Dreams

In my dream I was in a world divided in two. There was a mountain slope settlement, and there was the mountain base settlement. I belonged in the slope settlement. In fact, I was one of the key players in this slope settlement.

As my dream unfolded, I was in the middle of a war. The slopes were fighting the bases. The cause of the war was unclear; rather it had been a long war that the initial cause was forgotten. But in my dream the slopes had the upper hand. The reason is that they still had food reserves and medical supplies. It can be surmised that their supply route was intact, although in my dream I could not determine this in all certainty. That is, I was caught in the middle of a war I did not understand.

We did not fight with ordinary weapons. I did not wield a gun, nor fought with the word. Instead, we fought with a “whim.” The whim was some kind of desire, or will. This will would materialize into a string-like whip, which would deliver varying types of injury on the opponent without killing them. The object of the fight was to break the opponent’s will. The slopes had broken the bases, time and time again. The bases had almost given up, except that they had enormous numbers to their advantage.

Every time the bases came up to attack they came in armies. Many of the slopes fell to their numerous, menacing fighters, but those that remained only became stronger. the war went on generation after generation. And this time, my turn had come to join in the fight.

The bases had come up hoping to steal some of the slopes food. We had to stand up and fight. I do not remember well how we did it, but we had built concealed ridges along the slope, and I was standing between two of them. A female fighter from the base was coming at me, and I was prepared to retaliate. Then, suddenly, I saw her face and I could not see any evil in her eyes. She was fighting for her life. That is the sort of feeling I got from looking at her determined pose. I dodged and caught her by the waist, her upper body slightly bent around my forearm. She did not struggle.

I pulled her back so that now we were looking at each other.
At that time I felt all of my reasons for joining the war diminish. As I gazed into her listless, tired self, I wondered why I had felt proud of the small victories we had enjoyed in this war. I looked at the general of the slopes and I felt a stinging disgust. I looked at her war general and all I saw was a man asking for a chance at some food. I made to shout something but stopped at mid-sentence. I stealthily withdrew from the fight, and disappeared into the slope. I woke up trying to open a door. I was holding my pillow in my hand.

Summer, School, and Society

The summer of 2009 was the most fun summer of my life, yet. I have never had a more fulfilling, exciting, and thrilling time in college than I had this summer of 2009. First off, I engaged in a journey of personal growth and independence through scientific research at the Yale School of Medicine. I have gone into research labs before, but this time was different from previous occasions because I had to act more mature. Greater expectations were put on my shoulders, but to borrow President Obama’s words in his eulogy speech at Senator Ted Kennedy’s funeral, I “surpassed the challenge because of what [I] became.” At the end of my summer lab experience, I felt thrilled at my achievements. I have not published my results in the lab but I know that I have attained a more important goal than an article in Science – the fulfillment of having pursued independence in scientific research. The experience was not without hiccup, however. I recall several hurdles in the form of lengthy experiments that yielded little positive results, sometimes none. Nonetheless, every time I ran my samples on an electrophoretic gel, or through a spectrophotometer I felt as nervous as a debutante on her coming out party. My anxiety would be alleviated  by the appearance of any form of result – be it a messy band on the gel, or a flat O.D. curve.

However, my lab experience was not the height of my summer experience. The best time of my summer was spent wandering the town of New Haven. Summer in New Haven can go from hyperactive to plain serene. On the hyperactive days, I would find myself exercising my muscles stiff, sweat dripping down my brow, and my lips locked in forced grimace. I would blast reggae and dancehall in my ears until my head threatened to implode on itself, then I would watch some violent movie. Every time I never failed to amaze myself at my ability to maintain unclouded judgment despite the euphoria.

On the more somber days, I would take a walk around the dusty streets: hands in pockets, head drooped, back bent and thoughts focused. I recall one time I bumped into a parking meter when I was briefly distracted from one soul-searching walk. I was walking along Park Street towards Elm Street when I turned my head to look at the other side of the street. I noticed a young couple walking, hand-in-hand, in the opposite direction. But it wasn’t the intimacy with which they held each other that caught my attention. It was the young lady. She was beautiful, nay, very beautiful. I recall thinking that she was so fine it was almost unfair for her to be with the dude! I let my mind wander into imagination land where the fields were green, streets plush with rose petals, and the wind chiming with serenades. In this land, I was. She was. We were. Only the two of us, and a vast beautiful paradise. I was looking in her face about to say something when I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I was jerked back to reality only to realize too late that I had run into a parking meter just outside of the St. Thomas Moore Chapel.

I learned from my unfortunate experience with the parking meter but that did not stop my misfortunes. On several occasions, I felt either too excited or frustrated and I punched brick walls and other hard surfaces with my bare fists. Needless to say, the three scars on my right hand knuckles bear testimony to my impulsiveness and folly. A friend of mine commented that I was simply providing living proof that the Swahili proverb “Mpiga ngumi ukuta huumiza mkonowe” was valid. The proverb is translated: He that punches a wall only hurts his fist.

I’d like to think that my summer packed a punch. Now, school is starting again and I would love to carry that punch through the end of the semester. I am not certain that I can do that but my optimism has always received excellent ratings among my close friends. So, I will ride the wave of positive attitude and hope for the best. To start off, I have decided to engage in a humanitarian effort through my blog.

This is a jerrycan. For more than 1.1 billion people on Earth living without water, the jerrycan is a symbol of life and hope.

You will notice that I have added a new Widget on my sidebar. I have signed up my blog to stream Sprint ads, and have the proceeds go to charity in a deserving third-world country in need of water.

These past couple of months, my country, Kenya, has been hit by a severe shortage of water due to prolonged dry season. As a direct consequence, food supply has dwindled, subsistence crops have failed and folks are starving. The situation is exacerbated by corruption and lack of social responsibility of the ruling elite in Kenya. Kenyan leaders have displayed shameless indifference at the situation, choosing instead, to focus on mere politicking. The plight of the victims of famines is real in Kenya and other developing nations and must be addressed with urgency.

Therefore, I am taking action with the hope that many will join the cause to provide water to deprived third world nations. By clicking on the SocialVibe widget on the sidebar, you join millions other kind people around the globe who have come together to address the problem of water shortage in third world nations. Your contributions to charity will go a long way to support a frail mother in Kenya, Ethiopia, or Haiti. It will go a long way to help an orphaned teenager who has to travel kilometers each day to fetch water to  quench the thirst of her malnourished, underfed siblings. Your help is only one click away.

In order for you to help with the cause, simply click on the “Help Now” button on the widget, and rate the Sprint ad. That is all. By rating the video, Sprint donates money to help Charity:Water build wells and provide clean water to people in Africa.

If you would like to learn more about charity:water, please visit their website at http://www.charitywater.org/index.htm.

Mind Games

A phrase that I have found myself using many times this week goes, “It only appears that way, but it isn’t.” I started liking this phrase a couple of weeks ago when I heard it on TV. I have become quite the couch potato this summer, except that my bed substitutes for a couch. There are a few shows I have followed ardently, and some that I wouldn’t think twice before flipping the channel. My addiction to TV began during the Basketball playoffs season when all the hype was about James LeBron and Kobe Bryant. Both LeBron and Bryant are good players, and are definitely world the media sensation, but I did not watch the games because I wanted to learn how Bryant became an unstoppable basketballer. I watched the games with a view to emulating Dwight Howard [aka Superman] on the slam dunk. Suffice it to say that the season ended without my learning how to hold the basketball.

Anyways, that was more than two months ago. Since then, I have learned to hold the ball, make hoops, jump high enough to touch the net, and do a simple lay-up. That, and a few tricks such as dribbling the ball behind my back, catching it mid-air and making a backward jump to shoot. That is my game, and while I cannot boast to have challenged an opponent and won, I certainly have challenged my raging sportsmanship spirit.

I have juggled a few other things in my life as well. A few weeks ago, I was thinking very deeply about my social lifestyle. Of particular importance was the issue of growing into a romantic relationship. Without spilling too much beans, I will concede that whenever this subject crosses my mind, I immediately see at least five girls in my head. Needless to say, my thoughts have got me in trouble with my girlfriend on some occasions. I remember once I told her that I liked her friend, and she went berserk! For a few days after that incident I was paranoid. I thought that I was sick, unfair, and ungrateful. However, after some meditation I figured it must be pretty normal to find women attractive but not quite advisable to be open about it, especially not to your girlfriend. I do not understand it, though, because girlfriend is woman?!

This summer has had many learning opportunities for me. Take the theme of my research project – HIV-1. If you were to ask me about HIV two months ago, I would probably go on about how it is transmitted, what aspects of our lives would put us in greater risk of contacting the scourge et cetera. What i wouldn’t tell you is that in order for HIV to infect human cells, it must undergo a complex reverse transcription process. I wouldn’t say that reverse transcriptase is the classic machinery for reverse transcription, and I wouldn’t say that the enzyme has two subunits each with four domains, the purpose of which is to interact with DNA template and primer strands. In fact, I wouldn’t concern myself with explaining the mechanisms of inhibition of the quintessential viral enzyme. But now, I can. Oh yea, learning is fun.

I have learned a few other things, too. For example, there once was a guy who died of an umbrella wound. No, it wasn’t that simple. It involved sinister planning, delicate executions and perfect timing. It involved extensive research, intense knowledge and absolute concealment of human emotion. It was one of the most infamous assassinations the KGB ever carried out.

There was also a guy who attempted to murder his wife but lived to become a renowned college professor. And that a few weeks ago a Kenyan lady who attempted to fight the toughening economy by swindling a West Virginia Bank of $1 million was arrested and charged with fraud. Damn, what a waste of a brilliant idea!

Another thing I learned is that the mind has a way of playing tricks on us – at least on me. For example, a couple of weeks ago I couldn’t help thinking about this dude every time I saw Judy Reyes portray Nurse Carla Espinosa Turk on the comedy show Scrubs. Then, as if by celestial intervention or as if through an epiphany I forgot about the dude. I no longer felt the presence that had plagued my mind for days. I thought: Dude, whatever that was!

Ever heard that phrase, “Out of mind, out of sight?”

The Scientist

The scientist walked up to her office earlier than usual that Friday. She was carrying a paper bag bulging with jars and chemical paraphernalia. She wrapped her right hand around the paper bag, clutching it at her side so tightly that the mid-section of the bag was heavily creased, and in her left hand, she fondled with her keys, trying to find the correct key for her door. A brown, slim handbag hang loosely from her left shoulder, and presently it slid in front of her belly as she bent to reach the door knob. Holding the door ajar with her left elbow, she carefully injected herself, sideways, into the dimly lit office. She dropped her keys on her table and pulled the dangling pull-string that was the switch to the overhead light. The light flickered for a few seconds, then gradually lit up the room. She sighed and set the paper bag on the tiny space still available at her table.
One glance at her office and you would immediately know she wasn’t the type to appreciate interior designs and decorations. All across her floor, papers and books were casually thrown in bundles and piles. She had a bookshelf, but it was already full with other publications, lab notebooks, and more papers. There were a few binders on the shelf, but those, too, were overflowing with documents and dog-eared print-outs. On her table, she had a Dell laptop hooked to a printer positioned posterior to the computer. There were a few sheaves of paper jutting from the printer tray and some had dropped around the base of the printer. A couple of pens and pencils were strewn on the table, and the book she had been reading last night was still open to the page she left it on. Her rotating chair was sandwiched in a heap of boxes and could no longer make the full turn. Consequently, she had to twist herself around so as to maneuver herself onto the seat.
She had a perplexed look on her face. Yesterday had not been one of her best days. She had been unable to understand some of her data, and had gone home, slept on it, but found neither insight nor inspiration from rest. She had woken up around four in the morning, thinking that she heard some strange noise in her living room. She groped around in the dark in search of the flash light she usually kept in her bedside drawer but remembered she had moved it the previous night. Her fingers felt something solid and cold. She grabbed it, squinted sleepily at it and made as if to replace it but immediately decided against it. By now, her eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness around her but her mind was still hazy from sleep. She slithered out of bed and slid her feet in her bathroom flip-flops, and silently made for the door. She turned the door knob slowly, pausing to catch her breath every time she thought she had the hinges creak. “I will have to call the repair man in the morning,” she thought.
She cautiously popped her head outside her bedroom door and peered into the hall connecting her living room and her bedroom. On her left side was the bathroom, and on her right, the closet she rarely used. It was filled with decrepit equipment she had felt too sentimentally attached to trash. The door to her bathroom was slightly ajar. The sound of water leaking on the enamel tub resonated with the ticking of the grandfather clock above the fireplace in the living room. She had got used to the rhythm of the ticking clock that she strangely felt at ease anywhere near clocks. Occasionally, she would sit under the city clock at the Square just to enjoy the monotony of the tic-tac-tic. Her friends often commented on her strange attachment to clocks but she often brushed their opinions aside as unsophisticated or simply jealous. Besides, she did not believe she had any real friends.
Presently, she saw something move in the bathroom. Then, she heard a clanging sound as her bottles of shampoo and assorted skin care products dropped on the floor. A gust of wind banged the door shut, and for a moment she thought she heard a thud inside the bathroom. She froze, and her fingers pulled on something. A loud bang blasted all around her. She fell back, as if catapulted backwards on a trampoline. She landed on the floor squarely on her bottoms. Her legs lifted up in the air and her arms flapped about in search of something to hold onto. Fortunately, her back was stopped by her bed. She let her head drop slowly and rested it on the bed.
She must have lay there dazed for a long time because when she came to, two men were towering above her face waving their palms across her eyes and saying something. She craned her neck forward to listen but their voices sounded incredibly distant. She gestured them to stay away, but they appeared unable to perceive her message. She parted her lips to speak. There was no sound. She screamed.
A shrilling sound awoke her to realize that she was panting and drenched in sweat. She was perspiring profusely. “What a nightmare!”
She pulled herself together and walked out into the adjoining bathroom. Everything was in order. There were no sign of entry. There wasn’t any trace of disturbance. She sighed with relief. She took a quick shower, changed into her bathroom robe and propelled herself into the kitchen. She grabbed a few slices of bread and slipped them in the toaster. She reached into the fridge, grabbed a bottle of orange juice and set it on her dining table. “Bing!” The toast was ready. She ate her breakfast silently. She tried to think about her data. She thought about the protocol she had used. She thought about the chemicals she mixed, their ratios, their dilutions, their storage conditions… Everything appeared to make sense, but her results! She kept drawing blanks whenever it came to mapping her theory to her empirical findings. But her data wasn’t the only thing bothering her. There was the matter about her nightmare the previous night. She tried to understand it – perhaps interpret it. She knew it must mean something, but what? She wondered.
Outside her door was a parcel. She examined it casually and immediately knew what it contained. She had ordered a protein purification kit delivered to her home address instead of her laboratory complex. Recently, there were complaints about packages getting caught up and lost in the snail-mail, and she could not risk losing her invaluable serum samples just because she could not have her purification kit. Of course she had had to bribe a few guys back at the stock room to have her shipping address changed in the system. Everything had to go through the system. Department policy – they had claimed – but she always believed that it was one of the many traps the academy had put in place to ensnare the mad scientists and curtail their evil plans for world domination through science. She had cursed the department policies, condemning them to hell, their proper habitat. She grabbed the parcel, threw it on the front passenger seat of her Chrysler Cruiser. She strapped her safety belt on, and sped towards her lab. Usually, she would leisurely cruise to work, but today she wanted to arrive a little early to look over her data one more time before she decided what to do next.
She pulled her chair an inch backwards, squeezed herself into it and punched a few buttons on her laptop. A few minutes of buzzing and beeping brought the computer to life and she began typing something on the keyboard. She opened her data file and fixated on it for sometime. It made no sense.
She decided to re-record her results from scratch. Grabbing a pen and some blank sheets of paper from the printer, she meandered herself around the piles of paper and out of her office. She took the stairs down to the basement where she kept her mice. Her mice were her happiness. She loved them. They were her little adorable babies. To her, the mice promised her recognition, grants, greatness… She felt uplifted every time she looked at their cute pink ears.
She dutifully observed all regulations for handling animal models used for scientific research. In fact, she added a few dos and don’t s to her copy of the Animal Models Guidelines for Use in Research Activities. After petting her mice, she vacuumed their cages, sprayed around their nest, replaced their rags and made them “feel comfortable.” She took short notes on each mouse. Gracefully and delicately she blew a kiss at the cages, turned back and walked to her office. She was exhilarated and completely satisfied with her work with the mice. She sank into her chair and began writing on her lab notebook.

DATE: JAN 11, 2008
MODEL BATCH #: ME17
CONDITION: EXCELLENT
REMARKS: Experiment has proceeded smoothly. Model 17 shows no sign of toxicity. Possibility of success (is high).

She continued writing. She made various remarks about other mice and their conditions. She made thorough observations and deductions. At the end of each page, she signed her name, wrote the date, and drew a smiley face. A new day in the lab had began. This was her place of joy. She loved the lab. She loved her work.
Joe J. walked in just then. Joe J. was her assistant. He managed all inoculations the mice received. Although she did not mind keeping her mice for her study, she certainly did not want to see them in pain. Joe J. did not seem to mind. Besides, she never actually wanted to have him for as her assistant. The decision to have Joe J. was forced on her by her colleague and supplier of mice batch. She was repulsed by the idea of having a male assistant, especially one who would report her work to a third party. However, her colleague would not give her the mice she badly needed unless he had eyes on the inside. Joe J. turned out to be those eyes.
Ordinarily, she would let her pride ride but this once, for the sake of the research grant she really needed, she was willing to bend a little. She promised herself that this was her first and last time she would allow herself to stoop down to such humiliating level. She decided to accept Joe J. as her assistant, and she was now trying to accommodate him as a man. Everyday she gave him specific instructions. He handled the squeals, the writhing in pain of the mice as they received their injections, the works! All she wanted to do was collect data: body heat, weight, breathing patterns, pulse rates, et cetera. She would also visit the cages every morning to dust around and build some trust with the mice. This way, Joe J. would be the classic villain, and her, the charming protector of her mice. She figured that it would be easier for her to collect more accurate data. The assistant disposed of any dead mice at the end of the day or at any other time untimely death occurred. She was determined to finish first phase of her ground breaking research at whatever cost. Of course, these costs did not include watching as her little mice kicked violently and died. She wasn’t going to feel their bloated carcasses.
Joe J. arrived at the lab to find a sheet of paper with instructions posted on his desk. He knew without looking the contents of the protocol on his desk. He sank into his chair and closed his eyes briefly. Yesterday had been quite the day for him. Last night, he had gone home late after injecting the final daily dose of poisoned serum to four of the five mice in the lab. He had remembered to turn off all light, leaving the cages as dark as the night of the solar eclipse. The mice had squealed, scurried frantically towards the walls of their tiny solid cages, and then slowly and cautiously settled in one corner. He enjoyed every moment of their misery, and found it extremely gratifying each time. He liked to feel superior. He wondered why the rodents were not kept in one cage. He thought that he might try combining them all in one cage just to see how frightened they would get in the dark and ram into each other confusedly before they could realize their mutual misfortune and huddle at some far-side corner. He had laughed at the idea, letting his boisterous gurgle reverberate throughout the empty basement room.
He was jolted to his feet by the sound of shattering glass. Unconsciously, he had dropped a beaker on the floor. Hurriedly, he cleaned out the mess but cut his index finger in the process. He cursed. Slamming the door behind him, he hop-skipped into his 4WD Toyota RAV-4 and sped into the night. He looked in his rear-view mirror and thought he saw a flicker from one of the lab windows but he did not stop to check.
Today, Joe J. had arrived a tad earlier than usual – by exactly one minute. He sank into the creaky chair the scientist had assigned him, rubbed his palms together and let our a heavy sigh. He twisted once, but fearing that he would break the decrepit chair, he sprung himself to his feet and launched towards the freezer where he kept the various toxins with which he treated the rodents. He pulled an ice bucket off the top of the freezer and filled it with ice. Dropping several vials of dilute and concentrated venom in the ice, he made for the basement, grabbing a box of Latex gloves on his way. This was the first of the five inoculations she had scheduled for her mice today. Joe J. knew the routine. It never changed. It had not changed for the past seven months.
Back in the office, the scientist was busying herself with transcribing her notebook into her laptop. All around her table were papers – publications in which she had featured – and several animal literature. Everything was strewn haphazardly about her. She had pulled some of her awards and certificates of recognition and was reviewing them. She was very proud of her accomplishments. On every award she was decorated with, she made a smiley face at the left bottom corner. She made ornate frames for her award photos, but she hung them casually on the wall above her desk. She was brooding over an article she read on one of the publications at her table when Joe J. walked in. His expression told her that not all was well with the mice.
She had seen that look enough times to know exactly what message it encoded. In the course of one year working the the X2C2 avian virus strain, she had come to not only expect such news, but treated it as milestones of progress. She started this work for the money and she wanted to report as many instances of setbacks as she could in order to procure a hefty grant package, the idea being that more obstacles to overcome meant more time and money invested in research. She was investigating the mechanisms of ligand binding and release by cellular degradation systems in an effort to suggest ways to mask the virulence of the virus on hosts. She chose a mundane procedure to use in her study – that of treating the virus with synthetic compounds, then injecting them to see if it had any effect on the mice. Her hypothesis was that once the virus was treated with the compounds, it became more passive and more readily amenable to degradation by cellular proteases.
Only a few months earlier, she identified a potentially strong compound that interacted sufficiently strongly enough with the virus. She was elated at her discovery and could picture herself on the fast track to getting that elusive grant. Besides, she badly needed a newer award to display on her wall. If only, she could provide more evidence, more proof that her work was deserving of a government grant… That was when she approached her colleague for her first batch of mice. That was also the time Joe J. joined her lab and life, to keep an eye on the little rascals, as her colleague often called the mice.
“Have you disposed of it?” she asked Joe J.
“Yea, see, that’s the thing. The rascal isn’t dead. It’s sick.”
Sick. That was a very unusual thing to say, especially in a lab that is supposed to kill mice by giving them disease. She was dumbfounded. Joe J. looked unaffected and clueless about the absurdity of what he had just said.
“OK. I’ll be a minute” Joe J. walked out.
The scientist didn’t know what to do with a sick mouse. She had always depended on Joe J. to dispose of any dead mice and make a report of its final moments. Joe J. would fill in a form describing all precautions he had taken to ensure safe disposal of the mice carcasses, and all precautions he took to clean the vacant cages and so on. She made these guidelines herself, so she would know when protocol was followed and when Joe J., in his negligence had violated regulations. Every morning when she inspected the cages, she would tell whether Joe J. had been sleeping on the job or not. Everything was going just fine so far. But today there wasn’t a dead mouse, there was an ailing rascal.
She went down the basement several minutes later to see the sick mouse. Joe J. was standing by the exit. He showed her into the farthest cage: “On your right,” he added. The scientist bent over to get a close-up look at the mouse. It seemed fine. The mouse made tiny whiny noises as if excited by the unusual visit by the good guy, as the scientist had successfully conditioned the mice to discriminate between her and Joe J. She felt some relief at the seemingly healthy state of her mice. She was beginning to wonder if Joe J. had showed her the wrong cage when the light suddenly flicked and went out. The mice scattered around scared in their cages and startled her. She jerked herself up as he hands flew up in the air. She turned back to look at Joe J, as if to inquire why the lights went off but she saw a looming shadow in place of Joe J. She was terrified. She chocked out a cry. “Don’t kill me, please!”
The shadow came crashing in her face. She fell, her head banging on the concrete floor. She heard a crack, but couldn’t feel any pain. She watched as a puddle of blood formed on the floor inches away from her eyes. Her eyesight grew hazier each second life ebbed out of her. She tried to look up, but could no longer see clearly. A distant, blurry silhouette paced back and forth in front of her, becoming more and more distant and faint. Something huge approached her eyes. It seemed to pull her by the nose, but she couldn’t feel the pinch. She didn’t resist. She couldn’t fight back. She was getting tired and sleepy. She wanted to close her eyes.
The evening paper sold out every copy. The front page featured a grisly photograph of the body of the scientist, nose bitten off by mice, eyes gorged out and clothes shredded. Her skull was cracked at the forehead, from what the coroner described as “a blow from a blunt, metallic object.” The article was short but powerful. DEATH: ANIMAL RESEARCHER MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD. The article described in lucid detail the ghastly state in which the body of the scientist was discovered hours after death. Police had received a tip from a man who confessed to having killed the scientist, but had failed to act on the information believing it to be a prank call. A freelancing journalist had got wind of the phone call and decided to investigate the story. The article continued to state that police had released a picture of a man believed to be the prime suspect in the murder of the scientist. The public had been urged to remain vigilante and report any sightings of the man fitting the profile released by the police. The article concluded by discussing the irony of the life of the scientist who was dedicated to killing mice only to be ravaged posthumously by the very rodents she was poisoning. The police chief was quoted as saying that he vowed not to rest until the man responsible was brought to justice.
The scientist had died.

Dear Mum and Dad

Dear Mum and Dad,

This weekend was bustling with Yale’s Commencement activities. I watched silently as Yale seniors became graduates one after another. I watched as the realization that I will soon join in the throngs of graduates and that I will soon join in the insufferable throes of economic down-plunging slowly sank in. I watched as the frenzied applauses and the frantic cheers drowned the crowd attending the ceremonies in chaotic jubilation. I watched, as Yale alumni Christopher Buckley (Yale ’75) delivered his keynote address to the Yale graduating class of 2009.

This year’s Commencement ceremonies were in every bit exciting for me as it must have been for the seniors. I got to see from up close exactly what it feels like to graduate at a precipitous time in the US economy. I talked to a few of Yale’s seniors and although some of them felt that they were well prepared to pull through, you couldn’t miss their anxiety in getting into a world of uncertainty and unchecked competition for survival. In his keynote address to the Yale seniors, Mr. Buckley attempted to calm their anxiety, saying that the future isn’t set in stone. Quoting a French philosopher, he argued that the future is bound to change unexpectedly from what we would imagine it to be. He also quoted a Yiddish Proverb: “Want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans.”

Mr. Buckley used many other proverbs and quotes but his punch line was his cavalier solution to the problem of uncertainty of the future – whatever! According to him, “whatever!” is the ultimate answer to life’s most existential problems. As an example, look at the following series of philosophical quotes he used to expound his observation:

To be or not to be – whatever!

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself – whatever!

Ordinarily for an English student, such quotes are necessarily profound and worthy of at least two pages of etiological essays. An English student would use even more quotes to explain the contexts of the two quotes above. The student would turn the seemingly plain sayings into broad arguments demanding conscientious research and dedicated note-taking. However, the present generation found a better and a faster way of suffocating arguments in their infanthood using “whatever!” Whatever, man!

Personally, I find the usage of “whatever!” typical of an escapist and a defeatist perception of life. I believe that if an argument is due, then cogency must be allowed to run its course. A clear, logical explanation must be sought for every manageable problem. Of course, I do not deny that there are circumstances that can’t really be exhaustively debated but if anything can be sustained, it has to be arguments. Heck, I watched as a few Yalies received awards for outstanding performances in extemporaneous debates. Gosh! EXTEMPORANEOUS!

Talking about awards, I couldn’t help gasping and gaping at the awe-inspiring prizes being conferred on both outstanding teachers and students. There were prizes for practically every area of intellectual and athletic disciplines. There was the award for best essays, best contribution to research, best exemplified moral character, and athlete of the year among many other awards. Yale seniors were showered with accolades and decorated in medals of success and overachievement. Yea – overachievement. It seemed that the Yale graduating class of 2009 really outdid themselves. Strange thing, though – some names received more mention than others.

Oh yea, before I forget I will mention here that the citations read just before the prizes were awarded were a bit methodical and mundane. There was one particularly clichéd phrase that was used excessively: “we have not seen anyone like ___ in a very long time.” Mind you, the speaker of these words quoted the phrase, word-for-word from last year’s speaker without due acknowledgements, I daresay.

Mum and Dad, the looks on the faces of the parents of the graduating class were phenomenal. There were smiles, tears, pride, joy, perplexity and on some, disbelief. It was quite a sight to behold. I found myself thinking about the day, a year away from this day, when you will hopefully show the same faces, too. Then, I thought: What face should I put on?

I got my answer in the faces of the many Yale seniors receiving bear hugs and flashy kisses all around me. Parents and family clustered around them like flies on bees upon a flower. Everyone wanted a piece of the scholar. I wanted a piece of them. If only I could feel the hem of their flowing gowns, I would be forever inspired. If only my fingers could feel the cardboard hat!

The Yale graduates all wore pretty smiles on their weary faces. They hugged everyone courteously and accommodated every one of their guests. There were some with only one guest, and there were some whose extended family emigrated into Yale for the ceremonies. Some seniors wore sashes; some just couldn’t stand the warmth of the academic regalia. But all of them wore the Smile. It was the only other thing they shared. The other thing they shared was their graduating date.

The Yale Commencement 2009 was not only exciting but it was also illuminating. Every speaker had their own charisma, every performer, their special charm. I saw people with extraordinary talent and exceptional performances in academic and athletic fields. I met people whose mere presence was inspirational. Everyone was just spectacular.

Go Yalies. Party on!

Sincerely,

TK

To the Best of My Knowledge

Bleeding Heart

A few weeks ago there was a Blood Donation Drive organized by Yale and the Red Cross society. Students were asked to sign up to donate blood and save a life so I thought that it might be a good idea for me to participate in the event. Part of my reasons to volunteer for the drive was to gratify my own ego and feel proud to have contributed to a good cause. See, I don’t really care for the notion of the greater good because I believe that deep down inside each one of us is a selfish, cynic personality that makes us indifferent about other people. The only difference between people who we often consider as selfless and charitable and those we perceive as mean and stingy is the degree to which they yield to the persuasions of their darker alter egos.
Regardless,  I signed my name very happily on the weather-beaten piece of paper that the kind student coordinators casually placed on the table outside the dining hall and registered my intention to donate blood. I met with the blood-drive people two afternoons later.
I was asked several embarrassing questions. I filled in a few survey sheets, without which the blood donation process wouldn’t run smoothly – or so I was told. I answered all their queries honestly and to the best of my knowledge. “Standard procedure,” they quipped. Unquestioning and completely submissive I sat on one of the dilapidated chairs they provided as I waited nervously for the man in the white coat to come up to me and suck the life out of me. My chair squealed at my every twitch. I tried to sit as still as I could so that I could not disturb other volunteers whose sluggish eyes seemed to beg me to escape from the dimly lit basement room beneath the Church of St. Mary. I felt their piercing gaze looking deep inside me, beseeching me save my skin from the unforgiving tapered hypodermic needle that thirsted for my blood.
Once in a while the volunteers clenched their fists as if in protest, only to unclench the same fists seconds later in abject subservience. The collecting bag delicately laid on the side of the bed gradually swelled as more red fluid gushed into them. I was transiently transported back to the days I used to watch a tick suck up blood off the back of my dog, Chris, and swell until it was firm and round. Without hesitation I would pluck the blood sucker off, and placing it between my index finger and the thumb I would suddenly snap it, splashing the coagulated blood all over my fingers and face. The experience would give such an inebriation that my eyes would shine with bewilderment. However, watching the plastic collecting bags fill with human blood, I felt uneasy and nauseated. I turned my face towards the ceiling in order to suppress the sickening sensation that was threatening to cause an upwelling in my gut.
Presently, the man in white came up to me and asked me to lie on a vacant bed that had just become available after a volunteer had dragged his bulk off to the snack table to replenish the fluids he had surrendered to the bloody needle. The man in white was mumbling something in my ear but I couldn’t fully comprehend it. I lay on the bed, my eyes fixated at the ceiling, absorbing nothing, yielding nothing. I lay there a couple of minutes before the man in white bent over and talked directly into my ears. “Sir, which arm would you prefer?” he queried. Before I could decide, he was already disinfecting the skin just below the right elbow. He caressed my arm with gentle strokes, stopping periodically to prod for a juicy vein. I watched silently, thinking to myself how much he must have enjoyed poking at my arm. Every stroke, every poke, every touch – all of the movements – were a reenactment of my experience with the tick. My blood cuddled in my veins.
Soon the man in white triumphantly announced that he had located the bloody vein. He told me to still my arm as he prepared to insert his sharp, intruding hypodermic needle beneath the skin and into the vein. He removed the needle from its plastic packet and holding it up to the light, examined it for contamination. He flicked it once…, twice, and then pushed it inside my arm in one swift motion. The needle was big and insulting. I felt it nudging at the inside of my skin like a splinter caught beneath the skin. I relaxed my arm and almost dropped to rubber bulb the man in white had given me to squeeze. Dark red blood rushed out of the wound into the coiled tube that led into the collecting bag beside the bed. The man in white asked me how I felt. Although I thought I detected some sarcasm in his voice, I humbly replied that I was fine but under my breath I was seething. The bloody needle was eating away at my veins. My lifeblood was being drained away into the plastic chalice on the floor. What do you expect?!
Then, as if responding to my silent protests, my blood stopped flowing. The man in white looked disquieted. He asked me to squeeze the rubbery thing in my hand. I squeezed. It was firm and the sensation in my fingers reminded me of the tick. I froze.
My arm had begun swelling around the point of entry of the needle. I was starting to feel uncomfortable as the anticoagulant inflamed the wounded skin. I was on the verge of unplugging the bloody contraption out of my arm when the man in white leaned over, frowned and jerked the hypodermic needle out; spilling some of the blood it had sucked in the process. A few drops landed on the bed. He gave me a cotton swap to press against the wound to stop the bleeding. I continued to lay there for a couple more minutes trying to imagine what might have gone wrong. I theorized that perhaps the tube was blocked. I reckoned that it shouldn’t have been any fault of mine. I eat healthy foods. I drink a lot of milk. There shouldn’t be a problem. The man in white looked at me long and hard before he gallantly declared he had identified the Pandora’s Box. He reasoned that I must have been dehydrated. He advised that I should take a lot of water before I could ever again think about donating blood. The fault was with me.
But I refuse to admit that the fault had to anything to do with my diet or fluid intake. I think that the problem was purely psychological. I wasn’t prepared, mentally, to let go of my lifeblood. Perhaps a counseling session might have been due before the procedure. The whole experience was chilling. To the very best of my knowledge, I don’t know why I froze!

The Thing

It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, (protecting its sanity), covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But, it is never gone.
Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

When a man falls in love he undertakes a huge risk of embarrassment, heartache, and regrets. The reasons for these are as numerous and as diverse as the reasons for falling in love. The man becomes subject to conventions of love, traditions and rites of love relationships. These include the expectations to be in-charge, to reciprocate emotions put forth by the object of his love, to assume the role of “the protector,” to name but a few. Essentially, the man becomes a slave of routine and procedural expectations of falling in love. Love itself becomes the risk, but the man endures in hope of an expected reward, the reward of a love mate. The promise of enduring friendship, comfort, and company precedes and overcast the risk. To him, love becomes both a fortress and an abyss.
I guess you may have expected volumes of data to support my claims in the preceding paragraph. Well, you are in for the greatest disappointment yet. I am going to make more preposterous assumptions about love because there have not been scientific rationalizations for love, as yet. True, some people have attempted to explain the process of falling in love using psychoanalytical approaches, albeit with little success. For example, a psychoanalyst will tell you that love is an investment in, and the ability to be loved by another without experiencing this love as a subjective threat. Often, psychoanalysis will cite The Thing, a concept whose introduction to the field is largely attributed to Sigmund Freud. The Thing is described as the unconscious articulation of desire. Of course, the Thing is just an abstract concept that has acquired common usage in psychoanalysis. It cannot provide a rational justification for falling in love.
Having anchored my argument on the fact that love is not a quantifiable idea, I will proceed to make my presumptions. You see, today I saw a man cry. His forlorn eyebrows hang pitiably as his soggy eyes drained tears that congealed just before they dropped off his chin. His lips twitched and shook. His nostrils occasionally let out a thin, clear liquid that hang briefly at the tip of his upper lip, and then shot promptly up his nose as he sniffed pathetically. I watched silently as he sat looking down at his food, visibly feeling nauseated and sick. I sat opposite the man, unsure whether to ask him, “is everything alright, my man?” I watched him as he fought back his tears in an attempt to hide his shame in crying in front of another man – me. I felt ashamed at my decision to put my tray at his table. I wanted to switch seats. I couldn’t bear to see his teary eyes, his smudged cheeks, and his weary countenance.
Then, I looked at his two companions at the table. They were giggling. They smiled from side to side, as if mocking the miserable man whose condition only worsened with every clatter of their chuckles. His companions were female.
As soon as I set my tray down, one of the two girls rose from the table and offered to take the man aside, presumably for some comforting. It turned out that the man was indeed comforted because moments later, he came back to the table, eyes dabbed and nostrils cleaned out – at least partially. The only tell-tale signs of his hitherto mopping were his bloodshot eyes and his forced smile which come out more like a lip fissure than a smile. When the man was being cooed down, I asked his other female companion why the man was in his sorry state. She said something that insinuated that the man was a victim of a recent break up. I didn’t ask much after that but I knew that he must have succumbed to the wiles of love. To me he was the proof I needed to assume that love is a risk that once undertaken puts the parties involved on a precipitous path to regret.
Of course, after relating the story of the man who sat across from me at the dinner table with such apathy, I must appear indifferent and isolated from the emotion of love. On the contrary, I have oftentimes believed that I am in love, undertaking the same risk from which I vainly attempt to distance myself. I admit that I have felt the stir of the Thing within me, pushing me toward the slippery slope of “what on Earth was I thinking?” In any case, the Thing has insidiously been deleting my inhibitions to love. At first, I would look, inquire, and perhaps shrug the idea of love tugging at my collar. Now, I don’t need to inquire. I can’t help but entertain the idea of falling in love after looking. My stimulus has been reinforced and perfected to immediately trigger the Thing. When a man falls in love he assumes a role typical of a male lion. Animal behaviorists have attempted to explain why the lion behaves the way he does in a pride. For instance, the male lion maintains authority over his territory by expelling all other males (if they are not collaborators), and by expunging all unrelated male cubs. Consequently, the lion becomes a wary creature, looking out for any intruding males that could possibly dethrone him. He lives in constant fear of attack, of coup d’états, of sudden death by invasion.
The lifestyle of the man in love is closely fashioned after the behavior of the lion. When a man falls in love he becomes “the protector.” Unconsciously, the man becomes wary of other men who may appear to encroach on his object of love. He develops feelings that have been described as jealousy. The Word Tutor dictionary defines the adjective jealous as “suspicious or fearful of being displaced by a rival.” To complete the simile, the man in love also becomes a target of sudden death namely by the appearance a new, superior man. The man in love is a victim of a vicious circle of love and hatred, of trust and betrayal, of truth and lies. The man in love is hanging precariously on the edge of a weathered precipice.
I am a man in love. The sword of Damocles hangs on a derelict thread over my head.

I Have an Enemy

It stares at me all the time. I can see it fixated ferociously at me. It bares its fangs. Its jaws are seething with bewildered thirst for blood. My enemy is before me, and I am crippled with dread. Despair has overcome my spirit.
My enemy is with me all the time. I have lived with my enemy all my life, yet, its presence is constantly renewed. I know it is waiting out there in the shadows. It moves furtively. It creeps behind me with its deadly arms crouching over my trembling frightened body. My enemy is not menacingly huge, but it is a monster. It is wily. It is sly. It is ferocious and it is deadly. I know it will kill me – someday. Right now, though, I know it is still stalking me, giving me time to work up my fear. I am getting nervous and scared. My fear of my enemy mounts every minute.
The name of my enemy is not definitive. Also, it has lived for a very long time. It was there when I was born, and it will be here after it devours me. Tic. Tic. Tic.
My enemy is wise and very knowledgeable. It has been in many battles. It has won all. It fought with the Great Alexander, and defeated him in a single strike. My enemy even fought with the infant that wasn’t born. My enemy is huge! Tac. Tac. Tac.
In my own room, my enemy has over taken me. It is in my mind, and it is out of my mind. My hand is clasped. My enemy has chained my wrist and my sometimes it slips in my shirt pocket, with my heart just beneath it. I can feel its restless arms probing my skin as it slips into my pants’ back pocket. I can feel my enemy eating away my life each minute. Tic. Tac. Tic.
My enemy is the clock. It is the Grandfather clock. It is the city clock. It is my wrist watch. It is my alarm clock. You know what, call it what you like. My enemy is the time.
Every time I look up from my desk it is always staring hungrily back at me. I can feel its killer intent. I can see its fiery eyes, its hands incessantly waving its pointed claws in hypnotic circular motions.
Its growl is annoying and unnerving. The growl is not loud. It is not soft. Other people say it is rhythmic. Others, melodic. But I say there is nothing more boring to listen to than a periodic tic-a-tac. Especially, when you know that the source of the ticking nuisance is your enemy.
I have been asking myself how I became the victim in this vicious struggle for survival in a war that is determined. And I know I will lose.
My struggle began as soon as my mother conceived me. I could swear I knew my life’s battle had began the moment I became aware of things. But my desperation was swift, too. Realizing that my enemy was enormous I shrank back with fear and intimidation. I recoiled and coiled my tail between my hind limbs. My enemy is menacing. I am afraid. I am scared.
I have heard people say that my enemy is running out. What craziness! No, it is utter naivety! Ignorance, I’d say. My enemy grows bigger every day. And I am getting tinier. I am losing my confidence. My enemy is too big.

The Birth of a Nation

For a very long time I have admired conquests and successful occupation campaigns such as assimilation and absorptions. In a conquest, the invading party triumphs over their vulnerable victims, grabbing all of the latter’s resources and governance. Conversely, assimilation and absorptions are subtle. In this case, the offending party targets the ideas and beliefs of the defenseless victims, introducing, or in some cases imposing new cultures and customs on the colonies. Absorptions and assimilation are passive but effective means of control because oftentimes, the colonized person is made to feel weak, not by subjugation, but by deception. The victim of deception is made to believe that the decrepit conditions they find themselves in is a result of their own errors, misjudgments or decisions. Once ensnared, the victim is rendered defenseless and dependent on the conqueror for comfort, without which the victim would never be hopeful. Usually, the mechanisms of absorptions are delicately engineered so that they appear innocuous and advantageous in order to veil the hideous truth of its devastation.

In the German-Russian War, the Russians, heavily outperformed both in terms of artillery and troops in Stalingrad used deception and strategic propaganda to intimidate their German adversaries and encourage their limited warriors. Granted, the war was long-drawn and brutal, resulting in cataclysmic destruction and loss of life but the troops held on. Their patriotic devotion to the war is admirable but it wouldn’t be wishful to think that coercion was used to induce them to persist in the fighting. Such is the power of persuasion and deceptions.

Sometime ago, I read a book titled “The F.O.J. Syndrome in America: Brainwashing of Americans” by Ratibor Jurjevich. In the book, Mr. Jurjevich argues that Americans have been always under special mind control by an elusive group of elites who design American economic and political policy. Unaware and unquestioning the hoi polloi have always lived by these policies silently and humbly weathering any discomfort it may mete out. Ordinarily, people protest when they find out that they are exploited or manipulated. Worse, when one finds out that restrictions have been placed on one’s choices, rebellion is often the instinctive response. For example, when I was younger, I would argue against anything I thought came with strings attached, especially if it were something my parents asked. I am certain that many teens have experienced the same at some time in their adolescent years.

I believe that the power of persuasion transcends generations and boundaries, if I may be as bold as to imagine it. I have observed that in the history of mankind, people with the ability to persuade, or exert their influence by way of disseminating ideas to others have always risen to the top of their game. For example, the greatest revolutionaries in history have been excellent orators. Recently, president Obama was hailed as one of the intelligent speech makers. With only a message encoded in three monosyllabic words, he planted the greatest American dream, yet, that there was hope in times of crisis. He foresaw what many would have, but his ability to articulate his vision into verbal ideas elevated him to higher platform than most of us. Personally, I admire his skill and talent.

However, I do not intent to make this entry an appraisal of the man who has perhaps had most people drooling to shake his hand. Rather, I wish to contemplate how the power of persuasion could be used to conquer the world. I am assuming, of course, that the limitations of difference in opinion resulting in expressive conflict. I am assuming that people are willing to listen to each other, and that they do not feel threatened to abandon their prior beliefs or adopt new ones.

Say, I convince my girlfriend (by deception or by fluent logic) that I will provide for her fully if ever we got to live together, I may get her to believe that I am willing to marry her. However, if I played m cards right, I may just get away with staying with her, making her unable to neither sever her ties with me nor completely come into my life. Of course, my girlfriend wouldn’t be so clueless as to fail to understand that I were messing with her mind, but lucky for her, I do not have a girl for which I have planned this selfishness.

Convincing my girlfriend has nothing to do with conquering the world. I am just contemplating that it would be a similar situation, except no as easily simplified as exploiting one vulnerable lady. I would want to point out at this time that exploiting a clueless man would be just as easy. The world, however, is different. To conquer the world, it would mean rising to the very top of the intelligence ladder – way top – ahead of all other intellectuals that have risen over myriad others.

There have been arguments that the true leaders hide behind the mask of the front guy. I read in Jurjevich’s book of such claims. But Jurjevich supports his arguments with well thought logic and fact. In some cases, his appeal to the pathos is sensational: in others, he implores the readers to seek justifications in their sense of ethics. Last night, I watched “The Obama Deception,” a documentary by Alex Jones with an incendiary theme – that behind the mask of the US presidency are puppeteers manipulating political as well as economic policy. Unlike Jurjevich, Jones claims that the real masters of US policies is a group called the Bilderberg Group. My problem, however, is not who is in charge, it is how they got in charge. My best guess is that they are extremely intelligent and persuasive.

In religious circles, it is easy to identify who is in control and why. The all knowing, omnipotent Almighty is in control because He is far more intelligent than any other being in the universe. His influence transcends space, time, and dimensions. He is just too powerful. And He held captive the minds of many, not by subjugation but by inspiration – a special definition for the mechanism of persuasion involved in religion.

But as Jurjevich and Jones point out, control is of populations is possible: heck! if it can be imagined it can be done. It is also a fact that control is attainable through the successful implantation of ideas in people.

Virtual Reality: Now You See Me, Now You Don’t!

My friends and I were having lunch at the Freshmen Dining Hall, calmly enjoying casual talk and occasional intelligent back-and-forth conversations, when I abruptly asked to share my views on the topic at hand. I say, “abruptly,” because my thoughts had wandered off from the table argument to the mysterious world of blank-mindedness. The topic of conversation was the apparently stable and sustained economic growth in Botswana. Ordinarily, economic issues aren’t subjects I would stick my nose in until I had had time to tweak and poke into for some insight. However, I must have shown signs of intense interest in the subject because no sooner had my eyes risen from the plate of pasta in front of me than one of my friends across from me looked at me curiously and asked: “Why do you think Botswana has had sustained economic growth and political stability unlike her neighboring countries such as the Congo?”

The originator of the question had apparently taken a course about Central and South African Countries and was probably looking for a second opinion on whatever the reason was, but in my haste to portray myself as well read and informed, I said that perhaps negative media influence in the Country was minimal. I had intended to expand my point to show that negative publicity has been known to scare investors from a country, resulting in poor growth; but, my friend, obviously surprised that my point appeared vague, did not waste time in killing my argument on the spot.  My friend went on to explain why Botswana should be the model for the ideal African country – minimal political scandals, multi-partism at independence, proper utilization of economic resources, etc. My efforts to defend my point of view bore little results and I had to concede that I didn’t know a lot about factors that influence politics, especially in Botswana. Ultimately, I contended that even if negative influence of the media, especially Western media, did not do much to influence growth of a country, negative publicity certainly changed reality. I was thinking about the several instances when the media had picked up trivial scandals and blown them out of proportion, resulting in the instability of the forex market.

Naturally, equipped with knowledge from  the course on Economic Policy in Botswana, my friend would find my argument weak and unsuitable. I guess if I had said that the growth record is explained by the economic policies which Botswana has pursued – growth-promoting policies, then my argument would have at least had a solid background. Or, perhaps if only I had said that there was no single explanation for Botswana’s splendid performance… But, I did not. I chose to pursue a weak thread. I played a weak hand in the game of wits. I was not only proud, but I was foolish. I failed to assess the situation and I failed to recognize my disadvantage of limited exposure to issues in Botswana.

Such discussions inevitably find their way to the dinner table despite efforts by Yalies to engage in gossip and casual talk. There is usually the misguided idea that African students are aware of everything that is related to Africa. Sometimes, African students are expected to conform to the stereotype, whether be it fact or myth. It is not unusual that African students themselves have adopted the same approach to African issues and expect their colleagues to be knowledgeable about events in the continent. Of course, that would be the ideal scenario, conforming to the old adage: “know thyself first,” but often the reality is regrettably disappointing.

The ideal is a virtual reality. It is a fantasy. It’s a dream. I have always wanted to live in the ideal world, live the ideal life, and lead the ideal lifestyle. I have friends that have wished they experienced the ideal life or met their ideal sweethearts. I also know of some who have tried to create the ideal. For example, with the ideal physique in mind, some of my friends hit the gym everyday for at least two hours for intense sessions of aerobic exercises and weight-lifting. Personally, I have pursued the ideal healthy eating. I would like to think that I have found it, but I would be kidding myself. Oftentimes, I have found myself ingesting substances I wouldn’t say were healthy.

My ideal lifestyle is something I created. I closed my eyes, imagined it, thought it into existence, and perfected it in my mind. I haven’t experienced it, yet I feel I have achieved it. It doesn’t exist, but it is real. I cannot touch it, yet I feel it. It is virtual reality.

I presume that many would say that living a virtual reality happens only in animations and simulations but how much of our lifestyles has been affected by virtual reality? Asked to comment about an animated series by his name, The Adventures of Jackie Chan, Chinese actor Jackie Chan said that ever since he was a child, he had always loved cartoons. He felt that if he were a cartoon character he would do much more than he actually was capable of in his human form. Virtual reality pushes us to the point where we want to by the virtual character we have created in our minds. Warnings on some of the TV programs drive this point closer home by their conveniently scripted “DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME” message. Still, I agree with Mr. Chan that if there were ways to live as the virtual character that I imagined, I’d give it a try – and probably like it. In fact, being animated doesn’t only grant you super-hero status, but it gets your car the best insurance deals!

There are other ways of enjoying the perks of virtual reality. For example, by playing video games, one can easily gain access to classified government information, by a super-agent, a savior, a war-lord, etc. However, it must be noted here that all this benefits are accrued only in the virtual world. One can earn virtual cash, be a virtual billionaire, or be a mass murderer without the threat of indictment. After all, all that is done in the virtual world is unreal. The only risk associated with virtual reality gaming is the unlikely possibility that players become hypnotized to reenact the virtual game in the real world. The impunity of the virtual world is seldom looked kindly on in the real world.

There are a few occasions I have found myself angry at my virtual reality. Sometimes, the real world contributes too much in the virtual world and I wind up creating an ideal filled with the obstacles of the real world. Of course, these obstacles could easily be avoided by deletion, but forgetting that I am in the virtual world, I try to solve my way out of this obstacles. Often, obstacles in the virtual world are caricatures of real obstacles, and the exaggeration makes it even harder to solve the issues of the virtual world. I have, on occasions, found myself at the threshold of insanity, only to preserve my sanity at the eleventh hour by deleting the virtual obstacles and recreating my ideal.

There are some virtual scenarios that get you thinking a lot about the real world. I am new in the world of on-line gaming but I have observed interesting patterns in the settings of virtual games on-line. Often, games are ordered in levels, with more rewards promised for clearing levels and progressing through the games. The concept of reward-punishment works well to motivate players to devote their attention to their games, effectively drowning the players in the virtual reality. The other thing I have noticed is that most virtual games are inspired by actual real world scenarios. However, there are some that are completely imagined or overly exaggerated. Still, others are inspired by a stigma or stereotype. When playing these games, players often find themselves either concurring or in conflict with the reality they are served – which explains why some games are favorites while others aren’t. This example reinforces the idea that the ideal is not an all-agreeable perfect universe. However, it is possible to engineer the virtual world so that it becomes the ultimate fantasy for everyone, but to accomplish such a feat would mean investing in investigations into likes and dislikes of every person.

I like the virtual reality because the real worl is unforgiving and unyielding. I can manipulate the virtual world, but I have never been able to change reality. I have tried to conform to reality at the expense of bliss accorded by the nonchalance of the virtual world, but I can never really get the reality to bend according to my will. The best I can ever hope to get is enjoy the real world, accept its ups and downs, and learn to take it without much complaints. It is sad that reality is immutable. It is more depressing that there have never been successful attempts to change reality. Perhaps, just perhaps, this is the reason my argument that Western media has changed the reality in Third World nations such as those in Africa was nothing more than gibberish in front of my informed friends at the lunch table.