Mentalacrobatics » Quotes/Inspiration

Why TED Global rocked

Mentalacrobatics — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 10:59:50 +0000

Experienced bloggers are by nature a questioning lot. A less kind person would call us a cynical lot. You tell us something, we will question it. You raise a point, we will debate it. You lie, you will eventually get caught, usually by another blogger who notices inconsistencies. Like a girl on a first date, we are not easily impressed. To remix that old quote, you can fool one blogger one time, but you can’t fool all the bloggers all the time.

Experienced bloggers are by nature an articulate lot. We spend hours each week not just telling but analysing whatever we find important. It is vital that we are able to put our point across to our readers. We defend our positions, usually by employing intellectual debate. Experienced bloggers are generally not dazzled by your personality, popularity, or prosperity. We want to hear what you have to say and we will judge you on that basis.

So this TED Global thing, what is it about it that has us who attended walking around on cloud nine, talking about a “cheetah generation” and “forget making poverty history we want to make Africans rich“? It is almost like we were indoctrinated by the some powerful force. Every single blogger who was lucky enough to have the opportunity to attend TED Global came out very very very very very impressed!. Why? Recently we got an email asking us to rate the conference, the organisation, the speakers on scale from poor to excellent. Talking with some other TEDsters over the weekend we were of the opinion that the scale should start at bloody brilliant and end at flipping unbelievable. (Thanks Hash for putting all those links together!)

In my experience there are a couple of reasons why I had a fantastic time.

I am not alone.

I lie in bed sometimes thinking about Kenya and Africa and I can not sleep because my head starts feeling like it is about to explode. Where is the light at the end of the tunnel? In what way can I be most helpful? Where do we even begin? At TED Global I was in a whole room of people who go through the same thing. Young people across the continent who have a passion about this motherland called Africa that really surpasses all logic. They see what you are doing, you see what they are doing and suddenly you realise that you are not alone, and you do not have to do it alone. Instead of wondering if we will ever rise, now I am like, there is no way, absolutely no way that anyone can keep us down. The next 20 years will not be like the last 20 years, that I can guarantee you. In 2027 this will be the most linked post on Mentalacrobatics and you can all start calling me prophet!

The explosion of ideas and learning.

What a speaker line up. You walked out of the room rubbing your head wondering how you are going to process all that knowledge. Next time you bump into one of those idiots who starts asking you questions like, “where is the African Mozart, or where is the African Brunel, implying that Africans do not think send them a copy of Ron Eglash’s study of fractals in African architecture and watch their heads explode as they try to understand just what the hell is going on, and that is just one of many many examples that were shared at this conference. Sending txt messages in Amharic, no problem, want to build a computer that thinks like a brain, easy peasy.

The 1958 feeling.

This is the big one for me. I have often wondered how it would have felt to attend THE pan African conference of all pan African conferences, The All-African People’s Conference in Accra in 1958 as the wind of independence was sweeping over the continent. How exhilarating it must have felt to watch freedom galloping over the horizon coming closer and closer as one colonial power after another was kicked out. But I wondered more about how powerful it must have been to walk into a room and you have all those brains there, all those visionaries in one place at one time. Imagine standing in the queue for lunch and you see Nyerere chatting with Lumumba or W.E.B DuBois sharing a knock-knock joke with Nkrumah or something like that. At TED Global I got that same buzz, you got the sense that there were people in that room that would revolutionise this continent. Now you know why I was smiling strangely at all of you at lunch at TED, I was trying to figure out which one of you was Nyerere and which one was Lumumba, who would be DuBois and who Nkrumah! In the 1958 conference they elected a young man called Tom Mboya from Kenya as their chairman, in his summing up speech he called for a reversal of the Scramble for Africa addressing the colonial powers thus:

“Your time has past, Africa must be free. Scram from Africa.”

Substitute colonial powers then for your pet hate today. Corruption, nepotism, tribalism, maybe even neo-colonialism? Whatever it is, tell it to scram from Africa. Like 50 years ago, change must come and change is in the air and that change is unavoidable. But we have learnt the lessons of 50 years ago, this time the pact between African leaders and African people must be paramount.

Kudos to the Tom Mboya of TED Global, Emeka Okafor.

TEDGlobal2007 | TEDGlobal

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Indeed

Mentalacrobatics — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 06:43:50 +0000

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

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A tale of two children’s homes

Mentalacrobatics — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 13:09:19 +0000

In line with what is now a Mentalacrobatics tradition my submission to Kenyan Bloggers’ Day is a podcast. This one is called “A tale of two children’s homes”.

For more on the information on Kenyan Bloggers’ Day check out KenyaUnlimited.

For more information on The Nest Home check out their website.

As far as I am aware St Francis Children’s home does not have a website yet.

The bloggers mentioned are

Slykwan – St Francis Children’s Home
JKE – The Nest
White African
Afromusing
Ntwiga

(Apologies for the poor quality I was laughing because I had forgotten how ridiculous my voice sounds and had to do the whole thing in about 30mins with no editing time. I am also committing a cardinal sin in not listening to the whole broadcast before uploading it. I am pressed for time!)

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The three Gatekeepers

Mentalacrobatics — Mon, 14 May 2007 20:30:13 +0000

The words of the tongue should have three gatekeepers:
Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?

Arab proverb

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Be still

Mentalacrobatics — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 09:09:03 +0000

Last week I had one of those days where everything seemed to happening at once. Vital tasks were piling up; big decisions needed to be made; deadlines were brought forward as projects were rearranged by circumstances out of my control. Payments had to be made, presentations had to be prepared and presented. I was swamped. My response to all this was to do everything faster, speed the process up. My logic being that the more tasks I could fit into an hour the faster everything would return to normal. Rushing around like Speedy Gonzales merged into Road Runner worked for a while, but things fell back and soon I was rushing and swamped. Things were now in danger of getting completely out of hand.

What saved me was I remembered wise words that have been tested through out the ages and are as relevant now in the 21st century as they were when they were first verbalised. Every culture seems to have a version of the following proverb:

Waswahili wanasema “haraka haraka haina baraka”

The English: Haste makes waste

A mind that is fast is sick
A mind that is slow is sound
A mind that is still divine
Meher Baba

All human evil comes from this:
a man’s being unable to still still in a room.
Blaise Pascal

The world today is all about speed. How fast we can complete a task, how fast our computers are, how fast our cars are, the quickest route hapa na pale. To an extent that is fine. Who wants a slow computer after all? But although the world moves at what is sometimes breathtaking speed I am beginning to appreciate that our minds work better when they slow down. When we can retreat into our mind and see things clearly. I always used to think, “Haraka haraka haina baraka” referred to physical tasks, now I am convinced it relates mainly to mental tasks, to the mind. Slow down the mind, our ancestors are telling us, and everything else will fall into place.

Martial art film fans can testify how when the film director wants to highlight a special fighter he slows down the fight when we see it in the eyes of that fighter. While for everyone else the fight is progressing at a terrific speed, for the hero the fight is almost in slow motion (a concept brilliant borrowed/highlighted/stolen by the makers of The Matrix trilogy.)

I had the pleasure of attending a school that had its spiritual base in the Quaker tradition of the Christian faith. Quakers, The Religious Society of Friends to use their proper name, have many good practices. The two most famous ones are probably non violence and silence. Quaker meetings place a lot of emphasis on silence. Be still with your thoughts and listen to your heart, to your mind, to your God.

At the Quaker school I attended assembly everyday would finish with around 5 minutes of silence. In addition, every Wednesday for morning assembly the whole school would sit in silence for around an hour. Imagine that. A whole school from Standard 1 all the way to A-Levels, all the teaching staff, in one hall, sitting in silence, for one hour. If anyone wanted to say anything they could stand up and say it to the whole school without fear. For the first few weeks it felt completely strange. After a few months it felt completely normal and even vital to having a productive week. Most Wednesdays no one would stand up to share. Sometimes a couple of people would share something. Mostly though it was silence. Those silent assemblies are something every school should implement!

Well back to my crazy day. I decided to go home and be still for a couple of hours. It didn’t matter that it was the middle of the day or that there were a million things to do. I knew that instead of speeding up which had been my initial response, I needed to slow down completely. To use today’s terminology when your computer is running many programmes and the virtual memory is working overtime sometimes it is easier AND faster to CRTL-ALT-DEL and start all over again. One step back, two steps forward. I went home, I lay down and when I got up I basically restarted my day. Now if I can do that for a crazy day why can’t I do that for a crazy week, a crazy month, a crazy year? I think I can.

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Trash talking

Mentalacrobatics — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 15:54:26 +0000

“I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale;
handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail;
only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick;
I’m so mean I make medicine sick.”

Happy Birthday “The Greatest”

Aside: I now have my blog back from the bleeding 500/302 black hole, let the noise begin!
Aside part deux: Go Kenya Go!, now that’s what i call a spanking! (and a spanking brilliant way to start World Cup year).

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Ivory Thrones at AMM

Mentalacrobatics — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 07:31:55 +0000

Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa has a beautiful campus with excellent facilities. The newest building on this campus is the Africa Media Matrix which hold the School of Journalism.

The AMM is the base for the Digital Citizens Indaba. This journalism school features brand new TV studios with professional studio equipment. Brand new radio studios. In their finally year students form media companies and these companies have offices in the building. They have massive computer labs and the whole building has wireless broadband. The walls are decorated with historical pictures, original art work, autographed books by Rhodes Alumni,and pieces of media art. In short it is a very impressive building.

The best thing however, yes even better than the wireless broadband internet which by the way is powered by some serious looking equipment, comme ca:

Yes even better than that wireless system and the historical pictures. The best thing about this building is the place where many of us do our best work, the toilets.

The tiles in the toilets are decorated with quotes on the media from various sources. It makes for very interesting reading. Here are a small selection.

From the famous historical:

Three estates in parliament; but in the Reporters’ gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth estate more important far than they all.
Edmund Burke

To the calls to action

Make it your pledge to keep Africa on the front pages of the world’s newspapers and television screens. And not just the bad news, because great and good things which take place on this continent often go unreported.
Mohammed Amin

To the beautifully surreal

Radio lets people see things with their own ears.
New York Times editorial

To the uncompromisingly honest

Only cowards and panic-mongers will think of surrendering to this threat (of apartheid).
Inkululeko

The African proverb

The cock that crows in the morning belongs to one household but his voice is the property of the neighbourhood.
Chinua Achebe

Some give advice

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.
Bill Clinton

To the funny

You cannot hope to bribe or twist (thank God!) the British journalist. But, seeing what the man will do unbribed, there’s no occasion to.
Humbert Wolfe

An editor is one who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff.
Adlai E. Stevenson

Yeah my camera goes everywhere with me because you never know!

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Know thyself

Mentalacrobatics — Mon, 29 May 2006 03:57:08 +0000

There is nothing noble in being superior to some other person. True nobility is being superior to your former self.
Hindu Proverb

I’m not the man I could be, and I’m certainly not the man I want to be, but thank God I’m not the man I used to be.
Martin Luther King Jr

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Confucius on understanding

Mentalacrobatics — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 23:54:13 +0000

Tell me; and I will forget.
Show me; and I will remember.
Involve me; and I will understand forever.

What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand.

Confucius

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It doesn’t interest me

Mentalacrobatics — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 20:39:07 +0000

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

…

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

From The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.

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