Love’s Shades of Black and White Pt. 1

- Life is like a pyramid. A pyramid that keeps on being uprightly upright and then 
  down rightly inverted, somehow… – Bonface Morris
- Learning the art of love requires justice both to self and to the object… - Bonface Morris

To begin with, I guess that’s the worst point to start off this post – with a twisted fact. A twisted fact, yeah. But it is the best way I think. You just have to start it off with agreeing with me that life is a puzzle that many of us fail to fathom and fully comprehend. A puzzle we only love imagining that we can solve, but we many times don’t want to unbridle. Many of us never even try to. We always feel that we don’t have to - or whenever we keep trying, that we won’t anyway, and therefore we fail trying to before we even try trying to… We always come out feeling that life is a mystery, a bad nightmare that we wish never occurs (or will never occur or try to occur) – a mystery which has legs that keep on being wounded, then getting healed, but sometimes ailing forever; that it is a mixture of multiplicities and a simple but altogether dogma of sorts.

You will agree with me that the greatest minds have only had ways of interpreting life and getting it undone – but the undoing is always wanting. Minds keep on thinking of solutions, but times keep on making the solutions a problem… It is like the questioner who asks too much, then his/her recipient turns the questions around against them, or answers all of them, but only to ask more questions… and the cycle becomes endless… questioning that answers and questions itself all at the same time…

And there are those who always feel that life is unfair. Yeah. That it should not treat them like thus… They should be right to think so. [I am saying that they should be right to, but not they are right to…] But that makes me wonder if life is an object and they, the subject of its course(s) so that it tyrannically keeps on impeding their way with its clawy mannerisms and with queer mercilessness leaving them in a pathetic status… That it carries with itself a portion of unfairness for them… a portion of high allotment…

Then there are those in love life (read, relationships) who always wonder why the love affair has been so unfair to them. Mine being one of them, the truth is that love and loving another person is costly. It needs sacrifice. And it somehow is unfair that such a sweet thing as love (a shade of white) should have so many bumps ahead (shades of black.)

Love forces you to want to learn so many unnecessary things about one person that you somehow feel choked. You need to understand why they behave like they DO behave, why they love this and not that, and not the other, and keep on remembering those likes and dislikes; why they are impatient (or patient) while you can’t tolerate such thickness (or thinness); why in the whole world full of people like them, they should qualify to be the ones – the true ones that you love… You have to understand why they become angry at stupid things, why they love you, if they are pretending or not… A life full of shades…

So let me dig deeper into the shades of that part of life – where people think that they should be having partners (read boyfriends or girlfriends, fiancés or fiancées) to fall in love with… Woreva…

Whoever taught me about love (and I am not saying that I was taught by anyone) did a very bad job. They failed. So, all the advice you will get in this post is strictly mine. Yeah.  I don’t evn know if it is advice. It doesn’t have to be anyway. Did you employ me to advice you on anything? Nope. Did you tell me to be writing to give you advice? Nope. Am I your ticha? Nope. So judge me not when I tell you what I feel about shades in love.

I love the beauty in zebras. Mainly because their skin color beautifully alternates. A friend of mine was asking me, “Hey Morris, are those black stripes on white or white stripes on black that make the color code of a zebra’s skin?” I didn’t know. So I never answered. Compared to the question on zebras, I may not also be having any answers to your many love questions. I don’t have to have any. I am not obligated to have your answers, ama?

But look at this scenario (and I don’t plan to write A LOVE BOOK): a man meets a lady – or a lady meets a man - and they happen to tango. Whether it is on Day 1 or day later… woreva it may be, they agree to be meeting (those things/moments my generation calls dates) over I don’t know what or where – si ni wao huwa wanakubaliana ni wapi watakuwa wanakutana? So hapo jijazie… But anyway, they DO meet. That is point number 1 – if you have to say you are in a relationship, (not necessarily a love relationship), you should be meeting with your significant other. It doesn’t matter whether it is via phone or sms or Facebook, or twirra or Google Talk/+/Hangout or Skype… woreva… you should be meeting. Without a meeting (or communication), there is no relationship, sawa? That may also be shade number 1 for some guys – that you guys never meet, never talk, never ever just chat, meaning, it is a shade of black. But if you DO meet, even for a while and you make time for each other, it is a white one (at least, and maybe)…

Point number 2 – you may be meeting, but you talk a lot of clutter – you keep on telling each other about how the other’s lips look yummy, and how she look hawt; or how his biceps (or six pack) look greyt…  and how his hands drive you crayzy… That is kul, but it is clutter my friend. It is clutter if you want that relationship to go somewhere. Anywhere. I always say that compliments are good – they show affection, but compliments made just to please someone are stupid... OMG! You can hit me if you want. Dates (and I am referring to such dates that are just daytes) make two people pretend to something else whenever they meet. They always will be found pretending to be really guuud. That is why I hate dates. 90% of dates people go to today are clumsy shows of a non-existing relationship. They are places of “judging if that guy (or chic) is guuud enuff” Woreva that is, they always fail. They always come out with black shades and dark unrealistic wounded hearts. But if you DO meet and  build each other, and you don’t pick up a pretentious profile when you are together, and you are just you, then my friend, you are whiting right there… It is a good shade. You are on the right track. But if you fear ati watakujua, you are in big trouble…

My last point for today is this one: so two people have tango-ed and they agree, the next thing that will make you start knowing that it is you who makes your love life fair or unfair is, know this person – get acquainted with their life shades. Only this will enable you to get anywhere.

You see my friend, strangers can’t be comrades until familiarity is developed. Do you get it? Comrades cannot exist until openness is grown. So, are you open enough? Lack of honesty and openness makes you a monkey in a baboon population – no tangoism… If one (or both of you) keep on hiding stuff about yourselves in your so-called dates, while you know very well that this should be a relationship to count on, you better just sit at home watching movies, drinking yoghurt, or woreva,  so that you may not be heard saying, “Men are clumsy and stupid” or “Women are niggards and rude…”

The question is, “Are you ready to make those shades in your relationship as beautiful as those on a zebra or as ugly as those on the hyena, because it too has hideous shades…?

See you next time for part two…

Morris.