THOUGHTFULNESS
A friend
and I indulged in a reflective practice recently and concurred that, occasional
self-reflection and reflexivity have the power to replenish our “reality” and
relations as we glow in our primes. By reflection and reflexivity, we mean
giving a serious thought to one’s values, beliefs, acquaintances, and interests;
and how these shape their reality as well as defines their relations.
We
recognized that our lives seem to happen on the fast lane, forcing us to park certain
critical aspects of it into our past. Life drives us from one phase to the next
as active passengers but never fully in control of its steering. Reflection and
reflexivity allows us to at least, be aware of the direction life is swinging
us to.
In the pursuit
of life, we suppress experiences, missed potentials, or near-misses. At some
phases, historical contentions remain unresolved and thus, we get fixated. We
may pretend that we are over the unresolved past, in reality we expend energy
in suppressing them. Then we speculate and rationalize our fate as luck – bad or
good, depending on success or failures.
Yet, for
every human failures or success, one can trace the genesis to their individual
history. Only your history reveals the point at which you deviated from, or
converged with your current predicament. As such, some of these contentions could somehow
get resolved through reflection and reflexivity.
We also
grapple with the mystery of life and death. As we live, we become accustomed
with news of demise of your contemporaries. Upon hearing such, you shudder with shock for
a bit and then you let go. Such news inevitably evokes past memories – history.
Nonetheless, it affirms that you have aged and alive.
Our truths
lay claim that life and death are a continuum - an endless rope tied on your
waist at birth connects you to death. That obscure rope is history - your
history. No matter where you go, you could never disconnect with that life-rope.
After all,
one begins to die upon conception. Time covers the distance between one’s birth
and death. The rest of our earthly activities are only necessary conditions for
that transition.
A
reflection when combined with reflexivity helps us a lot, in conjuring up our
subjectivity, allowing us to remain conscious of how much time we have at hand,
and how to expend it. This conscious work of reflection and reflexivity make
our sojourn and transcendence through life, memorable and meaningful. For, we
cannot separate our past from our present.
At a
Kampala restaurant, I met up with old school friends. An awkward encounter
ensues as we all became depersonalized. To me, the more we self-actualize, the
more we unveil our specificity. The purification process involves the pruning of
one’s rough edges to discern them from the common societal values.
Everyone
develops specific traits essential to sustenance of their new becoming. In the
process, we endure subtle conflicts with societal values and traditions, given
our own emergent values. Many end up living half-lives, trying to find a
balance between the two.
At the
behest, the common societal values vanishes, and are re-enacted within the new trades
identities upon which our self-actualization materializes, and with the actualized
self. The lesser values one shared with society, the more one appears triumphant
in this aegis of neoliberalism beast.
So, in a
typical reunion with childhood friends, you are confronted by displaced
persons. Immediately after exchanging pleasantries, you are introduced to a
lawyer, journalist, doctor, accountant, director, manager, and so forth. Big
titles. Fond names and memories of the past are now distanced from the person
you eagerly awaited to re-unite with. People have become work places and work
places have become people. Elsewhere,
materials define people, and people are defined by materials. Why do we interface
with someone’s workplace and their material possessions simultaneously during a
simple private social gathering?
The End.
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