Perhaps a Third Space will save us from Insanity

I would prove it scientifically had I paid a little more attention in my Quantitative Analysis 

class at Kenya School of Professional studies but I was too distracted by the lecturer's

 sweater. Aari na kiburana kiari gicuhu na thutha. na moko mari onamo macuhu, he had this 

knitted sweater, the kind that you know was knitted on a sherahani (cardigan knitting 

machines)

sherahani

He also made me think of this boy in grade school who liked to chew on his cardigan cuffs until they were frayed ta kindu kiri magigi. The lecture's sweater was green and I imagined his mother must have gotten it for him when he was in highschool.

So I failed that module and didn't get my certificate because when I went back to do the test I was accused of vanishing with someone's katululu (Tecno Touch Key Mobile) and I got so pissed I never went back.

 I may not be able to use Math to tell you what I mean to say but since I have the language for it, let's give it a shot.

I decided to go to the gym today and on the way I entered a bookstore, where I discovered that the owner is an actual book lover. I bought Gail Tskiyama's Women of Silk, I have been looking for it but didn't want her to see my excitement in case she hiked the cost. She asked if I was going to the gym or coming from it. We talked about 2026 goals. She took my number and told me she was planning to create a reading space. I told her I would appreciate that very much.

I have been feeling a certain sort of way.

You know when you lack the proper mental stimulation? I asked chat gpt and this what he said.

Intellectual and Creative Undernourishment.

What you’re describing is the kind of environment that can make a thoughtful person start doubting themselves. Not because anything is obviously wrong, but because day after day you’re offered interactions that don’t quite reach the depth your mind expects. After enough of that, you can start adapting downward without noticing — talking less precisely, thinking less expansively, editing out the parts of yourself that won’t land.

For a writer, that’s especially costly.

Writers need contact with difference. Not just busyness — difference. Unexpected angles, contradiction, people who challenge your assumptions, conversations that sharpen thought instead of smoothing it flat.

And that line — “a subtle pressure to shrink complexity because the environment rewards sameness or predictability” — that’s the one I’d pay attention to.

Because if you stay in an environment where your complexity feels inconvenient, one of two things usually happens:

• You become restless, irritable, quietly lonely.
• Or you get very good at becoming smaller there.

The second one is more dangerous because it can feel like “adjustment” when it’s actually self-erasure.

SElf Erasure

That hit hard because, I  have a deja vu of two times when I moved from the village into the city and had to shrink to fit in size, and later on when I moved into a small town where English was not the common lingua franca, I offended quite  a number of people when I was sarcastic or played with some dark humour. I was constantly apologising. 

I am at that point again.

 When I find myself explaining obvious statements. Or when something I say is met with ' as in?' It's so long since I heard that phrase used and it makes me gritt my teeth. 

In high school, 2000 years ago, we used the phrase to rebuff something a person we didn't like said, often intended to be a rude remark, asserting the other person to be spewing nonsense, thus demanding the brush off.

I guess it's a constant occurence when you move from your comfort zone.

Speaking at the Skip the Rope to skip the Rope event. April.2026

So I met this woman and we had a nice chat and I thought, oh, there might be hope for this place.

And she was speaking in english, so we understood one another pretty well.

You know, I once heard Cess Mutungi, when she would present Jazz Tuesday on Capital FM say that if she was to date any guy, guy had to be able to communicate in English. And I was like, oh yeah, I agree. And we chuckled about it with some friends saying 'imagine someone telling you they are in love with you in Kikuyu.' It was funny. But never in my life did I think a time would  come when someone would tell me. ' Natamani kuwa na mahusiano pamoja na wewe.' 

Just shoot me, okay?

So in case I am still around when she opens her proposed library, I hope it becomes a third space for people. women like me who are looking for mental engagement. Perhaps it will become a centre for Book Readings and Open Mic evenings. maybe there will be evening cards, and lectures.