Saturday 30 April 2011

Rwanda Journal, Entry 23: Uneasiness and The Republic

I have been fighting a strange sense of uneasiness for the past two days. It is not vicious and does not keep me from my business, but it's as present as the wind.

The more I complete, the more the trip begins to feel real; the more uneasy I become. As much as I do to prepare, I constantly feel that I'm forgetting something vital.

I find myself checking my pockets frequently: "Passport? Here. Immunization record? In this one. Where's the camera? Ok, it's on that chair."

Today I got a call from Allan Thompson, he told me Mbonisi had gone missing while en-route to Rwanda. He wondered if I had heard from him, I hadn't.

I got a text later telling me there'd been a mix-up with the travel agent and Mbonisi had arrived safely in Kigali.

It's everything I've been feeling in a single event.

There is nothing I can do to address uneasiness I can't trace and so I have stopped trying. Instead, I've been acting on a strong desire to attend to spiritual and intellectual interests.

I've owned a copy of Plato's Republic for years now, but had not read much of it until this week. Now I can think of nothing I'd rather do than read about Socrates and his buddies, drinking Olde English at the Agora. There is something comforting in the meticulous logic of the text; it makes me feel grounded.

Even so, I'm really only able to relate to Socrates' Athenian friends, the ones with questions and few answers. I'm not sure what to make of that exactly. I wouldn't feel consistent if I could.

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