I spent the last couple of weeks on holiday, back home in Nairobi, hence my blogging hiatus. True to form, the city offered up more temptations than I knew what to do with. In fact, I am still reeling and not quite back down to earth.
Temptations aren’t always a bad thing. I’ve been reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, and if ever you needed justification for any hedonistic and utterly extravagant desires, this is the book for you. At least the first few chapters are. One of the protagonists argues that the only way to rid oneself of a temptation is to yield to it. I’m not so sure that’s ridding oneself of the temptation or rather, the power it has over you. You can get back the hours you spend endlessly thinking about ‘what it would be like’. He also argues that in order to become young again, one should remember great errors of youth, and do them all over again. This will in the very least save one from death due to a creeping common sense, and aid the realisation that one never really regrets their mistakes. So in essence, give into temptation to remain young. I like it.
So this holiday, I did just that. I gave into temptation. I met new people, something that I am not particularly famed for. And guess what, I liked it. I spent time with old friends, and again, I really liked it. I allowed old flames to be re-ignited, and that my friends, along with stolen kisses, a fleeting romance, a wandering hand and a lustful eye, I really really liked. [Also, just so you know, there’s nothing quite as enticing as a 19th century lustful quote off to start the day. Tell me something naughty in Shakespearean English and... Shakespeare and his boys were very naughty.]
It appears that the last 6 months I’d started to die of a creeping seriousness, as Oscar Wilde would put it. This break was necessary, if not to save me from my tedious self, then to remind me that sometimes, being young means being a little clueless (very occasionally reckless, within reason of course), and embracing the unknown. Hmm... now I’m not so sure reading this book again is good for me, from a moral point of view.
