Mind your Mind

The world to me is as far as my eyes can go, as far as my mind can stretch me and probably as far as I'll ever go. This sounds like an excuse for my ignorance but who should tell me better!? Teacher Betty? Albert Einstein? or this computer right at my desk?

As a child, the spot where the tallest mountain touched the sky is where I perceived the world to end and the sky as represented by the clouds was the ceiling that in fact I thought separated earth from heaven. As I grew older, television and books expanded my imagination and knowledge of what the world really was. I also found the minds of others quite fascinating, a habit I associate with in my adulthood.

Accidentally sliding into the mind of a boda boda rider, a street dweller, a child, a farmer, a lady of the night, or any other stranger sometimes makes me want to stay. When it comes to family and friends, these have permission to opine and we take their minds for granted but now I recognise how they have shaped mine. I owe them my judgement.

Each time I think about my country which I am proud to say I have traversed mainly for political and social reasons, it aches my heart to imagine myself living here for majority of my life when the world is out there with plenty of space to accommodate me and mine. I genuinely love Uganda, Kampala to be specific and my entire neighbourhood but I must say that the nomad in me has got to be freed. I cannot help but wonder what lies beyond the skyline.

Rather than a battlefield with scuffles everywhere waiting on survival for the fittest, I see it as a playground with wonderment, adventure and happiness that calls out the childish spirit in me every single day I am blessed to live again. In the past few year I have been able to travel from villages to towns, cities, countries and continents for various reasons. One thing that I'd never forget is finding a kindred spirit in a stranger. The joy, excitement, curiosity, amazement and all the good feelings that came along to give me a sense of home. Sharing stories and different perspectives about life became a new craving my poor soul never had the luxury to dream about.

Slowly by slowly I began to desire more and more of the travelling like I had been overdosed with that dopamine. By the end of 2018, all my savings were bitten by that travel bug. It started with curiosity but ended up as a necessity. Each time my mind felt like crashing I only wished to escape it through geographical borders. It is only until later that I realised that wherever I went my heavy mind was the first thing I packed. I realised travelling was instead doing me more harm than good because wherever I went I never wished to come back. In fact coming back to normal got me agitated and literally depressed that I blamed colonialism for all the geographical demarcations I have had to deal with as a prisoner of these lands that generously gave me life.

I am training my spirit to have no mental nor geographical borders, like an eagle will soar so high through seasons and all calamities. When the Psalmist says "Who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle" I confide in that assurance. In the meantime home is where my heart is and I am steadily learning to dance in the rain with all its mud, joys, flaws (or flows) and anything in between. Travel won't heal my mental discontentment and neither will it heal yours; calling it a vacation won't change a thing either. I am only trying to mind my mind, you too can mind yours.