The Shift For Brown Sylvia Eze   © Copyright 2026 Sylvia Eze

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What do all these things have in common? Brown. It is funny how something as simple as a colour can carry so many memories and emotions without us realizing it. Growing up in a Catholic school, I remember my principal, Sister Matilda Adeboye. Brown was her favourite colour. She wore brown shoes, brown scarves, and sometimes even brown veils, especially around her birthday on October 8th.

Looking back now, there was something comforting about it all. Warm. Calm. Down to Earth Grounded. Oh, how much I loved and admired those people back then. Besides, back then brown was a rare colour that was liked by students, so brown was refreshing. I remember how brown and black colour became in vogue for literally everything, fashion, food and many more, as a result. Sometimes I miss the simplicity of those days. Years later, while getting interested in cooking and health, I remember watching a YouTube video where someone mentioned that food in the 1970s was “very brown” because almost everything was fried which started my phobia of brown food.

At first, I laughed and did not think deeply about it. But once I started paying attention to my eating habits and trying to become healthier, I suddenly noticed something strange. So much of the food I was trying to avoid was brown.

Coffee.

Fried food.

Cookies

Chocolate.

Oven baked dough

And somehow, without fully realizing it, I developed a strange fear of brown foods. It is kind of sad because everything fried, burnt and even sometimes cooked is brown. Even burgers buns are brown. I eventually conquered my fear of brown food. Now I eat more vegetables and salads which is great, but I still to watch how much brown food especially with a lot of sugar. At the same time, there are a lot of healthy brown food like dates, brown beans, brown rice and many more. I think I was just ignorant and not varied with my food choices back then. It sounds silly when I say it out loud, but me and fear go a long way back. What fascinates me is how deep simple things can become once you start thinking about them. A colour stops becoming just a colour. Food stops becoming just food.

Everything in life seems to connect to something larger. And honestly, I think life itself starts from very simple things. That is why I sometimes find it interesting when advanced countries praise themselves for how modern and developed, they are while forgetting that everything grand once started from something small and ordinary. Every skyscraper started as an idea. Every empire started as a village. Every advanced technology once existed as somebody’s rough sketch or experiment. Everything has a source.

And maybe one of the biggest struggles of advanced societies is forgetting how to return to those simple beginnings. Because once people become too advanced, too comfortable, or too powerful, simplicity almost starts looking embarrassing. Besides, as we humans gain one thing, we lose another. As we keep advancing, some simple things are lost. Take for example, with the evolution of cars, fast transportation, we have lost some means of fitness and community bond. Honestly writing, as America keeps advancing, I wish some places would be left untouched as community centres and history zones which people tired of modern life can visit and stay for a while, that demonstrate history and progress of things so people can be grateful and see the positive and negative things were left behind as advancement continues so people can study the pros and cons of why we are changing something instead of erasing them and acting like they were never there. In summary, we are recording history so people can learn from them.

Another thing I constantly think about is envy.

Envy is interesting because when you want something another person has, you rarely see the full story behind it. You do not see what they sacrificed to get it nor what they did to get it and the source of that thing. You do not see what it costs to maintain it. And honestly, maintaining something is sometimes harder than getting it in the first place.

I remember becoming a Christian around age fifteen, and for a while my faith felt strong and beautiful. But about three years later, I slowly lost that faith. Looking back now, I do not think it disappeared suddenly. I simply did not maintain it well.

That experience changed the way I look at people and success. Even when I admire something or become interested in it, I try my best to understand where it came from before chasing it. Is it morally, right? Is it healthy? What does it cost emotionally, mentally, or spiritually to maintain? Although honestly, I do not always have the wisdom to fully answer those questions. The older I get, the more life starts looking strangely simple and strangely confusing at the same time. Sometimes I laugh because human beings make life so complicated.

In the end, we are born, we struggle, we try to achieve something, and then eventually we leave. Yet in between those moments, humanity creates endless systems, endless competition, endless propaganda, endless comparison. Maybe envy is part of what complicates life so much. Sometimes people say, “life comes in stages,” but honestly, I still do not fully understand what stage I am even in. Other times I wonder whether everything around us is propaganda and life is simply what we choose to make out of it. Speaking of propaganda, that word almost makes me laugh because I feel surrounded by it constantly.

Political propaganda. Social propaganda. Religious propaganda. Beauty propaganda. Success propaganda. Everybody seems to be trying to convince everybody else of something. And honestly, sometimes my head hurts from thinking too deeply about things I do not fully understand. Maybe that is why people party. Maybe that is why people distract themselves. Maybe that is why people chase pleasure, entertainment, noise, and temporary happiness. Sometimes I find myself doing the same thing — not necessarily because I am careless, but because constantly thinking about life becomes exhausting.

And at my age, I honestly cannot tell whether some of the unhealthy or reckless things people indulge in come from enjoyment, confusion, pain, or simply being tired of overthinking. Or maybe we are all hurt in different ways. When I was younger, I used to believe that if somebody hurt us, we had the right to hurt them back however we wanted. Back then it felt normal. It felt justified. But as I got older, that mindset started feeling more instinctive than wise. Almost animal like. And honestly, I think every living thing in this world has instincts.

Every creature reacts to pain. But human beings are supposed to be different because we are capable of reflection, morality, and restraint or self control. Charles Darwin was right about some things in his evolution of humans as I feel like we humans are like animals in some ways. Some things we do are similar. In fact, what we call skin care might just be grooming. Thus, we can learn from them. The difference is unlike these animals, we can choose not to follow our instinct and follow a different path, so we just have higher intelligence. Or maybe I am wrong. I want your feedback and correction after reading this if you think this is not true. So sometimes I ask myself: if somebody hurts me and I immediately want revenge, am I truly acting from wisdom, or am I simply reacting from instinct? That question humbles me a lot. Because the older I get, the more I realize life may not actually be about fully understanding everything. Some things may always remain mysteries. Maybe part of living is accepting that we cannot solve every question. Sometimes the best thing we can do is to enjoy the little things we have.