I was on my way to town in a matatu, when a young woman, tall with smartphone in hand, boarded the matatu and sat next to me.
She was dressed in black. Black, casual top and jeans. I thought it curious anyone would wear black, considering the hell-like high temperatures we’ve been having.
Anyway, girl in black sat and proceeded to twiddle away on her Smartphone, thumbs dextrously tapping away. And in all of the 20 minutes or so it took to get to the CBD, time I spent looking out the window at the traffic, the people, mukokoteni operators, the young lady never looked up once. It reminded of this scene in ‘The Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho. Santiago, the protagonist, is in a large caravan, travelling through the desert.
As they journey over the dunes and far away, Santiago is looking at the stars, the sand, palm trees, the men, women and children in the caravan, the camel drivers. However, the man on the next camel, the Englishman, is not aware of any of it, because for most of the journey he’s immersed in reading his books.
‘You should pay more attention to the caravan,’ says Santiago to the Englishman one fine evening, when the caravan stops to rest. What Santiago meant was there’s more to see, discover out in the real world, if you just looked.
Of course, as a Nairobian, I didn’t say this to the young woman. Not my place and Nairobians don’t talk to strangers. But I couldn’t help but think, as George Bernard Shaw did, ‘Youth is wasted on the young’.
It’s a popular adage that combines wisdom, wistfulness and a smidgen of jealousy. It means young people are full of energy and vitality but they fritter it away, fail to put it to good use, preferring instead to spend all their time in the virtual worlds of Inst-Tweet-Google-Face. At least that’s what it looks like from an older person’s perspective, a middle-aged man, say.
To a middle-aged person, the youth have everything going for them. They’re in the best shape they’ll ever be in and their minds are sharp and clear. We observe this and think, ‘Oh, what I would do with that superhuman strength and health if I still had it now that I’m wiser, experienced, a little more mature. Wouldn’t spend it looking at a phone for 20 minutes, that’s for sure.’
But we understand. When you’re young, you don’t always take the chances that are in front of you. You can’t really because to do that, you’d have to peel your attention away from your Smartphone long enough to look out the window, at the real world, where the opportunities are. Youth think they have all the time in the world, that there will be time enough later to see and seize opportunities.
To a young person, the future is a wide, wonderful space flowing with possibilities.
Well, I’m here to tell you nothing lasts forever. You’ll be older and middle-aged in no time – sooner if you’re always on social media. The future then won’t be a wide, wonderful space, but more of a cluttered, musty, the-past-filled space, where the flow of possibilities is but a trickle.
Young today, gone tomorrow, they say.
