All in due time
Greetings,
If there’s one thing that life has taught me is that things will happen all in due time. It can be frustrating hoping, pushing, hustling to get things done, but life doesn’t happen that way, no matter how hard we wish it. And, measuring our progress by comparing to those we consider our peers, makes it even harder. We are each on our own journey and each in our own lane.
I quit my job to write about late bloomers was a great reminder for me.
Having recently turned 50, there are still things that I want to do. In a world that gives precedence to the youth, there have been moments when I wonder whether the time to do those things have passed. They have not.
The world is unnecessarily complex. It doesn’t have to be that way. I still need to read graphic designer and computer scientist John Maeda’s book The Laws of Simplicity. I had the pleasure of meeting him some years back at a Hennessy experience in Cognac, France to celebrate 200 years of Hennessy VSOP. The FS blog post The Laws of Simplicity is a great intro to Maeda’s thinking and approach to simplifying life.
A song I can’t get enough of is Ghanaian artist Black Sherif’s Kwaku The Traveller.
“… of course I f—-ed up, who never f—-ed up hands in the air, no hands?….
“Western European colonisers saw indigenous peoples as undeserving of the artistic heritage that had fallen into their hands.” If we return Nazi-looted art, the same goes for empire-looted.
I just finished listening to the How I Built This podcast episode with Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of Wordpress. In it, he talks about how he turned down something like $100 million because, if he had that kind of money, he would do what he was already doing.
The reality shows that I enjoy, or at least followed in the early days, involved craft. They were never shows that just anyone could enter. Project Runway and So You Think You Can Dance were two favourites. I say ‘were’ because I don’t really follow most programmes the way I used to and tend to be erratic with my ‘video watching’, except for football and the MotoGP (these go into my diary). A friend shared this video of a dance routine (are they still called that?) from the World of Dance Championships 2018 and it gave me goosebumps.
Posted the below on Instagram this past week and, since then, have finished the book Witnessing. It is both harrowing and inspiring. His childhood in Rwanda during the troubles and tragedy. His journey into adulthood and dealing with trauma.
That’s it for today. If you enjoy receiving the Zebra Culture By Kojo Baffoe newsletter but are not subscribed, please do subscribe.
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My book Listen To Your Footsteps, it is widely available both in digital and physical form and the Listen To Your Footsteps podcast is available on most podcast platforms.
