What Love is

It’s easy to like friends and develop a fancy for your peers. It’s also pretty easy to like those who root for you. They cheer you on and believe in you when the next turn isn’t very clear to you. They are worth liking, loving etc.

If you know the 30 keys to attracting the right partner, you probably know you should dress nice, act nice, be nice and then throw in some seduction. Get a hook. Make it large if you’re looking for a huge catch. Get your hook coated in your sedu-oil and place it where Big Fish is likely to make an appearance. If he/she bites, kablam! Congrats baby, you got a catch. Sometimes you undress your prize only to find out it was the smallest of fishes dressed in unending layers of armors of insecurity and low self-esteem.

Selfish desires aren’t signs of love. They are not. Reciprocating goodness is praiseworthy. If the entire world would simply do this our world would be unrecognizable. There won’t be Hitlers, Mussolinis and politicians. That’s enough to turn the world right side up. However, reciprocating isn’t even love. Love is so much more.

Love is the old father who although made mistake after mistake and doubted for years still became the father of many nations and the progenitor of the Jewish race. Love was what forgave his wrongs, smoothed them out and straightened him up. Then love gave him more than he could ever ask for. That is love. Love is the father reaching out to his young who had squandered a third of his wealth, kissing him, welcoming him and giving him an inheritance even before he apologized for the one he lost. Love waited out for him, forgave him before he asked, reinstated him without caring or asking questions of him. Love is Jesus in the midst of the Pharisees, the guilty adulteress before him. The shame was fresh in her eyes. She was caught in the very act of adultery. The verdict was death by stoning and she knew it. It was neither her first time nor a random act. It was her lifestyle. Love is Jesus is going beyond the Law. “Woman,” he said, “I do not condemn you. You are both innocent and free.” Love did not mind her lifestyle. Love gave her a chance. Love looked beyond what others saw and gave her what she sorely needed- hope and affirmation. Her life became a huge testimony.

Love is this: you are guilty of sin and wrongdoing and ought to be punished for it. But someone came along and paid the price for you. You weren’t good when he did it. You don’t need to be good for it to be true. He did it without paying attention to you. Love is the scene on the Day of Final Accounting. You ought to stand before the Judge but you won’t. Others who did what you did will jolly well go to hell but you won’t. Isn’t this unfair, you ask, that the Judge will let criminals go free and declare them innocent? No, it is not. It isn’t unfair, it is love.

Love is this: nothing is asked or required of you. Absolutely nothing! Love is free. And love isn’t about what you can do. It’s about what has been done for you. Love is the Gift God gave humanity. There was nothing bigger to give so He gave Himself- all of Himself.

This love doesn’t ask you to do. Don’t do, only believe.

Mesh

If you would ask me
Before glowing frangipanis
And this tittering fireplace
If you would ask me one last time
What love is
I will not point to tanned crumpled sheets
where this initiation was sealed
Or to crammed attics
and mementoes from that chance meet
Or remind you of countless shared
soft, quick whispers and
heady, intoxicating giggles
I will not speak anymore
Only clasp your hand forever
Without malice or fear

Love, lovers, loving etc

I know it’s not 14th February but love is not for 14th February alone. If you don’t see love in the air you really need to keep reading. If love is all you see, sister this is for you! Cos I see love in the clouds and in the horizons, all blue, red, pink and all the colors in between. I was motivated to do this because a special friend has found a special friend. Kudos to a brother who ain’t searching no more! As for me, it’s the season of specials and specialties. I’m excited for the finders, the found and the rest of us who still have big microscopes in their hands, eyes and ears!
Even if you’re not human you still like some humans. You fancy the way he walks, the way she talks and the way he calls love rove. You like the fact he calls Peter Feter and calls van ban. Relax if your head is already spinning and your heart weaving tunes out of tuneless melodies. You’re created to love and be loved. Even if it’s not the dude next door it’s gonna be someone somewhere someday. Maybe the blogger. Yes!
Does your heart warm uncontrollably even during cold draughts? Do you find yourself smiling uncharacteristically, giggling in the midst of a family reunion simply because you remembered that someone? Do you think you’re a little, tiny bit out of your mind? Do you envision the future and assign certain special roles to the someone? Do you doodle around with someone’s name when you should be balancing accounts? Are you foolishly happy, sentimentally unreasonable and out rightly silly yet proud to be so? Symptoms, symptoms, symptoms…
You smile at total strangers for no reason and interpret the fact that one alphabet in your name is also in her name as an important omen. Overnight you’ve become a sign reader. Everything is a good sign including the new car that just splashed muddy water on your best clothes. It’s a sign you’ll use a new car for your wedding. Did you also notice you both have red shirts? And that was what he was putting on that day you first saw him. Isn’t that such a cool sign? Congratulations!
You think you can spend every waking minute together and never get tired. I know it feels like nobody will ever understand or know what you feel. You feel you and that someone are the only special people on earth. And you wish nobody will interfere because nobody understands.  But it’s not entirely true. Only you can feel what you feel in the special way you feel it. However, chemistry isn’t unique to one person. Come on, it’s as common as salt and water- sodium-chloro-oxymoron! Don’t be sad because of it, be happy. It simply means you never walk alone!
Love is a beautiful thing. It makes superheroes of ordinary people and makes dwarfs of giants. Impossibilities seem distant and its boundaries undefined – drastically robbed of aura. Reality becomes a blur and your new “lovingness” gives you fresh lenses with which you see the world. Welcome to idealism my fellow crazy idealist- now you believe you can do just about anything. Old loyalties seem less powerful, less needful and less compelling. Weaknesses are wished away or out rightly overlooked. You sincerely believe you will write the world a love story that will make Romeo and Juliet suffocate with jealousy in their literary graves. From my heart I congratulate you.
Every journey has a starting point. It’s a good thing you’ve started. Now you need to remember that heart and head aren’t enemies. They are friends. Love isn’t stupid. Love is sacrificial and sacrifices aren’t stupid things. They are products of whole, sensible heads and hearts. Don’t major on your feelings and forget your heart. Don’t limit yourself to externals. Love comes in different packages. The best came in a cattle’s hay box on one Middle Eastern night two millennia ago. Yours has come in a special package. Don’t neglect that package and its content. Now that you feel on top of the world you have the benefit of the feeling to get yourself there. Now that you feel Shakespeare was a learner use your motivation to get yourself beyond the feelings to the act of showing love. Let those feelings propel you beyond feelings. You and special someone owe yourselves that little.
Love is not really a feeling. Feelings are symptoms, good symptoms I must add. There is so much more. And the so much more is better that those goody-goody feelings. Love is a trust, a sacrificial trust. Love is not blind. It is rather choosing to see with the eyes of faith rather than the eyes of doubt and condemnation. Love is sacrificing because you trust, not because the other party is worth all the trouble. Loving is knowing the other party is actually worth more than the trouble although he/she really isn’t. It is giving all when you haven’t received all and beating the drums of one who is too beaten to beat those drums. Love is choosing to believe when there is nothing to believe. It is giving yourself because there is nothing more, nothing better to give. Love is beauty, wonder, perfect and everything else in between.
Now, who wanna show some love? Don’t even hesitate.

Twinkling Tiny Star

You’ve stayed so long in the dark and you’re totally fed up. You really want to find the way out. Moving around the dark feels like wading against the currents of an angry river. Its hands stretch, clutch your feet, cover your eyes and hold your neck. Your feet are immobile, your eyes blind and your voice lost. Then it lays hold on your heart and pours over it waves and waves of fear till you think your heart will drown in your belly. Your chest constricts before racing off, panting like an exhausted locomotive. The dark is lent a strong voice because of the fear it commands– an unreasonable, overpowering fear. You feel at a loss because you have lost use of your most trusted sense- sight.
But you haven’t lost your best sense- your sense of head and heart. If you will pay attention to them you will transcend the fear. You will see that the hands of dark are guides for you. There is no grip on your neck, only a friendly hold on your shoulders. Don’t move against the river. It wants to take you home.
Night is when you’re all broken like Humpty. Waiting for the king’s men and their horses is using night wrongly. You’re going to be disappointed. Use night wisely like the third Humpty. Dream up ways to get back up. Look out like Humpty did and see the lone twinkler in the sky. Although his parents had deserted him and his light seemed too little to light any traveler’s tired path and although there was no thunder for his siren, he kept on shining- solitary dimple in sky. Humpty saw him and found a friend. Then he got up and joined the waltz in the sky.

Twinkling tiny star
Lone emperor of the skies
Long was my search
Aches and break hearts thus far
Was it a cloud covered your eyes?
Bemused tiny star, smile in his words
It was you, child, that was lost
That scoured the grounds rather than the canopy
Child, night has no clouds
I have always been where I ought

The star’s first sighting is to me like the cockerel’s first siren long before dawn. Day may yet be a long way off and the Sun just setting off for his journey to the East, but now I’m sure they will both be here. I will dream while I wait and wait while I dream. I will now continue my journey with mended Humpty. Now that we have seen the solitary light in the canopy, let the sun meet us along the way.

I, I have found a star to hold
A precious gem to keep
Creamy bowl of helium-sulphide
I have found a star
A fellow lone walker
I have found
Light for the music
Twinkles for the dance

Dots

As little as dots are, a good number of them will form any alphabet when properly arranged. That is why I know that little is all I need to become big.
It’s okay to be little. It’s also enough to be little. Little is all you need be. When you’re little enough you can do just about anything. The alphabet “A” is too big to form the alphabet “I” but about 5 dots stacked on each other are enough to do the trick.
Your problem isn’t that you have a little jar of oil. It’s rather that you haven’t learnt to use the little you have. Those who have large oil cauldrons all started off with little jars. They learnt to grow their little jars. Jars could very well be seeds. Plant them in whatever kind of good soil you have and the result will amaze you.
Honestly, most of us live caged in prisons. These prisons are walled by self-pity, doubt, fear, inferiority complex and a mediocre mindset. The worst feature of these prisons is that they are self built and self inflicted. It doesn’t make sense to jail yourself. You’re both the jailer and the prisoner. Both of yourselves are in uniforms. None of yourselves is free. Come on!
These prisons are the reason the guy with little, which is actually more than enough, thinks he's handicapped. That is absolute nonsense. Don't be your own funeral dirge singer. You can choose to be your own best friend. Choose to too. Can you laugh? You're a star. Can you sneeze? You're made! Can you eat? Come on, you're already sky high. You don't need to know how to code. You mustn't even know what it means to code. All you need do is take the little you have and sow it. Invest it by growing it and using it to help others. That's all you need to do. Develop your laugh capacity. Develop your sneeze ability. And use it to help others. Just sneeze free for someone.
The world only needs one of you. And the world really needs one of you. Poor, little you is enough for the world. So, shake off the dust from your nose and wipe the tears in your frown. Little is more than enough if it is a seed. Every seed is more than a forest. Don't bottle your seed up and still stand guard over it.
Something else, prisons are mind games. Nobody can imprison you. You alone have the power to do that. Left to you what choice would you make? Think about it. Won't you rather be free? - free to be little and to grow big? Won't you rather be free to walk open spaces and sunny beaches? Won't you rather be free to make right choices? When options are eliminated before the start of the test we become impartial. And we're way too impartial to ourselves. We set the test, eliminate the right options and then of course we decide we have failed.
I'd rather be free to start little. I'd rather be free to choose. I'd rather be free to sow little seeds and watch them, maybe slowly, mature to huge forests. Connect those little dots...

Scripts and Bridges

London Bridge is falling and I don’t know what to do about it. Scratch that. London Bridge is going to fall. Still I don’t know what to do about it. I could keep standing here or I could take a dive and still end up in the water. Either way I’ll end up in the water. And I don’t like getting wet.
How hard does making a decision get when you have to make the choices that matter: I do or not; red or turquoise; Jesus or no? When the heights above and the depths below seem so merged there isn’t any obvious difference, what will I choose?
My calculations tell me the Bridge will be down soon. Wrinkles are starting to appear prominently on its face. Though I won’t admit it to anyone else I know I am resident on a sinking ship. My heart is literally in my mouth and I’m too downcast to take a step.
Some ignorant person will tell me there is third option: simply step off the bridge on to dry land. What foolishness! Nobody will understand what I’m facing. I’ve been on this Bridge for way too long and I really want this Bridge to stand. It’ll shut my critics up. They will know I was always right and they was (sic) always wrong. That’ll show them who the boss really is. And while I’ve held on for so long it doesn’t make sense to give up now. I’m attached to the Bridge. Why won’t anyone understand? How could I leave? The mere thought is such a burden I haven’t thought of it.
What’s more, there are people like me still on the Bridge. We know it will fall and we’ll end up in the chilling Thames. Some of the weak among us have taken a dive instead. Good riddance, I say. They are too proud to go down with the Bridge and too weak to leave it. Funny lot! I can take comfort in staying with those intent on staying put.
The ones I really admire are those who have the courage to admit the Bridge was a mistake all along, the spine to step out of it and the smiles to survive the days following this adventure. I wish I could be like them but I just can’t. Don’t tell me I can. You don’t understand. You also won’t understand. I can’t.
When choices hit you like a sandstorm and you feel too overwhelmed to think is when you ought to think. That is really when to put the cards on the table and analyze them properly. Snakes and ladders litter the path. Many will walk into the path of the snake because they are too attached to the status quo to take a different path. Scripts are guides not laws. Tradition and religion are scripts. Don’t be scripted.
Because I’m going down with this Bridge I wrote this to you. Don’t go down with the Bridge. If you won’t make mistakes then you’re a bigger fool than you imagine. Walk away from your mistakes. Learn, unlearn and relearn. Step into the sunshine, away from this falling Bridge you once or twice called home.

Thinkers' Corner

Ever the idealist, I believe there is an inherent good in creation. I believe creation is more than I can see and can do more than I think. Ever the idealist, I believe we can make our world a prettier place if we dare try. Ever the idealist, I believe it’s not such a difficult thing to smile, especially when you are really pissed off. After all, what does a smile cost?
Why then is it that the world appears to be getting worse and people seem to be always complicating matters? Why don’t we ever get to that beautiful land of Far-Far Away? Like Donkey in the Shrek series we keep asking, “Are we there yet?”, and the answer is always in the negative.
The answer would depend on who you ask. Ask a religious guru and he’ll tell you it’s because men have lost taste for religion. Then he’ll probably cite data about the decrease in the number of people in places of worship and the proportional increase in social gathering attendants. Ask an adherent of the African Traditional Religion and he’ll tell you it’s the fault of western religions. He’ll tell you how there was more brotherly love before the advent of western religion.
A politician will tell you it’s because the country preferred the other guy’s more ridiculous lies to his own and the academic will tell you it’s the fault of the elite. The elite will refer to the uneducated but fortunately rich, the educated but unfortunately rich and the godlike West- Europe and America and some Asia.
Always the problem is out there. It’s either in someone else’s attitude, character or ideology. Few people would admit they are intricately related to the problem. About the same few would ever admit their group has a relationship with the problem.
Happily, I’m not about to give you the answer to the problem. Answers aren’t always answers. When we see the real answers we will accept them if we are ready to. I’m going to bore you for the next minute or so with my own analysis of the “ones” who are the reason Bill Gates is still richer than you are despite your sacrifice of hundreds of pigeons and snail bellies at holy intersections.
I consider that as a people we are usually too pragmatic to wonder. I also think we’re too pragmatic to think. We aren’t awed by wonders because we don’t think we can make do with the energy necessary for such awe. It takes an intelligent mind to feel and feel deeply. Then it takes a more intelligent mind to place his intelligent feelings beside his intelligent thoughts and weigh them carefully. Many like me are too busy to do that. You think it’s easy to feel? That’s because you’ve limited yourself to certain basic emotions. That’s also you probably don’t think much about your feelings. You rather act on them.
Because we can’t afford to feel correctly we can’t also afford to think correctly. We would rather guess than feel or think. Thinking takes too much energy. Anything that seems about to break through the bunds of our most hallowed laxity is deemed difficult and unnecessary. When people refuse to think and think well mediocrity will take the place of excellence and nobody would even notice. Doesn’t that describe politics?
Sometimes we try to portray the head and heart as opposites. We tell people to follow their heart as if that means they should neglect their heads. We differentiate between people who live by their heads and those who live by their hearts. We ought to differentiate well. Head and heart aren’t opposites. They are complementary.
Following your heart isn’t relegating your head to third division. It is subjecting your heart to the scrutiny of your head rather than totally disregarding your heart. It’s easy to classify foolishness as following your heart. Your heart isn’t foolish otherwise it will stop beating one day and you’ll die unceremoniously. It takes a thinker to feel correctly and use his feelings wisely. Maybe I’ll share some thoughts on that some other time. For today, just introduce yourself to your brain and your imagination. Get to know them. Just think. Don’t worry or daydream. Just think, feel, wonder and think again.

Drums on Exit

Now that the drums have retired and the songs have left out mouths, what shall we do? We prepared our dance for the arena. But the drums would not let us. They beat a different tune. And we could not dance to it. We opened our mouths to sing but the songs we prepared left us and came out as they pleased: in starts, stops and dissociated rhythms.
Franctically, we tried to make the songs come out right and hoped the drums would follow suit. But try as we might they refused. The drums continued their tune and the songs their dissociated rhythms. Then we tried to follow the songs and dance to the tune of the drums. But the song started changing song and the drums kept changing beat and tempo. We found that when our mouths opened to sing the next line the songsong would cease the singing and our legs would still be going up when the drums would abruptly cease. Our struggle to adapt became more awkward than our initial confusion.
And while we were still struggling to dance the dance of the drums and sing to the music of the song, the song and drum ceased. Then they left us standing naked before the gaping crowd and walked away into the bend of the sky. The mother drum led them from behind. While the song and drums were walking away the dance also left us and joined them.
We looked, tearful and fearful, at the teeming crowd who were yet to find out where the music they came to see had gone. We knew they would all leave and we would be left totally alone.
When the music fades, make your own songs. This my friend has the belly of an antelope- the best of drum skins. The other has hands as long and limber as cane from the iroko. We will have his hand for drumsticks and my friend the antelope belly for the mother drum. With some of our mouths drawn into O's we will have ogenes. And although song has left us, we will sing to the melodies of our hearts. And while we have our friends for drum, ogene and song, those of us left will take our stand in the middle of the arena and dance the dance that we carry within.
Now that the drum and song that should have been melody for the dance have all left you, you can either stand and weep or do as my friends and I did. And don't think we were fortunate. You also have friends with the antelope bellies, drumstick hands and canoe heads.
Sing your song, hit your tune, create your dance. When nothing is left and everything is lost, create something out of nothing. What you've lost can never be greater than what you have. When you lose a lot you have a lot of opportunities to succeed a lot. When nobody is cheering you can cheer yourself the loudest. After all, you have friends with the hands of a cymbal.

Minstrel

Twilight. Whites are darkening as the sun recedes beneath the shadow of soft flowers and tender thorn brushes. And you see night coming. And you feel night will in a little while be here with you. You feel its pervading grossness and overwhelming solitude.
Twilight. And you can tell night will come. The foreboding grips you like a hook to the silky neck of tonight’s dinner fish. The light is fainter than the darkest shades of a forgotten memory. You touch the receding hem of its garments, wistfully longing for more.
Twilight. Your face is drawn out, punctuated by lengthy chords. The sadness seeps in, its fangs wickedly gripping the vesicles that are called heart. The pain is biting, raw and wicked. You want to hold the noon a little bit longer but night is here as an offering for you- priest of the high lands and low marshes. Night is dressed like your sacrificial lamb in garbs of yellow, blue and orange, a willing sacrifice.
Twilight. The sound of the ogene resonates above the call of these African nights- chirpy butterflies and chirrupy hardwoods. Singer of song, take up your ukulele and dust the strings. Make your way to the sand patch closest to the night sky. Take a stone for your concert chair. Then strum and strum. Songs of night, singer of night, make for magical symphonies. Remember the moonlight dance in your native land, how the udu and ogene walk hand in hand to the broadside of the clearing bearing in their arms that dance you have searched for so long. That dance that is happily long on character and short on suspicion.
Twilight. Singer of song, twilight is your muse. And night is your habit. Take the offering willingly. On the altar of your sacrifice, let night be the offering for your songs. Singer of song, be thankful for the night. Be thankful for waning light and spent oil.

When the Oil is Spent

When the streams seem all clogged up and the water fountains are stopped, the beauty of the city seems suspended and happiness has taken a harsh holiday. When the oil is scratched, the light seems drawn away from the day and the brightness from the night. You look endlessly at the empty sheets before you totally reflective of the state of your brain at the instant. You look into the future and the lines seem drawn out of focus. Periods are replaced by commas and question marks and exclamation marks seem an endangered species.
When the oil is low the future is not dark. It is outright blank and any activity seems a surprise. When the oil is low gravity is suspended and movement modulated backwards. Slow motion becomes too fast and snails assume superhuman speed.
When the oil is low the problem isn't that there is no visible light at the end of the tunnel. It is that the tunnel doesn't seem to have an end and that even if it does you don't know what way it is in. When the oil is low there is no laughter in your secret place. Gone are the days of speaking to yourself in unintelligible speech and laughing at the foolishness of closing your eyes and assuming you'll sleep.
If the day comes when you find your laughter has been plucked out of your mouth before it had time to ripen and your smile is replaced by the incredible morose beauty of zombies, then perhaps you think you need some oil. Maybe you find you've lost your art. You wield the pen for hours and nothing seems forthcoming. The fountains seem locked from an inner room whose lock you never got to find its combination. The days of animalistic eureka and bursts of wild light seem so far away, so inaccessible.
When the laughter is stopped and creativity has taken an annoying nap, look up and start another round of laughter. A paroxysmal display of the greatest quality. When the oil is low you can finally dispense with oil and switch over to water powered engines. Sing about the lack of oil. When oil is lacking you can have all the water you want. Get up. Fountains are evergreen. When the oil seems spent, turn the knob higher and let it carry you all dressed up to the famous clearing for kindred spirits. Thank God for sunsets and spent oil. If not for them we would lose the lacerating colors of the moon and the daily twinkle of Pluto's smallest stars.

Culture

Is simply defined as what you see. And what you see is determined by the kind of lenses you wear. Wear a sunshade and the world looks all cool and dreamy. Try iron glasses and you’re in for the best lesson on conductors and their effects on vital organs. Now substitute your iron glasses for a microscope. Congrats, you just got hit by a car at the next intersection. Your microscope ensured you saw microscopic figures in a macroscopic world. That’s not too bad a feat except for the consideration that you don’t need to dodge germs and bacteria while crossing busy express ways. All you need is have glasses good enough to see large cars and the larger trucks that follow them and have the little sense to step to the right when a car or truck is coming towards the right (for real).
So, what kind of lenses have you got on? What colors your view of the world? Look in the mirror. What do you see? Wrinkles, tissues, lines, purpose? What’s the first thing you see when you wake up in the morning? What do you see when you look out the window? Hazy, foggy, sunshine or moonshine?
Culture is all about spectacles and glasses (again, for real). What you see and interpret in life is dependent on the color of the lenses you wear. Still think I am speaking in parables? Well that goes to show you aren’t wearing my spectacles. Or glasses. Your brain works with the blueprint you’ve fed it. That blueprint is the Operating System. It will determine how your brain will interpret the pictures it sees and even what pictures it can or cannot see. Your OS is the kind of spectacle you’ve got on. Congrats!
What do you see? What color is your sunrise? Gloomy or promising? More importantly, what colors are the hours after sunrise? What color is your sunset? Will you fade without music, sound and light into the void around the bend? Or will you go out like me, all glittering red into the partying arms of the pretty, twinkling stars?

Painting Skies

Africans are a very straightforward lot. No matter that we use proverbs that tend to skirt issues on and on before addressing them. We're still very direct and straight to the point. Do you want proof? Consider our dressing before the coming of the Europeans. It wasn't the lack of technology that kept it only devoted to dealing with necessities. No time was wasted on bonnets, tie ups and tie downs. Hidden things were hidden and that was that.
More proof? When was the last time you gave or received a flower as a gift? Maybe it's not been too long ago but that's because you've been an ardent disciple of Hollywood and Disneyland from your days of sojourn in nappies. I forgot to add Nollywood. How creative- an African giving his wife grass for her birthday! What is she supposed to do with them? Cook soup or simply sniff and smell? After perceiving the scent, odor or aroma, what next?
We are a pragmatic lot. But maybe, just maybe, we're too pragmatic. We've relegated, not lost, our sense of wonder and beauty. We think too often in terms of use and monetary value. We hear art and we think of beautiful portraits of famous people. When we see art we wonder aloud why an ordinary drawing should sell for millions of dollars when it's not even fine.
We don't keep things because they are old or have been in the family. We keep things that have value or are useful. Pets are kept to be useful, not for their intrinsic values. We build our houses and structures to be useful. Beauty isn't top on our agenda and wonder is usually absolutely missing from the menu.
While I am neither castigating our culture and value system nor advocating that we throw it away and get another, I still think it's healthy to pause, breathe easy and wonder. I think it's okay to want to create wonders that will appeal to the heart even if they don't appeal to our sense of use. Art must not be fine, literature must not be lyrical, science must not be practical and technology must not be useful. I think it's okay to let ourselves create wonders even when we don't know what they will be used for.
Because of endemic poverty we usually seem primarily concerned with how much money any new venture will generate. Even God has become a tool. It is okay to do things that will stir the heart. The heart is both a better friend and a more useful tool than the pocket. It's okay to love and act because of love, even when the results seem farfetched. We don't need beautiful sunrises and pretty sunsets. The sun need not go out in grand style. You don't need all the stars in the night sky. The twinkling of the stars isn't also a necessity. Too much paint was spent on the skies. Too much time was spent drawing funny and lopsided figures with the clouds. You don't need the beauty of flowers (yes, flowers). The mountains need not be so finely cut and chiseled. God may have taken a degree in fine arts. The leopard could make do with less spots and the time used to paint his spots on would have been used for other things. And then there are the changing pictures in the clouds that look different whenever you look at them. Mountains look like wrestlers and forests look like open chests. There is an enigmatic beauty in creation that doesn't cater to your needs. This beauty does not have much practical use. It just serves to keep your face smiling and your heart mesmerized. That's the word. We tend to forget too quickly how to be mesmerized, just like little kids.
Paint your skies excessively. Slow down, breathe easy and wonder. Then create wonders.

Time is Not A Healer

You’ve probably heard or even said that a particular situation will get better with time. You might also have been told, if you’ve been fortunate enough to have had your heat broken, that time heals wounds. I’ve said it myself on a couple of occasions. We hear maxims that tell us time is a great healer and that time solves problems. I wish it were true.
Time is neither a healer nor a problem solver. No wound gets healed because of time alone. That is simply because time is not a force. Time cannot do work. Time will also not do work. Time will allow you do work. Time itself will not do the work. Time is an opportunity for everybody to live. It is one of the foundations of our existence on earth. We know our world as it is because of time.
If you have any healing to do then start getting it done. Pick the pieces of your broken heart up and apply a healthy dose of super glue or top gum. Leave it out to dry and before long you’ll have your heart all patched up and ready for more breaking. Don’t leave anything to time. You’ll be sorely disappointed. Tomorrow will only be better if today lays a good foundation for her. Don’t say time will tell. Time does not have a mouth. It doesn’t gossip.
Newton was such a genius. He told us that force is the only thing that changes inertia. Force will either make you start or stop moving. Time will not do it because time is not a force. Pretty clear, isn’t it? I would say it is. So, get a move on. Stop if you need to. Your journey and destination are dependent on you not on the passage of time.
One of the best lessons I’ve learnt is that nothing moves until somebody or something moves it. My coaches taught me that long before Newton did. They showed me time isn’t a force long before Physics told me the same thing. They told me to hit the road and to hit it in grand style. You could spend ages on Antarctica and you’ll remain there, probably grow some mushrooms on your head as you get older. Someone else will spend those ages trekking and after a generation spent changing worn soles and drinking tons and tons of water, escaping wild beasts and sleeping in unfriendly caves, that someone will get to the North Pole wearing a semblance of clothes, balancing on an ugly stick and smiling with whatever if left of his/her/its teeth. Time didn’t do it. Worn soles and lots of food and many other things did. Simply, time will not change your position in space. That is solely your responsibility or the responsibility of any meteorite you’re fortunate enough to remain in its path. Your speed notwithstanding, start walking and keep walking till you get to the North Pole, Antarctica or whatever your destination is.
Get a move on or hitch your belt hooks to a moving locomotive. Either case will ensure you’re on the move and that you wear out some shoes in the process. Isn’t that great? It’s good news that you don’t have to depend on time to sort out your feelings for you. Who knows how long time will take? Time might not even like you and would therefore decide to leave you in your misery. How awful! Good news! Your healing is your responsibility as is your prosperity, poverty and family size (imagine time determining how many kids you’ll have). You choose what to make out of your life. Choose where to go and get a move on. Don’t carry the victim mentality. Take responsibility and be a verb- a doing person.
Me, I'd rather be free, free to walk and fail, free to be right and to be wrong, free to choose when to be still and when to be a-moving. I'd rather be free to choose my life than be bound to a self confined prison.