The Correction: The Work Continues

The Correction: The Work Continues

I haven’t posted in eight weeks.

The longest gap since I started writing this series. Long enough that some of you have asked. Long enough that I noticed myself not noticing the rhythm anymore.

I want to be honest about what was happening in the silence. Because the silence wasn’t a stall. It was the part of the work that doesn’t happen on the page.

I spent twelve of those days in London. Saw friends. Watched Arsenal lift a trophy and stood with thousands of strangers in the kind of crowd where you can be completely anonymous surrounded by people you know.

What hit me wasn’t the size of the crowd. It was the simplicity of it. 1.5 million people genuinely happy about one thing. No posturing. No layer of being-watched underneath the joy. No calibration. They were just there. Full of one feeling. Together.

I had not been in a “room” like that in a long time.

And somewhere in the middle of it I landed on a sentence that surprised me.

I gave up a lot of my life caring about people’s opinions.

Not as regret. As recognition. Because standing inside that crowd I could feel the contrast. The Nairobi rooms I move through are calibrated rooms. Everyone watching slightly. Everyone reading the room. Everyone with a public version of themselves on standby. I have spent decades inside that. Managing it. Being good at it.

The crowd at the parade wasn’t doing any of that. And the difference between that and the rest of my life was suddenly visible.

That’s what the parade gave me. Not a profound realisation. Just a contrast strong enough to be unignorable.

The rest of the twelve days were quieter. What stood out wasn’t a moment. It was the texture. Deep conversations with friends — the kind that happen when nobody is performing. No Nairobi posturing. No public version of me to manage. Just a man in rooms with people who already knew him, talking about things that mattered, without anyone needing to be impressive.

That’s what twelve days outside the city gave me. Not rest. Not productivity. Permission to put the posture down.

This writing is called The Correction. But the writing isn’t the correction.

The correction is what happens in the rooms the writing doesn’t enter. In the airports. In the crowds. In the long quiet stretches where nobody is keeping score.

Is it possible the writing has been the smallest part of the work.

The Correction. More to come.