“Sometimes you have to take two steps back to take ten steps forward.” These are the words of Ermias Joseph Asghedom, popularly known as Nipsey Hussle. May he rest in eternal peace.

This is the first blog post I am sharing this year. However, it is not the first article I have written so far. Some of my readers have been asking why I stopped posting on my blog. To clarify, I did not stop writing. I am spending a few months away from the social media madness and the noise of humanity to focus on a big league project that I expect to share with you before the end of the year.

I recently realized that I have been on this platform for 6 years- I got the anniversary notification the first week of February. That is the main reason I have decided to write this article. For the last six years I have been on the free plan. The journey has been long and along the way I have gained premium skills for my long term plan. The first article I published on this blog was a repost of a video from Daily Motion.

My initial goal was to share my poems with the world. I posted a collection of poems and random thoughts and after almost two years, decided to try prose poetry. I developed my writing skills from prose poetry trials that I did for almost a year. My small group of readers at the time complained of the complexity in packaging my messages. I decided to write articles and essays heavily influenced by poetry writing literary devices. However, years moved on too fast and in 2019, I went down with depression. Despite the darkness at the time, that year turned out to be my white light moment.

While undergoing life defining experiences and moments, I realized that writing was my safe haven amidst the chaos. That year I barely shared anything on my blog apart from an year end article. While sulking during my depressing experiences, writing saved me from self sabotage on numerous occasions that year.

In 2020, the emergence of a global pandemic presented an opportunity to fully focus on writing. During the lockdowns I wrote extensively and experimented the influence of different cultures on my writing style. The cultures were derived from the music I consumed and the streets. The experiment worked and I tremendously improved. Before the year came to an end, I had gained a couple of new readers and won back my original readers before 2019.

2021 was a year I committed myself fully to this blog. I intended to post 52 articles but ended the year at 38. I fell short. However, I accumulated over 1000 readers and a regular traffic on my blog with some articles performing exceptionally well. I have never doubted my creative capacity. I was able to craft original, unique and marketable stories with an impeccable flow and outstanding word play. 2021 inspired me to go big this year and transition to premium mode.

The criticism, motivation and support I get from you as a reader has also been instrumental in my development. It is the only reason I have decided to take a leap of faith and transform my words to works. I have strong faith that whatever is in the pipeline will be a historical and legendary shift. God loves me and He blessed me with a talent. I look forward to writing my way out of poverty and trouble soon.

Here are some of your comments that have been instrumental in ensuring the marathon continues:

I think this is one of the most important information for me.
And i’m glad reading your article. But want to remark on some general things, The website style is
wonderful, the articles is really nice : D. Good job,
cheers ( UPINJI: SICKER THAN CANCER, DEADLIER THAN SIN.)

It’s actually a nice and helpful piece of info. I’m satisfied that
you just shared this useful info with us. Please keep us informed like this.

Thank you for sharing. (5:00 A.M: Alarms on Snooze, The Morning Madness.)

The root of your writing while sounding agreeable initially, did not really settle properly with me after some time. Somewhere throughout the paragraphs you were able to make me a believer but only for a short while. I still have got a problem with your leaps in logic and one might do well to fill in all those breaks. If you can accomplish that, I could certainly end up being impressed. (How to Dress in Cool, Emboldening and Vibrant Rastafari Fashion)

Hey! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a group of volunteers and starting a new project in a community in the same niche. Your blog provided us useful information to work on. You have done a wonderful job! (Vybz Kartel’s 10 Years in Prison and Still the Greatest.)

True…we never know the depth of water. We have to be careful during this times.
Great reading especially during the rainy season. (This is one of many comments from Juliet Aswani. She has been a fan since the first day I started this. I love her relentless support and constructive feedback. Feel the love Katoto.)

I decided to write this to mark my six years on this platform. I will be back soon in a big way once I am done laying the last foundation stones in a few months. Stack the racks since I won’t be free anymore. Pray for me and wish me luck. However, I feel that luck is a product of hard work.

Meanwhile, the marathon continues.

On a single day, I received over 1500 friend requests on Facebook. It was on a Sunday and since I rarely stay on Facebook, I thought it was as a result of accumulated requests since I last logged on. I was wrong. They were coming in every minute and at the peak hour, I had over 84 new people asking to be friends. I still cannot explain who was behind the numbers but as of writing this, I cannot confirm any more friend request.

Pseudo Friends

The kind of friends you make online is interesting. Seemingly because there is a deep divide between our online appearances and our realities. Sometimes fake identities, other times fake originalities, fake business and fake problems and problem solvers. Some use faking as a spice for their journey on the way to making it. It is said, ‘Fake it till you make it.’

Scammers like taking people for rides. Fools get caught up in those games. Daktari kutoka Kitui competitors, especially from Nigeria and Ghana, are a step ahead. They use Facebook to advertise their pleasing services to fortune seekers. You don’t have to go through the pains of looking for them since they will come to you with a portfolio of what they can do to change your life.

 For instance if you called Ifa Meki* with problems such as a need for instant money, business boom, financial breakthrough, getting rich without rituals(yet it is likely that he will need a lot of rituals for this), examination success, do as I say( I guess this is what we call kamote in the streets), good luck(I guess he wasn’t giving much of this to himself since anybody that he reaches out to would be a potential client instantly), impotency, commanding tone(this is a new one), promotion at work( I know many would be scammed into paying for this. Stay focused.), spiritual power for men of God (Do they need power from man when they have the spirit of God?), job success and love and marriage rings, he can help solve your problems. With his sticker of a fox riding a bicycle, I wasn’t ready for a ride and I expressed my lack of interest.

Then came the begging boy from Ghana. He had no bowl on himself but a pitiful story of his dead father and his lack of education which was evident in his texts. To alleviate his state, he needed help with $3million. This is the interesting part, he did not have a job and all he wanted was for me to send him 3million US dollars on his phone number which he had sent me. To do that, I have to be an angel. I am not. Secondly, if I had that amount of money, the least of places you would find me on a Sunday afternoon was on Facebook.  I was interested in asking what he would do with the money. Since he had no plan, he said God would bless me if I helped him. He does that unconditionally. I did not feel obligated to help in order to attract blessings. Having discovered that the dollars were a pipe dream, he asked for 50 cedi for my work to go on. I was helped him that day but not with money. A few minutes later he sent a low quality photo of a table sprinkled with dollars and naira’s and a message saying money was never the problem and I don’t have a piece.

Baba Awo* had a different approach for marketing his business services after I had accepted his friend request. “This is not blood money…. WhatsApp me to understand me better for making spiritual money like Animal Ritual.” Only a mad man believes such and only an imbecile can trust his word. His services are; making money, yahoo plus (I don’t have an idea about this), win Naira bet (the equivalent of what street doctors promise gamblers on their posters hanging on an electric pole near you), girls following me (I would like to know the side effects of engaging this), pass examinations and police cases. Baba assures that he is not in the business to take away people’s lives at the end of his message.

If you have been on the internet for a while, you will realize that people with some knowledge on forex and cryptocurrency think they are a digital class ahead of the rest. Sometimes it is true. Some other times, it is someone in your digital class who prees on your insecurity of the future. This is often the case with people who have been scammed by bitcoin and binary brokers, a case of a blind man leading another blind man.

Digital Investor

 “Do you know you can earn up to 3500 dollars with 300 dollars?” The sane reply to this would be, How?  After asking the question how, they sent an investment plan with 300 dollars as the least amount that one can invest with a potential earning of $3256.45 and 3000 dollars as the highest amount in the investment plan with a potential earning of $30000. With this kind of offer, one would be spoilt for choices. Surprisingly, this was a message from Chicago and on Facebook Messenger another South African had sent a similar investment plan for Binary Options Trading. Being scanty on the details of what binary option trading was made matters worse for a potential investor.

 The South African, if I became serious on discussing the business part of trading, would hand over my investment plan to his dealer who does the trade for them. The American, who I highly doubt isn’t American, was ready to help. She proposed a 200-dollar support but only if I went to a bank and took a 200-dollar loan. Well, I couldn’t do that and she negotiated a lower investment plan starting at 70 dollars but I still had to borrow 200 dollars from the bank. Why did I have to borrow to invest in something that had potential earnings but without the information on how to go about it? This was the question that both ‘brokers’ could not answer. They did not understand their trade or their trade isn’t binary options at all.

The three hours I spent on Facebook on this day were remarkable. They were the longest I ever spent on the app since I joined it. Surprisingly, for the first time, I scrolled the home page without thinking of what was on my mind. Exposed to the naivety of some users, I will be keeping off the messenger icon while on Facebook for fear of seeing the unseen and reading the unread. Sometimes, we can’t come back from some realizations and rarely do we wake up to new realities. As for Facebook, it is a global village with a page for every face.

*The names used in this article are not the real Facebook users’ profile names.