'm here…We all are, I believe.

I do not know how to write-yet though-So my words might look sketchy. I learnt something a few weeks ago that the best way to learn is to do. If you want to know how to write, write till you know you've reached its destination. You will know, you will have this feeling in your bones, under your skin..I'm not saying goosebumps now. You will know when it happens, a feeling of satisfaction and dissatisfaction at the same time. Satisfaction in the sense that, you know you've surpassed your previous self, you've evolved. Dissatisfaction? You're now conscious that there's more. You're now imbibed with the understanding that evolving is limitless.

Still, DO NOT neglect the fundamentals of the skill you want to learn or are currently learning. Understand the basics inside out, and know when to break them.

I was on Spotify when I had the realization to write this, I stumbled upon a playlist I curated for a friend titled; Mentally, I'm here, and decided to vomit the thought gnawing at my insides.

So guys, Mentally I'm here.