The man who slept hungry yesterday and today has some food, is a fearful man. Once he has eaten and his stomach is full, he starts to worry that the hunger pangs he felt the previous day will pay him a visit again.
Like a shadow, his past hovers behind him and keeps beckoning. He constantly steals glances at the shadow, and every time he does so, he finds it staring back at him. Waiting for him to come “home”.
So, he is always running away from his past. He treads carefully lest he slips and falls back to his former life of want. His hard work and grind, is not borne out of a desire for success, but a desire to avoid failure. He is in a hurry, not to get somewhere but to escape from his shadow.
One may say that this is a good thing. That the fear makes him work harder and avoid mistakes. But the truth is, the past has a stranglehold on him. It suffocates him.
He knows where he has come from. He feels like an imposter sitting at the table where he does not belong. And fears that one mistake, one misfortune will send him back to Kanyam Kago. Back to where he really belongs.
His mild success is his Achilles heel. It makes him avoid any action that may make him lose what he has. He becomes invested in preserving the status quo.
But like a man holding a delicate butterfly in his palm, his attempts to keep the butterfly from escaping, makes him squeeze his grip a little too tightly until he kills it.
His fear is not a fear of the unknown, but a fear of the known.
Life is life
Fabio