Image courtesy
of http://www.viralnovelty.com
I decided to put down some of the things that just enter my
mind at random with little or no editing and even though there is that option
to turn some of these thoughts into longer articles, I decided to make them
concise and straight to the point.
01: BEGINNING MEANS HALF-DONE
That you should be your first critic as regards the work you
put out there is a salient fact in every artistic endeavor but the twist now
is: in your head, there tend to be this struggle between putting pen to paper,
brush to canvass etc and otherwise because that inner critic wants a quality
output and anything short of that is better than not starting at all.
What do you do in this tricky situation? JUST START and be
consistent. There is always room for editing but just make sure that you put
something down no matter how little
What differentiates excellence from mediocre is learning from one's mistakes and turning those mistakes into masterpieces.
PS: This can be applied to every field of human endeavor.
02: ON RACISM AND TRIBALISM
Racism and tribalism are of the same family. These are
social ills that have become normalized despite the number of campaigns
against them. Nigerians for instance, practice tribalism openly while being
closet racists.
Femke Van Zeijl describes our kind of racism in her article
titled
Oyibo Is Not A Compliment and a critical look at that article would open
your eyes to the fact that we practice racism albeit subtly.
Tribalism on the other hand is our way of life in Naija. We
eat, sleep, talk tribalism every day of our lives as Nigerians in our houses,
schools, workplace and even sadly, religious places.
03: BRAIN DRAIN
There happens to be this mass exodus of skilled workers from
the country to Europe and parts of America and some people are always poised to
ask what could be responsible for the brain drain.
The answer is not far-fetched. People just want to
experience a better life. How do you expect someone to stay in a place and earn
peanuts when there is an option of earning and living comfortably somewhere
else.
The average human craves comfort, little wonder why people
go into crime just to either make ends meet or live like a king/queen.
A better country and a stable economy would lead to
prosperity of citizens, better standard of living and even influx of investors
amounting to ‘the good life’ and that is what is needed to put an end to this
phenomenom that has seen us loose intelligent minds cum valuable assets.
04: AWAY FROM STATUS QUO
Write within the margin, they say. I just don’t think I can
because it seems to me like writing within the margin is conforming to
standards set by society. I mean, I am not some kid to be guided on what to do.
If the writing is clear and legible, why worry about me not writing within the
margin.
I for one think that we don’t have to stick to every dictate
of the society while making decisions or life’s choices. As a creative, I am an
advocate of painting outside the lines sometimes because that way, you stretch
your imagination and not be held within a box.
Most of the discoveries and inventions the world over,
stemmed from someone somewhere doing things a little different from that which
is as they say, is the normal way of doing things.
05: FULFILLMENT
Try to look up the meaning of fulfillment and you wont go
any further than this: “ A feeling of happiness and satisfaction.” That being
said, fulfillment is experienced in diverse ways. For some, they get fulfilled
after gulping several bottles of alcohol, some get theirs in between the thighs
of their significant other. Babies get theirs from their mothers' bossom while
for others, it could be from reading a book, seeing a TV show or movie but the piece de resistance is that fulfillment in
itself is a state of mind and all you just have to do is key into that state
and life becomes easy and fun.
06: POWER
Humans have a great affinity for power. Even some who claim
not to would seize the opportunity to be in a position of power. The typical
human just want to be in control, be it in a social gathering, religious
gathering, school environment, workplace, etc people just want to have that
god-like aura around them.
A good number of the supposedly ‘normal’ humans have
Narcissistic Personality Disorder and this can only be diagnosed clinically, it
could be likened to someone with a type of STI but who doesn’t know because of
invisible symptoms.
Humans generally love to be in a position of POWER!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Follow me on Twitter: @Victorikeji
