Behind the Torch: The Marantu Dispatch
Issue: Ma 18 – Waiting With the Flame
This is my journal for today. I will try to keep it open, and honest, and let the ego step aside.
I’ve been reading Siddhartha and stumbled into those words about the three powers: to think, to wait, to fast. They’re not new, but they feel new to me now. Maybe because I am tired of running. Maybe because building Marantu is teaching me that the torch is not always a fire to wave in the air — sometimes it is just an ember you guard in your hands, waiting for the wind.
I don’t always know what I’m doing. Some days I imagine myself as that man I once saw driving to Swaziland with only a torch in his hand to light the road. That image comes back often. Maybe I am him — driving blind, making up stories about why I’m on this road, hoping someone else believes enough to climb in.
Today I thought about what it means to wait. I hate waiting. I want to build it all now — the city, the archives, the school, the flame. But the discipline is to carry the ember until it’s ready. To not snuff it out with my impatience. To let the seed root where no one can see it.
And fasting. That word has been gnawing at me. It’s not about starving — it’s about refusing to take before you give. How many times have I rushed to eat before feeding another? How many times have I said yes to things that filled my hunger but not my purpose?
I don’t know if this counts as wisdom. Maybe it’s just me trying not to drop the torch. But I’m writing it down here, because this is what Behind the Torch was always meant to be: not the answers, but the flicker.
—Uzanenkosi
Torchbearer, Marantu