Ian's Blog

  One of the quieter things I have come to realize as I get older is that none of us are particularly easy to be with. We all like to believe that if we find the right person, love will suddenly become effortless, communication will always be perfect, nobody will misunderstand anybody, and every disagreement will somehow resolve itself before bedtime, but the truth is that relationships are made up of two imperfect people bringing their personalities, insecurities, habits, expectations, wounds, moods, and sometimes unnecessarily strong opinions into the same space. I say this without judgment because I am very much included in that group. I have my difficult days, my stubborn moments, my unreasonable expectations, my poor communication, and those little things about me that probably require someone to occasionally take a deep breath and remind themselves that they love me. Perhaps maturity is partly understanding that the goal of a relationship is not to find someone who has no fau...

  I have sometimes wondered whether many of us actually believe in God or whether we are simply afraid not to. It is an uncomfortable thought, especially for those of us who grew up in Christian homes, went to church every Sunday, memorised Bible verses, attended Sunday school and were taught from an early age that God is watching. We learned what was right and what was wrong, what God approves of and what He supposedly hates. We learned about heaven and hell, blessings and punishment, obedience and sin. Somewhere along the way, Christianity became something we were expected to do, and fear became one of the strongest reasons for doing it. But I wonder what our Christianity would look like if fear was removed from the equation. What if we genuinely followed God because we loved Him? I think it would change almost everything. The Bible itself says that “perfect love drives out fear.” That is a remarkable statement because it suggests that love and fear produce fundamentally differen...

  Propaganda has always depended on one simple assumption: that people can be convinced to believe something they cannot see for themselves. But there is a problem with that strategy when it comes to government. You can tell people that the economy is improving, but eventually they go shopping. You can tell them that healthcare is working, but eventually someone in their family needs treatment. You can tell them that the police are their friends, but eventually they find themselves on the wrong side of a police encounter. You can tell them that justice is independent, but eventually someone they know walks into a courtroom seeking it. Reality has a way of interrupting propaganda. This is why I find the constant effort to sell governments to citizens so exhausting. A government should not need to convince me that it is doing a good job. I should be able to experience it in my everyday life. If the economy is genuinely improving, I should feel some difference in my household. Perhaps...

  There is a rather uncomfortable idea from Søren Kierkegaard that has stayed with me: whatever you choose, you will regret it. Nearly two hundred years ago, he wrote about the strange frustration of human choice, observing that whether you marry or remain single, whether you choose one path or another, regret can eventually find you. At first, it sounds unnecessarily pessimistic, almost as though Kierkegaard is warning us that happiness is impossible. But I think he was pointing to something much more ordinary and much more human: we have an extraordinary ability to romanticise the life we are not living. Get married and, at some point, you may wonder what your life would have looked like if you had remained single. Stay single and, at another point, you may wonder what it would have been like to build a life with someone. Have children and you may occasionally dream about the freedom you had before them. Don't have children and, years later, you may wonder what kind of person the...

  Everywhere I look, there is another reminder that I should be improving. I should be reading more, exercising more, earning more, learning a new skill, becoming more disciplined, becoming more productive, becoming more successful. There is always another habit to build, another weakness to overcome, another version of myself waiting somewhere ahead. Self-improvement is valuable. I believe in growth. I believe in learning from mistakes, challenging myself and becoming more capable than I was yesterday. But I also think there comes a point when improvement becomes exhausting. When does the pursuit of becoming better become an inability to appreciate who I already am? I do not think my relationship with myself can be built entirely around correction. I cannot spend my entire life looking at myself and seeing a project that still needs work. There has to be room for acceptance too. There has to be a moment when I can look at my life and say, “I am actually proud of myself.” Not becau...

  There is a particular kind of exhaustion that has settled over Kenya's young people. It is not simply tiredness. It is the exhaustion of trying. Trying to find a job. Trying to start a business. Trying to pay rent. Trying to afford food. Trying to remain hopeful. Trying to believe that the next year will be better than the last one. And after trying for long enough, something begins to change. You stop asking, “How can I make it here?” You start asking, “Where else can I go?” That is the question quietly occupying the minds of an entire generation. Walk into a Kenyan university today and you will find young people studying courses they hope will eventually take them out of the country. Scroll through social media and there are endless conversations about scholarships, work permits, au pair programmes, overseas jobs, foreign universities and countries offering opportunities. Nurses are looking abroad. Engineers are looking abroad. Teachers are looking abroad. IT professionals are ...

  I sometimes find myself wondering whether we misunderstood what progress was supposed to mean. I grew up in a world where technological advancement was presented as something that would inevitably make our lives better. Faster computers, better phones, easier transportation, instant communication and access to almost unlimited information were supposed to free us from many of the difficulties that previous generations experienced. And in many ways, they have. I can speak to someone thousands of kilometres away almost instantly. I can find almost any piece of information I need within seconds. I can order food, book a ride, work remotely and manage much of my life from a device that fits into my hand. By almost every measurable standard, I am living in an incredibly advanced period of human history. And yet, I look around and I see something that doesn't quite add up. People seem exhausted. People are anxious about money, careers, relationships and the future. Many people feel lon...

  There is something unusual happening across the world, particularly among younger generations. People are questioning almost everything they were told to believe. They are questioning leaders, governments, churches, traditions, careers, marriage, education, success and even the idea of what a good life is supposed to look like. It is tempting to describe this as rebellion, disrespect or a loss of values. But perhaps something more complicated is happening. Perhaps this is a generation that has simply become less willing to accept things merely because they have always been done that way. For generations, there were certain institutions and ideas that were treated almost as unquestionable truths. You respected your elders. You trusted your leaders. You went to school, found a stable job, got married, bought a house, raised children and worked until retirement. Religion provided moral direction. Government represented authority. Education represented opportunity. Hard work was expe...

  There was a time when something happened to you and it simply became a memory. You could go somewhere beautiful, eat something extraordinary, meet an interesting person, have an argument with a friend or experience a quiet moment alone, and that was enough. You did not need to photograph it, record it, post it or explain it to thousands of strangers. Some experiences belonged entirely to you. Today, that idea feels increasingly strange. We live in a world where almost everything can become content, and somewhere along the way, we have started confusing documenting life with actually living it. Social media has changed the way we experience ordinary moments. A meal is no longer just a meal; it can become a photograph. A holiday is not simply a holiday; it is an opportunity for an Instagram carousel. A wedding can become a carefully produced spectacle designed as much for people watching online as for those physically present. Even grief has increasingly found its way onto our time...