So what’ve you been up to?🙂

Hey friends,

A very short one today, for the comeback.

A couple of weeks have gone by since my last post. And the duration between my last two posts has been too long. A certain chain of activities a few months back led to me not ‘creating’ time to write these, even though I had huge chunks of time to write. And so I decided to continue, or restart, this December.

A few friends who have been reading these and referring to their friends, have been asking me over the past couple of weeks, “So, what have you been up to? You don’t write your newsletter anymore?” And that always lit up both a spark of joyous hope, and a heavy load of disappointment that I’m too lazy to do something that I myself started. Like no one forced or even asked me to do this yet I can’t keep up with it four months in. And the disappointment always outweighed the joy. The question made me know that I have at least one person in the whole world who wants to hear what I have to say through writing. And also that I am not delivering on my task as expected, thereby disappointing not only myself but also others. And that double-edged sword of disappointment always pierced more than the hope of this going big.

So in the time frame that I’ve not written, I’ve been drafting my plan for this newsletter. Coz you don’t hear of newsletters often in Africa or Kenya, to be specific. Most that I’ve heard of are for media companies in Kenya, or big worldwide corporations that are also in Kenya. And most Kenyans, or anyone really in Africa, don’t sign up to the newsletters coz they don’t know much about them, or they don’t see the point..among many other reasons.

So why would I be doing this? Why would I do it if I know its not bringing money (yet). Why would I write to a few of my friends every week talking about my adventures and life stories and theories. Do they even want to read the stories? Why would you do something that doesn’t generate you money, bro? Most Kenyans before entering the job market or corporate world don’t even know/use emails. These, and myriads of other questions, made me sit down down and think what I’m actually doing. And in around three weeks of scribbling every idea for this every night, I’ve come up with a plan that I want to make work. It is so outrageous for even me that I won’t share it until it succeeds or fails. Obviously I’ll take inputs and ideas from others but not in a way to tell what the actual plan is. Someone might see my plan layout for the years to come and completely shut it down for its outrageousness. I prefer it better with me alone, it will help me better to tackle this. And that plan was to commence on this first Sunday of December…so here we go!🤞🏾

Trust me, even after drafting the plan, I still didn’t have anything to write for today. But part of the plan was to not miss a writing day, even if it is just to say hi. I now remember what I was told a few months back by Calvin Rosser - there is no formula to writing.

So we back! If you have any suggestions/comments/ideas/criticism on what to write or talk about feel free to reply to this email, and I’ll surely give it a shot :)

(Thank you to all who have been asking for the issues. It means so much that even one person would love to read these.)

❤️My favorite things this week.

1. Book club📚📖 - A few weeks ago I started a book called The Emperor of all maladies. It has been a most insightful experience so far. I’m in page 50+ and I already feel the terrible crab-like claws of Cancer. It is a biography of Cancer and so I’m still in the historical pages of how cancer has been with us ever since the dawn of time, but was given different names according to its symptoms. Like Onkos because the malignant Cancer cells/tumors viewed back then looked like a mass of cells and were considered a burden to the body. The discipline of oncology would take its modern name from the Greek word. The book is also a bit terrifying and stomach-turning, when describing the symptoms shown by different cancer patients. It also tells of how you can do everything in your power, whether rich or poor, to prevent it, but more often than not it occurs by itself. The source or particular causes of different types of cancer have not been well defined or known, therefore the cure/treatment is also miles away from perfect. And once the cancer cells start multiplying they are almost unstoppable. One doctor in the medieval times described it as “a force of nature that only the turbulent sea is more scary!”. I will have to write a whole issue about the book when I’m done reading it. Such a great book, by the author whom I still can’t pronounce his name😂(Siddhartha Mukherjee).

✍🏽Quote of the Week

PS: If you have a few seconds to spare, please hit the <reply> button and let me know what you thought of this email. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it and what could be improved. It also reminds me that there’s another person reading it on the other end of my screen😅. Thanks.

Have a wonderful week ahead!

Reagan.