Can I be real with you?
I can't help but start like this …
Remember the last post where I talked about making writing my job?
Mom read it and texted me on Friday saying that, yes, writing is my job and that before I’d conclude that she was forcing me to work in her friend’s office “drafting agreements in arcane grammar”, she is sending me money.
To “take care of your Nutri-Milk for this week”.
Mom paid me, dished out compliments and praise as generously as her egusi soup, and joked that “what if drafting agreements in arcane grammar will quickly pay your bills?”
See why I love my father's wife?
See?
You people better marry right oh.
Read below to get the writing guide I promised.
For about two years now, a major shift has been going on in my life.
It has really shaken things at the roots of my psyche and is affecting not only my conception of self but how people perceive me.
I can see the difference. I am trying so hard to think up an isolated incident or event but nothing is coming up … but I can see G and I talking about it for hours and hours, fleshing it out, drawing examples from our distinguished host of heroes (people we admire and adore), and really putting it together in hundreds of hundreds of hours of conversation.
One word: authenticity.
Authenticity is in two steps. First, hugging yourself. Holding you and accepting you despite that you are a really flawed person.
Not you. Me. But maybe, also you.
I mean, this is not wishy-washy narcissism: love-yourself-the-way-you-are type sh*t.
I even hate this love-yourself thing that people flag around like cheap candy. I think it really restricts people from self-development and making themselves better.
But is it not the same thing I'm saying?
No. Wait, I am coming.
You can’t truly love what you don't know.
You have to come to a place of deep introspection, and know for certain who you are, and what comes in your package.
It’s being ‘vulnerable’ with yourself first.1
Why do I think this way? Why am I suddenly near-obsessed with money, when I barely thought about it before, let alone be worried? I was a sage. A bohemian guru, fixated on knowledge and "noble" ideas, unperturbed by materialism. Now I am an earthly man. A very earthly man. I have devolved.
Why do I do what I do? Why am I now predisposed to starting things off with multiple girls. What insecurities am I masking in these "conquests". Fruitless? Wanton waste of time? Interest would be ceiling high today and the next I am whining when she calls. I wasn't this guy. I hate to admit it, but maybe I chose the wrong art. Good writing is ugly honesty. Lawyers lie. This thing hurts. I can't believe I'd post this, and it'd be saved hard on over 300 email inboxes. My Mom's including. She reads all my stuff. God.
One of these days, I may follow these essayists' good advice and ruin my life.
I'd write something that'd make me unemployable or scuttle my chances of running for President.
But why? Why am I all that I am? These parts of me … my disdain for authority, my inner rebellious child running amok. My obsessions. My galaxy-sized dreams that scares everyone else except me. My anger, at the ordinary person, at leadership in almost every sphere, at my father, at myself.
Love-yourself-the-way-you-are puts a hand over your eyes, pretending that all these things are not in front of you, like how we did when we were younger, when we watched TV with our parents and a steamy scene would come up. Like burying your head in sand, like they say ostriches do.
You are pretending that these ugly ugly things are not throwing themselves in everyone's faces, dancing boisterously like the Kalakuta Queens, instead of having those uncomfortable, painful sit-downs with yourself.
Throwing your hands in the air and "this is who I am" is folly and definitely not authenticity.
Authenticity understands. The acceptance comes from a deep, personal appreciation of oneself.
I am learning that.
I am learning to love myself in this way. Not loathe myself like I have done for most of my life.
The second part of authenticity is expressing authenticity.
During this time has also been me, reinventing my personal image of myself in many ways. One of the elements that have changed about my character is the change from Builder-Maker to Creator-Artist.
It is really difficult to explain because they are very very similar outside of my mind but see the former as a mason or a carpenter, for example. He builds things. He builds things that work. And he although he can be innovative, there is very objective value in what he does, or utility. Like a chair or a building. It could be beautiful and different but it has to be useful for sitting. That's the Builder-Maker. The Programmer. The Strategist. The Planner. The Administrator. The Politician.
The Creator-Artist is more like an artist or painter. Yes, what he does is valuable but that value is also very subjective. A painting is not like a chair. Whatever utility for a painting (like for decorating a space) is derived from that subjective, personal, varied sense of value. A painting of some grotesque scene may be repulsive to you. I like seeing graffitti although it is vandalism of public property and some are in a very logical sense, ugly. Not the same with a chair; everyone has a butt. They will sit.
This Creator-Artist is what I have in my mind now. It’s not just a vehicle for expressing authenticity, it is an engine of authenticity.
It's how I work when I write these personal essays, and when I make music and everything.
To make art. Every time. Somehow.
To create beautiful things rather than just "useful" things or things that "work".
I am resisting the temptation to write something of a rebuttal, like a defence of beauty but …
This is me. First.
Second, it’s either there is beauty inherent in the world or the human brain just searches for it for some reason.
You can't even say everything you do is "useful" in that strict sense. Much of what we do is icing on the cake, calligraphic writing, the ornate framing around a wall picture, the paint over your house. You can stubbornly go ahead to rationalize these things but it's the irrationality of beauty that made me burn J. Cole's Pi into my memory, word-for-word.
It’s the reason you are reading this. The title doesn't say "10 Ways to Make Money Online in 2025".
You read that sometimes when your OPay is dangerously low, but you are here on this line, reading this very word, searching, this word here, and this word, and this one …
What are you doing?
You are caressing a mind. Mine. A mind struggling to be real and open and authentic. A mind seeking to be loved.
You are searching for beauty.
Can you fill pages?
Every day?
Over the past five years, many people have come up to me for advice. Most of them want to be writers.
I mean, they are writers in their heads.
They have something to say.
They want to say it so badly. The words are bubbling inside them …
But whenever they sit down to write, it's like trying to squeeze water out of a rock.
They sit there and just stare at the page. Stuck.
Some others say they write on some days and can't do it on other days. They blame it on “writer’s block”. They want to be able to write consistently. So it bothers them.
At first, their questions puzzled me.
I mean, “what do you mean by you have words but you can't write?”
“You don't know how to place it?”
I would tell them to “just write” and that “writer’s block is a lie” in what seemed unsympathetic and insensitive.
This is because writing has almost always come to me to be one of the easiest, stress-free activities I could do.
I can just sit down and “pour” my thoughts. At the end, it’d look coherent and sound right with only very minimal editing.
But as more and more people came to me with the same problems, I had to find a way to help them.
I had to try to reverse engineer how I do it.
How do I view writing? What is my state of mind? How do I organize my thoughts?
How do I write with ease?
I have been keen to answer many of these questions and help some people beat these problems.
Seeing some of these successes, in late 2023, I took to writing this guide. I forgot about it after I started and remembered it in mid-2024. I blame academic engagements, indiscipline and a multiplicity of other interests for the delay in producing this work.
Some days back, I decided to finish this guide.
And I have.
I am happy.
This is the first draft of “Writing with Ease: The Guide to Spontaneous Writing”
And I am offering it up for free. Because I want as many people as possible to have it.
I really hope it helps you.
We need more writers. I need more friends.
If this is how I can help the world, I would, gladly.
I would like to know who gets this guide. It would be easier for us to connect and learn more from each other.
Please fill this short form and you’d receive your copy of Writing with Ease for free
Today is CHROMAKOPIA Day! It came so fast, damn. I was on Spotify by 12 midnight but it wasn’t out. Was disappointed for a sec. I mean, Tyler is not Burna Boy (who tweeted/posted “album dropping 12 midnight” over a month ago but oga no drop).
Then G was like, what is the time?
Omo. Tyler is not in Nigeria. Our 12 midnight is not his. Basic sh*t.
Reminds me of Tems’ debut on 7 June and how I was up, pressed play ~ 12:02 AM and played the entire album about four times.
That day was euphoric. Got too close to Heaven but came back because my Mom and these girls wouldn’t be able to bear losing me …
So I checked online. Redditors are not sleeping (from Google’s front page. Can’t share screenshot here bc it’s useless).
Album is dropping 6AM ET, Monday 28 October 2024. Use your timezone and this piece of information as you please.
Disclaimer: Tyler or his people didn’t pay me to rant about his album to my list. But even if he did, I won’t talk about anything I don’t believe in here.
Currently playing an R&B-dominated playlist I made for G (to help him explore the genre). It has 90s and the love ballads of that era, it has 00s and their intercourse with pop and hip-hop, it has those sweet alternative R&B. I basically made it from the R&B on my Liked Songs that I haven’t played to him before then (Liked Songs are 625 if you’re curious).
So in summary, I put together 2h 40mins of sultry sonic pleasure. atmospheric bliss and long life (Tevin Campbell’s Can We Talk playing now is long life …)
I enjoy doing this with you so, thank you.
Till next time,
With love & ink,
Emmanuel
I don’t like this word because it’s synonymous with ‘weak’ and I don’t like weak. But it’s the apt word so what can I do?