300 posts later...

When people ask me about the blog I tremble a little. The first question is usually what's the name of your blog, and the second is always what is it about. The first is easily answered, but the second is not. The thing is, I've written so many articles, not articles, random things, and things that aren't things that I really don't have an answer or I don't have the answer you want. You want one word that summarises all that I am and all that I do, but I don't have it. I'm more than a word. The blog is more than a word.

I shan't write a story about my blogging journey. I'm not in the mood. But I will once again say my thanks. Thanks to Mama Afam for reading every post. Thanks to Papa Afam for not disowning me when he heard that my twitter name was Afambewbew. Thanks to my brother Gbaddy for all that he does (I think he might have been a Henry Higgins in a previous life). Thanks to my sister Bintin for taking my pictures and remaining casually interested and awesome. Thanks to Mena, without whom there wouldn't be a blog. Thanks to Lia for editing and promoting and commenting. Thanks to my Afamourage (afam entourage) for they make me more than I am. And thanks to the rest of you, for reading, for loving, for loathing, for sharing, for commenting, and for famzing!!

But have there really been 300? I can hardly believe it. I can still remember the first one...

They say that the best writing comes from total honesty. You’re meant to be telling the truth. I have several problems with this. If I were to share all and hold nothing back, then no one would look at me the same way. There are so many standards to live up to; so many sides of myself that I have shown so many different people that anything I did now would be unjust. Would it be fair to everyone to reveal that you aren’t the person that they thought you were? That you were a fake, a fraud. That the real you was a shadow thriving on false relationships. It’s best to keep them in the dark. Surely it’s enough that no one has all of you, that every one has a little piece of you stored. A perfect piece unsullied by any other characteristic that you might have. Is it not best that one person thinks of you as the fool and another the genius? To me it seems a little romantic that after you’re gone the only way that any of them can ever truly know you is if they all came together and combined their memories. 

Mena thinks I’ve got it in me to write. I’d like to say I believed her, to grow a beard and a dirty tash. To stare into the distance in deep thought and after a few minutes pen down some genius that would summarise the human condition. Something that would make the hardest of hearts laugh and cry in equal turn. Something that’s not quite funny and not quite sad. Something that's as nostalgic as it is forward looking. Something that exposed your life in a page. The power that these genius wordsmiths yield is unparalleled. We dance along to their tunes in perfect harmony. In my opinion it’s a little narcissistic for if the reasons that Narcissus fell in love with himself are universal, rational and reasonable, then every writer must fall in love with his readers because they smiled when he did and wept when he did. The readers must mirror the writer. When they fail to do so there’s a complete disconnect. I guess that’s why writers must be honest, because readers are not so stupid as to fall for drivel that’s completely imagined. Having said all this one must question if there is such a thing as fiction.

I suppose that says it all.

Happy Days,
Afam