I couldn’t believe my eyes—it was really the Terminator! My adolescent role model from just ten years ago had casually strolled into the shower area of the iconic Venice Beach World Gym on Main Street. This was highly unusual for several reasons, the chief among them being that Americans, as a rule, don’t shower at the gym. Typically—perhaps out of some deep-seated sense of shame, though I can’t say for certain—they prefer to scurry home to cleanse themselves in private, or not.

I woke up in a cold sweat, trapped in a Giorgio Armani store, doomed to roam the aisles for eternity in a futile quest to buy happiness by obeying the dictates of fashion. Aimlessly pushing a giant shopping trolley the size of a coal mine truck, overflowing with expensive jackets, sweaters, pants, and shoes, I frantically searched for the cashier—my elusive gateway to eternal satisfaction. Though I had grown old and decrepit by now, I was still grappling with the harsh truth that the pursuit of contentment through buying meaningless items—just to impress people I hardly knew or cared about—had been the great lie of my life…

“Boooom!!!!” We were yanked from our peaceful slumber as if a thermonuclear device had just detonated outside. I nearly launched myself through the roof of our safari tent in sheer shock.

“You are white,” said the Gatekeeper of the Maasai Mara National Park. I admired his firm grasp of visual details but decided not to respond.

‘Knock, knock...’ We nearly jumped out of our skins in shock! In one fluid motion, I yanked out my oversized Bowie Knife with such speed that it felt as though it might have travelled back in time.

For God’s sake! Now what?! The sight before me was nothing short of terrifying. A multi-colored, fiercely clad crowd surged toward me, armed with an imposing assortment of blades, clubs, and other menacing implements.

The scene was spectacular and utterly beautiful. Just another day in paradise. I felt so thoroughly on top of the world that I almost began to be afraid of dying.

It was an amazing feeling. Never before in my life had I felt so utterly calm and relaxed. All I had to do now was to let go of the stick, and life’s struggle would be over. Forever. Within seconds, my little floatplane would crash into the mountain ridge next to me and go up in a great ball of fire…

It was 10 p.m., and I was utterly spent. I felt entirely out of my depth. Parked in the dark in front of Nairobi’s Westgate Shopping Mall, I had just removed eight dripping wet spark plugs from their sockets. Now, they lay neatly arranged around me in the cramped, filthy space under the hood of my car, each awaiting their turn to be dried and cleaned. A futile task, really. The moment they were scrubbed and screwed back in, they would foul up again within seconds, leaving me right back where I’d started.

By and large people continually progress within an illusion that they believe to be their life. It’s not their true life, but an imagined version, carefully filtered through their biases, experiences, and accumulated knowledge. We first learned this in school—where we mimicked what others did, believed what they believed, and assumed it was the correct way to live.

I DO NOT LEARN. It’s a problem, I admit. However, that, unfortunately, is one of my issues. You see, most people gain some wisdom through experience. I don’t. Some gain understanding by suffering through pain. I wouldn’t. I spent years crashing cars and breaking bones before even beginning to grasp the concept of painful consequences. Others learn from financial loss, memorising their mistakes after losing absurd amounts of money.

Ich glaube, dass die Zeit eine von den sinnlosesten Erfindungen der Menschheit war, weil wir nicht lernen sie zu nutzen und vieles uns als Zeitverschwendung verkauft wird. Und obwohl wir alle dieselbe Anzahl von Stunden am Tag zur Verfügung haben, beschweren sich die meisten darüber, dass ihnen die Zeit davon läuft, dass sie erst gar keine Zeit haben, dass für etwas Neues jetzt nicht die richtige Zeit ist und dass man Zeit einsparen muss, um diese dann sinnlos totzuschlagen.