History Makers and Wind Breakers

How would you feel when you are trying so hard to hold in a fart in a stuffed up bus then someone else decides to relieve themselves on you? I bet you will find your resolve weaken consistently until you yourself mix the air with a mess of your own making. That is exactly how corruption is in Nigeria. There are people that are trying so hard to avoid the temptation of looting public funds, so they can deliver quality public service. But along comes someone whose value system starts and ends in their stomach, that just lets out the ooze of their corruption and what do you think happens to the guy that is holding in his fart? The usual way of things is that the most honorable of them all usually lets out their gas slowly and hope that the intensity of the stench they offer stays a layer just beneath that of the guy that has spearheaded our collective suffering.

And therein lies the impact that fosters a breakdown of good intentions, the kind that pave the way to hell. The examples that we have been left to follow allow us to let out our less lethal farts in a place where the air is poisoned with the farts of our leaders past. 

I bet there are a bunch of guys that are running for office in 2015 thinking that well, I am going to make a difference. I will be accountable and transparent. I will be a revolutionary leader and Nigeria will remember me as a history maker. I believe that is possible, but you have to know what you are up against when you roll with that line of thought. You are going against a culture of corruption that has been established since 1960. And I realize that you imagine you will walk in there without even a fart up your ass. But know that the farts of the majority might just poison your stomach and if you choose to hold that fart in and be a history maker not a wind breaker, remember that the difference may not be clear if the whole air is poisoned. Clear the air and you can breath fresh air (not the one they sold us the last time), and ensure that you yourself are not poisoned by it. 

Freedom or writing, same thing...

I was going to start by asking how I got here. But I know very well how I got here, so there is no point bullshitting anyone. That's another thing, I swear a lot, most times in my head. I am very violent too, in my head that is. There a lot of things that go on in my head and that may shed some light as to how I got here, being a writer I mean. See, in my head I can easily travel the full spectrum of human and well maybe some immortal personalities, but how are you gonna fit all that into social interactions? No, conventional wisdom (that fucker) dictates that we be as consistent as we can be with such things that can be used to identify us as personality. It helps the observer (pretty much anyone with an opinion about you) to place us in the portion of the spectrum they are familiar with and perhaps predict the most salient and expected outcomes. See, it provides some sense of security (mostly emotional) for them. And you on the other hand want to be accepted, and people you threaten natural do not accept you. Seems like a bad bargain for me, but that's just me, I have no urgent need to be accepted. I am fine being the lonely exception, one more evidence that makes me look upon conventional wisdom with contempt. 

As usual, I start off like I've got a subject matter then I watch myself fly into every direction possible. Hey, try and change me! Cos this is what I called freedom. That I can fully dish out a thought and communicate crystals of intellect that my mind harbors. I'll stay on conventional wisdom for a bit so that I can find myself the much overrated closure. See conventional wisdom is some trick by immortals to suppress the rest of us (I have to identify with you guys yo!). They throw a net over us and suggest clearly that we can't venture past the boundaries. A few people go past the boundaries but only a handful get more than the foreplay. Those guys are facing the greatest oppression from those immortals they look better than. I'll like to drop this here and get back to my original thing cos my thoughts are starting to train on immortals.

That is another thing. How exactly is it that I can say some of these things I do with some measure of conviction, I know that my expressions may take away their essence (they are purer in my head). And I do not even have any reference or facts to back them up. I'll just wait for them to materialize in this reality or a parallel one. Maybe knowledge might just be a continuum. The bible clearly states that there is nothing new under the sun, so I guess we are all in a circle of knowledge. What seems newly discovered is simply a deeper search into something that was already there.

I will hold my pen here. But just so we are clear, I was just writing for writing sakes, you know, to get my writing juices flowing once again, freedom it is called, I believe!

Silence

I hear silence

I hear the streams of nothingness bounce off the walls of my mind

This stillness plays a familiar tone I have come to know

It beats the dud rhythms that I identify with more often than not

But I have to defy the articles of the law to do some justice to it

The true laws of grammar and the way of words

Permit me also to scale the walls of conventional literature

Do not be offended by my rebellion of everything conventional

I just don’t buy that shit

Now with words of a king I am here to proclaim silence my queen

She waits for me as I draw away from the world and mankind

She is always patient to make sure that we are both alone

I remember when I first met her

It was a long time ago, about my earliest memories

It was when I was first plagued by consciousness

When I first realized I had feet and teeth

Silence was my first love

Always there to embrace me when the world declared itself my enemy

She saved me when I was drowning in all the bullshit around me

She kissed me with the deepest passion when loneliness made mockery of me

Yes, silence is my first love

And we’ve both had a long thing going for a long time coming

One time, we had our unusual lovers’ spat and I turned to my brother for help

He rained my praises everywhere I went

And she got jealous, I couldn’t understand why

She was always jealous of people that posed no threat to her

So she made enemies with everyone and everything

My brother, my family, my friends, school, I mean everything that you can put together in words

I didn’t realize she had left me until one time when I needed her

When everyone around me seemed to fornicate with foolishness

And dwelt only on the surface of things

I have to admit that I floated to the surface too

Maybe that was why we had the problem

I took out my weight and just left her in the deep and went my way

Their way, the way of the world

Until I found that I couldn’t do without her

That my whole essence depended on her

That with her I could find the completeness that I sought

Then I started to seek her

I started to crave her voice

And all those conversations we had with no words

I remembered once again, all the peace she offered

And her selfless love, the kind I was counting on to help me find her now.

 And that memory did serve a good purpose

Slowly I started to ebb down that familiar road to her house

I closed up the books, turned off my friends

Made my way to the gate and boarded a cab home

I rushed through the door like I always did

The sound of automobiles receding behind me

I flung my bag to the floor, it’s usual place-anywhere on the floor that is

Slumping to my bed, I started to tune off the loudest noises

I made it down to the smaller details eventually

The distant voice of a radio from the next compound

The blue birds chirping away their time on the branches

The occasional tips and taps of random sounds

Could she be behind those drapes that seem to be hiding more than the view?

I didn’t wait for the answer to that question

I peeled back the curtains and made my way to her

I followed the sun, and everything beautiful it had to show me

And I got to the clearest of waters, so true I could only think of one thing

I dove in and went as deep as I could

So deep that not even the sound of my thoughts could venture

I made it to hers

And she stood as she opened the door, just before I knocked

Clearly she was waiting for me

The delight in her face paralyzed me when I realized I didn’t bring her anything

I was not only paralyzed, I was lost

I couldn’t find the words I had rehearsed in the mirror

Yet she figured me out and swallowed all my doubts in one embrace

Then came the release

The usual letting go of things that only the two of us were used to

But you couldn't rule out the awkwardness as we made an effort to adjust 

Afro Kungfu

[This is one day I wish I was Ofilispeaks.com so I can get those cool graphics on my blog...]
I don't even know why I picked that title, it makes me think of a Chinese man with an afro haircut. When did you ever see that in the Chinese movies you've seen in your days? This may be overstating it, but I think almost everyone has seen a Chinese movie. And maybe 3 out of 5 of those have seen the ones with terrible synchronization. I won't complain about those ones if I were you, because there are still the ones that had the terrible translation in subtitles only, and in the worst cases they transcribe the wrong movie which makes it equivalent to the base level of watching Chinese movies, the ones with no translation.
If you have filtered down that funnel of Chinese movies, congratulations, you are now a certified movie junkie. Now that I have found my kind, let me announce the one commonality in this group, we don't care about their dialog. We are just waiting to see the Kung Fu moves. If the fighting moves were good enough, the movie was good enough. The fluttering kicks and the dazzling twisting and turning stunts, oh boy, who needed to hear what they were saying? The good guy would always kick everyone's ass, sometimes up to a hundred guys at a time. I often wondered why they all wait around and take turns to make a move at him, but the second he throws one foot to meet a flying kick and mid air he does a roundhouse kick to swat another guy swinging his sword at him in the opposite direction, I give up scrutinizing the logic and on he goes. This keeps happening until he meets the bad guy toward the end of the movie and pulls the magic move on him to send everyone to a happy ending.
While that is the typical narrative of the average Chinese Kung Fu movie, not all Kung Fu stories go that way. In Afro Kung Fu, an angry mother or father would smack their kid at the speed of light, leaving the poor kid disoriented until he makes sense of the pain inflicted and he fills the air with the sound of his cry. There was always that awkward silence after the first round of beating when the child is trying to figure out the appropriate response to the situation-they were torn between utter admiration of the fluency of the moves and the accurate response that will ensure that a second round was not on its  way. Either that or  the children are slow like the bad guys in the Chinese movies, not knowing when the wrath of Afro Kung Fu was going to descend on them or even when it has descended on them. The pain is usually the element of reasoning when this has happened. And in Afro Kung Fu, you will find the dialog as intriguing as the fighting beating moves. The angry parent will always start with an impossible question, like what were you thinking when you lost the pen? I mean, how do you really answer that kind of question well enough to avoid a beating? Like seriously, let us attempt it. I lost my pen in school, should it not occur to you that if I was conscious of the situation, I wouldn't loose it in the first place? The only real answer to that question is 'I was thinking of loosing it, then I had to figure out how to answer this question all at the same time, and prepare my mind for your next move, then it happened'.
I have to give it to the parents though, in the event that it is not the anger talking, their real goal in the dialog is to ensure the annihilation of stupidity while the kid's goal is to make sure that dialog continues long enough for the parent's phone to ring or a neighbor to come knocking on the door, anything that could save the situation. And therein lies his weakness, the hope that the beating will not come. They all seem to have that type of hope. That hope is similar to the hope that once the pain settles in, the ridiculous tribal cry they give out will save them. I often wonder if the parents were pouring all their frustrations in that violent release as well. I think of how and when they learned all those moves. What I'll love to see is their moves against those in the real Kung Fu movies, it seems only fair.
I did not grow up on the receiving end of those moves. And I am doing okay, as far as I can tell. I wonder if African parents can find an alternative to the Afro Kung Fu. But I strongly recommend Afro Kung Fu as a sport, not to be tried at home! Somehow I thought to write this because of my neighbor, that's right, I am ratting her out! She is always angry every time she talks to her son. He is simply a defenseless opponent whose only move is to ensure that his words and actions align with his mom's mood. The second he goes off, she goes off like a loose canon. I think of confronting her mildly sometime at my own risk, just so I understand why she deems it necessary to give the young boy a beating all the time. I can hear her voice pierce through the wall, sometimes about the mundane things that are best hashed out with a gentle instruction. Until then, I do not know if parents still need this form of discipline and if they do, then I beg that we balance the equation with an alternative to the main bad guy the Kung Fu movie stars face at the end of the movie. That should seem fair.

Dark boeld

I am still skeptical about posting this, but I'll go on with it anyway. It is the first song I am going to admit to fully writing and it came in a dream. Yeah, in a dream, whether you believe it or not. My concern with sharing this song is that even though it captures a reality I have been through, it doesn't represent anything I believe in.It is intended to be one of those black, acid rock songs, and I hope my music skills develop well enough for me to read it someday before I die... . Here goes..

Your light darkens my day

When I see your smile, gloom drowns my heart

You've chained me to your way

You started this fire that burns me from within

Oh, how can I escape

The best thing that turned my world to gray

My reflexes worn out

You make me loathe every inch of life

You have trapped me

You have made my essence sore

My inklings betray me

What I had was what you bore

And nothing can save me

Nothing can piece back what you tore

I have lost the last drop of blood

Only tears run through my veins now

Dust clouds and sulfuric winds 

Is all I have come to know

Salvation seems nearer

It comes in chariots of death

How can this be hope

When it brings more pain than I have ever seen

And how can this be love

When it messes everything I have ever enjoyed

It was all good at the beginning 

Life was beautiful as the sun

You started out slowly

Wiping the surface of me clean of innocence

Now I'm stuck in a pit

Constantly sinking in its mud floor

My spirit has been made poor

Lacking any virtues to hold on to

You have ensnared me

You have made my essence sore

My inklings betray me

What I had was what you bore

And nothing can save me

Nothing can piece back what you tore

I have lost the last drop of blood

Only tears run through my veins now

Dust clouds and sulfuric winds 

Is all I have come to know

Salvation seems nearer

It comes in chariots of death

How can this be hope

When it brings more pain than I have ever seen

And how can this be love

When it messes everything I have ever enjoyed

I just made this last part up... if you feel like this ever, i'll be happy to share how I came out of this.

Read at your own risk

I caught an impression, half an inkling it was, a little larger than a speck of thought.

No it was slightly bigger than a hunch, yes it must have been some ginormous idea, an astronomic epiphany maybe.

Okay, I exaggerate. My words were hitting the ceiling of the universe already. I have out-scaled the essence of measure itself.

I will be calm and remain so. I shall appeal to the quintessence of modesty now. Stay humble dear self.

In all honesty it would have been worth dismissing this thought in the first place. A fart could weigh more on a scale of sensibility. My mind could have been up to no good when I thought about it.

But the truth in all honesty is that I felt like I hit gold when it first came to me. And I felt my ego buffed in the afterthought. Yes it was certainly something of sorts that could as well amount to nothing.

I know I should probably stop swinging my psyche in opposing directions. I am fittingly aware of the effects of frictional thoughts. I should perhaps disclose this thought and leave the judgment of it to beings outside myself.

Therein lies the disappointment. I don’t remember the details of that thought. It was almost as if my mind spat it out the second it was spotted, refusing to be associated with anything that constituted its semblance.

Maybe it’ll come back in the next dream. Or the next fart, or the next spittle…who knows? And when it does, I’ll have the confidence to justify making you read all these words.

For now I've got nothing, and I’m not making any promises. Be kind and unread what I have written as true as they are. Let these words go to waste, make room for them in your trash can.

These words say a lot about me, I know. I stop some conversations as soon as I utter their opening lines. And it pisses people off sometimes. Yet I am not the one to apologize for who I am.

The only explanation to that is that some thoughts take flight before they crystallize in my head. They are short ropes that I have not found use for. My mind discards them but the trash can is somewhere in my head. And I think it mixes up with some pretty nice and beautiful thoughts I've had and messes them up in the process.

Why bother then? Why go all out and even write this and share it with people when most of the stuff I've written may not be shared with anyone ever... I should probably stop this right now...

The Ultimate Pursuit...

It was desire that brought me here, the foot of the greatest pursuit. Everything I relished made this navigation clearer.  At first I was seeking myself, until it all lead to the end of me. There my creator was waiting to tell me that the end of me was not the end of ends. There was more to behold if only I journeyed beyond myself.

He said to me in the proverbial thunderous voice, “I am with you”. No doubt that was the voice of truth because it carried with it an essence consistent with everything that has been tested to be true and wise. I might struggle with describing this essence but I perceptively consider it accurate and complete in its depiction as truth; not the expression but the essence itself, or maybe both but more of the latter. My emphasis on essence is not injudicious, neither is it immaterial. For the unique make-up of everything that is subject to principles recognize and communicate (without inhibition) with the truth. Whether its actions are considered consistent with what it identifies as truth is beside the point, but I digress.

It was in that truth that a realization crystallized in my faculties that the line extended to Him, just where the end of me became clear. My creator, my source, the giver of life was the one beyond me, right where I was brought to my end. Suddenly there was more to seek, more to desire, more to venture, more to me. How did I become conscious of all these things you ask? I’ll attempt the most sensible answer, but I have to warn that it is unswerving from my initial discourse.

I was made aware of all the quests possible to me and I was made to taste of all the rivers of desire. As I journeyed in desire, I was made all the more empty by it, plagued by the default insatiability of man. I was journeying with men who had not only exhausted their desires but had a weight of years on their shoulders. They said to me, “… the real thrill is in the intensity of the desire; what makes it worth it is what we give up in the pursuit”. It was almost as if there were two balancing sides that measured the worth of our desires. On one side is the constant memory of what was lost in the pursuit, an endearing spuriousness of regrets balanced by the delight of a gratified desire on the other side.

And so on I went along the streams of desire which led to a sea where all pleasures wind up, the fate of men’s desires. This place had men who had pursued and conquered holding their trophies high for all others to see. A place of glittering commonness where men are told by what they have sought and got, wished and acquired, craved and consumed, conceived and executed. This place seemed glaringly glorious at first glance but I looked again and found that though it was the biggest pursuit for those men, none of them wanted to stay there once they got there. That place was only as appealing as the aspiration for it. Men wanted more. Some thought that the ultimate pursuit would be ruling that place and by implication owning the trophies of all other men, yet there was no place for two kings.

I stopped there and searched myself again, hoping that I might come in contact with the true origin of all my desires. And there I gained some measure of clarity. Like most men I was mistaken, I had missed the fundamental direction in my pursuit. My mistake was that I needed more, wanted more than me but instead of looking beyond myself, I chased my own cravings. In all honesty, that was just filling a black hole with all I have, knowing fully well that I would not be satisfied without it being completely filled.

My only recourse is to seek more than myself. I need to pick the other end of the line and journey towards my creator. In this I have found the ultimate pursuit. For my Creator is an endless line. Even if I had forever to infinity and beyond to pursue the end of Him, I will not reach the end of that rope. There will be more to relish, more unending pleasures to explore. The best part is that I don't have to wait to reach the end of myself to pick up the other end of the line, and that is what I am doing now. Seeking God, delighting myself in Him and enjoying the endless pleasures made possible by His true nature as God.

RUBY GYANG PERFORMS ''7 SECONDS'' WITH YOUSSOUR NDOUR

This is one of the most surprising things that has happened to me this year. Just yesterday, I was surfing the internet, on a monday (don't judge me) and I came across a video of Dido performing 7 seconds with Youssour Ndour  at a Live 8 event (The biggest African artiste as of now-yeah, big deal!). I was thrilled beyond measure. This was at Hyde Park in London. As I just finished, I saw another video of ND and the amazing Neneh Cherry at Africa Live roll back Malaria event in Geneva. Tracy Chapman is on that list as well and permit me to add the most recent addition to that amazing list world changers- Ruby Gyang. She performed the same song with ND in Lagos at the Etisalat Price For Literature. It was such a delight to open the link she sent me on G+. Yes she was amazing, yes she killed it, now go watch the video for yourself!

Fish in the gutter!

Originally written August of 2013...date may not apply.

 

That said, I actually saw this live! Fish in a gutter. I am no gadget freak, I would have had the proper camera to give you a picture. As though that wasn't enough, I saw some guys fishing in the gutter in Lekki!!!! I kid you not! As I was passing by the road I saw them with fishing lines and there was this big open drainage they were dipping it in. And I know that out of the 160 million Nigerians there are, only about 5 fish for fun, 3 others that fish for their families only but the rest of them sell them to the rest of us. Unless you live in Nigeria, you won't understand why you need the best of luck in the next fish you eat, just in case you get chosen by the wrong fish (you know how the fish in the market on the tray gives you goo-goo eyes? Word of advice, do not give in next time.).

I first heard about  that there were 3 fish in our own gutter, and the last time I checked, the guard (aboki) ate 2 of them. Now I haven’t seen any fish in my own gutter but I have heard splashes in the night. I remember staking out to catch a glimpse of the weird ones once but after about 20mins of inhaling the gutter smell, I gave up on the lead.

Sometime last month while taking a shortcut out of my street, I saw schools of fishlings and fish swimming in a gutter nearby. They were hanging out in dozens according to their age I presumed, each in their own school grade. When I spoke to someone about it, he said that a lot of people fish in the gutters of Jakande as well. There’s a hazy memory in my head that could confirm that because I can’t quite remember at this point whether or not I saw them at Jakande or imagined those ones. I didn’t think much about it until I saw 3 more fish in a gutter by Lekki roundabout.

The most logical explanation to why that is possible is that the fish were carried in the ocean surge and previous floods. That could be the actual fish themselves or their eggs, you decide. I didn’t read up on this so feel free to look it up and challenge my notions.

This experience led me to write a book, my first. I have written a few, but I am guilty of uncompleted books written on my phone, my many journals or even my email draft. Their spirits often haunt me in my sleep. Hopefully this one will give me the confidence to finish the others so they can all rest in one piece. This book is about the important lessons that  I am learning as an entrepreneur and focuses on how I am able to adapt as an entrepreneur in Nigeria.

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