List five things you do for fun.
In the background, mentally and spiritually:
What book are you reading right now?
Selected Speeches of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I is a book that helped launch me decades ago into sober reflection of the essentials of African identity and helped me in my personal quest for spiritual guidance. The book sparked my interest in international relations and saved me from going down the typical Rastafarian rabbit holes.
If you think that today’s leaders are not much more than animals of partisan politics, you are right. The United Nations and all the regional and other alliances are failing on account of the reasons suggested by the late emperor.
You have three magic genie wishes, what are you asking for?
Let the genie be the combined energy, willpower and courage of one generation!
How much would you pay to go to the moon?
A trip to the moon would have interested me when Armstrong stepped on the moon’s surface and announced that he was pioneering a human journey. However, going to an uninhabitable place is the stuff of fantasy and extreme adventurism. Even to a mind brimming with creative energy, the vast sums spent of a single mission to the moon has to be reprehensible as long as hunger and poverty are still ravaging any part of the earth.
There are many humans who can easily spend the money for many trips to the moon, and that fact highlights the priorities of humanity. May the moon and earth that have supported life as we know it never become terminals in a one-way traffic industry for anyone.
When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?
In my early teens, discovering ancestral heritage and the possibilities of romance, I felt I had arrived. I have spent the decades since then clinging to the glow of what should have been a speedy transition. I realize I have missed some of the essentials of growing up, but do not expect me to carry any guilt when a large number of my peers have also been clinging to priorities of the transition into adulthood.
What could you do more of?
I could be more of a conduit for the love that never falls down on the job. This means that for all the people to whom I have said “I love you” more would be ways to make that love felt, that is perceptible, not necessarily felt like food, clothing, presence and money. Very often just knowing that someone cares is a grand booster to a good day. I just want to elevate my loving.
What personality trait in people raises a red flag with you?
In conversation, people who talk incessantly then expect you to do the same.
Questions being answered which were not asked. Deaf listeners.
Physicians who do not heal themselves, i.e. are not examples of healthy living or fitness.
Plutocrat heads of state who keep their people impoverished and enslaved and unlearned. Uncaring shepherds.
People fixing things that are in perfect working order.
If you had to give up one word that you use regularly, what would it be?
“Think” can go the way of the dodo because so few are doing it. The large volume of robotic expressions that dominate the media and our literature today in the 21st century is shocking. Society is repeatedly being dragged into silos of politics, religion and apathy by the proven brokers of regional and ancestral pride. When I say “I think” I hope to mean I have heard, reflected, and repented. All the religions and political ideologies are happy to have people not think even though all are frequently heard saying “I think…”.
Let us all stop talking, start thinking, and see how far down the rabbit holes of the virulent lifestyles of the people whose names are in the limelight we get!
Life is Fun, But Not a Joke 