What Are You Afraid Of?
Don’t ask me, I don’t know.
My dad often said ‘I don’t know’ wasn’t a good enough answer to a question. There had to be an accompanying quest to find the right answer. This was in some ways a burden. In other ways, it was an interesting path to finding out the details of what I didn't already know. So, I started to use an “I'm not sure, let me find out” catchphrase(?) instead.
Recently, I've found myself— more than at any time — returning to “I don’t know.” There seems to be so much to know, to read, to consume. And with all that content and information in the world, there are some things not worth knowing. This makes me worry. I should know the answers to questions (especially as a leader — never said this out loud lmao.) So I did some research and stumbled into this article. You should read it.
On Memory and Childhood
This week, I saw a tweet about how not remembering your childhood can be a sign of trauma. I don’t remember a lot from my childhood. It’s mostly bleak and dark. The years before the start of this new millennium are even worse -- they’re in black and white. In one of my few memories from this time, my mum is pregnant, I want a biscuit, but I’m too little to go and buy it myself. Somehow, I end up rolling down a set of stairs. I don’t know if this memory is real, imagined or was told to me, but it feels weird and unreal. It makes me worry about my childhood experiences and traumas. What if there’s more hiding in my brain?
I’m particularly interested in this, because of this CNF I started working on last weekend. I’m reading One Day I’ll Write About This Place and it’s influencing my writing style. As much as I love it, I wonder: what if I can never remember enough to write a memoir? I forget things easily and remember useless things easily. My fear of forgetting is similar to the fear I have of losing sight: What if one day when I'm 60, I can’t remember anything (or can’t see at all). Scary shit. It’s one of the things that made me start to journal, an art I have abandoned since April. Welp. I’m just going to blame the person who dropped me on my head as a child.
One Day I’ll Write About This Place reminds me of a hopeful poster I used to have during my undergrad years: “One day, I’ll write about this experience” — I will write about this one day: the anxiety, the uncertainty, the not knowing, the forgetting.
On Freedom and Nigeria
I thought about Sowore this week and I'll be thinking about him and freedom for a long time. I was thinking about freedom in this sense of being unjustly trapped, and then in a religious sense. The fact that Sowore is still in detention for using the word ‘revolution’ is wild. Nigeria finds ways to hold the best of us captive. Japa is such a timely song.
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(Little gift for you, of me feeling so butterflysie)
Very little to say in this letter. I was featured on Afoma Umesi’s blog, and that was nice. I wrote a break down of what’s happening to women in Port Harcourt and spoke to someone with agoraphobia for the #AdultingByZikoko column.
PS: I'm afraid of a shitload. This includes: wall geckos, falling into a canal, applying for a scholarship and not reaching my full potential because I'm in Nigeria. The title of this letter was supposed to be about not knowing stuff and saying I don't know. I think you should liberate yourself more by saying it when you genuinely don't know, instead of whatever it is you say or do. You can't always be right; you can't know everything. Like I was told as an undergrad law student: a lawyer doesn't know all the laws, he just knows where to find them.
PSA: Jollof Road is coming!
Till the next Thought’s Day!