One of the easiest things in the world is to mistake an outcome for a story. A beautiful home. A thriving business. A failed marriage. A child in an expensive school. A forty-year-old with no savings. Someone who seems to have it all. Someone who appears to have fallen behind. We see the destination and instinctively begin filling in the journey. Hardworking. Lazy. Disciplined. Irresponsible. Lucky. Entitled. Deserving. Wasteful. Perhaps the most dangerous thing about human beings is not that we judge one another. It is how quickly we become certain that our judgment is correct. Because every life has invisible expenses. Not just financial ones. The kind that never appear on a bank statement or a résumé. Some are chosen. Some are imposed. Some are wise. Some are costly mistakes. Most are a complicated mixture of both. One person reaches middle age with very little savings because they spent years paying school fees for younger siblings. Another because they repeatedly made poor financi...
The other day, I read a Kenyan novel titled Sinners by Sarah Haluwa. It’s a bold book, layered with intimate scenes and themes that don’t shy away from the subject of sex. Once I was done, I shared it with two people, one of them my cousin. Both came back with the same verdict: filth. That word struck me. Filth. It’s not the first time I’ve heard Kenyans use such language. For a country where sex is ever-present — in our music, our comedy skits, on TikTok dances, in whispered gossip, and in the quiet confessions of “mpango wa kando” culture — how is it that we also consider it shameful, dirty, and even demonic? The contradiction we live in On one hand, our entertainment industry thrives on sexual innuendo. The most streamed songs are often laced with it. Content creators know that scandal sells; anything suggestive will rack up views. Advertisers slip it in subtly to grab attention. In private conversations, too, sexual humor dominates. Yet when sex is written into literature, wh...