Intelligent Life Arese Ediae

When faced with daunting writing tasks--including this one--that call upon me to convey uniqueness and summon eloquence, I have sought the assistance of a higher source: Intelligent Life. They beckoned to me from neon-bordered pages: Leaders whose policies were defining history; Russia’s biggest rock star; A cultural history of the porch. On the day I ventured to write this essay I had read an article about the return of Birkenstocks and the fashion industry’s current penchant for the banal. I not only realized that my personal “style” was temporarily enjoying proximity to a far greater mass of consensus, but also that I did have a captivating story to tell.

Mine begins with a traditional coffee table and four tomes which were heaped upon it. Two of these were photo-biographies of Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama, respectively. The third was a modern account of African exploration by Kingsley Holgate. The fourth was not to be considered a tome, but the complexity of the socio-cultural topics displayed on its cover dissuaded me from reading it as a child. However, the absence of electricity at home nor school activities during the scorching harmattan months compelled me to return . I discovered a magazine named Intelligent Life...