This may sting a little, but let’s face it: 90% of what people tell you is either outright nonsense, shameless rubbish, or complete crap. Period. Hold my beer—I’ll explain. Now, I’m not saying every stranger, friend, fuzzy companion, family member, secret lover, or nosy neighbour is a pathological liar. On the contrary, most of them genuinely believe the drivel they’re feeding you. It’s not intentional dishonesty; it’s more like a finely tuned self-delusion machine that runs on autopilot. That said, let’s not sugarcoat it either. Plenty of the charming souls you encounter are indeed dedicated truth benders, serial fibbers, or full-time merchants of bull. And yes, for those unsavoury types, I’m confident there’s a delightful corner of hell waiting, complete with eternity as a gooey gastropod—as I’ve so eloquently outlined in a prior discourse.
But setting those liars aside, most people genuinely believe what they’re saying—mostly because they don’t bother reflecting on the nonsense they’re spouting. Taking time to actually evaluate the information they’re parroting? That’s a luxury they’d never indulge in. Why bother with critical thinking when you can just babble about something—anything, really—without the pesky effort of verifying a single word?
And that’s not the whole story. Oh no.
An opening excerpt from What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Chronicles of Chaos and Courage remains available here. The full book can be ordered here.
Nairobi Airport Immigration: where good manners, logic, and basic sunlight go to die.
The steel door clanged shut behind me like a coffin lid on my travel plans. Inside: twelve Somali detainees, five kids, two mattresses, and air so stale it could be used as a non-lethal weapon.
I stood there — the lone Muzungu tossed into the mix by Kenya’s bureaucratic lottery system — trying to work out whether this was a clerical error, a cosmic joke, or a new hospitality initiative by the Kenya Airports Authority.
What followed were 40 hours of involuntary social anthropology, intercultural embarrassment, and a front-row seat to the exact moment my dignity tried to escape through the ventilation shaft.
Welcome to Nairobi International Airport Prison:
a place so joyless it makes the DMV look like Disneyland.
