Edwin Okolo: Find your balance [NEW VOICES]

A good story always starts with an unsure protagonist, knighted by a far-seeing mysterious guide and set on a quest, the end goal often different from what is originally presented to the protagonist. The protagonist goes through a series of increasingly complex internal and external challenges to her quest either force personal growth, increase strength or provide epiphanies. When the protagonist is at her peak, having defeated all minor challenges and learned all the lessons she faces the Sphinx, the main obstacle separating her from her goals.

Sometimes I am the Sphinx, other times I am the protagonist.

I am every cliche, I simply do it best. – Falloutboy.

There is this girl I know on Twitter. She used to be a bully (in all the ways that matter she still is). Spurred by privilege and a sense of invincibility, she mercilessly picked on people in lower social classes than her, using their simpler lives as fodder for her jokes. She eventually had a fight with someone below her social class and threatened to destroy him because he wasn’t intimidated by her. After that she went into a sort of hibernation and returned months later, born again and expecting a clean slate. Her friends who had never been at the mercy of her actions were quick to reabsorb her into their fold though they mourned that she wouldn’t provide them more amusement. But for the people she’d humiliated, it wasn’t that easy. Because you see, while she had redeemed herself and now expected her past be forgotten, it didn’t change the fact that she’d shown what she was truly capable of, the depths she would go to get a laugh. The fact that she said she’d changed didn’t suddenly preclude that. She was the protagonist now, but everyone was well acquainted with her inner sphinx.

In all we do, we must never forget that we are a dichotomy, and embracing both parts of our selves, the light and the dark is the only way to attain balance. Find yours.

 


Edwin writes to explore concepts that he seeks to understand but cannot directly experience because of gender and genetics. He used to run the experimental fiction column ‘The Alchemist’s Corner’ and created the YA series Seams at The Naked Convos and serves as a fiction editor at Stories NG. He has written for Thelonelycrowd, Sable Lit Mag,Omenana and the Kalahari Review and was longlisted for the Short Story Day Africa Prize. He is obsessed with children, cats and Paternak, exactly in that order.

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