In my life, I have had two main likes or interests. The first is listening to good music and the other is writing. The music part I probably ended up liking music because of being the youngest in the family hence always picking up on all traits of all the elder siblings and i have one in mind that really listened to a lot of reggae music and you eventually start liking it but as i was growing up i picked up several genres of music and today i just say i love "good music" and not really one specific genre of music.
Unfortunately, my father died while i was very young so I lived a big part of my life with my elder sister, the second born. It is in her home that i probably picked up the interest in reading and writing. Her husband, was a teacher of English language and Literature in English and he actually happened to be the head of department. We had all kind of books in the house such that even though in my entire life i never took English Literature as a subject, i had read most of the books in the Zambian syllabus of English Literature as early as my 8th grade. Mine boy, Things fall apart, No longer at ease, Animal farm, The river between, imprisonment of obatala and a host of Wole Soyinka poetry plays & essays.
Having been introduced to reading at a very early age definitely gave me the impetus to develop the "urge' to write. It is funny that even proposing love to a girl, i had to put ink to paper to do it. Though I tried proposing love to a girl before my 20's, it was not possible for me to do it verbally until after i was well in my 20's. Ink and paper always served me well. Writing was so much a part of me that, I remember vividly in my 10th grade the teacher of English language gave us a class test on English composition, everybody in my class got below 14 and i got a 19. The day the teacher was handing out the marked results, she told me that, in English composition, no one gets everything otherwise she would have given me 20.
That was then. 15 years later, i still enjoy writing such that most times when i put up a Facebook status update my wife calls it an essay. A work mate once told me that she doesn't read most of my updates because they are so full of "paragraphs" and she doesn't have time for it. The truth is, recently, even though i have read a few books and done some writing, i have not done as I used to 10-15 years ago. I find myself reading a book because it is a study text for a course i need to pass so I'll do some studying. The reading for fun doesn't appeal to me any more. But like they say, old habits die hard and I'll use this blog to write and write and write a lot.
I will speak my mind on any topic. My philosophy in life has been free thought. Every man has got to think freely. Even the man in prison has got to have a free mind even when the body is incarcerated. humanity must thrive on self expression. It is okay to express one self, even when others feel you are stupid or folly. That is just their opinion and you have got to have your own opinion. I learned that on this earth there is NO ABSOLUTE TRUTH, even in science or arithmetic. Who determines what is normal for someone? Is it not oneself? Besides, 'normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly'. That is according to the words of Morticia Addams.
I always encourage people around me to develop a sense of individuality and that means "free thought" and "free expression". As for me, the biggest source of my self expression has always been putting ink to paper. This blog will have a lot of discourse on different topics ranging from social, economic, business, political, religious and many more. Do not get me wrong I will not just write as i please and anything that comes to mind no matter how stupid. i have a great sense of self restraint. Any civilised society is built on people of free thought but with a high sense of self restraint.
In the initial stages, i will post monthly blogs but will later post more blogs of different topics. Looking forward to a lot of discourse with all my peers fellow discussants and critics alike.
Patrice Nambayo Aongola
Beautiful writing Patrice. Its amazing that we have so much in common, that's probably the reason why we had similar tastes in music judging from the little time we lived together. Which I usually want to hastily forget, as it was an exploitation of our naivety by that School and that man.
ReplyDeleteI too found love in books at a very young age. While waiting for my grade seven results I went and lived with an uncle who had a huge bookshelf full of the best of African and World literature. By the time my stay was coming to an end, I had ploughed through the entire bookshelf including such mundane readings as the communist manifesto.
It goes without saying that my thinking changed and I was unbeatable at English or Literature. I have equally tried to keep up the habit and satiate my passion for writing through my blog which I believe you have visited.
All I can do is encourage you to continue writing and reading. I believe you are never completely free as a writer till you vent out. Whether it is to an audience of one (yourself), three or thousands doesn't really matter. What matters is that your story is told, from your eyes, from your perspective.