EVOLVING SOUL

There is nothing quite so sad as a young cynic; because it means they have moved from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

Maya Angelou

“To be sceptical is to say I’m willing to explore and learn and question. To be cynical is to say it is not true because nothing is ever true. To be sceptical is to be open, to be cynical is to be closed. “

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A trend hit social media in Uganda last year 2021 (I don’t know if it was the same for other countries too). Whenever a picture of a beautiful happy romantic couple was posted on social media, there was a swam of comments that read in only these words; “It will end in tears”. The same was said for people who were starting relationships and shared the happy news on social media. The ease with which those words were thrown around makes one wonder how resigned from trust and hope we could be that even a simple love story reads doom. Perhaps the change of mind and trend was from the futile wait for dark clouds that didn’t show, the fruitless wait for doom and gloom. Instead of ending in tears very many love stories carried on beyond the sad cynics. Of course, we are often carried away by social media trends and words soon don’t mean much especially when we sit behind a screen and type with not so much though but just […] To a cynic, the world is a dark place, people are not to be trusted, no one does good without a selfish motive.

One would ask; what is the alternative ? Isn’t the world a dark place indeed?

The alternative is hope in humanity. On the pulse of every morning, look at your brother, turn to your sister and simply say, “Good morning”. Offer a smile and whenever possible, give and receive a hug.

See the world for exactly what it is; the love, the hate. The beauty, the ugliness. The darkness, the light. The sun, moon and stars. The plants, the bees, the rocks. The soil, the water. The birds, the animals. There is a lot of beauty to behold. There is a lot of good in people. There is a lot of love to be found. Open your eyes to the beauty as well and you’ll see that the world is not all dark.

Hope propels our dreams. It reminds us that whatever we think about when we lie down at night as our minds drift away beyond the deep darkness, it is possible.

Hope reminds us of progress. Some progress is so small and often times so removed from our individual lives that we are not phased by it. True as it may be, cynicism eliminates all light of goodness surrounding us and holds us in stagnation at the point where we first embraced the negative notions. Never stepping forward from our disappointments, history instead of become a memory remains with us as a constant thought leaving no room in our hearts and minds for the light and beauty at hand.

Hope is what has kept hearts beating and saved those at the verge of death; it is the last thing standing between life and the man who surrenders his body and squeezes life out of it with a rope, drugs or sends his body flying ever so weightlessly over a bridge or cliff and when that body hits the water, there is no desire or will to fight because the spirit has resigned. After all, as Sydney Poitier puts it, “Hope is the last tool in a man’s

The diligent teacher, the uncertain student, the scared pregnant woman, the lovebird at the altar, the farmer planting seeds, the nurse holding a sick person’s hand, the unknown man crossing the street, the person opening her heart to a perfect stranger, the dreamer who paints a picture in the mind and pieces it dot by dot, the unanchored orphan walking through the day, the jobless man sleeping through the night, […] The survivors hoped, those who thrive have worked on their hope because they could not afford cynicism.

I pray and hope that we shall be a generation of hope, live in the light of everything beautiful and carry our light and hope where it is dark with our little bits of good.