Stop letting your whimsy escape

Put it back on the table

I am sitting with the sound of silence.

I just got off a call and when asked, “how are you?” I contemplated telling the person, “my head feels like someone is reaching deep into my brain and tossing it around my skull, I spent the whole of today being ‘outside’ and I just got in hence the headache. I also watched a fight break out between two drivers on the highway…Lagos.”

But alas

I simply said, “I’m fine and you?”

I want to blame it on capitalism but it wouldn’t make sense. I blame it on my inability to gather strength and talk.

I just wanted to get the call over and done with.

-

-

Last week, a friend told me, “Please don’t lose your whimsy 😂❤️”

And I sat with it for a second, because that’s a top tier compliment, innit?

Not “you’re smart.”

Not “you’re talented.”

Even though I am those things. Durh, have you met me?

But instead, I got “Whimsy.”

The part of you that doesn’t make sense on a CV. The random laugh, the weird tangent, the way you find something funny that nobody else does.

Whimsy is hard to fake and easy to lose.

For someone who was non-expressive for a long time, hearing those words meant something. I had that part of me, I just didn’t know how to let it out. Couldn’t find the words or find the room for it so it stayed inside for years.

I also used to think being taken seriously meant being serious.

That if I wanted people to respect my work, my opinions, my brain, I had to file down the softer, sillier edges.

Show up clean.

Show up sharp.

Show up like I had it all together.

Show up with a frowning face like spoilt fufu.

But

The people who actually take you seriously are the ones who let you be ridiculous too.

And now, somehow, people are clocking the whimsy from the outside. The thing I didn’t even know how to express for years is now the thing others are telling me to protect.

Wild.

So I’m passing those words to you, especially in an era where everyone is forced to grow up.

Pay your bills.

Lock in.

Optimise.

Build.

Scale.

Repeat.

There’s a tab open in everyone’s head right now saying “become a more impressive version of yourself by Q4.”

And somewhere in all that becoming, the version of you who used to dance in the kitchen, laugh at nothing, send unhinged voice notes to your friends at 2am, get genuinely excited about a really good jollof, that version starts going quiet.

She/He doesn’t leave.

She/He stops getting invited to things.

Don’t let it happen.

Because the discipline, sharpness, respect, none of that is in competition with the silliness. They’re not on opposite ends of the same stick.

You can be the most disciplined, sharpest, most respected person in the room and still be the one who finds joy in the silliest things.

That should not be a contradiction.

Two can exist.

The serious version of you is not more real than the silly one. They’re both you and the trick is letting both of them have a seat.

And if you’ve been quietly sanding yourself down to look more like an adult, more like a professional, more like whatever you think you’re supposed to be by now, this is your sign to stop.

Put the whimsy back on the table.

What’s something silly, weird, or whimsical about you you’ve been hiding because you thought it made you less serious?

Stop hiding it.

Take the bold step to do it today. Heck, you can tell me all about those whimsy habits too. You can write to me about it.

I leave you in the wonderful hands of Celine Dion’s Coulda Woulda Shoulda

Stay Whimsy

Jescil “Whimsy” Richard