Asge

I remember my father telling me about Prince Alemayehu, the only son of Emperor Tewodros II, when I was very young. Even then, as a child, I felt a deep sympathy for him. His father took his own life after witnessing his warriors dead or fatally wounded. In that final act, Emperor Tewodros tried to salvage a measure of dignity—for himself and for Ethiopia. As a people, we learned from him the immense value and the heavy price of preserving dignity.

Alemayehu, however, received the harshest end of that tragedy. He was taken from his homeland along with countless treasures. Though he was educated in Britain and Queen Victoria personally oversaw his welfare, he lived a life marked by displacement and loneliness. He died at only eighteen. Cultural dislocation, isolation, and homesickness were cited as causes, but to me it remains a profound misfortune. I still struggle to understand why he had to be taken in the first place.

My own thoughts wander into difficult territory. Had he remained in Ethiopia, he would have been the natural heir to the throne. Perhaps he would have sought to avenge his father’s death. Perhaps he would have shaped Ethiopian history in ways we can only imagine. And in Britain, he had no real place within the monarchy—he was a solitary figure, a young African prince in an empire that did not know what to do with him. My conspiracy‑prone mind wonders what might have happened had he lived into adulthood. His death at eighteen feels too convenient, too unresolved.

It was a rare privilege for me, as a refugee in the UK, to share his story with a panel of volunteers and fellow refugees. In telling it, I felt Alemayehu’s anguish echoing my own. His story resonates deeply: a young man who lived and died in exile, longing for home. It is a heartbreaking Ethiopian story, but also a universal human one. Something stirs in you when you see his grave or look at his photographs. It feels as though he has never truly rested—and that unrest is felt by Ethiopians and by all who care about Ethiopia.

Repatriating his remains so he may lie among his ancestors is not a bad idea. It would be an act of dignity, a gesture of healing, and perhaps a way to finally let the boy who was taken from us come home.

The parliament within!

Vone: I’ll be happy when my future finally arrives.

Votua: Drop it. You said the exact same thing last time about today and everything in it.

Vone: Trust me—when this and that happen, you’ll become a better version of yourself. You’ll have more influence; your sense of identity will be reinforced: you'll feel more alive.

Votua: Again!?
Vone: Shut up!

Votre: Look at these two, going back and forth about almost everything.

Voart: Still silent, still aware of all these voices.

The quality of our lives is, to a large degree, shaped by the harmony or discord among these fragments of our psyche. When we refer to ourselves as “I,” we are often speaking from the perspective of one of these inner voices.

As long as our sense of self is tied to these fragmented voices, our “I” oscillates between them. For example, if you identify with Vone—the voice that promises happiness in some distant future—you may become goal‑oriented, disciplined, and hardworking, driven by hope, ambition and constantly chasing the promises of tomorrow. But this often comes at the cost of living fully in the present, shutting the door on life’s surprises and unplanned encounters. It can leave you anxious, stressed, and drained.

When you become Vone, the present day takes on a flat taste. This voice reduces your daily experience to nothing more than a launching pad toward an illusory fulfillment in the “future.” You’re always on the move, yet you never arrive. It’s exhausting.

Have you ever wondered how many voices make up your psyche—how many voices live in your mind?

Which one do you believe is you?
Which one overpowers the others, if any?

Southampton
January, 2026

Maybe regulate the voices?

The average human existential experience be it collectively or individually is marked by a series of setbacks, lack of direction and clarity as well as stress and anxiety. Albeit, one cannot afford to be exhausted, give up or call for a time out. The world has always been on constant movement and changes without any or little regard to our individual struggles.

One's personal story does not seem to matter in the grand unfolding of reality. One's hopes and dreams, pains and frustrations, failures or triumphs, marriages or divorces, deaths or births, gains or losses. The world just keeps on moving.
It doesn't wait or pause for anyone. Failure to keep up equals being forgotten or left behind.

At the backdrop of such an indifferent world, we bear the crashing responsibility of regulating the voices of our unitegrated psyche. Trying to make sense of our apparent and untold sufferings is an act of courage as many crumble under the weight of the mental process. The flee from one's own unregulated inner voices accounts for the vast portion of human activities as a collective. The task of settling down the inner commotion is not for everyone to take on as many of us are reduced to projecting our inner mess onto others and sublimate our restrained unmet desires.

The outer display of human strife, wars, displacement, wars, lack of contentment, hate, inequity and greed, has its rooting in our unregulated and unitegrated voices of the psyche.

A self that recognizes its psyche’s rival voices and takes the necessary reflective steps to gain incremental clarity allows for the inner turmoil subside. The reflective venture sheds light on the inner work we all need to take on as it leads to individual and collective harmony as opposed to increasing survival anxiety, lack of presence and fulfillment, erosion of noble values and the quality decline of our overall shared human experiences:The most likely route we will be on, if we are not already, unless we carry out inner inventory.