Munene, the journey...

I do not particularly like networking events. Formal ones such as those organized by schools and are termed "career networking night" or "spring prom", are particularly abhorrent to me. The reason is that the end of the night is supposed to bring us closer to gaining employment, making connections to interesting things happening in our fields and so on. If we are lucky, all we end up with is a bunch of fancy business cards that we dump at the bottom of our drawers, never to see the light of day again, and of course a bloated stomach from all those nachos and chicken wings we consumed. image courtesy of goldenkeyhq.files.wordpress.com My main problem with these events however, is the premise for the event: highly intelligent people, who know themselves to a certain degree, are going to share some close quarters with strangers, in order to knock around ideas, connect and possibly plan some future engagements. What ends up happening, however, is that highly anxio...

How do myths and unsupported beliefs begin? Well, I don't know. But I will take a wild guess. Chance and coincidences. Among the Meru people, if you are walking on a road and see a black animal cross ahead of you, you need to turn back and use another route. Or if it's raining and you go out in red clothing, you will be struck by lightning. Oh yes, go back now before you die So, how did my community come up with these superstitions? I don't know. I have a hunch. One day, someone walked out in red clothes during a thunderstorm and they were struck by lightning. The following day, someone else wanted to go out. The village elders warned him not to go out in red attire during a thunderstorm. Well, he did not listen, and unfortunately, was also struck by lightning. And thus grew the superstition. This is the same with most of our beliefs. They make sense to us because we have believed them for so long. Some seem natural. We have always known them. Our parents always s...

Why do we vehemently criticise other people about their imperfections? We do know that every human has weaknesses and that each of us is simply struggling through life without crashing under the weight of societal expectation. And yet even with this knowledge, we still engage in the debilitating actions of making enemies by pointing out the mistakes of others. As humans, we judge ourselves harshly. We do not, as the saying goes, cut ourselves some slack. But the burden is made heavier by our brothers and sisters who criticise and put us down. But why do we find fault with other people? Well, for starters, it is because the faults we see in others serve as a mirror to our own faults. Yes, the reason it irritates you when someone picks their nose in public is because you do it yourself. And since you already know this about yourself, it subconsciously reminds you of something you do not approve in yourself. Image courtesy of memegenerator.net The second reason, I bel...