This Story is On Ambition and Love

I lived.

Jul 10, 2024

∙ Paid

gray statue of a woman — Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash

I had just finished reading Nietzsche's quote.

The words were my favorite cocktail: a mix of the equipotent ecstasy of lucrative possibilities and a terror of the darkness in the unknown.

I had overcome this fear back in my fourth year of medical school when I took a leap of faith and welcomed all the pressure life had to offer with a stout heart.

This courage, amor fati—the complete acceptance and love of whatever happens—served me well back then.

I lived.

Now, as I sat in my study area, looking at the horizon, reflecting on this quote, I could feel the same clarion call.

But this time it wasn't out of necessity. I was nostalgic about the intensity with which I lived back then.

Composure wasn't an option: it was the only state of mind. Every minute was valuable and channeled toward an end. All moves calculated. Strategic.

I tried to brush it off. Maybe it was the stimulation from the hot, bittersweet and dark coffee I was sipping. Or perhaps it was the raging music made for a moshpit playing.

You could feel the intoxicating energy in the room and I had the unending urge to gulp from its kernel.

I took another steaming mouthful of my coffee and read the quote a third time, gripping the words,

"believe me!—the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! ... Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge!"

I was challenged. Adventure smitten.

And I knew I was about to, in the words of Key Glock,

"live one hell of a life."

The first move I made was to take on more responsibilities. Burn candles on both ends. Life is most interesting when the fleetingness of the moment forces one to be effective with it. To savor it before it's gone.

There was medical school—the ever belligerent and demanding mistress, business clients to brief, projects to finish, and a social life to maintain.

Like Mr. Fantastic of the Four, I was stretched.

I drew a smirk on the sunny shore of my face. But the waves of fatigue were slowly wearing it.

Several months down the line, the health costs of an ailing ambition tallied to the Kenyan debt. I couldn’t repay them, even with adequate sleep. My mental health was on the line.

I felt drained, overwhelmed, and a little disappointed at myself.

Where was my will? Had I lost my edge? Was I becoming soft?

One day, I felt the handle on my responsibilities slipping, as if my grip was too sweaty and cramped up yet I couldn’t afford to put anything down. Beat. After beat. After fucking beat. My heart sang a spooky melody.

I felt claustrophobic. My shirt had to come off so I could breath.

This was happening while I led a team of brilliant colleagues in writing both community health reports, supervised by some “very fascinating” lecturers.

Interestingly, I also hadn’t prepared myself as I would have liked for the end of the year exam. It was two weeks away. And some work deadlines were looming.

Clearly, dear reader, I had set out to be God’s strongest soldier.

I feared the worst was upon me. Tried to thug it out throughout the day with some breathing techniques I had learned, but I couldn’t shake the blues off for some reason.

But then something interesting happened.

I saw her that evening. I saw her from the windows of the library, walking toward the gate while conversing with her friend. She had these cream, official trousers and a handbag hanging by her side.

She looked stunning.

We had been talking for quite a while now, her being one of those genuine people one connects with effortlessly. Of course, there was the inevitable trying hard to get on both ends, which makes geniality all the more worthwhile, but it had been good so far. Too good to be true that I decided to take it slow. Let it brew.

That’s why we hadn’t spoken in a week. I figured the worst that could happen was getting drunk in a fit of passionate embrace, consummating the longing.

I smiled a little. But got right to work. My fifth year in medical school was at stake. A while later, I remembered a quote I had read from Paul Graham a few days ago. It said,

"When you let your mind wander, it wanders to whatever you care about most at that moment. So avoid the kind of distraction that pushes your work out of the top spot, or you'll waste this valuable type of thinking on the distraction instead. (Exception: Don't avoid love.)"

Don't avoid love. That sentence had stuck with me.

I smiled again.

“Should I invite her over?” I asked myself.

Maybe it was too impromptu; she might have had other plans. Maybe it was a bad idea; I was supposed to be studying. Maybe she was no longer interested; desire is, afterall, capricious.

But the memory of a poem I had written her was like her outfit that day. Fresh. It went like this.