Candid Conversations Newsletter: Anonymity

A stranger among a crowd, an observer of space and time, a reflection and a question.

A mystery realized.

_Over the years, in as many moments and spaces as possible, I’ve spoken about how I grew up.

About the two communities that raised me and the social capital they held, both bonding and bridging.

Their mystical threads stitched together the fabric of my life.

Everyone knew you by name.

The elders often knew your lineage, sometimes two generations back.

That kind of knowing grounds you.

It tethers you to your roots.

And the older you get, the more it all returns, vivid and insistent.

“You never step in the same stream twice.”

As time moves, so do the seasons.

And so do people.

In reflection, I often return to a boyhood memory.

On a clear night, I sat on a boulder staring at the stars.

A light moved steadily across the sky.

A plane, most likely.

I wished to be on one someday.

Now, years later, I look at those same skies and find myself wishing to return home.

What Makes a Home 🛖

I’ve been privileged to live in a few places, places I’ve called home.

After all, they say home is where the heart is.

But what makes a home?

Some say family.

But what is family, really?

Is it only blood?

I’ve come to believe the bonds we forge through shared trials and shared purpose can be stronger than the ties of birth.

I’ve proven that many times.

My Whaleminded friend and I share that covenant.

We often say there is a difference between family and relatives.

Esoteric, perhaps, but not in practice.

Belonging. Identity. Transformation. 🐦‍🔥

I grew up in a society shaped by centuries of colonization and, even after abolition, still held by the hands of neocolonial structures, processes, and procedures.

A blueprint that became the catalyst forward.

Freedom with limits.

The illusion of emancipation.

A system left fractured.

An identity mislaid.

Command and control set the foundation for a nation of many peoples.

“Out of Many, One People.”

Profound, and telling. Perhaps a story for another edition.

Now a generation stands tasked with changing the trajectory.

Healing wounds we cannot always see.

Indelible markings left by an invisible force.

Trauma from a time we never occupied yet still carry.

How do we heal what many insist is not broken?

We live, work, love, and strive.

So why fix anything at all?

But look closely.

Really look.

We are living through rapid change, and if you pay attention, you will see the openings within it.

There is opportunity, quiet, patient, waiting for us to notice.

Alchemy 🧪

In my last edition, I mentioned how my love of books has deeply shaped my life and worldview.

Every so often, I return to those that continue to reveal new meanings as I grow.

The Groundings with My Brothers by Walter Rodney is one of those texts.

Rodney gives a vivid, almost play-by-play account of inequality, dislocation, and the ongoing search for identity and equity.

His words remind us that systems of power are not static; they are engineered, and so they can also be re-engineered.

He teaches that transformation requires not only awareness but also agency —

the courage to confront what we inherit,

and the creativity to remake it.

That is alchemy.

Turning what was meant to diminish us into something that defines us for the better.

Turning history’s lead into a living gold that nourishes future generations.

It is the quiet act of reclaiming meaning from memory,

of refusing to let pain end in permanence.

Others have done it before us.

And what others have done, so can we.

Failing Forward ⏩

My first consulting engagement tested that very principle.

I found myself in an unfamiliar city, surrounded by new faces and unspoken expectations.

The assignment seemed straightforward: conduct a gap analysis.

Yet somewhere along the way, wires got crossed, assumptions multiplied,

and we returned from a weekend break to find an email waiting for us,

one that labeled our team “a bunch of incompetents.”

Harsh words, to say the least.

But necessary, in hindsight.

Because what came next was clarity.

We regrouped, realigned, and moved forward with purpose.

That experience taught me what it means to fail forward.

To let failure be a catalyst, not a conclusion.

Failure isn’t the opposite of success.

It’s the raw material from which success is refined.

Like base metal in the fire, it forces out impurities — ego, assumption, complacency — leaving behind the substance that endures.

We are not defined by the moments that undo us,

but by how we transmute them.

That, too, is alchemy.

Recycling, Reclaiming, Refining ♻️

The work of healing, of rebuilding identity, of reclaiming belonging, is not about perfection.

It’s about process.

It’s about learning to see value where others see waste.

To rebuild where others retreat.

To become the kind of people who turn lead into gold, not for glory, but for good.

I’ve lived this truth through and through.

It became the ethos of my journey toward self-sovereignty.

The act of giving a conscious account of who I was and who I was becoming.

To recycle is to take what once was discarded and return it to purpose.

To reclaim is to name yourself again, in your own language.

To refine is to strip away what no longer serves, until only truth remains.

Through years of reflection and reinvention, I began conducting a self-inventory.

Uncovering the patterns, both conscious and unconscious, that shaped how I moved through the world.

Some patterns needed breaking.

Others, reimagining.

In tracing them, I found not just my story, but the tools to tell it.

I chose the voice of The Black Dot,

a stranger among people,

an observer and participant,

a mirror and a question.

A reminder that anonymity isn’t absence.

Sometimes it’s the only space left to refine who you were meant to be.

Something to Think About 🤔

Maybe anonymity isn’t disappearance.

Maybe it’s the quiet return to self,

the stillness before emergence.

A space not to hide,

but to remember, process, and redefine.

Unbridled by performance.

Rooted deeply in authenticity.

Before I go, I’ll leave you with an image that, for me, sums everything up.

In Japanese philosophy, there is a practice called wabi-sabi, the appreciation of imperfection and impermanence.

When a vessel breaks, it is repaired with gold lacquer, making it more valuable than before.

This art form is called kintsugi.

It reminds us that what has been broken can be made whole again,

not by hiding the cracks,

but by illuminating them.