essays

Stillness is not emptiness. It is control. Silence is not weakness. It is discipline. In a world engineered to pull you, the highest skill is to resist.

Growing up in Zimbabwe, I never had the luxury of being raised by algorithms. There was no endless scroll. No dopamine slot machine in my pocket. Attention was shaped by people, not platforms.

For a long time, I lived the life I wanted. I was with the people I chose, in places I once dreamed of calling home. From the outside, nothing appeared unresolved. Yet wanting more does not disappear simply because life looks complete.

I used to think social media was just part of modern life — a noisy background, sometimes useful, mostly "for fun." Now I see it differently: like walking into a casino where the house not only rigs the games, but also watches my eyes.

I didn't expect anything unusual to happen that day. I was just on a tennis court, doing what I've done hundreds of times before. But then it started to rain, and something in me shifted.

For years, I believed that progress demanded a price. Every time I reached for something I wanted, something else slipped through my fingers. But survival is a fragile kind of victory.

In the bruise colored hour before night fully arrives, an eagle drags itself through the wind not to survive, but to defy the sky that keeps daring it to break.

I grew up believing the world was simple: the people with the least should be the ones who complain the most. Then I left home, traveled, returned, and realized how wrong that assumption was.

Somewhere along the way, someone lied. They sold us the wrong dream — that success means screens, schedules, and status. That to matter, we have to constantly do more, own more, post more.

There was a time when the internet felt pure — a place of curiosity, creativity, and community. You could search for something, learn, and move on. No one followed you with ads.

I've lived half my life in Zimbabwe and half around the world, and that contrast has taught me one thing: life is easy if we make it that way.

I didn't learn about success from a textbook — I learned it from experience. From college and scholarship applications, to job rejections, to reaching out to investors, I began to see a pattern: success isn't magic, it's mathematics.

There is a quiet war being fought every day — not with weapons, but with trends. A war where originality dies not by censorship, but by assimilation.