A Conversation with Neema — Theory, Tradition, and the Power of Imagination

In this rich and meandering conversation, Neema, a self-described "guerrilla theorist," explores the intersections of lived experience, digital culture, and post-binary thinking. The dialogue begins with a playful yet profound reflection on a Brazilian New Year’s tradition—crossing the road with a suitcase to symbolize ushering in the new year—which sparks a larger discussion about how rituals and stories shape our identities, especially for those in the diaspora.

Neema introduces the concept of "guerrilla theory," a grassroots approach to knowledge that prioritizes conversation and accessibility over academic elitism. She critiques the limitations of binary thinking—rooted in colonialism—and imagines a "post-binary code" for technology and society, one that embraces multiplicity and relational complexity. Drawing parallels to the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s, she highlights how historical patterns of inequality persist in today’s digital landscape, where access to technology remains uneven across the Global South.

The conversation takes a tender turn as Neema reflects on children’s innate wisdom and the dangers of underestimating their capacity for nuance. Anecdotes about her young niece, Iris, and her mischievous laughter reveal how children experiment with agency and storytelling, blurring the lines between innocence and intention.

Themes of surrender and imagination emerge as Neema and the host discuss the "yes, and" principle from improv theater—a metaphor for reclaiming agency within constraints. Neema wrestles with the tension between embracing fluid identities and the risks of being defined by systems of power. Ultimately, she advocates for theory grounded in embodiment, community, and the courage to imagine beyond colonial frameworks.

This episode is a testament to the vitality of informal theorizing—the kind that happens in kitchens, on Instagram, and in conversations with toddlers. It’s a call to honor the wisdom of the past while coding new futures, one speculative question at a time.

Sheila: So, what is one story that you believe or you'd like you've heard recently, that you feel you wanted to believe in?

Neema: Wow, that's why I feel like so many things have happened. So, my question is also, I'm forming my thoughts. So never.

Uzoma: Exactly.

Neema: It's not even recent. But last year, I was with a friend in Brazil. And they told me this New Year's tradition is where you cross the road with a suitcase to usher in the new year. And for some reason, that has really stuck with me since then. I think maybe it's because I am a nomad. I don't know fully, you know, even which tradition that comes from, but it's a black desk or a friend who told me that, and ever since, I've been like, hmm, that makes sense. You know, you crossed the road with your baggage.

Sheila: That makes me think of that girl who's been climbing steps every year. Yeah.

Neema: Which one?

Sheila: That girl? She's been through a lot.

Uzoma: I'll find it and share it with you.

Sheila: That meme of that girl that like is carrying….

Neema: Oh, yes. Oh, my goodness. Who told me that runs a huge Lima account? So, I had some theories, like cross-cultural theory. And so just that connection point. Yes. Yes, it must come from somewhere.

Sheila: What do you think about the different levels of theory? I mean, viewers, well, not viewers, listeners, I would soon ask her to introduce herself. Still, I'm just going, and you think about the different levels of theory you get involved in, because I was just going through your Instagram page, which is just like a really lovely home-cooked meal. Like, it lives up to the question that you're asking. Like, I'm like, I don't even have a great grandma or great grandmother, but maybe you should be my great grandmother.

Neema: Oh, my goodness, I'm holding my hands close to my chest. The Internet is at the crux of that question. If your great-grandmother had an Instagram, what would you want to see on it? This is the question that has reframed a lot of my interactions in the digital, which is so focused on the now. And I think just threading out the timeline that we think about our digital interactions and expressions through has been, yeah, a big part of my Internet journey the last few years, but

Sheila: I think it's a good time to jump in, even before I go into this theory question. This is a good time to jump into, like, you just so my niece is one, she just started one, not this one. So, the one before her just turned one. If you were to introduce yourself to her, what would you say?

Neema: Hi, baby Niece, my name is Neema, and I'm an internet storyteller. And I am a thinker about many topics, right? So, I could describe myself to adult audiences as a gorilla theorist. But I guess to a kid, it would be just someone, yet a grassroots thinker. And, wow, that's such an interesting question. I've never been presented in that way. For that offering, because there's so much, you know, a big thing of this whole gorilla theory framework is creating a theory that feels very accessible and very conversational. I think, you know, trying to communicate with children makes you distill a lot. But I also believe in giving children the benefit of the doubt, right? And it's like, what does it look like if we introduce children to certain concepts at a young age, like the term gorilla, which is something that sometimes military people use to describe things that are happening very close to the ground. And if you envision a jungle, it's like the people crawling on the jungle floor, finding refuge amongst the plants, and hiding some of what they're doing right. The gorilla concept is also compared to this idea of theory, which, on its own, is seen as being very hyper-academic—the Ivory Tower. To me, gorilla theory just upholds conversation in the highest motive theory. I've talked to a child, and he's talking to anyone like that, which is all modes of speculation, especially in this sense of wandering and pondering about the world around you.

Sheila: That's beautiful. That's lovely. Iris would say that's clear. You know, it's so funny. My niece's name is Iris, and it's funny that you say we have to give children the benefit of the doubt because today, I went to the kitchen, and then Iris fiercely followed me. She's just learning how to walk. So, when she's like, when she's on a mission, he's trying to be on the mission, but her baby legs can't carry her that way, she wants to be on that mission. So anyway, she found herself by the gas cooker. So, I was saying, Iris, get out of the gas cooker. And then her brother, who's now three, almost three, walks in, and he's like, What happened? And I said Iris is trying to burn this house down. Well, I said it in a way that was like for myself; I didn't say it for him. And then he said, No, Iris, don't burn the house.

Neema: That's the thing: children hold on to these things we say, and they just regurgitate them, right? And, like, I think children are very, very wise because there's this purity to the reflection of their theory about the world around them. That lacks pretense. It's like, oh, this is what I'm perceiving. This is what it must be, and there is something so precious about it. And like that, it needs to be held close and cautiously.

Sheila: Definitely. I think it's also interesting to witness children in an everyday sense because sometimes I think it's easy to do so. Still, it's been easy for me to theorize about children without constant exposure to children. Because my sister has children now, it's different from me being like, oh, my cousin's child or my Auntie's child; those are just encounters, but these are like, I live with them most of the month for most of the year. So, what theories I had about children and their purity and innocence is the reality of these freakin people. They're actually so. They're also interested in the gaming of life. Sometimes, when you think about innocence and purity, it's almost like no life is not, there's no game, like everything I present to you is everything. There is never any tongue-in-cheek, but children can be so tongue-in-cheek. Iris has learned how to laugh, like MUHAHAHAHA, which is so different from regular laughter. Oh, it's funny. So, I'm laughing. No, she's laughing that way. Because she's trying to mimic this idea of being the villain or somebody who likes to laugh a comedic laugh. But there's a way of being comedic and trying to make someone laugh. You're trying to drive something; you're not just being driven. Like you're coming up, and you're having agency over and playing this thing and playing this character. And I think in the process of characterizing oneself, there is something about that innocence that doesn't like, it's not just, it's not a pure line of like, oh, I'm such a like, take me for my word. As you know, don't take me at my word. That's what makes it so funny. Like, know that I'm trying to crack a joke with you. So, I think about what you're saying about gorilla rights. I love, I love, love. I've never actually heard that term used. So, I'm very interested in understanding why you picked up gorillas. Also, what has your experience been combining these high levels of theory you understand through the mind? Then, the lower levels of theory you like are absorbed through the body, which I'm guessing happens. How do you combine the two?

Neema: Yeah, I mean, the first thing for me is trying not to have a binary, you know, thinking about one being higher and one being lower. Because I think embodiment is like a peak form of theory. That's where this concept of gorilla theory came from, out of my frustrations with academia. And this sentiment of being an expert on someone else's experience, right? As you took into, brought into these spaces, and you read these books, and then all of a sudden, you know everything about poverty in this place and development here, you know, and, for me, you know, when I was still in college, I was doing African Studies. And I was like, who am I coming to this, like, elite or whatever, American University to learn about African Studies, when I'm in community with Africans. I'm an African, and my body stores the memories of things that aren't, you know, in books that didn't make the history books. Yeah, gorilla theory emerged from realising my conversations through this collective radical consciousness. We host these sessions called Reflect to revolutionize workshops, where we would just discuss different topics like algorithms, medical health, etc., and convene people for these talking circles, realizing that this is research and a speculative space. And, you know, reading and interacting with the work of black revolutionary theorists like Walter Rodney and CLR, James, but specifically, Walter Rodney, thinking about this idea of scholar-activists that I think was taking hold in the 60s, but was not being manifested in the ways that it does today, like these people were out in their countries, in the villages in these different spaces talking and like being with the people. And I think that's absent from mainstream theory, theoretical or intellectual spaces in the present day, which are premised on a distance from the subject. And yeah, I don't. It just feels odd to me, the subject-object dynamic. I think, yeah, I value embodiment; I value every interaction I have with someone because anyone I'm speaking to who has, who's different from myself, has different experiences and wisdom to share. And it emerges in the most casual conversations and exchanges. So yeah, I think this idea of gorilla theory for me is also very closely tied to this concept I have of post-binary theory, which is a theory that extends, that exists in transcendence of the binaries that were programmed to think and interact to, that it's not just black and white, it's not just, you know, socialist and capitalist, that there, everything exists within a spectral medium, right. And the more we can embrace the multiplicity of realities, experiences, and wisdom, the better our theory can be about the whole. Yeah. So yeah, I guess that's it. The term came from realizing that theory is political and lived experiences are political. And seeking to create a new kind of home for those intersections. The binary comes from colonialism, like this construction of race; I think, in an American context, things are very black and white. You're either, yeah, was it race, was it class, was it gender, I think gender being a binary is something that was pushed in this project of colonialism and imperialism, to create convenient distinctions to separate people. And yeah, I think it's easier to have things in a binary than to hold multiple truths simultaneously.

Sheila: I'm very curious, and I think that you know, in the digital space, or trying to use the digital space to speak against the binary,

Uzoma: But it is binary itself.

Sheila: Binary is the foundation of so much that is digital, like binary coding. So, how do we grapple with it if you've ever thought of that?

Neema: Thank you for these questions. Let's see. To start, yeah, I think the binary being the foundation of our digital world is something that we need to urgently work to innovate our way out of, because these systems were put in place by people not necessarily rooted in indigeneity. And in gender transcendence. And in, you know, all these things that I feel are emerging now. And this is something I speak about in my lectures on reindigenizing technology. What does a post-binary code look like? Often, change starts with asking certain questions. So even you're asking that question suggests this desire for something more than the binary, like back in 20. I started doing research on the digital in 2016 and continued in 2017. I had this app idea. I was like, okay, we're gonna make this happen. It's gonna be, you know, it's gonna replace Instagram, all of this, but the Deeper I got into research within my own body and different kinds of eco-feminist frameworks and postcolonial frameworks, the more I realized that an app won't solve it, right? We need new hardware; we need new languages. It has to be a thorough infrastructural change. And suppose you think about the independence movements of the '60s across the continent and the world. In that case, I think that's a place that we're approaching with the digital now. What does it look like to have an independent movement from the binary? And a digital lens?

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Neema: Exactly.

Sheila: It's both. I say this from the embodiment point of view of experiencing that because, theoretically, it just bursts so many doors. But physically, when you're told something that you don't want to be, you don't get on stage to be that thing. Sometimes, it feels like it takes away, and it feels like the moment before you allow yourself to become that thing. You are worried about surrendering to somebody else's story. So, there is such… and I'm opening up that conversation in your lives was like this. Yes, and what are the mechanisms, the danger, the hope, and the possibility? Because of danger and allowing someone who doesn't share your imagination to sort of define you, you are comfortable enough to say, well, if I surrender, then I also have power because of my surrender. But in this economy where power is different, even if your power is in your community, but then your communities are under the power of tax and all that stuff, what happens?

Neema: Wow, you've just given me so much to digest. I even just want to give myself some seconds to do that. That's such a powerful visualization, that improv scene of Yes, I am a butterfly. And also, I'm green and have leaves. It's such a critical reclamation of agency. And that's the power of storytelling. That's the power of imagination, which makes new worlds possible. But is there any such thing as a truly original thought? If you can imagine this idea of being the butterfly who is both green and plant-like, is that not your reality at that moment?

Sheila: Exactly

Neema: It's tinkering with the malleability of reality. The danger is that if everyone begins to do that without investing in their own context and dream worlds, you will have a lot of miscommunication and mistranslation. And at the same time, aren't we always fumbling towards something? It's never perfect, but a graceful dance towards utopia, like you struggle to get there. And isn't that already happening in these conflicting histories? You know, the history of our countries was written by colonial administrators. And it's a very different narrative from the stories that you hear from your grandparents, and …

Sheila: In what way?

Neema: Because of this specialization, I don't want to bring too much of my grandmother's own, like personal traumas, to this, because that's her story. But I think about how we've been written about being, you know, backwards or developed, and like all of that. And then you hear that people were really, truly just living their lives the best way they knew with the tools at their disposal, and that all of these, like macroscopic, political puzzle pieces, were moving around on a level that was somewhat disconnected from the ground. But you know, there's still this connection there. But I don't want to get lost in that tangent; I am still thinking about this improv example you gave for something I've been feeling lately, since I was very young. It's also interesting being a theorist before being a mother. You know, like coming of age, he is still trying to engage with you. Because, you know, you're saying that, and I'm like, wow, I would love to take two years to just delve into theater and improv and see what lessons are gleaned from that world.

Sheila: Oh, I'm so glad you said this. I'm so glad because I'm not a mother theorist. So quite young. And there's something also about recognizing the limitations of theory at a young age because you might not have the experience in your body to say, this is how I know that there's a theory, but you just know that a life that is sort of like lived within the flat two-dimensional page of batarian de luces mind is not just going to be enough to like to hold all the dimensions of your body like you don't even know if your body is four-dimensional or five-dimensional, like talk less of three dimensional like you don't even know… I think what I'm even saying about the danger of that improv about the yes-and theory like the yes-and game is that sometimes I'm also I like to say, ever since I'm, I'm a recovering, I'm a recovering Catholic, that is my ever since I signed up to Catholics anonymous, I'm always like, well, since I have no God in the way that like, I used to think of God, what, what am I under because I know that I came in my material form to be limited by something. So, I started praying to the God of limitations. And I think in sort of like being, surrendering to this idea of God has limitations. One thing I found very interesting is physics.

Neema: Yeah,

Sheila: But that's part of why I think there's also such an urgency in physics, like theories of physics, that didn't originate from the West. When I go to physics, there are many theories, like German, Austrian, and Swedish. And I'm just like, well, we have the sun too, like, we have circles. That's why Uzoma and I are so interested in the idea of African fractals and how they show up in the building of African compounds. However, the most popular book on African fractals was written by Ron Eglash.

Neema: Yes.

Sheila: So, like, what are we going to do? How do we deal with this now? We are all stranded on the same island.

Uzoma: No, but this is the best thing you can do. I don't know.

Neema: And, you know, you were saying, I love this idea of the God of limitations; that's very powerful. Also, this idea of negotiating with youth is a fear. And you know, there are some things that I have not lived, but my body is the sum of all of my ancestors living. And The more I listen to my body, the more I pay attention to my gut instinct when I think or feel about certain things, the closer I can get to access this bank of knowledge that is held in my DNA that has been burned, libraries have been burned, you know, things have been destroyed languages have been lost. And still, I'm here as a survivor of that arrangement.

Sheila: Right.

Neema: And there's a power in that, and I think, you know, it's like, we might not have all the books, but we have something beyond that. And the more we can lean into that, the stronger we will be because there's a profound sense of heartache, right? I feel a deep, deep heartache when I think about, you know, the fact that my ancestors didn't keep journals necessarily. You know, I think about how wild it is that European people have just these archives and archives and archives.

Sheila: Oh, man, sometimes I feel so free. I know this is controversial because I love archives and am an archivist. And I understand the importance. And sometimes, as I actually experienced this thought, Still, Sheila, some things are so special to you, because they're not, not because they're not archived, I think this is now, this is where I have to unfuck up my mentality of what archiving is. Archiving is not just writing down something stagnant over time, like something so expensive to keep still over time, that it can never change. I think archiving can also… I remember I was in a sound circle led by LSI. Now, we were talking about how care has to be so self-sufficient. It exists outside so easily, and people consume it very easily. So, even when sharing soup recipes, we may not do recipe books, but people still cook and enjoy the soup they cook. And it's still like, and they still use the same traditional Herbs, they still use the same, like traditional thickeners, the trees are still being grown. So, it's like, I think it's the more distance I get, which is why, again, I love your thing of gorilla activism because the further away I get, the more I panic that we're not conserving culture. But when I get closer, I'm like, actually, people are outchea conserving the hell out of this culture.

Neema: You know, give them the benefit of the doubt. Right. They just don't have degrees to prove it. But there's a harvest this season, there's the harvest, you know, the homes are being built, there's a way that people are just interacting. It's its everydayness that is so beautiful. And like, oh, yeah, I'm just feeling so much like this conversation is alone, healing me in many ways. Yeah.

Sheila: So, because what I was… what I think affects me sometimes is how rigid I see some Western sort of like transference of knowledge being where, for a lot of them, it's like mastery is about repeating the thing. To the exact key, you're a good piano player if you can play Chopin like Chopin, but I've used this example on this podcast, too. It's like when the dog came out. And it was like, okay, there are doggy rights. But then there's the way Chris Brown did the doggy, which is different from the way I do my doggy. And then there's, it's all different, it's no longer just this thing that someone made that must then be replicated, so that you're a master of the doggy, is that there's a code, there's a code that and you can…

Neema: It's encrypted.

Sheila: Yes, you can improve the code; the code is elevated by the fact that communities are remixing; the culture of blackness is a culture of remix; that's why sample culture is in hip hop all the time.

Neema: And the element of improvisation, if you think about jazz, if you think about skipping between different things, the cut and paste, like people who've alchemised, the trauma of diaspora into this innovative, reactive fugitive thing that cannot be kept. And you see, like, as you see black culture become commodified online, as you see this language, and all of those things kind of be commercialized, you still can't touch the source because the source is ever-shapeshifting.

Sheila: Right? They can't be grasped because there's no bottom, like my friend, and I will always say when people ask, "Oh, yeah, I can't get to the bottom of you. And we're like, actually, me too. I can get to the bottom of myself, but where is this bottom? I don't see the bottom of me. I'm not trying to get to the bottom of myself because I would be running mad if I were trying. So, you're running mad? And, like, what's freedom from madness is presence. Thank you. Thank you. Presence is where everything is synthesized.

Uzoma: And true, I feel like this is the main reason this encapsulates all that thinking without really trying; it's nothing codified. It's nothing like writing it down, but it speaks to that thinking in many ways. And…

Neema: Absolutely. It's so funny. What time worked for you when you reached out about this series? That question alone. It tied in so much of what I've been reading lately; I highly recommend you acquire it. Actually, I'll find a way to send you both copies of Quantum Futurism. Yes. It talks about the time collapse from the Congress to the Carolinas through music, dance, and improvisation. And it's funny. I was just journaling a little bit. I was like, what was the time for me last time, like prep? And I was like, time is the internal memory of everything. If you made it into an acronym, it's the internal memory of everything. And when you're talking about presence, when I think about Afro-presentism, it's,

Sheila: Oh, my God, I'm sorry. Can you just say that again?

Neema: About time?

Sheila: The acronym.

Neema: Time is the internal memory of everything. And our vessels. Move; it's time in motion. When we converse, it's exchanging time; right now, we're talking through time, right? Like you are five hours, quote, unquote, ahead of me. And we're making time for one another together, right? We're sewing, and we're weaving together our sense of time.

Sheila: I'm not even being extra when you… Before you were saying, I think before you started talking about the acronym, I started thinking about quilting and how I posted it. There was an Instagram post on quilting, and the caption was just: I think one of the comments was Can you imagine the stories being told? I can just hear the stories, smell the food being cooked, and just think about how crafts were made in that time or space. It's just the vessel through which time is made, like the time being made there. Like the memory of everything woven, it is the most important product of that experience. The quilt is just like the mementoes of time spent, but now it's like we're in reverse.

Neema: Yes, time on the grid is measured by our production through the lens and the digital, But Like the time in the village is measured by the harvest by you working for your assessments as measured by your artistry, I think about, like one of my maternal tribes on my side, where girls would just spend the day making beads doing beadwork necklaces, you know, that's how you pass the time, if you're expressing the creation, some of your lineages, and like, that, I think is what has been taken from our idea of producing this facade of originality, when it's like, all we want to do is Yeah, just express the present moment tumbling into the next and outside of money outside of the clock, like, we just want to be, or at least I do, I just want to be with people I love and dream together and document that in any way that feels appropriate.

Sheila: How do we do that? And, and still, sort of like, go towards the necessity of work? Because I think one thing I tweeted the other day was bad. Actually, I also read socialist theory, which I identify with, but, guys, I love work.

Neema: Thinking about the idea, yes, I have been thinking about the idea of indigenizing labor.

Sheila: Yes, tell me. Say more.

Neema: In this framework, we theorize that radical consciousness is defined as a twofold process. First, it is the deconstruction of ideals imposed by colonialism. And two, it's a reminder of ancient ways of connecting with one another and the land, right? And so, if we think about work with reindigenizing, work is returning ancestral meaning to our production. We're not producing for something that is seeking to extract from us, but we're producing to create some sort of legacy that our descendants can pick up the baton of. And that's helped reframe my thinking around work because there's a kind of work that drains from you. There's a kind of thing that tells you that you're replaceable. And then you do another kind of work because you want your children to live in a world where that work has already happened.

Sheila: Yes.

Neema: And, again, this ties back to this question of if your great great grandmother had an Instagram, what would you want to see on it, and the paradox idea that I think should make a resurgence of like divesting from Instagram, those, yes, and also truths of like, Instagram is very toxic. There's this whole surveillance capitalism thing that makes you produce and share and, you know, try to get engagement in that whole mess of a system. And at the same time, it is something that we'll have techno fossils of in the future. I'm sure there'll be some elaborate archive, an elaborate archiving project in the future to retrieve all of the last Instagram posts. And when that happens, I want my descendants to be able to see what I was doing and feel who I was connecting with, you know?

Sheila: Now that you say this.

Neema: Yeah.

Sheila: I just remembered that, like, that's what I keep saying about my Twitter and Instagram, like the story about it for me, that makes me post is that what if this is how we had, like, this is how we came back to life. Like, so I returned to life, I would return based on what I've posted. And I was like, imagine me coming back to the lab. Like, yeah, I would be so unhappy. Because if I did post things that were making me happy, because I thought, oh, this is only going to get eight likes. So, you mean I will listen to this 23-minute song I love.

Neema: And, like what, that's part of the indigenizing labor. What if we think about it beyond the utility of the platform? Beyond that, okay, yes, I'm working for Facebook for free. That's one truth. But there are other truths, such as that blackness is always fugitive.

Sheila: Yeah,

Neema: We have been forced to think beyond these very, very violent structures. The fact that we have survived until this point is that our ancestors, there was a lot of compromise and negotiation and resilience that we are the direct product of, and so who would we be to not carry on that legacy?

Sheila: When you say, blackness is always fugitive. Yeah, I have a lot of different questions about that. But one of them is okay. I think a lot about reincarnation and the timeline again of, like, reincarnation, what it means, because the other day someone said someone posted Don't be superior to your fellow man, only be superior to your old self. And so, I thought, what if your fellow man is a reincarnation of your old self?

Neema: Drop the mic.

Sheila: I thought about it a long time before posting it because I was like, no, I'm not saying anyone should be superior to anybody. But if I'm trying to sort of experiment with my logic of reincarnation, what if it's right? Also, the idea of reincarnation is that almost whenever we pop up, we choose to become awake, or we choose to become awakened in the way we are awakened, if you are talking about such deep agency. So why, why do I choose this blackness? If I know it's always fugitive?

Neema: You know, I honestly kind of take that back. Because is anything always something ever? And, you know, even hearing you say that back, I'm like, I don't think that my ancestors would always want to be fugitives. Also, this idea of blackness is deeply informed by the fact that I'm currently in New York and facing blackness in this context, which I think is very different from the continent. And that also must be acknowledged. And I think there's, yeah, like, there's a lot of exchange that needs to happen around those conceptions. Because, you know, sometimes I can use the word Indigenous also to stand in for blackness, like indigeneity is very present. And being present doesn't mean that you're always being fugitive. Suppose the system built around you isn't trying to make you a fugitive, right? But it's the systems built around us that have this subject, this subjugation of someone inherent to them? Yeah, and so I'd have to think more about that. And revise. And that's the thing about the conversation series.

Sheila: Yeah.

Neema: Conversation allows for a sense of adaptability. The written text doesn't, and that's kind of why I haven't written extensively or published extensively; it's because one thing someone says can adapt or just like evolve what I'm thinking, you know, I wanted it that way.

Sheila: I wanted to celebrate that moment of you being like, actually, I want to take that back to how difficult it is for people to accept that. They have to take something. It's one of the things that stopped me from going further as an academic because I realized that many people don't apologize in academia.

Neema: Right? It's the attachment.

Sheila: Because there's so much power attached to this thing that's supposed to be almost against power, I've been reading 48 Laws of Power, picked up this book, and I think I opened it to a picture about a friend's hotel. And there's something about the book's spirit that was like, I can't believe this exists. And I want to know why it exists. It was like an itch I needed to scratch, so the other day in books, and this was one of the books they were hawking, I was like, you know what, it's fun for me for a reason. So, I started reading it. And I tell you that I sometimes read this book and feel sick. Like I feel like what I feel when I've smoked six sticks of cigarettes too quickly. There's something about it that's not that they're wrong in terms of if you want power, this is what you should do. But you can't just… why do you want power for power's sake? I think the thing about it is that there is a suffix that usually should be attached to power; I want the power to…I want the power of…I want the power for…. But when your power is without a suffix, there is wicked desperation because of one of the laws, sorry, reading Grace and Gravity by Simone Weil. There's a part where he says, Grace fills empty spaces, Sorry, Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it. And it is Grace itself which makes this void.

Neema: Wow. I love that. When I think of grace, I think of it rather than stumbling and fumbling. It's dancing towards something. And I think about grace like I see mercury and I see air. And yes, I see just this slithering between realities.

Sheila: Yeah.

Neema: But it has to, there's a surrender inherent to that. Yeah. Right. And what you're saying about power is that there's less surrender and more control.

Sheila: Yes

Neema: But that control is always, to an extent, an illusion because so many other forces are at play, and so many other people are trying to learn their dance. And yeah, taking it back to what time works for you, whatever time is destined.

Sheila: Exactly, whatever time is destined is what will work because maybe that's all you have.

Neema: Yes, the real power lies wherever our dances intertwine when they become duets. I can't let go of this thing. You're talking about the suffix necessary for interacting with power, like the power to or the power of what, what a fascinating thing to try and understand in English.

Sheila: Yeah

Neema: You know, this language necessitates a level of specificity. Because it's yet to be constructed to delineate and to bring everyone to the same plane or to the same time, when that's not what is intuitive to us.

Sheila: Yeah. Thank you so much, Neema. My little baby is complaining a lot. And I think she's trying to reclaim her time in my life for some attention, but thank you for giving us your attention like it's been. I'm going to follow you right now and continue, like, rolling through to the end of your page, because I'm sucked in.

Neema: I'm so excited to be connected beyond this. And, yes, thank you to everyone who will also be listening for their attention. I recently read that attention taken to the highest degree is a form of prayer. Yes. Yeah. I pray we meet one another, wherever we're meant to, to be ready for that meeting.

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Sheila: I feel like you're referring to this moment in the '60s, like twice now.

Neema: Yeah.

Sheila: So, I'm curious. Do you see a serious, circular kind of return? Moment in time?

Neema: Yes. So many reflections. And right now?

Yes, I feel like time is moving in an upward spiral. And we're reaching the same point at a specific, you know, level on the Y. What is it called, the y-axis? Y axis? Yes. But it did at a different level each time. And I think I keep referring to the 60s because I'm deeply rereading Walter Rodney, which is how Europe underdeveloped Africa. And, you know, because I think so much about the internet and the digital, I'm like, what are the implications of a text like that, in a time like now, where you're having cold time, where you're having a lot of them, the crystals and raw materials that go towards creating our devices being pulled from the Congo being pulled from the continent, and at the same time, you have people not be able to access specific cryptocurrencies from the continent, you're having poor connectivity, you see kind of the remnants of this dire under development only be magnified within a digital context. And I think like, you know, just trying to connect dots between time and understanding that, like, there is a history that has led us up to this point, there's a history that leads up to your Wi-Fi disconnecting in Lagos, you know, and like, or in Abuja, and that it's not abstracted that there's like, some deep infrastructural transformation that needs to happen. We can't just accept this structural inequality, we can't, you know, we people are talking about NFTs. And all of this I'm collaborating with this artist is in the Congo, who, to mine the NFT, or rather translate the art piece into the NFT, is having to have someone in the US do it for them, because that's all that is available on the continent. But I'm like, the Congo is making all this. So, what is the history that leads to the point where we're at and, like, we can't keep thinking that things will be better with all these innovations that, Oh, Africans will take over this so that no, the infrastructure is not in place, that, you know, the binary has put Africa on a specific side of the coin to not benefit from all of these like, quote-unquote, innovations and quote unquote, revolutions in you know, digital technology,

Sheila: Straight up because I remember one screen sometime in April, this movie about the ruin of the Rwandan genocide, and I literally could not watch the film because it was not available in my country. Yeah, everywhere, like Apple, Amazon, and everything I was on, the movie was unavailable in my country. And I'm just thinking, if it's not, I don't think it's available in Rwanda. Even if I were one of those, I probably couldn't access it. This is a movie about the story of Rwandans, not people in Rwanda or the rest of the continent. So, it's like having to even buy a VPN to hide the fact that I am aware you are. Yeah, it's ridiculous.

Neema: And the thing is, these inconveniences, they're injustices, you know,

Uzoma: It is a metaphor for justice. It's like, you know, when you're at the airport, and you have to, like, your passport, you would like to read it. Now,

Sheila: We are close to the counter.

Uzoma: I was thinking that what you were saying about, you know, he asked about referencing the 60s. It just reminded me of what you said earlier about the fact that, you know, the binary is an illusion, like everything is everything. And you know, the fact that we're returning to this moment, almost but any different, like in a different context, just I feel like every time that's a certain spectrum. There are no boundaries, and everything involves repeated methods that have to come in as always. Then, the second thing I was going to ask was, what? Earlier, you spoke about the post-binary code. What does that look like to you? What does the post-binary look like? I know we've spoken about this a bit, but I'm just very interested in it, but I find that I struggle to conceive, like, it's just difficult. So yeah.

Neema: It's funny because, you know, I theorize a lot on the internet, but I don't code or program in specific languages. But I'm leaning into thinking about conversation as code right, and legitimizing how just having a vision or having a desire is coding something somewhere, you know, that aspiration either is like an indication that that work is already happening somewhere, or that somewhere in the future timeline that works like that will be possible, or will be in the works. And so, when you ask me what a post binary code looks like, in my head, I wrote this piece on my Patreon about 2020, being the year that we break out of the binary, that at every point, rather than picking a zero or a one, you can also there's a third prong there. It could be as simple as adding a digit, and I would be lying if I said I have all of the technical know-how to outline what that can look like. But I think even having this conversation is a step in that direction, right? Each of these conversations in the podcast you're hosting is speculative, like movements towards something new, something ancient being realized. And so, to hone in on the conversation in that coding space, post-binary code looks like a framework that my friend, many kornati, has called Yes. And also, you can say, yes, this is true. Also, here are selections of other truths, other concurrent truths, right? And I think about it, again, returning it to history. Our history is one building block in a very elaborate time construction, the end of life. And a post-binary code makes room for all those histories to be acknowledged. It's a space of relational complexity that is navigated with grace. It is, yeah, it is. I mean, yeah, we don't; maybe we will get into it another day. But I think post-binary code also abandons the idea of devices being the only technology at our disposal,

Sheila: Right. Even this Yes-And, it's one of my favorite things from improv. So, I mean, I'm a theatre person; I'm a theater major. I do theatre. So, one of my favorite things was my first improv class, learning that there's no improvement. You don't say? No, you only say Yes-And so if someone comes to you and says, Okay, now you're a butterfly, even if they say you're a butterfly, you don't say, No, I'm not. I'm a plant. You say I'm a butterfly. And I'm green, and I have leaves. Also, what does that do then? Like, because even if you try to, you try to hold me by definition. The way that I get out of that definition is not by arguing with you. It's by changing what I want to be as a butterfly. So, if you can't convey that I'm a green butterfly with leaves, maybe the problem is now your imagination.