choices – hudson biko

It Might Take A While To Get There and That’s Not a Bad Thing

August 31, 2017February 7, 2018 Biko10 Comments

Most times when we step onto a path we know where it’s going to lead. When we can’t see where that is we find comfort in the footprints that precede us. And when its bleakest to see we listen for the voices that have left their remnants along the way in the hope that they guide us.

At times, our own paths look nothing like that.

They’re more like driving on roads with no roads signs to unknown destinations. They’re more like finding comfort in the virtues of our own expectations. They’re more like listening to the voices of those that have done it before in the hope that we might one day.

They mostly sound like “Rome wasn’t built in a day” or “Good things come to those who wait” – or some quote behind some waterfall on Instagram.

And there’s times when we internalize those voices or see those destinations and play them out in our heads in the hope that they’ll become our reality – and maybe there’s times when they make that road slightly more bearable.

But sometimes we wake up and realize that we don’t want to build Rome. That we just want to finish that degree. Or get that promotion. Or get to that thing that shouldn’t take as long as it is.

And in those moments we want something to make that path smoother.

We want to remove the rocks, the pebbles and the dirt.

Often its because we think that those impurities on our path are deflections from our own direction. We look at them like obstacles to the place we want to go to.

We often don’t think of paths as compilations of impurities. Of obstacles overcome time and time again.

And even though it might have taken a while, they were moulded by their own to process to become what they are today.

And that’s not a bad thing.

Photograph: Warren Wong

Previously published by Thought Catalog at www.thoughtcatalog.com.

You’re Allowed To Stand Still

June 12, 2017July 1, 2017 Biko12 Comments

Alex Iby.jpg

We’re always going. From beds to coffee shops, to offices, places and spaces that constitute fragments of our sustenance. To crawling cars at half past four. To homes that take us back at the end of it. To dinner tables. To beds. To all of it. All over again.

Stuck in this constant grind. Moving towards our perceptions of success. Of satisfaction in a world that looks like it might move past us if we’re half past it. If we aren’t doing everything we think we’re meant to be doing. If we don’t get out of the bed to begin with.

And most times that’s part and parcel of our our own internal movement to something greater. Understanding and chasing our dreams and aspirations – even on the mornings we rather not.

But sometimes we can’t really do that.
Sometimes we can’t really go.

Maybe ‘can’t’ isn’t the right word. Because parts of us know that we have in the past. Because parts of us want to with every fibre that makes them, them. Because we’ve been told that the world doesn’t know the word “can’t” – that it moves on without us. That we can’t be left behind.

Maybe there is no right word that truly encapsulates those moments of apparent immobility. Because they feel exactly like that. Like drinking out of empty coffee mugs. Like the cars crawling. Like standing still in a world that moves past us.

But everything that surrounds us exists irrespective of us.

We are our own microcosm of a universe.

Made of everything that makes us. Of action and inaction. Of mobility and immobility. Of moments.

And in those moments when we stop to breathe, when we stand still to take in the world that surrounds and lives within us, we find our own little coffee shops.

Each facilitating parts of our own unique journey. Each making that next step that much greater. Each forming our own internal satisfaction.

Each and every one of them shaping our own microcosm of a universe. All over again.

Written By: Hudson Biko

Photograph: Alex Iby

Previously published by Thought Catalog at www.thoughtcatalog.com.

Choose To See The Good

January 17, 2017July 10, 2017 Biko1 Comment

Photograph: María Victoria Heredia Reyes

Life is a broken pendulum. Irregularly oscillating. Stuck between moments of happiness and moments of sadness. Stuck between memories we choose to hold onto and memories we wish would let go of us. Stuck between consistencies and inconsistencies.

But even in its broad irregularity, we face one constant: Choice. Sometimes of temporary consequence. Sometimes of enduring definition.

We’re always caught up in the process. Always oscillating in a cycle of indecision. And maybe that’s why we only pay attention to what we choose to see.

Perspective becomes subsequent. Accrued from the absence or presence of experience. We don’t really think about it, it just happens. And for the most part, that’s okay. But sometimes it’s so incredibly instantaneous that we don’t really get to see everything for all that it could be.

Sometimes, the magnitude of memory outweighs the magnitude of belief.

Sometimes, we’re so hurt by people that we rather hurt them before they have a chance to hurt us.

Sometimes, we’re so broken that putting things together is harder than letting everything else fall apart.

Sometimes, darkness is more comforting than light.

But if we only looked at the darkness, we would never see the beauty in the stars.

We have a tendency to look at what we don’t have rather than what we do. To look at what we haven’t done rather than what we have. To look at everything for what it isn’t rather than what it is.

And I think that’s part of who we are. Or rather, who we’re made out to be.

So much so, that we don’t realize that sometimes things fall apart so we can build something better.
That we need to fall so we can learn how to pick ourselves up.
That pain pre-empts healing.

That’s why we stop ourselves from doing something that holds the capacity for the failure we once experienced. But if we never failed, we would repeatedly rotate in the confines of comfortability. We would never grow.

We are the summation of our experiences, but we are not the finished article. And if we were always chained to memory, we would never free ourselves to create better ones.

If we never struggled, we would never realize how much we wanted what we wanted. We would never test every facet our being to its point of understanding.

If we always saw people for the pain others caused us, we would never see the potential for good in others. And if we were always saturated in a state of distrust we would condemn our own conviction.

Just as negativity breeds nullification, positive energy breeds positive repercussion.

And at our very core, we are what we think we are. We resonate with our own frequencies. We define what defines us. That is the constant regularity, the oscillation that is unbroken.

So, choose to see the good even when its hardest. Even when every fibre of your being wants to give in. Even when the light is flickering in obscurity. Even when you’re at the precipice of the oscillation’s extremities. Those are the moments that compose realization. Those are the moments of growth. Those are the moments that the stars burn brightest.

Previously published by Thought Catalog at www.thoughtcatalog.com.