Untitled

What's up bro?

I can't remember how we used to greet each other back then. Did I ever call you bro?

I called you your name. It sounded good to the ears. I wonder what else changed in the space between then and now. I wonder how much you've changed.

I was so embarrassed to be writing these I just started out sheepishly. I honestly don't know what to say, and I don't want to sound girly and send messages the equivalent of virtual high-fives.
I don't know anything about virtual high-fives.

The embarrassing truth is, you came to me in my dreams and asked me to write long letters to you. I know, I'm ashamed. I should be thinking about money. I'm 25 for God's sake, but I remember I never hid anything from you.

So far, a few things you don't already know. I work as a Support Engineer for Azure. It sounds very important, I know, but I don’t  earn very much. In the daytime I'm sending many emails, In the night I'm dreaming.
I write, I take pictures, I rap and I talk gospel.

Gospel? Hah! I know what you're thinking. I'm a pastor too. Maybe you're right. I'm tired of defending against it. I like the bible, and I read the scriptures like it was written about me - So there you go. I'm Jesus man.
I'm also very Muslim. I converted by myself. I don't pray 5 times yet, but I'm doing my best to keep up. (Or run away).

Sometimes it makes me look interesting, and I have many conversations with really intelligent people about what the difference is, and what faith I'm following. I've written many posts about it, but they are never concise. I am unable to properly stand anywhere. Perhaps what I should do is stop trying to stand anywhere and just describe my movements.
What does it mean to be in church today, and be in the mosque tomorrow? Hard question.

Man, there's a lot of news about how things are hard flying everywhere, everybody is complaining. Prices are going up, my niggas are looking for a job, Big cars fly past, top model jeep cars with big vroom in their engines, I wonder who is sitting inside those - Guys are saying is yahoo yahoo. That they are underwater, Me I'm wondering what an underwater garage looks like, or an underwater swimming pool. Gotta be cool.

I know many people doing yahoo yahoo. So many of them openly admit it. I wonder what is wrong with them. I wonder what our generation has turned into. So much wickedness everywhere. So much poverty too. I tell them I'm not involved. I'm not doing yahoo yahoo. The truth is I don't know what I'm doing. The real the real truth is -  we're not much different. 
Every night I dream like a fish. I see a million images. So many voices come to me and tell me to ask for money, that I'm dulling. What If money appear in my hands the next morning then police start chasing me. They are already chasing me in my sleep - I don't want any hiding formulas, I don't want to run from anybody, I don't want to thief anybody money. I don't want to put money inside anybody nyash. I want to go anywhere I want without stress.

I hope you are not doing yahoo. I cannot even judge you, so you better lie to me. I'm in my office imagining myself hiking across many mountains with many oyinbo strangers, learning a lot from them, or in the hut of the oldest man in one small Kenyan village recording all his best stories. I wonder how I'll have money to do all that. Let's just leave that one.

Do you have anything you're doing? Like a skill? At the office here although there are many skilled engineers, everybody is a programmer in waiting. Everywhere you go JavaScript, CSS, Java, Angular. I know what that's like - I once followed an Angular + NGRX tutorial to the end, like 98%, because it was paid. I'm still not a programmer. I don't know why. Maybe I just stopped applying after a while, because it felt like beating against a stone wall with a paper ticket.
I even learned UI design man. I'm good at it, did it for a while, but I don't have a job doing it currently.

These platforms change all the time. Now that web3.0  is out, everybody has to look for some new stack to learn. I used to be more interested in the backbone of these structures, how do they work, we never ask. You can't build everything from the ground up, yet I can't shake the gnawing suspicion that these technologies have an origin, a context, and tomorrow's inventions will happen because we dare question the foundations of today's technology, challenging them to account for the reality of our socio-cultural context. What the population density and topological structures of our continent Africa might mean when you rethink the telephone, the internet, the radio.
I mean, we already distrust the television, because people dress up nicely and go on tv and tell nonsense lies from beginning to end. The TV is not our invention. What is a better way of communicating in Africa… where our special demographics and cultural/traditional differences are advantages?
How can today's tech not impoverish the minds of the children, how can we dig in and create something that takes our own social context into account?

I wonder why there are so many churches in Africa. It's either we are right about God, or we are all fools and the Europeans and Americans know something we don't.

If things were all rosy would we need God? Perhaps we wouldn't. God exists to wipe our tears away.  Perhaps we should sit in classrooms all day and learn what the teachers teaches, from old notes and foreign researches we don't have access to. That's how you get doctors that wear white coats and give pills to strangers. Tell you what is wrong with you with big names you can't pronounce.

I asked kids in my Sunday school class what they wanted to become and they said Doctor and Lawyer and Teacher. That hurt a lot. They don't know anything else. They have to learn the hard way that not everybody can become, or should wish to become a teacher, a Doctor, a Lawyer, etc. They need someone to open their minds up.
One way to do this is to listen to them, without judging them, without playing senior over them. This is what Sir Nathan taught me, another best friend. I aspire to do this in my Sunday school classes.

I told you I dream a lot. Don't blame me for speaking all those grammar.

How are you and the girls? Do you have a girlfriend yet? I don't have any, but I feel loved from a place of light. We're the next ones to get married, so you should employ me to search for one for you. Man, take care of yourself… Don't let the way things are currently bog you down. Don't be discouraged by slow progress. Quiet motivation and self-application will lead you into greatness. I hope you do better for yourself, I hope depression doesn't come near.

Nifemi says that greatness is default in him, He declares it with such powerful conviction, an unshakable belief in the certainty of his destiny, I call it the declaration of his rights to the sweetness of life. I believe it too. We weren't born to suffer man. All we is life given freely.

Talk to you over the phone soon, you can call me for urgent anything anytime you like. No hesitation. 

Take care,
Chinedu.