Avicii (…I know. Hella way to start a post after being MIA for longer than a Tyler Perry series!) Anyway, as I was saying, Avicii’s song has been playing on repeat on my head. …One day you’ll leave this world behind… The Nights by Avicii My grandad passed on recently. We buried him last week. Orada (which in my native language means lion) was 91 … Continue reading Songs of Life
The Swahili have a saying: Hamna yatima, watoto ni wetu sote. It loosely translates to: there are no orphans, children belong to all of us. It’s used to signify the ‘mulitparenthood’ phenomenon typical of African societies. Put differently, it’s used to reiterate that being a parent is a lifelong role. I have seen my mother embody this saying in her various parenting avatars. Mother, aunt, … Continue reading OF DIAPERS AND CHANGES IN ROUTINE
Ping! Email notifications. Ping! Calendar reminders. Ping! Family duty calls. Ping! Alarm rings! Work beckons! Repeat. We live in a world where information moves faster than it ever has before. Your niece with a lisp just got married. Nigeria held its elections and the brodas (Nigerian pidgin for brother) were treated to a Nollywood blockbuster. Peter Drury added to his poetic commentary by saying: Jesùs … Continue reading BELOVED, REST
I wonder. A lot. About a lot. To what extent are coincidences unplanned, uncoordinated and unrelated? To what extent are planned occurrences deliberate, independent and timed? Ramblings much? Perhaps. Onto something? Maybe. The enterprise of writing , after all, has always involved a degree of madness. With more than 7 billion people on the planet, who can truly tell what each of them is planning … Continue reading THE LAW OF UNRELATED THINGS
Life has many pleasures. For some it’s a chill day of Netflix. For others it’s chocolate ice cream on a summer afternoon. For me, it’s board games. A good board game, great company and lots of laughter. Swadakta! Over the weekend, I played a memorable game of Upwords. The game took about an hour and a half. About the results? Let’s just say I was … Continue reading LESSONS ON THE GAME OF LIFE FROM BOARD GAMES
Ego. Stature. Money. Talent. Race. Power. Gender. Religion. All the things we love to hate and hate to love. These things account for all the division, toxicity, and bile in our lives. They have a magnifying effect. Especially when one is benefiting from any (or a combination of these) they invoke a ‘larger-than-life’ aura. You know these chaps. From the politician who thinks they are … Continue reading Want to Sober Up? Try Nature
Money. Pesa. Peso. Dinheiro. Geld. In whatever language you choose to refer to it, the concept of money is as fascinating as it is controversial. A seemingly inescapable aspect of human life. Its power, origins, value and everything in between, so interwined with our day-to-day lives and world order as we know it, that ambivalence towards this subject would be self-immolating. I have always been … Continue reading MAKING $ENSE OF YOUR MONEY HABITS
Salaam aleikum! Last time I wrote to this beautiful audience we were pointlessly overthinking. A lot has happened since then. For starters, we just concluded a protracted general elections in my home country Kenya. This event takes place every five years here and is one of the most mentally and emotionally gruelling periods. Away from the ballot, I have lost some opportunities and gained others. … Continue reading HOW TO DECLUTTER
The world looks and feels like one nasty crime scene right now! From the carnage in Ukraine; the famine in Africa; the mass shootings in the US; the brutal murders in Palestine; and everything in between! There’s so much pain and suffering. Such negative energy injected and swirling all around the globe. The most worrying part is that energy is contagious! It knows no bounds. … Continue reading MAY UBUNTU FIND YOU!
As a species, most human beings work hard to get to where they want to be in their lives. From the valiant doctors all around the globe who risked life and limb to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic; the rags to riches CEO gracing the cover of Forbes Magazine, and everyone in between. Which begs the question, if success is the direct result of hard … Continue reading WHAT THE LUCK?
Like most people across the globe, I have followed Putin’s war (you should check Troy’s piece on this available here) on Ukraine with utter dismay. The unbridled greed for power and blatant disregard of human dignity on one hand, and the unnecessary and avoidable loss of innocent lives on the other. Scales tip. To borrow a leaf from Troy’s piece, what Putin’s war has taught … Continue reading Putin’s War Through My Black Eyes
11th September 2021 marked twenty years since that fateful day when terrorists attacked the US. It also marked twenty three years since the terrorist attack on the American embassy in Nairobi on 7th August 1998. In both countries, what was designed to instil fear instead evoked fortitude. What was intended to sow discord instead brewed inextricable bonds of unity. What was meant as an onslaught … Continue reading WE SHALL NEVER FORGET
Billy Osogo Hello September! It’s the ninth month of the year! Three more months and 2021 is a wrap! I know it’s been one heck of a year already! What with the mutating variants of COVID-19, what with the weather, what with the economy! We often set our goals for the year early in January. One of my goals was to read 60 books by … Continue reading HELLO SEPTEMBER!
Billy Osogo Pointless Overthinking’s byline is: Understanding ourselves and the world we live in. Such an apt encapsulation of my experience here so far. One of the things I enjoy the most from being part of the Pointless Overthinking tribe is the richness of wisdom that manifests itself in our comment sections. It’s mind blowing! Two weeks ago, I wrote an article titled Writing Springs. … Continue reading A FEW THOUGHTS ON WRITING FROM A FEW POINTLESS OVERTHINKERS
Billy Osogo The Olympics are often an exciting time in Kenya. That we have some of the finest athletes on the planet is not contention. The Tokyo 2020 Olympics was another time to showcase our world class talent. Watching the Greatest of All Time, Eliud Kipchoge, dominate his race was a thing of beauty. A moment of pride. What stood out for me however, was … Continue reading GOLD MEDALS, NATIONAL ANTHEMS AND THE OLYMPICS
Billy Osogo Writing is a beautiful and intriguing undertaking. Like most things in life, it makes certain demands of its practitioners. These include monk-like dedication, soldier-like loyalty and child-like curiosity. Ideas are the fuel on which this art runs on. They are as diverse as the billions of writers on this planet. In my experience, ideas come in waves. Most times, the tide is high. … Continue reading The Nothingness of Writing
Billy Osogo I ponder endlessly on writing. As an art, there’s so much to it that even those we look up to as its masters seem to be just scratching the surface. I recently came across an excerpt by Kenyan writer Bivanyanga Wainana. In his book, One Day I Will Write About this Place he says: “It often feels like an unbearable privilege to write. … Continue reading WRITING SPRINGS
Billy Osogo Last week, I wrote on the plight of South Africa. South Africa is still in my scope of focus. For good reason. Just three days ago, the world marked Mandela Day. A day named in honor of the South African-born, larger-than-life, global peace icon, Nelson Madiba Mandela. He is many things to many people. Leaders like President Obama are on record saying how … Continue reading THE SATISFACTION OF SERVICE
For most non-Africans, South Africa is Africa and Africa is South Africa. Make no doubt about it, that’s as ignorant as it gets. Nonetheless, the ubiquity of this thought speaks to the prominece of Africa’s most industrialized nation. Home of Nelson Mandela. Yet, if the events of recent days are anything to go by, Mandela must be turning in his grave. The death toll from … Continue reading HEALING A TROUBLED PAST
Billy Osogo In my post last week I quoted Mario Vargas Llosa and made a clarion call to all writers. This week, I am maintaining Llosa as my source of inspiration and calling on all readers. In his amazing book Letters to a Young Novelist Llosa writes: “Read constantly, because it is impossible to acquire a rich, full sense of language without reading plenty of … Continue reading CALLING ALL READERS
