I lied. I know what Fikayo means.
And I'll do just that ...
It feels good to write to you again. How have you been? I have been hard at work, writing daily at The Bunker (and even building a new publication with Fikayo that we'd introduce soon).
We agreed to Mondays, right and sincerely, the situation was beyond my control. It's fixed now and we can move forward.
I am rounding up a writing guide that's taken me a year because of a sour mix of indiscipline and perfectionism. I have conquered the former, but the latter is still playing tug-of-war with me. The guide should be out before the end of this week, and I am hopeful that it’d help many of you.
Now …
I lied.
I lied that I don't know what Fikayo does.
That I didn't know what he means by "back-breaking, sanity-depriving work".
I don't know why I lied. It was almost automatic to lie like that. Maybe this one is a lie. But I lied because subconsciously, it'd mean something grave if I didn't:
If I knew what Fikayo does, even an idea of it, the begging question would be.
Why are you not doing it?
Why write a pretentious essay to say that you were "craving 'sanity-depriving work' ", and wax about how those words haunted you, and how you were tired of just being good and were craving excellence, when you knew what to do?
Because it makes me look good. Like one who desires a noble quest. Not one who knew the path but wasn’t skipping down that path.
Because of fear?
Or, maybe because I sincerely wanted to know his exact process? To have him tell me what to do?
I don't know. But a lie could be a sincere untruth. A misconception is a lie, even though you didn't know the truth anyway.
You can lie to yourself and not know it. You can think about it, write it and justify it. But when G asked me, asked me what I thought Fikayo does, it all came crashing down. The clever wall of noble quest, a shattered pile of rubble at my feet.
Because I began to painfully express the painful task. I began to say that I had to devote hours to these ideas, allow them grow and build till I could feel the weight of the words with my hands, feel their pressure pushing hard against the walls of my head, growling inside, threatening to burst out, to blow my head into smithereens.
I had to write, with passion, with soul. I had to rewrite and rewrite. To be perfect, to give my utter and total best to every word, every phrase, every sentence. To "commit to insane levels of excellence" in every essay.
I had to wrench out a piece of my heart, the pen like tweezers, and throw them on the page, look down on a palpitating piece of me. It had to be hard, to be “back-breaking". And I am not doing all that hard work because maybe unlike Fikayo's "I wouldn't want it any other way," I want it another way.
Because like I told G, laughing, "I don't want to run mad".
And that's a fully-decorated, wreath-crested folly.
Buffoonery. ‘Clownery’.
This path is not for cowards. For lily-livered, posh souls. It is hellish and lonely and "back-breaking".
It is owned by the chronically abnormal.
For those who will "gladly offer" great sacrifices, and walk great miles, "barefoot"
It is for those who will give up their rest, their peace, their sanity, their life.
It is for "the obsessed".
"The oath-takers".
Shouldn't I then take the Oath of the Writer, and live it to my Last Second?
Thanks xoxo for your love and support. I’ll try not to lie …
My day in music has been … varied.
I’ve been listening to Mick Jenkins today. G and I are beginning to appreciate him here in The Bunker. Then I played Radiohead’s Kid A Mnesia (album) and Kendrick Lamar’s magnum opus, To Pimp A Butterfly (album). I am listening to ScHoolboy Q’s BLUE LIPS (album) as I write this line ...
And yes, I think Q’s BLUE LIPS is the best hip-hop album this year. Maybe, that’s until Tyler, The Creator’s CHROMAKOPIA comes out on the 28th of this month. I saw the album trailer, and the music video for NOID, one of the songs on YouTube today and y’all should be scared for your GOATS because Tyler is about to unleash hell. I don’t understand what it’s all about with Tyler wearing a mask, shooting in mute colours and heavily sampling an African language, but I am excited by the overtly creative feel it is giving off.
Very Tyler. Layered concepts and unconventional approaches.
This will probably be the first Tyler album I pay very close attention to. I hope it is very very good because I still feel music-hungry and I’m craving …
See you.