Shout out to my boss Dennis Edward Aboagye for letting me have this book. He had just bought the book but he let me have it anyway. You’re a real one boss!

This book is in the known and has been trending for a while. A bandwagon I actually for one of the firsts wanted to jump on. I promise this is not a book review, more like a prologue into the book and my favorites from just the first chapter.

“The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck” by Mark Manson is a beautiful book, more than meets eye. It is triggering and entertaining. It is like talking to your reflection and assessing your life. Each line perhaps resonates with a time of a particular state in your life. This book teaches how to take inventory of your life and scrub out all but the most important items. You’d feel like you already know what the author is about to say and then he mesmerizes you with depth.

Chapter one of this book which is the focus of the write up is titled “Don’t Try“. In the most organic sense, don’t try. It states the background of a man named Charles Bukowski an alcoholic, womanizer, gambler, you name it, who probably is the last person on earth to look forward to for life advice and in essence the perfect place to start. He had always wanted to be a publisher but kept getting turned down. Thirty years went by with meaningless blur of life until one day he got a contract to begin his real first shot. But it wasn’t fueled by constantly pursuing it he just left it. His stories were the bread and butter of cultural narrative. What people might term never give up. But he actually did not try. He knew his situation. The genius in him worked over odds when he stopped overthinking and worrying extremely. He stopped trying. His success was birth from failure.

Our culture today is obsessively focused on unrealistically positive expectations. Normally fixating on the things we lack. Mark Manson addresses that it lasers in on what you perceive your personal shortcomings and failures are and emphasizes them for you.

The key to good life is to have a scale of preference. Prioritize. Giving a f*ck about less, giving a f*ck about what is true and immediate and important.

“The feed back loop from hell“. Scenario. You’re so worried about doing the right thing all the time that you become worried about how much you’re worrying. ( Well there’s a number of us) Or you feel so guilty for every mistake you make that you begin to feel guilty about how you’re feeling. Sound familiar? “That’s the feedback loop from hell ” Calm down amigo, this is part of the beauty of being human.

The loop has become a borderline epidemic, making many of us over stressed, overly neurotic and overly self-loathing. The moments of non-fuckery are the moments that most truly define our lives. Allow us to be who we really are meant to be. To not give a f*ck is to stare down at life’s most terrifying and difficult challenges and take action.

There is a subtle art of not giving a f*ck. And though the concept might sound ridiculous, what the author talks about is essentially learning how to focus and prioritize your thoughts effectively- how to pick and choose what matters to you and what does not matter to you based on finely honed personal values. This is incredibly difficult but totally doable. ( I flinched a little but I guess it actually is doable) It takes a lifetime of practice and discipline to achieve.

Regularly failing. But most importantly, learning and unlearning through to eventually succeed.

“In life, we have a limited amount of f*cks to give. So you must choose your f*cks wisely. This manifesto is a refreshing slap in the face for all of us, so that we can start to lead more contented, grounded lives”.

Can I start off with saying happy new month!

How many of us love a good crispy crunch? Over here guys!

I’ve been intrigued with the idea of foods for a while now,staying up late to watch recipes,(that I mostly never make)varieties of sides to go with and generally the mass acceptance of foods.

Have you ever thought of the origin of potato chips? True, potato is a vegetable but how genius of a versatile food is this?!

Therefore a quick rewind into history of how it all started and gratitude if you may. You’d be marveled as I was to know that it was truly one of our own GEORGE SPECK, a black man who spearheaded this culinary idea.

George Speck was born to parents Abraham Speck and Diana Tull on July 15 1824. He grew up in Upstate New York and was hired in Moon’s Lake House in the 1950s as an African- American chef. A high-end restaurant that catered to wealthy Manhattan families. A regular patron who consistently forgot George’s surname had information relayed to him as “Crum” A name that came to stay- George Crum

Per various research and according to coherent popular legend, the potato chip was invented when a “picky customer” consistently sent back orders of French fries with the theme of thick a slice. Frustratingly, by all accounts, somewhat of a sarcastic man, George sliced them paper size thin in an attempt also to seek revenge seasoning with lots of salt, ready to deep fry in grease and achieving a golden brown look to the food.

Well the “picky customer” loved it! An unexpected reaction that is. Soon the Moon Lake House gained popularity for this and became well known for their “Saratoga Chips”

The fine details surrounding the invention of the popular snack is somewhat hazy but all signs point to our guy George Crum. The reaction was unexpected as other guests began asking for them as well. As soon, the “Saratoga Chips” became one of the restaurants most popular treats.

A number of notable accounts have disputed Crum’s culinary innovation insisting that a number of cook books had already stated the formula( But why not? They never want to give us the credence we are due). Deliberately or not, several reports would rather skip this innovation and curiously not mention the idea or anything close to it. His sister, Kate, who worked alongside him as a prep cook stated to have been the founder who allowed her brother to taste and intrigued by it and by his enthusiastic approval, led him to serve it.

In 1860 George opened his own restaurant in a building in Malta Avenue near Saratoga Lake and within a few years he was catering wealthy clients as well. One of the restaurants attractions was that a basket of potato chips was placed on every table. The restaurant closed in 1890 and he died at age 92 on July 22,1914.

Crum never patented or attempted to put his innovation on store shelves. In 1895, a man named William Tappendon began making potato chips to local grocery stores at first in his kitchen and then a makeshift factory. Soon grocers in numerous areas in the United States were selling chips in bulk. From barrels or display cases.

In 1926, Laura Scudder came up with the idea of paper bags for marketing and thus the “bag of chips concept.” The first successful national marketing idea was founded by Herman Lay, a phenomenal feat.

Every time a person crunches into a potato chip, whether a variety of Lays or our regular plantain chips, he or she is indirectly sharing black greatness and showing gratitude for this amazing treat -one that might not exist without the contribution of our legend “Crum”

Thank you sir!

Hi! Welcome back to the blog!

A number of creatives face the block of deciding what content to put out , what would precede the other and vice versa. This is due to the fact that we possess tons of ideas that tend to look like a jungle in our minds eye that are equally worth sharing! Doing a thorough outline allowed me to decide on a book review as my debut post!

If you’ve known me for a while you know that I love to read books or novels or journals etc. Glad to be able to use this space to reach out to the countless number of people who find reading books a tedious task. That is, reviewing this book in the simplest form to allow easy comprehension without having to read the 185 page book.

Therefore, I picked an African Writers Series Book. Why ? They’re the most realistic set of books I’ve come across. Even though fictional, they depict the true African setting, commentated by indigenous as well as filtered authors of which themes are characterized and surrounded by class, social standing, the messiness of life or reality without a pinch of sugar. Unfiltered. Which I personally love.

( This section documents the personal background of the author as well as conjectures or hypothesis of the book)

The title of the book “The Enemy Within ” is a 185 pager written by Steve Jacobs. He was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in 1955. He studied Law at the University of Cape Town. After leaving the legal arena, he worked as a journalist, a book seller and a property manager. He possesses several novels and short stories which includes Under the Lion, Light in a Stark Age and Diary of Exile. Among others.

My conjecture includes mainly the title of the book. Who is an Enemy Within? Why the phrase? What does is mean in this context?

Let’s get right into it then!

The narrative of the book is an insight into post apartheid South Africa at the dawn and release of Nelson Mandela. In context lies the struggle for freedom by the black South Africans, how militant groups emerged to white supremacy. Amidst these are aura of love, suspicion, ethnicity fear, crime… of which highlights the social fabric of the then South Africa.

Jeremy Speilman, the core character of the book struggles with the issue of ethnicity,racism or tribalism with his mother Esta who consistently made her stance as one for her son getting married to a fellow Jew. His girlfriend, an Afrikaner, whom his mother nicknamed “shiska” is from a different divide his mother does not consider worthy of her son’s future. He also struggles to accept his girlfriend, Elamarie’s hatred for Blacks for which she has derived her strength through the car crash of her father by a Black.

Set in Cape Town, South Africa, in the early 1990s, against a backdrop of de Klerk’s rise to power and around the time Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, the story unfolds through the eyes of a Jewish lawyer, Jeremy, a sympathizer of the African National Congress (ANC), Mandela’s party that fought for an end to the apartheid and for the independence of South Africa. I personally found this intriguing, how a Jew at the time would solicit for a Black group under oppression this hard. He partook in marches and actively pushed the agenda forward which was not in tandem with the objectives of his girlfriend. Most intriguing was how two very different people consistently found common ground regardless of vast differences.

Perhaps it is as a result of the leanings towards the ANC that Jeremy Speilman through the pro- deo, defends a Black man, a Xhosa, David Tsabalala, accused of murder of his wife and attempted murder of his father in law. The murder of Gloria Tsabalala ,the defendants wife and near murder of his father in law is birth according to the defendant from a place of constant male humiliation and what he states as “driving him into madness” pent up anger and toxicity. His wife and newly born child both separated from him due to financial constraints among other reasons. Here Jeremy measures family strife as not only present among the Black-Afrikaner-Jewish communities but present in a singular community or ethnicity. Differences due to affluence, respect among others.

Unable to accept the degrading treatment metered out to him by his wife’s family, through reporting him to the People’s Court set up by black themselves in a bid to get justice they deemed the white settlers denied them. I wondered why justice to fellow blacks meant caning fellow blacks to death. David Tsabalala having been saved by his wife might’ve passed out. Say, irony, he stabbed his wife and attempted murder of his father in law. Jeremy’s grave involvement in the murder case to debunk and cover up all trails leading to maximizing his clients guilt came to play as a lawyer.

Despite the back and forth and various court sessions of what seemed to look like progress to Jeremy, the judge found David Tsabalala guilty of murder and attempted murder. Liable to be hanged if there were no extenuating circumstances. After probing and a number of medical cross examinations which were due to his frequent head throbs, he was sentenced to seven years in jail instead. To an extent a ray of victory for Jeremy.

Amidst all these, Elmarie, an Afrikaner feels deeply that the release of Nelson Mandela would have the Blacks take over and thus would have no future, they would overtake the land. She covers up her racist comments with deep sexual relations with Jeremy who at all times denotes them as ill humor and is greatly irritated by them.

For his colleague Lewis, the only way out of the blacks were to to take over was to travel to Australia. A route Jeremy contemplates journeying on at a point.

Jeremy is thus due to his dilemma unable to make up his mind about marrying Elmarie without his mother’s approval

Nelson Mandela is released anyway. Characterized by happiness and joy spread through the country, mainly for the blacks through a majestic peaceful march, at the frontier, the ANC banner all in light of the people to govern.

In the end, Jeremy’s mother,Esta passed and her help terms it as “she passed quickly and all of a sudden”. Her death through a heart attack gives him a sort of release, not a good one after all.

What did the phrase “the enemy within” mean to me therefore? Throughout the book, it was evidenced the struggle that every character battled with inwardly. These battles tend to surface to the exterior at one point or the other. They were the bed rock of everything they did whether they were aware of it or not. They thus reflected on the visible unprovoked.

The tensions generated by these love-hate relationships force Jeremy to confront his own stance with the anti-apartheid struggle, racism and his faith in an unjust legal system. The mood of hatred, fear and crime were aptly portrayed by Steve Jacobs in the confused life of Jeremy Speilman.

I generally enjoyed this book and rate it an amazing read.

“There will be those that adore a book, those that don’t and those that fall somewhere in between”. Regardless of your stance, I hope you enjoyed this!

Do comment and share your opinions if you have read the book or gained enough coverage through the review.

Love, Abs.x

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton