But then, the $64,000 question that began to trouble us was: would I be admitted to Starehe Boys' Centre? I had failed to appear among the list of top 100 pupils in my province that had been published in local dailies a few days earlier after KCPE results were released by the Minister of Education. And we were worried about my chances of getting into Starehe because my family was undergoing hard financial times. My mother was particularly worried that they would be unable to put me through in a decent high school if I failed to get into Starehe where I had applied for sponsorship.
We were greatly relieved when news got through to us a few days later that I had been admitted to Starehe. And to tell you the truth, that's the most miraculous event in my life so far. I had beaten odds of being labelled as dull and dumb to join the then Kenya's top-ranked high school - an encouragement to anyone going through hard times that things are never over till God's final calling to afterlife.
I reported to Starehe on the afternoon of Thursday, 17th January 2002. And in my first months in the school, I felt proud to be part of the school whose unique uniform of red and blue was a national emblem of discipline and intelligence. When we broke for my first half-term holiday as a Starehian, I craved to be seen clad in that uniform of red and blue by everyone on my way home as well as in my hometown of Kiserian.
But as my months as a Starehian rolled on, I began to feel disturbed by the way some schoolmates were commenting on how confused I looked. Even Mrs. Margaret Shivembe, one of my music teachers in the school, became concerned about my confusion and suggested during one lesson that it resulted from having too much knowledge in my head.
The "confusion" label really bothered me to a degree bordering on disease. I would at times scribble the word "confusion" on a piece of paper and look up its meaning in the dictionary. And sometimes when the word "confusion" was mentioned in class, I would suddenly think that my classmates were having me in mind.
The interesting side of the story is that I was neither conscious of the confusion people saw in me nor did I understand its root cause. That's why it persisted well into the university where a peace-loving roommate of mine named Mikhail Mbelase remarked to a friend that I was always mentally mixed up.
I vividly recall that afternoon Mikhail Mbelase uttered that remark because of the way it revived my old fears I had harboured at Starehe. Fears that I never discussed with anyone. I just bottled them up in myself but fortunately, I never exploded into some sort of rebellion or imploded into depression.
Of course I was overly worried by the "confusion" label since everybody wants to be appreciated as Abraham Maslow pointed out in his widely quoted hierarchy of needs. Think about it for a minute - would you wish to be known as someone confused? I am sure as death that you've always desired to be recognized as bright and brilliant, or some other virtuous trait that is of interest to you.
As for me, I have always wanted to be known as bright and brilliant. And that's precisely why the "confusion" label bothered me to a degree bordering on disease.
Over the last ten years, I have put in a lot effort to overcome the negative programming that turned me into a confused teenager. I have tried all sorts of remedies for attaining mental clarity - some of which now appear to me as weird.
Sometime in 2015 for example, I moved my eyeballs sideways with my eyes wide open while staring at myself in the mirror, only to discover the eyeballs would remain stationary when I focused on my reflection in the mirror. That's a weird remedy for attaining mental clarity, isn't it?
And I don't really know how I devised that remedy. Or maybe I must have known instinctively that the eyes are some sorts of windows to the mind. If your mind is confused, people see it in the eyes.
I am now a clear thinker though I am not quite sure which of the remedies I have done has solved the "confusion" enigma. But I largely attribute my clear-thinkimg to the writing I have been doing persistently for the last couple of years, for Stephen R. Covey highlighted in his internationally acclaimed bestseller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, that "writing is another powerful way to sharpen the mental saw; keeping a journal of our thoughts, experiences and learnings promotes mental clarity, exactness and context".
But I give all glory and honour to God because He is always seeming to fix everything in my life perfectly, sometimes in ways I didn't expect. And when I talk of God and of the "confusion" label that bitterly bothered me for years, I am reminded of the following lines in "Forty Years On", one of the two school songs of Starehe Boys' Centre:
...God gives us duty for us to discharge it,Those lines have made me realize that everyone gets their own share of problems to struggle with. You might, for instance, find that for some of the kids born with the proverbial silver spoon in their mouths, their first hot potato is handling setbacks; they can get overly depressed for weeks when they encounter their first setback such as receiving a rejection letter from Harvard or losing of a loved one.
Problems to face, struggle with and overcome,
Service to render and glory to covet...
My hot potato was confusion for shizzle. That's why I have been feeling triumphant of late now that I have attained mental clarity, at least most of the time. And mental clarity is a wonderful possession, for as the great Roman historian named Sallust pointed out many many years ago, "the renown that riches and beauty confer is fleeting and frail; mental excellence [and clarity] is a splendid and a lasting possession". Adieu!
