The other day, someone asked me for directions to a certain place. After giving him the directions, I still had the directions (surprise surprise!). Sometime back, someone joined me in sitting around the fire. Yea, his presence did not reduce the heat of the fire. In fact, besides enjoying the warmth of the fire together, we had a nice conversation and enjoyed each other’s company.
But our society teaches us to hoard, to hold onto our “great” ideas. But ideas are like viruses, only those that spread survive. Everything we enjoy has been handed down to us by our predecessors. It is because of other people’s generosity that we enjoy the internet, fire and nice recipes.
In high school, I struggled with waking up for morning preps, so I used to be startled out of sleep with canes and the loud voice of the principal. We nick-named him Bouncer. He used to bang the dormitory door and shout “kuna watu wamelala hapa!”. Instantly, we all scampered from our beds and ran in all directions.
But the guy who used to sleep on the upper deck of my bed did not experience such terror. I always found him in class relaxed as I was panting from sleep-running after being chased away from the dorm.
At some point I got tired of the rude awakenings by the Bouncer. He used to warn us “Sleep now and you will have sleepless nights in the future”. ( He was right, I’m writing this in the middle of the night).
So, I requested my neighbour to wake me up when he goes for morning preps. That morning I somehow woke up early and was surprised to see him sneak out of bed and tippy toe out of the dormitory, to ensure he does not awaken me or any of us sluggards.
Talking of high school, one of the highlights of high school was being told the story of Archimedes. The guy who, after stepping into a bathtub, discovered that the volume of water displaced by his body was equal to the volume of his body. He was so excited and eager to share the insight that he jumped out of the bathtub and ran through the streets shouting Eureka! Eureka!, forgetting that he was naked.
Life is life
Fabio