PAIN-TENCE

 There's a kind of torture that comes with waiting. Anticipation may be akin to a slow acting lethal injection in some cases. You slowly start to see blurred images and hear slurred words. A descent from clear and explicit visions to darkness. Curse our reward systems for always thinking the longer the wait the greater the reward. We believe and have made systems incorporating compounding but fail to acknowledge that not only good things compound. Sometimes we amass so much negative emotions thoughts and world views that they become an integral part of our being. I'll use an example I once saw in a book about Kenyans. We've all been in a matatu that is overcrowded, the discomfort, heat and smell make for a terrible commute hence the popularity of SACCOs that prioritize order and comfort like Supermetro. If you're in the aforementioned matatu and raise a complaint about the scenario you might be met by a rebuttal such as "Si ungenunua gari" from a tout or as a silent whisper from a fellow passenger. this reinforces a popular mentality I have observed among my people; we might be drowning but as long as we're all drowning it's okay.

Back to the meat and potatoes now. There's a popular song from the absolute peak of EDM (2011-2019) called Waiting for Love by Avicii. The song itself has a punchy dance melody but the message, especially the hook has a kind of melancholy captured partially by its music video; the old man sojourning on his mobility scooter actively looking for something. I will not try to do a deep dive on the symbolism of a music video, my emphasis is on the title; Waiting for love. There's an uncanny attraction people have towards a tragic love story. We see it in all cliche movies books etc. Broke boy/ girl develops a deeply extensive and expensive attraction towards a polar opposite partner and we all revel in the story. We like to see what usually starts as a one-sided relationship blossom and burgeon into romance. We're drawn to these stories because they are relatable in a tragic way. Most if not all of us have been in a relationship (situationship?) where it's one-sided.

The joy of fiction is usually rooted in the sadness of daily life and the color of human imagination. We see a deeply problematic situation and even though in the moment devising a remedy for it may be difficult, we are free to imagine and think of how the scenario would ideally go. Then it is up to us to either act on our 'revelations' or accept it and let it go. Waiting to be loved is an exercise in torture that unfortunately were almost masochistically drawn to. There's an unspoken rule of mutuality among individuals of high functioning societies. I want _ so I will be a reflection of what attracts me to _ and I will attract _. That's basically the premise. I am a firm believer in stating what you want and stopping at nothing to get it but sometimes it may be detrimental. I used to get so caught up on what my vision could be, what it would ideally look like that I missed several signs I was exerting it (my vision) on the wrong subject

Yearning is beautiful, it reminds us of the beauty of the presence of something or somebody. However, in the absence of mutuality especially where you are emotionally invested grows taxing and burdensome. It becomes an exercise in proving to yourself and your subject of your worth independent of it; which is counterintuitive because you're only doing it because the subject is not. Being at war with yourself over external validation is a sorry and pitiful sight that unfortunately most of us have to experience especially in our young and naive days. It is integral to remember that love is complementary and not supplementary, a mutual assistance of two individual strength instead of one supporting a deficiency.