#008. Some Stars Do Not Fall
They are ushered out of the firmament
In some doctrines, the falling stars, also called the meteor, or meteor shower, is a moment of blessing. So at the sight of the event, they mutter wishes.
And that reasoning gave birth to my haiku below:
the crackle of a broken wishbone . . . meteor
(curled from my haibun ‘Kokuhaku’)
But then, come to think of it, a star that is falling.
A fallen star feels like a fallen angel, to me.
As a growing kid, this made me spent time with the sky.
I will watch the starry night like I'm expecting someone.
In tandem with my curiosity, in the Yoruba belief, when this happens, they'd tell us someone just died.
Like, someone's soul just fell. That makes sense, to me.
I have witnessed a number of meteor shower. But then, sometimes, I have seen stars that, instead of losing their feet and slipping off into a fall, stride on a steady motion, as if they are being ushered out.
I’ve witnessed it a number of times. And I always look out for it everytime I find myself dating the sky.
I thought to myself: These kind of stars must be some celebs 😁, they must be special.
That’s why I titled my chapbook “Some Stars Do Not Fall”, which is a collection of poems written to grief and heal from the demise of my father.
I wished father’s star didn't fall. That he was ushered instead.
Below is the titular poem:
You can hit me up for a copy of the book at taofeekayeyemi@gmail.com
What's Up?
Some of you will be like: you've gone for a whole year and came back with some starry tales 😁.
Just like that?
Without telling us what's up?
Oh. I won't sweep that under the carpet.
Life happened.
But among all the happenings, Nigeria did not happen to us.
I got busier . . .
The reward for hardwork is more work.
I found myself doing more “My Lord, may I, if I may?”
Behind every client arrested is a lawyer moving in and out of stations, and courts. Behind every new deal closed is a lawyer spending hours reviewing contracts, going for meetings.
Behind the scenes are hours of drafting, of minding technicalities, of sharpening our wit.
And there are distractions, and side attractions.
As Kautilya put it: the arrow shot by an archer, may or may not kill a single person. But the stratagem devised by a wise man can kill even the babes in the womb.
So our goal is to not be the noisemaker. But the one with doings. 😉 The one who, when someone shake pillars with flamboyance, makes everywhere go calm with solomance.
Testing waters . . .
Creative writing is my forte. But outside of this, I write essays and research works. Since early 2023, I've done some technical writings, basically cybersecurity and application performance monitoring.
As cybersecurity experts keep enhancing their tools, so are threat actors finding ways to beat the measures.
A leading mechanisms devised by security experts is the blockchain. A blockchain-based solution makes your device immutable.
And blockchain is the technology behind cryptocurrency. How do we talk about all these without Web3.
While still dealing with this, AI got madly popular. Well, I mean generative AI.
Be that as it may, the ideal of blockchain-based security took me into cryptocurrency, for the need to understand how these decentralised mechanics work.
So, as I engage in these projects, my eyes are actually on how public and private keys work. I understand better what I've read, from seed phrase, passphrase, biometrics (as in, multifactor authentication), among others.
Sadly, I've seen how people lost thier assets to lost and compromised private keys.
In May, a project gave someone over a million naira. Others who did not save their private keys because the project was since 2021 began to scamper around.
Yesterday, someone lost an airdrop proceed worth half a million naira because his Solana wallet had been compromised.
I use to shout it a lot to my crypto community, save your private keys.
And yes, I got a takeaway—understanding decentralized finance (DeFi) better.
A lot on my plate,
Right?
But it's all a betrayal of creativity 🥲
Every literary work I published this year were solicited.
I did not write up to 5 new poems, nor any essay, not even this newsletter.
Yet, I still got myself active in the community, one way or the other. One of which is publishing the chapbook mentioned above.
Even at that, there is a wide gap.
I used to have a strategy for managing my time and activities. But no longer works. I've become many things now: a husband. a father. an employer (of little labour).
And the economy hits hard. Some works I use to outsource became shaky. Doing them on my own eats into the time meant for creative writing and the likes.
So, now!
What do you think or know about meteor?
Do you want to share anything about Web3 and blockchain?
How do you manage your time in the midst of many things?
Please share in the comment!
See you soon!