By Jackson Biko
Nobody relishes an analogy involving rats. But that’s what our lives seem to have boiled down to; rats running a wheel. Life has become like a treadmill and we’re working up a good sweat, only we aren’t moving. Not literally at least.
We ravage life with an unsettling urgency. Nobody stops to pick and smell a flower.
Where is the time? We drink and drive. We eat foods that will not see us to old age, foods that will make our kids diabetic at 12yrs.
We have sex without condoms. We spend more time in the trenches chasing the penny than we spend with our loved ones.
We don’t exercise. We drink. Daily.
We don’t kiss our children enough and we leave them to grow in the hands of strangers. We don’t pray. Church passes us in a head-splitting daze of hangover.
Our friendships are fleeting and uncertain, but even when they hold we refuse to actively nurture them. Where is the time? We are possessed by consuming ambition, and we unapologetically step on anyone or anything that stands in our way.
We have replaced virtue with passion and it seems to offer a reason to all the ills that burden our lives. This is our life; it’s the only life we know but is it quality life? Is this the ultimate redemption, this relentless pursuit of hedonism?
Felix Murathe had a heart attack three months ago. He is only 30. A freelance web developer, he often burnt the midnight oil pushing on until 2am. Lucky for him, on that fateful night he had decided to sleep at his girlfriend’s house.
Naturally, he carried his laptop (he carried it everywhere, he admits) with him to do an hour before turning in. They had dinner at 9pm; beef, potatoes and rice. Shortly before midnight he propped up in bed and started working. The pain came an hour later.
“It felt like someone was squeezing my heart in their fist, the pain was out of this world,” he explains. He remembers waking up in the hospital five hours later, and for the next month, he lay in a hospital bed having come an inch of death.
Felix isn’t overweight. “Coming so close to death is a moment of clarity. Everything that you thought and imagined as important all of a sudden becomes so trivial.”
He says sipping milk from a wine glass in his house. “ I always had what I call my “Pivot of 35” agenda, which is basically to have my own a successful web development company at 35, and everything I did was tunnel-visioned towards this target.
Nothing else mattered; when I wasn’t working I was drinking or sleeping. After this heart experience, Pivot of 35 doesn’t seem too urgent anymore, I let it possess me and it nearly killed me.
My doctor sat me for an hour when I was being discharged and he told me, I was killing myself, that I needed to pay attention to my body. “So what has changed now?” I ask.
“We fuss over things that really aren’t worth much. It’s a sad way to lead your life because it imprisons you. I’m free Felix is a product of city living, an overwhelming rat race, a life driven by what you have… which in turn speaks to who you are in the pecking order in the rungs of society.
But the beast that is city life dictates that you aspire for greatness, that you keep moving or else it swallows you like quicksand. The city calls and everybody comes to feed their ambition. Nobody comes to the city to fail. And therein, perhaps lies the death of the soul.
“Our lives will always remain empty if we ignore to nourish them,” Pastor Mark says, “ It’s not even about spirituality, it’s beyond the bible, it’s about knowing what is good for you which perhaps is the greatest wisdom.
Most of young people are so focused on the wrong choices that they miss to recognize so many greater opportunities. There has to be more about life than ambition because ambition left to roam is destructive.”
Sospeter Midamba, a 65-year-old senior citizen and still a socialite in his own right says the shift of priorities in recent times has been anything but rapid.
“I have been living in this city for 50 years and one noticeable difference now is that younger people are more competitive and more anxious about life and what that has done is that is has killed other important value system , like the importance of family, for instance.”
Sospeter believes that the quality of life hinges on family. “Being a part of a strong and stable family unit is the most underrated quality of urban living, not any amount of money or affluence can replace the loneliness of isolation.”
Talking of isolation, I met a monk for this feature. Yes, a real monk from Amanda Marga Mission in Nairobi’s Mountain View estate. The mission runs a children’s home and every Sunday they organise a feeding program for underprivileged families.
His name is Dada Suba. He is a strict vegetarian. He doesn’t take onions or garlic, tea of coffee. Dada doesn’t know what alcohol tastes like. He doesn’t even listen to music.
“That doesn’t leave much to live for Dada,” I tell him, a joke that earns me a stony look. He is seated on his verandah with his legs folded under him in that yoga stance. He, like other monks in his mission, wears orange.
What is your idea of quality of life? I ask him, a question that brings out a drilling stare that suggests that perhaps I have asked him a trick question.
“This is the quality of life,” he says somberly nodding ahead at something. I follow his look. “Uhm, a tree?” I mumble puzzled.
“No, serving humanity is quality of life. There is no greater service, service to humanity and service to God is what quality of life boils to, and to arrive to that point where you put your own selfish needs and ambitions aside requires a discipline of the mind, body and soul.” Dada says Yoga helps him get to that point. “I practice yoga two hours daily for mental strength, physical fitness and spiritual elevation. Once you serve and see the fruits of your service in others, your life becomes more purposeful, more grounded, more fulfilling.”
“Someone told me that having family is the epitome of quality life.” I tell him. “Maybe so, and family is just a name to define a group of people who have something in common, so yes.
But if you mean siblings, then I differ because I don’t have a father or mother or brothers or sisters and yet I’m living a quality life.” “Where are they?” I ask irrelevantly, more out of curiosity.
“It’s been 25 years without any relation.” He offers simply as an explanation. But quality of life seems quite subjective and is shaped by circumstance as it is by our environment.
A lady who I will call Jennifer, a struggling single mother of one, says quality of life is largely being comfortable. “I’ve heard people who insist that quality of life is a peace of mind, that it’s inherently the state of mind. That is such deception,” she spat.
“You can’t lead a quality of life and the so-called peace of mind when you have to work to your bone to feed your baby, to take her to school and medical care with a meager salary. For you to get to a point of peace mentally, you have to be able to feed yourself and cloth yourself. I’m not materialistic, but I’m realistic when I say quality of life for me is financial freedom.”
Rose, a financial consultant with a portfolio that includes some real wealthy folks is quick to point out that quality of life has nothing to do with finances.
“It’s all a big assumption by people who aren’t wealthy that money brings about quality life, but the reality will shock you. I think quality of life is about a value system and how to apply your money towards those values and it’s only then that the shift from liquid money to tangible benefits will occur. It’s about using what you have to achieve the end. But I can say that quality of life is intangible and the more tangible you start making it the less useful it is.”
Faith Odemba, a nutritionist, puts down quality of life to good health. “Everything else means nothing if your body is ill. A sick body in turn infects the mind. My first priority is to set the body straight, after all it’s the temple of God, then the rest can follow. Eat right and rest, and of course drink lots of water. Nourish your body because when it stops working for you, no amount of money will bring it back to its original state.”
It might all seem convoluted or even rhetoric all these prescriptions, but one maxim that seems to constantly buoy through this clatter of opinion is the need for a more sober spirit, or mind.
So in short, they say, tame your urges. Love genuinely. Drink water. Give back to others. Pray. Eat your vegetables. Pray. Nurture relationships. Expect less from human beings because they will break your heart. Find contentment in things with longevity.
Develop your chi more.
satmag@ke.nationmedia.com
Comments