Tuesday, 30 July 2013

Inthync’s Ideagasm – It’s about what you think, together! http://storymojahayfestival/category/conversations




I bonded with Kenita the moment we met; I guess she was having a DeJaVue thing, she felt she had met me somewhere, but can’t remember where. Between me and her there really was an inordinate amount of giggling going on during the whole session. Truth is, you put a group of young people in a room on a Saturday morning and ask them to voice their thoughts and all sorts of things crop up:

Betty: “but HOW did the chicken guy do it?”
Wambui: “You know there was this Greek goddess who made a Trojan horse like thing in the shape of a female bull and climbed in so that the bull can mount her?”
Shiko: “what was her offspring called? Ah – the Minotaur!”
Betty: “what?! How did she?… OMG!”
Aziz: “Hey who here speaks Kikuyu? What do you call a lie in Kikuyu? ‘MAHENI’”
Terrible joke.
@Frenchfreddy: “Who here has slept with a man?”
Hands go up.
Kenita:  “You slept with that?”
Betty: “You know? Why would anybody do that?”
Shiko: “By the way Freddy, I just wanted to let you know that the sweet I gave you earlier, I had been given by a guy who wanted to feel me up, and so it might be drugged.”
@Frenchfreddy - gagging.
Betty: “Feel you up? Well I guess men will put it into any orifice, but I still don’t know HOW the chicken guy did it.”
Martin – “Now we know which came first, the chicken or the egg.”
This went on and on and on.

But I digress. What is an Ideagasm?  The idea of an Ideagasm is to engage in conversations where a conversational topic is introduced to a group of people; a provocation that we thus observe through a prism where each individual gives their different perspectives of that thought provocation. You get to see the light in different ways. 

The main aim of an Ideagasm is to allow people to actualize the thought or idea before finding out about the obstacles. A provocation is an idea that shouldn’t be within the normal bounds of logic; it may be probable even if it’s not necessarily possible. 

The purpose of an Ideagasm is to create a space, where people who may or may not necessarily know each other feel that this is a safe environment to express who they are and what they are thinking. A safe forum should be a place that strangers can meet, laugh, share coffee and reveal their inner most thoughts without judgment or egotism getting in the way of things.

Ideagasms should be happening all the time – especially on social media, where nearly everyone can be a stranger in a forum. But as Xhosi pointed out, most people in discussion seek to intimidate others.

“I am a big wig, you are a small weave.” The hope behind an Ideagasm is that these egos can be abandoned for the duration of the discussion – leave your bloated head at the door, pick it up on your way out.

Ideas like the salient question in society, “WHY are people homophobic?” (Did you see that? We went right back to sex and sexuality) lead us right back to the question of self identification – oh come on we said leave your ego at the door!

Who are you? “I am Juliet.” The end.

That one proper noun should announce to the world your presence. Everything that comes after that is an unnecessary description of things you do, which does not make up who you are. Who you are – a very intriguing question that you really shouldn’t have an answer to at any one moment in your life. After all, you are still being; being you.

In our life journey to self definition we should do what Aziz does, and become dream addicts; day dream and night dream, express ourselves subconsciously and in visions and then also experience DeJaVue; consistently allowing our minds to sort of misfire and make connections with experiences yet to occur. You cannot learn dream addiction; I think our collective inability to be dreamers is rooted in the so called regular education we receive – an Ideagasm provocation: “Why does there have to be regular education?”

What are we teaching our kids anyway? In Colombia it is a rite of passage for young boys to have sex with a donkey; in Kenya you get some Ass and it becomes the news.
What IS in the news these days anyway?
Tania is inflamed, aggravated and agitated by ‘Maina and King’ang’i’ in the Morning, a show on Classic FM. “In Colombia 8 year olds say, “I had my first Ass yesterday” like its nothing but each morning these two make having sex such a big deal, and they degrade and denigrate and let the discussion deteriorate it’s so offensive! I wouldn’t want my child listening to this!”

Immediately, Aziz ask the correct question.
“Do you believe in Aliens?”
Betty: “Yes, because how else do you explain George Bush (Jr.)”
In the noisy uproar of combined laughter and multiple conversations that ensued, I heard a very quiet voice give an answer.
Xhosi: “DeJaVue is considered a symptom of Temporal lobe epilepsy by medical doctors and a simple fantasy by psychiatrists.” (She said more really but I started laughing at Aziz’s latest joke)
@Frenchfreddy says: “I am not an epileptic, I have epilepsy.”

The definition of self is akin to describing one’s expression of godliness. There is a consistent lesson, or rather teaching @Frenchfreddy is expressing here - You need to stop limiting yourself and others.

 ‘Fugue’ is a state when Juliet is being godly; she can create work for hours, do amazing pieces and never remember doing that work. For real; she cannot remember what day, or when or what is contained in that work.

A question; Do you suppose God created us in a state of fugue? 

I wouldn’t blame God if he was in a fugue state when he created a society that is violently homophobic and yet profess free will. I would blame the so called lucid people that choose to be homophobic. Despite someone else’s sexuality having next to nothing to do with you, we have people who take it upon themselves to further shrink the space we live in. The violence LGBTIQ people face in Kenya is disgusting, terrific, and an utter shame to our so called civilization.

Or as Juliet’s father said often,” You need to be open-minded just enough that the breeze can come in, but not so open that just anyone can walk in.”

Ideagasms. Let’s have them everywhere!

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