What is my Why?

Did you know that YouTube contains thousands of free audiobooks?

It was in Israel that I first realised I could listen to books on YouTube. I needed a way to occupy my mind through the 10-12 hours of farm work.

By luck, I chanced upon audiobooks on YouTube. Fortunately, the M1A1 had a monster battery. With the lowest brightness level, I could listen for 8 hours.

In this way, I re-read Kaladin’s escapades in the Stormlight Archives. Read The Help. Once, my Israeli boss found me listening to The Help and asked what it was about. I went to great lengths to explain it was about slavery and racism without mentioning the words “slavery” and “racism”. ?It was a very cringe encounter. I listened to the audio version of Gone Girl. Then, single and unmarried, I found Amy to be the ultimate villain. Now that I am married, I kinda see her point.

I found new books as well.

Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor E. Frankl, for example.

My takeaway from Frank was that “He who has a Why can endure almost any How”. It was… I lack the word… disappointing? Sobering? Jarring? To find out that these words “He who has a Why can endure almost any How” were first spoken by Nietzsche 2 centuries ago. Frankl’s book puts the phrase into context. Hence, I wasn’t really disappointed to find these were not his because his but I felt “something”.

This is my comeback-from-my-2-week-break article.

I was not sure what to write. Should I write about my very rewarding agri-tour escapade over the break? Or my interview? Or the fact that I finally started a hydroponics kitchen garden?

All those seemed oh-so-inadequate. So I asked, why do I write in the first place? Then I thought about Man’s Search for Meaning and here we are.

I have spent the 2 weeks thinking about what I write. And why I write it.

I am a tomato farmer. I do hydroponics farming. I do agri-tours. And I write about those three, right?

Yet remember, my time at Kibiko is coming to an end. Will I continue to do hydroponics tomatoes beyond Kibiko? And what new places to do agri-tourism? So I had to think about my why. Why do I write? Because my why is the only thing that will keep me writing through the how.

Maybe, this is the journey all of us must take. It must be for such great people as Nietzsche, Frankl and even Yuval, he of Sapiens, to dedicate time to this story of Why. The Why will take you through the:

Loneliness - Who do I do this with?

Uncertainty - Should I be walking this path?

Imposter Syndrome – Am I really capable of saying this?

I journal. And it is good to journal.

At some point, when going through old journals, you come across an entry that details your Why. Complete with exclamation marks, action plan and words of hope.

With time, of course, the Why changes. I think it is only right to let it change. As your Why goes through the wisdom of time, it gets qualified and certified. The trick, I think is to keep journaling. When you are lost, you can go back to your old Why and track your path, right?

Anyway, I am back online. Kinda missed it. Kinda envious of people who never seem to take breaks. I wonder how you do it.

See you around.

Hey, here is a photo of my bucket of tomatoes. You did not think I did not do tomatoes, did ya?