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Living life in the fast lane is trendy
In relationships, the couple meets and want to have pleasure in a moment with “no strings attached.”
What you need to know:
QUICK QUICK! Do you still believe in the adage that patience pays? Well, there are those who believe in a quick fix, no patience to wait for processes that take forever. Gillian Nantume looks at how it is like to live this way and the effects of such a lifestyle.
For Anna Kobusingye, an accounts assistant, anything that makes life faster makes it easier. “Why would I choose the hard way in the name of upholding tradition?” she asks as we settle down to our coffee. “I might as well go back to using calculators instead of the new computer programmes.”
Trendy in a pantsuit, she sets her iPad and iPhone on the table top with a quiet confidence. With two C-sections by choice – Kobusingye is a doyenne of everything chic. A single mother, constructing a house.
Seated across from me is Irene Ouma, a psychologist. “I read The River Between when I was six,” she says. Anna’s cup stops mid-air.
“Recently I asked some teenagers if they had read it. I was eager for an impromptu discussion about the plot and characters.You can imagine my shock when their first reaction was to Google the book. What happened to borrowing books from the library?”
I secretly Google the book on my phone. Alas! There is no e-text of it. But Ouma is still speaking and from her tone, the memory still hurts.
“Those boys claimed that it was not worth reading because someone had not put it on the Internet! And this from people who can hardly open a book at their own volition!”
Alice Roosevelt Longworth got it right with her simple philosophy on life, “Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s full. Scratch where it itches.” The currents of this modern age will have you believe that life only exists in the microwave. From social media to fast food and fancy philosophies on success, if the results are not quick, then it is not life.
Fast babies and moves
Who has the time to dillydally when you can pack a million things into 24 hours? A tiny injection at the base of the spine and voila! You can watch your baby delivered by C-section and if you are so inclined, post status updates on social media. “You can only be advised by physicians to have a baby by C-section if your health conditions are not favourable for a normal delivery,” says Dr Ronald Ayebare of Care Clinic. But opting for a C-section without a doctor’s input is deadly.
Carolyn Mutegevu, an accountant, buys into the fast life. “Look, if I want to travel and I have the money what is there to stop me?” she asks. “I don’t have the time to wait for the year end, to study the rates and seasons. I just call up my friends and travel.”
Holding onto the last vestiges of conservatism takes a degree of courage. For all their posturing conservatives almost always end up sounding suspiciously defensive, fighting for lost causes – or worse, looking like ridiculous relics of times gone by.
Get rich quick
Sanity tells us sound investments produce dividends in 20 years, but just a click away, on the next station, a pastor is holding forth on how sowing a seed of Shs20,000 brings a flood of big monies.
Not to be left out, sports betting companies are making a killing in a poorly disguised get-rich-quick scheme.
Solomon Miggade, a bodaboda rider, is more likely to be found at a betting shop on Kampala road, than at his stage. “If I bet on 10 matches there is a chance that I might win Shs800,000. But if I ride a customer out of town, I will only make Shs4,000. Really, the choice is simple to make.”
And the language
A recent post on a Facebook page, Kampala Express, is refreshingly strict on proper writing. No slang or street-speak. In the 1980s and early ‘90s, we acquitted ourselves with the Queen’s English. Of course, at the time, capital punishment was the norm and the thought of having a bell dangling at your neck was enough to keep you awake during English lessons. But trying to decipher social media I’m left wondering whose English is being taught these days.
In a comment, a group member and a self-proclaimed journalist, posted, “Even writing legible English is now considered backward. Sure, life is much easier now, but do these changes necessarily make it better?”
Grace Nanyonga, an entrepreneur, believes it is better to be slow but sure than fly with the modern times. “Technological advances make life okay only if it does not affect lifestyle choices. If you are looking to own a home, I would advise you to build instead,” she says. “It takes time and more creativity and it is more satisfying.”
No strings attached
Less surprisingly, the glitter of a faster life is dulled by an ever-present companion: low morals. Time was when courtship would take months on end. Now the norm is no-strings-attached one-night stands. Where once tradition fixed sexual boundaries, now many are forced to define their own sexual identity. Of course, online match-making sites come in handy. You have no idea who you are chatting to; their background and what they do. Thanks to the affordable and accessible internet.
“Young women are carried away by the exhilarating independence of being single mothers by choice, that they do not value marriage anymore,” says Nanyonga.
In the café, Anna is adamant that her children will not be spoilt for choice when they grow up. “If they want to become footballers then it’s the football academy for them not 15 years in our school system.”
“Your children must follow the path we all followed,” Irene advises sagely. “Even if footballers earn a lot what happens when they go off form?”
A shrug from Anna sums up the attitude of those queuing up to join the fast lane. “Something always comes up.”
And who is to blame?
In an age where information is everywhere and everything, we have basic knowledge of many things, but scratch beneath the surface and you will come up with dirt underneath your fingernails.
Since voluntary C-sections have become the in-thing, why aren’t they forthcoming about the health risks involved? Even our skins have not been spared. If black is beautiful, then brown is the new black. With skin lightening parlours mushrooming, why wallow in self-pity, hiding behind age-old adages, knowing deep down that you will go to the grave full of bitterness at genes that dictate colour?
And the Internet?
Without a degree in Chemistry, you will need it to decipher the ingredients in the instant drinks and fast foods flooding the market. And when you gain weight from an unhealthy lifestyle, you still need the Internet to look up drastic diets touted to make you lose 20 kg in a week. Who wants to spend their afternoons in the gym or God-forbid, running five miles a day?
Counsellor’s take
Jonathan Okori, a counsellor, says people must do what is right no matter the consequences. “Even God created life to follow stages and we cannot run away from that. There is fulfilment if we do things the slower and right way. We all can choose but we cannot dictate the consequences of our actions to others and to ourselves.
It is not all bad news, though. With a dynamic world, the confines of traditional careers are being broken by advances in creativity. A career in the artistic world is suddenly something to be enormously proud of.
