AISTHANOMAI, NOUS (e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0)

“This is one of those things that scarred me as a child. It’s one of the reasons that I am so awkward and socially inept: I didn’t have a small gate. Growing up our house had just one large gate because my dad thought that multiple exits for a house were unnecessary, all you needed was an entrance that would serve as an exit.”

 

“I remember when I was really young, I would go over to my friends’, ring the doorbell and then someone would peer through an opening in the small gate. After a short exchange, they would let me in. The small metal rectangle, whose color varied from house to house, would creep open and then I would walk through that narrow hole in the concrete knowing that it was just for me.”

 

“When friends came over to mine however, it was a different story. I would hear the doorbell and then my thin and awkward legs would carry me to the gate. As I lifted the heavy metal padlock and attempted to move the massive steel gate my friends would exclaim:  ‘Ah, who do you think is coming, it’s not a car o!, it’s a child. Why are you opening this big gate?’ They would later realize that this gate was the only entrance into the house. When the consternation abated the crevices of their faces, they would walk in through the enormous opening.”

 

“Someday, when you come by my house and see the small gate with the doorbell next to it, know that I have made it. I have achieved one of the major longings of my childhood I have done it and no child in my household would ever have to face the ordeal of lifting some heavy gate. Know that that hole in the center of my soul will be filled with the joy and satisfaction of my small gate.”

Many people have had strong sentiments about the delays they were unable to control. Airline companies and some travelers were agitated by the interruption to their schedules; others gladly took advantage of the opportunity for an extended vacation. For some Icelandic citizens, the opportunity to witness such an impressive geologic event was a welcome distraction from the nation’s economic woes—at least temporarily. 

So a volcano erupts and you know what our reactions are:

“Gosh! I really needed to catch that flight.”

“Damnit that’s such an inconvenience, I had a meeting.”

“Why the hell are these guys grounding all flights, do they have any idea how important this meeting is?”

I’m reflecting on how rational realistic all this is… the beauty of real-time and bosons

Makes me think about how de-sensitized we’ve become to the fact that we CAN’T control everything!

It was a beautiful sight. And yes it disrupted some very important agendas but seriously, when you think about it… it couldn’t wait and clearly we could and perhaps, should.

Maya Angelou is one of those writers that makes me think, I’m going to have to create something so beautiful too. She’s the poet that made me think, poetry is THE art afterall.

I love this poem because it speaks to me of freedom in the most powerful and yet subtle way. It speaks to the heart like serotonin does to chemical synapses…

I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings

“But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.”

“The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.”

- Maya Angelou

What is the relationship between Pan-Africanism, development of one’s country and continent and oneself?

As much as Pan-Africanism appears a wonderfully idealistic and abstract concept, it is meaningful. We talk about “One Africa,” and I’m sure we’re not the first set of people crying Pan-African!! But perhaps because we are innately selfish, we need to take the selflessness out of that claim.

So no more we: I’m not asking that you care about this continent, hopefully that will come later. I’m not asking that you try to make it better, at least not directly. I’m not asking for a “Pan” or an “Inter” or whatever else connotes “we”, I’m asking that you and me, not “we” make our own paradise. Although this can be about all of us and one day it might be, I’m here asking that you think primarily about yourself.

I want to ask you what your life is like now? Why is it that way? What is your life like now? What are you doing for yourself? What does your job and the other things you do, contribute to you as a person? What does your life now, contribute to your life tomorrow? How wealthy are you, and I don’t mean this monetarily? How wealthy are you, and I mean that how much do you have that you can give and how relevant is it? What are you worth to those around you? What are you worth to those beyond you? What are you worth to those beneath you? What are you worth to you? I must ask all of you what makes you relevant? How have you changed the world you came to meet? Who have you inspired?

And if you are inclined to wonder what all this has to do with your selfish desires? Someday you’re going to look back and ask yourself these questions. Your answers will determine how satisfied you are at the end of it all. So in that regard, I’ll tell you now that whether you are 30, 40, 50 or 60, time hasn’t ran out yet. And by that I mean you do not have an excuse. I am looking at your generation and it is human nature to judge.

Specifically to my peers, I’ll ask the same question, what is your life like today? Who makes it possible? Do you think that it’s going to be the same a decade from now? Or your plan is for it to be different? Well Whatever and Wherever the case let me just say that wherever you go except where you belong, you will always be the outsider, mo matter how long you remain there, no matter what your new passport says.

This is about you and me, today and tomorrow as well. Later we might need the we, but for now you need to come back to your home and make it. Unless you are content with being a big fish in the little pond that is America, come back home and really try to swim with the sharks. You need to come back and establish yourself. You need to go back home and make sure that you own the big business not some Lebanese or Chinese family. Right now no one needs you to come and heal the world, or Africa. You are being asked to come back and fight for yourself, to make yourself, a big fish in a very huge pond. Most of us have only about 50 years of post-independence history, there’s so much room for your name. The streets have not all been named yet, you could get your name on them. There is no real big business because it has your name, not Africa or Pan-African on it.  No one is asking you to come back and hold hands as we sing peace songs, we’d love to but you don’t have to. I am asking that you come back and till your own soil, stop going back to toil on the soil where your forefathers were enslaved or does the slave only know the route to his master’s house? Come and till your own soil! Come and spend your money here, come and build your empire here. We’re even more respectful of tradition, we’ll remember you longer. I want you to immortalize your name when it is still possible to do so.

This is not about we, it’s about me and you. It’s about what makes it worth it for you. It’s about not going back to voluntarily slave where you were once forcefully enslaved. Africa may have done nothing for you and so you feel no need to do for her, but since when did any African become shy to put pepper in any one’s eye. Come back and show us why we should have supported you. Come back and show us.

“Do not willingly make yourself what you were made unwillingly”

Obama may have distinguished himself as a Kenyan and Black American.  But he has merely attained the highest office of service in another man’s country. He has reached the highest office of enslavement, and it is not even for his own people. I’m not criticizing him, I don’t think I have the right to. All I am saying is this:

Let us suppose you owe Africa nothing and Africa owes you nothing. What you cannot deny is that you owe yourself a great deal. You owe your person greatness. And greatness like charity begins at home.

Tiger with a Crimson heart
Nay Crimson neither novel nor art
Coursing blood –ubiquitous
Yet striped and healed, remarkably us

When we engineer the Country of our dreams, we envision a country, a habitat where man is free and at peace. A Country that represents a part of a whole, an epitome of the continent of Africa’s success.

In the Country of our dreams the child is like a diamond, treated with utmost love and significance, the youth are comparable to an energy source (say oil) whose contributions are acknowledged as unrivalled and inimitable, critical to the success of our nation, and finally in the elders, analogous to refined gold; a display of the royalty of our nature, the radiance of our exquisiteness and the immense value of our people.

In the Country of our dreams each man works to achieve for the nation’s good. Our leaders are blessed with the understanding that leadership is in essence service and our people comprehend that a government is empowered only by the people. In so that each lives knowing that as he walks and works, he treads on chords that vibrate for all eternity affecting the future of not only his progeny but the children of many to come.

In this Country we have order; we keep to time, make appointments and plan ahead. We have the acuity to look at both long-term and short term benefits. A place where a man is his word and his value is in his work. A place with a system of law, order and accountability, where society’s elite and working class have access to the same definition of justice, with a system of legislation that looks out for the common man and a judicial system that stands independent enough to effectively preserve all of his rights.

It is a Country where we have educated, enlightened and open-minded adults whose lot does not rest on ’government’ but is earned on the merit of their own hard work. It is a place where national pride is not while-a-soccer-match but where our anthem is etched into the core of our very hearts. A country like ours can be rich in culture and rich in money, because our Country is not limited to the American definition but is indeed the sort of wealthy that is displayed on the African child’s face, as a smile emerges not because he can finally dream of eating something (dear God anything!) after three days, but because he is aware that years ago that may have been his reality.

The Country of our dreams provides fertile soil for its youth to imbibe the art of excellence, hence a verdant nation. Here, the child has a voice, a powerful one at that, trained and refined by the virtues of our culture. He has keenness and aptitude enhanced by education coupled with the blessing of youthfulness. Development means that this child has access to a holistic education that covers principles, ethics and academics; values of honesty, integrity and passion for one’s work. We seek a student whose quest is for enlightenment so that he can put it to use.

In our Country, labor is fruitful, for on the harvest ground we each have sufficient bundles. It is a beautiful thing to see each of us rejoicing because we have conquered the world without selling our souls or the beauty of our heritage.

It is a Country that reaches out to those in need because it can afford to and genuinely wants to.

People will always complain but in this Country while we complain we know that we have much to be thankful for and even while we’re complaining we’re back to the drawing board because we are aware it is our responsibility to make things better.

Last night it did not rain. It is December. It is the Harmattan. It did not rain. It is very hot today and I cannot go out because the sand flies bite rather cruelly. My legs are itching and I am inside the hot and small parlour. I have been here for about a week.

When I spoke to them three days ago they asked me what I thought about the weather. I said it was fine. It had not been anything out of the ordinary, nothing to ask about. In fact it was quite strange that they asked, it was like something from an English movie, or a joke an adult or socially awkward teenager tells about English folk. My friend remarked that the Nigerian national anthem was rather British sounding, maybe the similarities were far more wide-reaching than I thought. Still I ignored it; the weather was fine I said, as I rose to turn up the thermostat in my hotel room. I looked out, it was a fairly sunny day but still the Harmattan had displayed none of its colors. We talked about other things, and I decided to visit the following day. 

The weather was ridiculous! It is ridiculous now as I write. It is so hot. It was ridiculous in their house and pools of sweats swam across my pimpled forehead as I waved my hands frantically bemused that I was before the Akiyama fan. It is hot now and as sure as ogujejijeji clears the stomach the fan is on and I have stripped most of the fancy clothes I am wearing. These earrings are quite long and I am worried that the sweat may discolor them. They were a gift from a friend, quite appropriate indeed since my last pair of gold earrings were discolouring. I was not sure about the reason for the discoloration because they were barely a few months old. I liked these new earrings. I could hardly call them new, I had received another new pair, purple and silver ones that could match the many purple outfits I had acquired over the summer. I have taken the earrings off and I must admit I feel less hot than I did before. My head turns easier now, but I looked so beautiful in them. When I get back into the Camry I will put them back on and then as I stare out into the rising Lagos skyline I will look beautiful once more. 

But really this weather does not allow one do anything much. There is a banking crisis here and over two thousand people have been laid off from one institution the week before Christmas. Happy Holidays? It is the white man’s holiday but they have shared with us; they keep Santa Claus and we keep Father Christmas. Jesus Christ came to save us all. And there are dead chickens to show for it. 
I used to know a lot about Nigeria, when I visited the cousins in the much less glamorous parts of Lagos. Maybe those too have changed with this wonderful new governor. But then I saw Lagos. I bought water at 10 naira not the 500 that sits on my lunch bill twice each day. This heat is disorienting but I suppose not more so than the daily 25000 naira fee for my meals. I am little sick of the shine nose fish. Efo rero is slightly enjoyable but ogbono soup is still my favorite it seems. The sand flies must be in a festive mood as well; they will not quit at my limbs and breasts too. I have to go to the cinema and watch a few more movies before I leave. There is all that work I ought to do so that my vacation is not a sabbatical. This unlike the pricey hotel meals I cannot afford. 

I am spending a little time in my home country. That is what we like to do, us Africans, spend the holiday with family. It looks a little as though we want to be sure we know where and how the families are doing. The ones that stay away do indeed stay away. But we are all here, most of us from last year. I do not want this to become a ritual, Christmas with efo rero is a better option than this yellow friedrice with weird peas. It is hot in here and I have missed the thermostat. 

Tomorrow I will call the ones that stayed away, there are of course no hard feelings. I think they might ask of the weather and I shall tell them that it did not rain. It is December. It is the Harmattan. It did not rain. I cannot speak of today then because I will be back in my hotel room, reaching for frosted cereal and 500 naira bottled water. One of the Harmattan colors is showing, there is a dearth of the ajepaki… at least on my side of the island.

Imagery inspired by Gary Miranda’s Magician  but written on a different theme

“You my audience are pulling for me
want me to pull off this next sleight”

But I am beholden to you
If this meant anything it would not be this

“This talk is called patter”

This heart is
….sabbatical
Meaningless -
Forever

“Your undoing blooms like cancer”

Eroding at the core 
Tugging at the seeds and razing the roots
Déraciné

“The axe forgets but the tree remembers”

And I still call out -
A mind forgets to tame the wanderer
It is not the same

“You my audience are pulling for me”

I however am falling for you
And ivory breaks forever

Sometimes in April it rains, because it’s the season. Sometimes in May I wonder why it rains, in June and also in May. Trivialities like these seem to characterize the life that I live. In the face of wars, famine, pain and suffering I seem to falter in terms of my comprehension of things like aspiration and ambition. When the whole world needs inspiration we’re fighting for ambition. Ambition to save the world perhaps?

I have a habit of disconnected ideas. Forgive me. Sometimes I risk potential system overload. Not because I am so stressed or so tired or so unhappy or so ungrateful or so young as to not understand. Simply because so much seems to go on in my mind and I can rarely find a way to express my self. Can i express myself to myself to myself? i think so but on setting it down to paper or putting it at the mercy of any form of language it loses all its meaning. Well not all but a lot of meaning especially its context and import. Why then do i bother to write. to attempt this destruction of my ideas…as if they are so wonderful. 

Why Sometimes in April, quite frankly only sometimes, because in reality sometimes it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t a lot of this rat race loses its meaning. I can’t find the words to express my ideas but I think the basic idea, I hope, is for me the vicissitudes of life or better put perhaps its very apparent mutability. “Nought remains but mutability” i should blog on that. later. 

Its only sometimes in April and then its in May and sometimes its even not at all. Why am I fighting to attain something that may turn out to be meaningless and then how do I know if to fight for anything when all seems to change so frequently. I tire from this nonsense though I have merely exhausted the prologue to my ranting.

I have a gift. I do not make sense.

Warning: Read this only if you have absolutely nothing else to read. I shall not be surprised if you find this has been an absolute waste if your time besides it is poorly written. I warned you.

I realize now that I do not believe that there is a world of ideas. I also do not care if there is a world of ideas. I realize that whether or not I choose to believe that there is a world of is an afterlife it does not matter too much now here. Where is here anyway? Sometimes I wonder is all of me truly here? Because a belief that there is or is not still precludes a random life. If there is an after-tomorrow or no tomorrow, each action still requires miraculous thought. 

I must live life as though there were nothing after but as though there were. That I should be involved without being too involved. We’re all going to die. I should remind you. We tend to forget. Yesterday was and today is and that is exactly how my life was/is. Somethings are merely a matter of fact. You are reading this. I am. The World is. Although this seems to mean little I figure this is quite like all else. I wonder.

What relevance is there of a world of ideas, separate from ours but incomprehensibly linked to it? None whatsoever. At least not now, not to me. Or perhaps it matters and I simply have not have cause to think of it. Even now I have not bothered to do so too well and I will not. I have already said that I do not believe that there is a world of ideas, I will not change my mind, at least not now. But everything changes though- life possesses a remarkable mutability. I’m living this kind of life. Whatever that means I have not bothered to write about though I have pondered it. Truly the question that plagues this mind’s random musings - Why is this life lived like this?

I love the concept of a question. I have often asked myself a lot of questions. That is a silly statement – because we all ask ourselves questions. But I truly love the idea of a question, an inquiry, a search for more than is obvious at the time. I love the question, more than the answer. 
But I love the answer too, the witty answer, the right answer, the wrong answer, the stupid one. I love them all. Why? Because they bring me questions. I love that question, - why? It is so…so sufficient. 
Why? Why? Why?
A rose by any other name will smell just as sweet – but a rose is a rose is a rose. 
So many questions. 
I have often asked myself, who is this girl? What is this place? Where is this mind? Where is that soul? Who are all these people? There is also this question – of essence, of universality and diversity and equilibrium in this anatomical marvel –actually, not actually?. But still. 
I ask about leadership – those people, these people, our people, their people, your people. Whose people? I love that question, even better, which people? Those by your window at night –listening. Those at the podium – speaking. Those at the table – judging. The leaders. I ask a lot about these people sometimes. Particularly at these times when I am inclined to inquire. I love the idea of a question. To question. 
I question them. I question me. 
They are those at the podium – not listening. In your bedroom – not speaking. In your face – still judging. I love these judges. Okay I do not. But they do intrigue me. These ivory tower princes. Royal thieves. Simple leaders. I love the intrigue. The concept of the conquest. 
I try to discern with these limited, perhaps infantile means the concatenations of these cataclysmic anabolisms – constructs of clearly feeble, fearful, insufficient, uninquiring minds. I peek. Another way to question. Suggestion. Suggestive?
Of what –
The ladies with no knickers. I saw them naked. Silverless and cloudy. 
I saw them, the sires with faulty wiring. Wippity, wobbly on their old mares. 
I shuttle between consternation, think of constellation, and then return, perhaps revert to the idea of the irate old man interjecting “what about our homes?” What home. I caught myself, enjoying the idea of a question. Tried to hide it with that period. They do it too. The final labeled tentative. The ephemeral concrete jungle. 
I see no dreams here. Frosty milkless cerealed ambition. Cotton picker!
Black soul. Dead soul. They are not equivalent. 
White soul. I hate the idea of imagery and connotation. Bad white soul. Irate. Inot. IU. This is cheap, cheap like the fruit of a transvestite loom.
I see you too. 
Then I remember the purpose – they have failed, have they not? They are bad, are they not? I wonder. Another question. Another question. Because I see you too. Do you never ask the sufficient question, will you, can you, are you?