Hospital for the soul and search for honest living
Opinion
By
Dorcas Mbugua
| Nov 09, 2025
There was a time I was dangerously close to securing a lifelong tenure inside the moral high ground.
Living in a society like Australia has its perks and pitfalls, with the downside of going against even the simplest law amounting to severe consequences that will make you question your own intelligence.
First world societies operate with painstaking precision – speeding and reckless driving on the road is regulated and heavily punished, healthcare in Australia is free for residents and citizens, and keeping time is the norm.
Drink driving could lead to losing the right to operate modes of transportation not attached to your person, and the mortality rate will confirm that your years on earth and the functionality of your government are not mutually exclusive.
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In the converse, life in Kenya for most of the population means surviving another sunset by any means necessary. When I was planning to relocate back to Kenya, I felt obliged to maintain my address atop my high horse. As long as my documents were in order and I didn’t break the law, I would remain the challenger of corruption, the destroyer of dishonesty.
From my stories so far, you already have the leakage: resisting the reality that is life in Kenya resulted in an uncomfortable familiarity with suffering. Gossip, innuendo and minding everyone’s business is just another Tuesday in Kenya.
Some religious leaders and politicians stand on pulpits and daises spewing unspeakables, embarrassing their ancestors and driving focus and attention towards the wrong things. The lengths people go to maintain nonexistent images might inspire further studies in me. I may soon become a professor of fictitious optics because surely this phenomenon must be studied.
Rather than collaborate on how to reduce senseless deaths and protect the next generations, we congregate on our devices watching scandal after scandal before we congregate in buildings on Sundays where we lift our voices in praise and worship.
My stubborn spirit refuses to believe that I must just resign myself to a daily dance of dishonest peace.
We have traded authenticity for acceptance as a society and as much as I value community, I feel that sometimes it’s too high a price for my soul to pay.
I find it tragically disheartening that dishonesty is the drug of choice to keep up appearances – you can’t heal what you can’t reveal. My own inner work through therapy has led me to release a lot of acquired shame, guilt and fear just for existing in this body, in this city, in this country and in this period in time.
My lifelong assignment as a mother leaves me with no option but to slay my demons on a regular basis, so that my children’s inheritance will go beyond material wealth. Finding my place in this ecosystem will take time, but it will get done.
In the meantime, you will find me minding the bed I sleep on. Where do those who are deeply disillusioned flock? Is there a hospital for the soul?
-The writer is a lawyer and podcaster