as human beings, focus is the one lever we have.
success in anything isn’t guaranteed, but if you focus your attention on something for long enough success is usually just a matter of time. my parents were never happier in their marriage than they were the day after i left for college. why? they had to reprioritize each other. but the flip side of this is giving less attention to the things that are cool, and interesting, but not as important as a life partner.

when i have to say no, it feels like i’m turning down an opportunity to be my best self by helping someone, or by going through with a great opportunity. but i have to reframe that. what i’m really doing is reaffirming my yes to the things that matter so much to me that i won’t jeopardize them by being mentally overbooked.

the way that i people please is with my attention, but i’m learning to fight that. learning not to see every demand on my time and attention as a call that i either succeed or fail to respond to.

if i were a gardener, and i watered every plant in my garden just a little bit, they would all die. you cannot be everything to everyone. acknowledging that is limiting, but it’s freeing too.

somedays tears and raindrops collide
in a liquid ionic fusion,
watery orbs pelt tombstones,
chilling a mourner’s bare skin.

somewhere unclear
a salty tear meanders
down dark skin,
and a stoic, damp earth absorbs pain.

People tell me all the time that I “shouldn’t take things so personally.”

What they don’t know is that I would love to be the kind of person who could let slights and rejections roll off my shoulders.

But I’m not. I used to try and convince myself otherwise. To always be the light version of myself that let everything go and never did anything from a place of negative emotion. I killed my shadow.

I quickly found myself feeling like a human doormat, and like a shell who was only allowed to feel half of the spectrum of human emotion. I was less motivated, less authentic, and deep down I knew I was betraying myself.

Part of life’s beauty is contrast. We feel anger, and resentment, and shame for a reason. Anger is rocket fuel. Resentment is our nervous system telling us that something has to change. Shame usually means that we might not be the person we think we are and we need to grow.

I was trying to lock these emotions away in a cage, but I was expending so much energy mentally doing that, and I was locking a huge part of my real self away, when what I really needed to be doing was figuring out a way to master all my emotions, dark ones included.

Carl Jung calls this “integrating the shadow”. A balance between killing the shadow and being possessed by it. The parts of ourselves we fear the most are also the most powerful, and maybe that’s precisely why we fear them.

Mace Windu called this Vaapad. He alone among all the Jedi of his time was able to use the Dark Side of the Force to make himself stronger. Instead of fearing it and completely shutting himself off to the shadow of the Force, he was able to dip into the dark while staying in the light, and that’s what enables him to defeat Emperor Palpatine at the end of Revenge of the Sith.

It is psychological alchemy. You take a negative thing, a traumatic thing, and you transmute it into something positive.

I didn’t get a return offer from the company I worked at last summer. I was expected to work ~35-40 hours a week, but most weeks I was closer to 60. I spearheaded a project with seven figures in business value as just an intern, and the performance review I got during my exit interview with my mentor and manager was glowing. Despite that, a few months later, they told me that they wouldn’t be bringing me back because I didn’t have what it took to “deliver independently as a full-time software engineer.” That was bullshit, and I knew it. Everyone told me not to look at it as a reflection of my efforts and capabilities. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t look past the pain of being told that I wasn’t worthy. So I stopped trying to look past it. I walked headlong into it, cloaked myself in it, and used it to power my way through recruiting for a different full time job. Before every interview, I called to mind exactly how I felt getting off that phone call with my old manager. The self-doubt. The fear that I wasn’t cut out for this space. I swore to myself that I would get an offer far more exciting than the one I was denied.

The climax of my recruiting cycle was a trip to San Francisco to do onsites for two startups. Somehow, I came home with three offers.

Thanks, Mace Windu.

speak clearly, but do not seek to be understood.

love dearly, but let love go. do not suffocate it.

people will throw the word ‘love’ around like it’s a feeling, but it’s not. love is an action, and it’s synonymous with sacrifice. can you still love those you’ve sworn to even when you don’t feel like it?

as much as other people might expect from you, expect even more from yourself.

under promise and over deliver.

be punctual (do as i say not as i do).

never show your true face to those you do not trust, or share your dreams with those who want to see you fall.

people will lie to themselves and to the world to justify their choices. don’t take it personally.

never lie to protect yourself or make yourself look better. if you must, lie to protect others.

avoid alcohol, drugs, and gambling. not because those who use them are weak, but because your mind is uniquely obsessive (and if you’re my son, you’ll probably hate the taste of alcohol anyway).

never believe what they’re saying about you.

what they call ‘God’ is real, but anybody who tells you they’re sure about what it is probably hasn’t thought deeply enough about it.

often, you will be overwhelmed by your feelings. feel them, do not run from them. but understand that feelings ≠ truth.

sometimes you gotta put your feelings in your pocket and make shit happen anyway.

people will diminish you, tell you that the things you’ve accomplished have been given to you by chance or by charity. they will think differently of you because of the color of your skin and the texture of your hair. they will smile in your face and whisper about you behind your back. FUCK them.

limit your use of foul language.

cry (but never let anyone see your tears).

love your woman.

protect your sister.

make your mother proud.

train your mind: master things. learn how to cook, learn an instrument, learn more languages than i did.

train your body relentlessly. lift heavy weights. run far, run fast.

never forget that everything we do is for each other:

choose dancing with those you love over dancing on the graves of your enemies.

i lived in such a way that i would be a better man than my father,

live so that one day you

will be a better man than me.

What thoughts haunt your mind as you journey to the white sand beaches of your ancestral home?

Do you remember that this land was the cradle of creation, the Garden from which all cultures and civilizations of man burst forth into bloom?

Do you see Adam’s tiny descendants, naked and shameless just as before the Fall, as they chase each other up and down the dusty sidewalk?

Does their water run like they do?

Can you see the merchants lining the streets on both sides?

Can you hear them stamp and shout as they peddle their wares?

Is it possible not to feel the electricity radiating from the vibrant people of this city?

Is it ironic that they spend half the day without it?

When will their government, equal parts corruption and incompetence, finally bring them the stability they deserve?

When will your cab finally reach the coast?

How many children just a few years younger than you do you pass on the way, watching them beg for a few hundred Naira?

What is the price of a loaf of bread in Lagos?

Does it cross your mind that their circumstances could so easily have been your own?

Or does your daydream of snapping pictures on the beach consign you to a blissful oblivion, an ocean away from the problems of your people?

a monstrous tsunami crashes against my chest

water surges in through the cracks of my heart

i left the windows open

to bask in the tidal typhoon.

i thought i knew pain, thought i’d plumbed its

depths

no.

i had many leagues further to fall

for you

i abandoned my self

for you

i laid my weakness bare

and on your waves i crested higher than i ever had before

our souls were bound with blood and water

two raging whirlpools

two concentric circles.

i was always yours but you were never mine.

and now i’m back in that familiar place: alone

with the phases of the moon

your waves retreat again

taking yet another piece of my heart with them.

I know that not everyone who writes has this same perspective, and that’s beautiful. I also don’t mean to make it seem like I don’t take any joy in writing. Writing was my first craft. The first thing I ever truly took care to do well. At the same time, once I made the decision that I was going to do it well, The Watcher took over.

The Watcher is the person living inside your mind that judges and evaluates everything you do. It’s what Freud called the superego. It’s the voice that rouses you out of complacency and claims lordship over your instincts. Once I decided to become a writer, that voice became audible. Every piece I’ve written has been completed under its unrelenting gaze.

The Watcher is the reason why I made this Substack months ago with the intention of writing frequently, but have only published one time besides the essay you’re reading right now. Any idea or thought that doesn’t meet its lofty standards is banished to the recesses of my mind. That was OK. Pretty cliche though. Do you even care about what you’re writing about? There are middle schoolers writing more compelling things than whatever this is. If you’re going to write something down, it says, then you should write down excellence. But that’s not true. Few things that are written down are excellent, and even fewer things that are written down are excellent the first time that they are written down. This is a lesson that writing software has taught me actually. If it were possible to design and implement robust systems correctly the first time we built them, then millions of software engineers and computer scientists wouldn’t exist. Maybe one day they won’t, but I’ll discuss that another day.

As painful as The Watcher makes the process of writing, if a blue, Will Smith looking genie gave me three wishes, being rid of The Watcher would not be one. Because of The Watcher, I’ve written some of my favorite, most resonant pieces. I’m less prolific than I would be otherwise, but I have a greater attention to detail when it comes to my writing, and that means I can speak more concisely and distill far more potent brews of ideas. Without The Watcher, I would probably give misinformed, wrongheaded takes on things that I really didn’t understand (I still do that, but I would definitely do it way more). The Watcher gives my writing focus, edge, and acuity.

For better or for worse, it makes writing feel like my brain is being pressed up against a grindstone.

There are so many ways that I could’ve written this piece. Even now, as I write this conclusion, a nearly infinite tree of decisions spans before me. I see ways that I could subvert everything that I’ve said up to this point to give this piece a different meaning; I see intricate tapestries of metaphors, similes, and double entendres. Each beautiful and profound in their own way. And the fact that I can only choose one is why I hate writing.

The fact that I get to choose any at all is why I love it.

back when that meant something,

they swore blood oaths and poured

libation out to the old gods,

they striped their cheeks like tigers,

wore ocean beads made by deep divers,

but maybe tradition is shallow.

tradition can't make the Naira any stronger,

it can't fill the potholes big enough to sleep in,

destitution has a way of making souls sag

and seeping deep into the bone.

be careful driving on the gutter,

you might fall into the street,

or you might lose electricity during a job interview,

after all, my grandfather was a chief

but our family home had no power.

Artwork by Buhle Nkalashe.