This is Development. What is this?

This letter is starting shortly after I arrived home and had a bromantic conversation with my brother Bishop, laughing a lot about the activities of our days while updating each other. You see, that thing which Gen Z calls day one, to me is and has always been a fellow brown and ugly nigga by the name Bishop.

I should also be journaling about the person with a Vagina who gave me her number in a public van while returning home and promised to beg me for money if we were to hang out. This Rasta cutie was unapologetic with a big laugh on her face exposing her silver low jaw tooth matching her nose ring.

But out of genuine love and care for both you and for the craft of writing, I will instead send this letter. Copying and typing from my morning notes in my scrapbook where it started. Right now is a little before 10pm as I start so I hope it lands in your inbox before midnight.

So how did it start?

It started at the office of esteemed Nick’s letter reader and subscriber [Name hidden] who has been happy to pay me to help him streamline the marketing, communications and documentation of his Nairobi-based Logistics company which is scaling to employ and serve more people. Right there in the morning is when I got this letter drafted.

It started as morning handwritten notes with the intention of talking about Development… More precisely, personal development.

What is development?

Ukombozi Library, located in the CBD of Nairobi along an uptown street with a hard to write name, is full of books that fed my curiosity last Saturday afternoon.

These days, I am a contributing writer and my reflections are featured and will continue being featured every Quarterly at Ukombozi Review which is an online magazine affiliated to the same Library.

At Ukombozi, we talk about liberations and protest against oppressive democratic systems like the chronic Ruto regime. There are also women liberation groups but that is not my focus there. I am more into politics and economics.

I looked at those books with goals. Among them is to inspire my future reflections and writing in general.

Due to my renegade nature and love for civil disobedience which put me on the map on June 25th, during the GeN Z protests, I was able to connect with the decision makers of Ukombozi. We discussed matters including marketing and biz. We have also hung out enjoying drinks and food. If you want to read my latest reflections go here.

Anyway, I have started with the Ukombozi opening because these letters, as I had told you in a past issue, normally take some form of anti govt projection, especially, I insist, Ruto regime.

So after exploring the books in the shelves, I fell for 3 and felt those are the ones I’ll be reading and reflecting on.

One of the book had the title: How Europe underdeveloped Africa.

By the way Europe is still in the business of underdeveloping Africa and most of the European deals made by Mr Must Go are going to keep African poor! That is why we need Liberation today in Kenya.

Anyway to continue…

There is a particular line in Walter’s that I want us to use. Why Am I using this book? Because it has the name development in it. And since we are all here focused on personal development, there is nothing wrong with using analogies and cross referencing.

In this book, Walter said this about development:

“Development in human society is a many-sided process. At the level of the individual, it implies  increased skill and capacity, greater freedom, creativity, self-discipline, responsibility and material well being.”

I like how Walter emphasizes development for the individual and that is what we are going to shamelessly steal and apply here at Nick’s letters.

Now we don’t care about what the white people of Europe and what they did to Africa. We know that they will have to provide answers for the trouble they brought to Africa as declared by their fellow European Carl Gustav Jung in his book called The Undiscovered Self.

Anyway, development is what happens when humans are thriving. It happens when we sharpen our skills, when we seek freedom, when we tap into our creativity, when we develop iron discipline, when we become responsible and when we have our material needs like food and fashion upgraded.

Even though the world of philosophy is far apart from the world of liberation literature, I am still not surprised that personal development can start when we start focusing on those parts I have mentioned above by ripping off from Walter's book. The points are not far from what we talked about back in January when we learned how to develop ourselves in 2024. Did we? We are going to see that before the end of this year.

Thank you for choosing me as your development and philosophy captain in 2024. 

If you think we are not growing, feel free to unsubscribe today, and leave.

If you know we are growing and have experienced that growth yourself, tell me by replying to this email. Tell me how you have grown, even in the slightest way that you are okay talking about. 

Until next week

Nick Osale. 

P.S

A big 2024 reflection series of letters is coming anytime from now.

P.S.S

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