Quotes (for my website)
Sometimes I wonder if people understand me; they often go away not understanding what I want to say; I need them to come with me, to see things the way I do; I want them to understand and not run, not leave me a loner; I too love company, but I do not love it more than truth.
Sometimes I see the gaiety around me and I ask myself if I am a part of it all; am I a man; do I feel good enough about myself? These are some of the things I wonder when having woken up on the bad side of the bed I feel like sleeping again.
I do not promise that anything you choose to do will be easy; all I affirm is that it will be possible. I want to encourage you to keep on striving until at last you make it. The heights reached by great men we are told were not reached at sudden flight, But they while their Companions slept worked upwards through the night.
As little children at the block rosary we sang around the altar singing praising marching; those songs dull; the praise leaves our hearts; we are too tired to march; even now we watch for those strains that bring back nostalgic memories and another lease of youth to an old heart.
Beauty deserves praise; if a gecko falls from a wall upon your face, what can it mean – that your foes wish you to fall out of favor? But if you are strongly attractive enough, no matter what they do, you will always succeed in keeping your friends.
My mother would hiss at a youth smoking Indian hemp: These days I know not what children are up to; she would curse the world and preach with gusto: No one who suckled at my breast would touch that smelly stuff; she knows not what my brothers do, and she enjoys the ignorance. These ones who suckled at her breast, could they really be doing what they are?
Boys are simple and short, girls are complex and long; but both are human beings – How different! Boys will say I love you, girls will say give me time, but both feel the same thing. Boys lay their case straight, girls beat about the bush but both care for each other; boys give themselves up, girls want to be chased, but both need friendship – how different indeed!
I sit before my computer, busy. Most people are like me, encouraged to be busy in our fast world. I sit before my books, cramming hard stuff into my otherwise soft brain so that I can succeed. I will be at work tomorrow, busy like others there. We all are to fabricate this or that; it is one business or another – always.
Can we talk for a minute? Yes? What will you be about? Are you in a hurry then?
Questions are all we get, and a Nigerian responds to questions with more. We should talk about this and that, and that other; we should talk about issues; if you have an answer, give it to me; I tire of endless quizzes; we live in a world that craves solutions, and not rhetoric.
In the past in Nigeria Christmas was exciting, gay and merry, finer than a cherry; not so anymore nowadays. Christmas is dry this year; there is no money to spend; no one even wants to lend. Chickens are no longer afraid of the sharp blade; no one will buy them still; not anyone would kill them. We eat yesterday's meals instead of the new rice; the shops are full, but the traders cannot pull us.
Come back to those days when I took you in my arms and loved you; when I looked at you and saw myself; when I had faith that you would always be there for me; I was ready to cross the sea with you by my side; I was ready to dare the devil because you were beside me; I was ready to do the hardest to win your approval. Come back to those days when I knew I had to have you close by me forever.
When I contemplate the ages past and quiz the depths of life, mystery is all I get for my labors. The birds are flying and chirping; the tall trees dare the clouds; men and women go about their travails with unrest in their souls. I observe the moods of spirits if that be possible, sighs that source deep in the heart; I try to understand the essence of painful musing, but I see I never can, either ways anyway.
Copulation is when round, moist virgin orifice yields blood, mixes pleasure with pain; love with responsibility; hope with sacrifice.
Your hands turn because they are nimble working feverishly on your craft; expert hands going faster and faster on your craft, because they are nimble. Your hands turn on your craft; nimble hands, turning exquisite craft.
From day to day I cry, and I find the case wry that though I try I cannot seem to buy my freedom from these shackles of gloom from which I will to rise soon like the flower bloom; giving my heart room to exalt and run, to have all the fun; to bask in the sun and swim, jump and run; I want to be happy; to feel the solar ray, to have me a free day when all I do is play.
Inferior people are always speaking thus about great men: Who will humble this man that walks taller than tall and struts like ramshackle in reckless abandon? He thinks I need him, and maybe I do for the intelligence he inspires; but I need him brought low, he must not be further deluded into thinking he is of outlandish magnitude; I know not what serves his delusion, but I know he is no different than me.
Some of my lecturers in the university were beasts; they thought that they were intelligent when they were not. Many were ugly and loved women a lot. Worst of all, they talked too much; empty vessels they say make the most noise, and those vessels were really empty; pot bellied, loud voiced strained-veined skirmishing in insignificant balderdash, hating those who like him think themselves intelligent; but the truly brilliant, the wise refrain from keeping their ugly company.
I have a headache and my nose is blocked; I am anxious about tomorrow and I am confused about today. How come? I thought I had it all worked out, but I see that things may not be as I thought they would. I thought I had planned it all well, yet I remain hassled and wear this grave look, dissatisfied with how things are.
Don't punish me hard; I am too young to die; I recall my birth; the day is not too old; I am still brown in the eyes and black in the hair; I bet even the raven knows that I am swifter than he. My blood still ripples in my veins.
The eating cat can be seen lapping up with its red tongue and licking its whiskers; the slurp, slurp tells the duty, the purr smiles the gratitude and the bowl at last is drained.
The problem with life to me seems to be that its needs are too many, causing discomfort; we cannot take our hands onto our breast to rest. The struggle must go on indefinitely. Waking and striving earlier, laying and sleeping later, the hustle is perennially keen as we brush aside the doctor's caution and one another too; yet the psalmist has said that our striving is useless, as God blesses his lazying beloved lolling still on their beds.
I think it is silly when you envy someone; you try to measure up, but find it hard, and so you wish him dead. ‘Away, away! Move away from here; I hate to see you, your sight irritates me; see the way you strut; your shoulders measure up to your nose; you give me that slant look as if I am a nobody, but the fact that I do not have the talents you do does not make you any better than me.’
If God were to speak to this world, I think he would say something like this: I told them they would destroy my world, that they would make it a hell; they cannot say I did not tell them, as I looked upon them from celestial heights. The country is full of mediocre ill, of a lack of understanding; the land is full of hate, no one cares at all. This old man is barking at his daughter, saying this and that; he is refusing to reason, no gentlemanliness about him. They struggle with one another, increase the need to strive; they complain about everything, and there is no respite; bickering the livelong day. These ones do not care for the truth; they love delusion, and give it heated chase. It is envious rivalry they prefer, envious rivalry they choose; it is envious rivalry that will, as it were satisfy them.
Because you do not know in spite of the reality around you, your emotions still flow in ways you do not choose. The wind will blow your faint dreams away; over the hills they will go. You will watch them in anger. The witch the old and blue will make passes with your due, as sadly you rue.
Everyone loves love these days. Has it always been so? Where has work gone to, the sweat of persistence? Leisure, entertainment – that is all we get these days; it is not fair that we think only of chivalrous acts towards women; men aim at kissing, but they should think more of books and commerce; before it is too late.
Slowly, silently, surely we gather experience from life, attacks and spiritual battles from witches at night. Darkness, despair, defeat, gloom in the night. Slipperily, sloppily, sourly we gather pain, revealing wounds from unseen foes under the cover of dark.
I am a king, do not tell me; I am Eze Onyeagwalam, no one speaks to me. So it was that one day Eze Onyeagwalam went to the market with excreta in his pants and the kingdom of flies for escort; nobody sold him anything, and no one spoke – all covered their noses at him. He was exasperated. ‘Why does no one speak to me!’ A silent voice chided then, ‘Are you not Eze Onyeagwalam? No one tells you anything.’
Fine lady, mellow; if you continue with your shakara no person go marry you-o! You just dey denge pose like say tomorrow no dey; take am easy-o! I don tell you finish.
Flies do the fireworks aided by my reading lamp; they won't let me be. Morsels of bread are left on the table, younger siblings did not clean up after them. I have distracting thoughts in my head, I despair at removing them. I want to read – what then is all this!
The Holy Father at last is dead; who will succeed him; who will be the next pope – Francis Arinze? I dare say he will be first swarthy pontiff; Nigerian on a seat raised high, Negro father of the whole world. All hail Francis Arinze, soon to be pope, prophesy as sure as sunrise from a hallowed east. I loved Karol Woytila; he was a patron of peace, but I will love Francis as well, my brother and kin. He will shepherd souls like the Savior himself; with the keys of Peter he will enter them to heaven. I do pray to Celestial forces to move the hand of God; let Francis approach the cathedral; let him be pope.
Are you my friend? Then why did you rate me one over five to spoil my score? You are jealous or something; I told you that I was now greater and your temperature began to rise. You are not my friend; if you were you would not treat me so shabbily; you know I least deserve it.
Dark heart and a hurt head, there is disappointment in my soul; I groan in tired dissipation as melancholy hems me in; there seems to be no escape as foes lock horns with me seeking to entrap me in a web of frustration; I struggle and whimper; I ask for divine help. God will come to my aid; I only have to trust.
God takes care of me in ways I know not; he knows I am an orphan, without him I'd die; he gives me to eat, comforts and shades me; he helps me when down; tells me sweet nothings, too. Yesterday it was a miracle, today it’s praise; tomorrow will be a surprise I can't wait to get. God is my sufficiency, every way unique; it is not thus with others. If it is let them say; God has told me not to fret, to look at the birds fly; they have no farms, yet he provides to their fill.
In the evening the shop owners prepare for home; they arrange the goods left unsold, hoping it will not have to be the same story again tomorrow. Good times may continue all the time, but bad times should endure for only today – who needs them anyway?
Haikus are my kind, easy to write; fine mathematics of syllables in solemn display: five, seven, five. Haikus – what splendid poetry; beauty of expression, precision of words; haikus – what crafty writing! They intrigue and challenge me; I write haikus plenty of the time; one of my favorite kinds. Creativity calls every other day: Write a haiku.
Happiness is the feel of a family united in love and comfort, daring the odds; it is the feel of you and me as one joyful people; happiness is living in our space without hassles, understanding that springs deep from the heart. I love you, you love me; what else is there but to sing: We are happy, we are full of joy.
Love never seems to be able to fill me: Love is like a cup of chocolate, sweet but never enough; you drink and empty the ton, then you greedily look for more. You drool and swoon, you hunger for filling, but it is never enough. So he is probably right when anyone accuses me of being insatiable when it comes to love; perhaps I am - who is not; who really?
I catch a fish in my hand and do not let it go. The fish stands for luck; the juju that wicked people have been doing to tie down my progress is waning fast. I am mastering the tide, my eyes clear; I see the road a mile off, I am a man now.
I am licking sugar to make the day sweeter; what else can I do! I have rallied my wits to no avail. Even as I loll on my bed, my nose testifies to my weeping over the sad day.
I believe I shall succeed; I believe I shall be an inspiration; I believe my troubles are temporary; I believe I shall be rich; I believe I shall swell wide; I believe I shall take on the world; I believe I shall speak of wealth; I believe I shall carry sufferers along; I believe I shall show how I made it from nothing; I believe in God; I believe that he is taking me somewhere; I believe that the darkness of today gives way; I believe, I believe, I believe.
It does not seem right that a person should fight for what was not his right. Today and tomorrow he goes to borrow his courage and plunges with it his words like a dent arrow into hearts that will refuse to listen to him.
I have been angry with God; things did not go the way I planned; that was why. I have been angry with God; he did not observe my moods, but chose His own course as always. I have been angry with God, I felt betrayed and left alone as he spurned my yearnings in preference to his. I have been angry with God, but not for too long; I understand His sovereignty and I repent.
It is God doing and not me; struggle I may, but he gives increase. O that I would rest in the knowledge that he alone is king. It is God rewarding and not me; anxious I may be, but he calms me; it is God giving and not me; romance I may, but he gives fertility.
I packaged their assignments, neatly arranged for them; I had committed intellectual fraud and I was not going to care. Africa is not making it, we're living double lives; our intellectuals sport borrowed grades; our students have empty brains. Those whose skulls are full are drained away abroad and we are left here to stifle one another in jealousy; when it is confirmed that my head as well is full, I will allow myself to easily be drained away like my betters and compares, to the States or even to Europe.
I assured myself I was not giving up without a struggle: Where were they, who were they, these attackers of mine? I pity my enemies, those anticipating my doom and praying feverishly for my ghastly undoing, visiting this a dibah, that a witch, mixing this a potion, that a drug for my doom; I tell those who insist that if it is me they are after to go get better employment, as they are really wasting time.
I saw you clearly; a photo worths more than a thousand words; I observed your moods, your smile came through the color and made me know you were there true; two dimensional reality of opaque significance. The picture is still in my head; it is there because I saw you.
I want a king's daughter to be my friend, but she is too proud; her head is up in the sky. Let me whisper in your ears, friend; you must cut the head, axe to her neck; she is not the only princess. Ah, but that is cruel, I cannot do it; if her head towers, then I must let mine too; suit yourself then; I give you solemn advice, but you refuse to heed; you will end in stroke. A compromise then, I will sit and stare at her; maybe she will of her own accord, hunt me like a chick.
Even when they all leave me, even when they say they, do not care a hoot what I feel, I will not be all alone; I will have the air in my lungs, the dreams in my head, the passion in my breast, the courage in my arms; even when they refuse to chat, even when they put me down, do not call or send texts, I will not be alone; I will have my books to read, my prayers to say, my lessons to attend, my friends to tryst; even when they forget old days, even when they refuse to dream; do not recall my wooing, I will not be alone; I will have my God to pray to; I will tell Him what I feel: the pangs of anguish, the sorrows of loss.
If I did not trust I would be a fool: Sometimes to trust is the only alternative, when you eat only after having hoped for food; when you sleep only after having tired out; when you dress up as the only safe keep from nakedness; when you hold her in your arms as a relief from lonely pain.
If I did not trust I would be a fool; I would be a fool even if I trusted.
In my quiet moments I write, I try to examine the connections between events; the phantasms in my head correspond to the thoughts spread on the sheet. I try to express, to create a consonance between what I imagine and what I scribble.
If, I am told the same conditional dictum, and if not the action is reversed; if I do well I am rewarded; If not I am punished.
Give me your hand and make me your friend; if not for anything else, for all there has been between us, all the secrets we have shared, the games, the fun, the happy hours; we have been partners to many a deed; we have risen and fallen together like the tides near Bar beach; I laughed to see you happy on Christmas day. So if not for anything else give me your hand.
If only you would trust me, things would be so much better; then we would not have to quarrel so much. All the bitter wrangling would be gone, and there would be no more envy; none of that vicious stare in your eyes, no painful diatribes.
When I was younger I used to think my ma would outlive a hundred; she shocked me when she couldn't even half it. Was she in a hurry, or was it just destiny? Whatever it was, that too was in a hurry.
In a state of anomie, you look for order; you search out a pin in a hay stack. In a cold heart you look for love, you seek out a swarthy man in a blackout; in a hovel you look for comfort you hunt a reindeer in an African jungle. In Nigeria you look for truth, you chase water in the Sahara.
She was pounding yam for her husband; the pestle went up and down, her breasts did the same. For her husband her breast pounded, he was pounding her his torso going up and down. Her breasts pounded in fearful pain; she had offended him and he was pounding her. In fearful pain she received the blows, his torso going up and down he was pounding her. She loved him too much to run away and so she bore his pounding in fearful pain.
America is the answer to all of life's problems, America, the home of freedom and self actualization. The world reveres America, paragon of beauty, epitome of pride; I love America, hopeful home, benevolent barn.
In that war, we fought bravely but the gods had decided that we should not win. We were fewer than our aggressors, their weapons outshone ours. Gallant youth was sacrificed for our land
Biafra needed their blood to appease her gods. Even now our leaders have no recompense for the fluid; their slow wits say: No victor no vanquished. It is not what the bereaved quip; they are hurt. It is they who lost dear ones; they are vanquished.
Let us learn to build bridges between what obstructs us from moving ahead and the progress that we so desperately seek.
We must refrain from innuendos, equivocally mouthing our deceits as if we seek to impress anyone other than ourselves. We should be mature enough to change.
I have no money in my pocket; see me separated from the world; I am insecure – who is there to help? Lift me up from misery, I am tired of this mediocrity; I want to fly: Give me wings, I beg.
God has been kind I concede, let him be kind still; If I cannot get through today, can I survive tomorrow?
Is it singing I hear in my heart? And why singing by the way – am I happy? And how can I be happy when I am stressed; but am I really stressed? Is it stress when I have to do a little work to keep body, soul and mind together? I should not at all complain; God is with me. He loves and guides me, whispering in my ear, ‘Be content; don't fret my son, for I love you. I will lead you on to the end and then you will not quarrel with the singing in your heart; you are happy now, but you will be happier then.’
It was the perfect ending to a relationship that was going nowhere; I did not want her.
I had noticed that since she came into my life, it had taken a turn for the worse. I used to be smug, now I was in tethers; I used to be happy, now I was hassled. I had to end it all, the break was needed; no compulsory other sister, I had a family enough. Go away now, let us part ways; let only our memories tell what has been; don't give ill spirits a chance to know what we do and seek hence to hurt for the wrong of having been siblings. You are a sister outside the oath, you have no part in the promise; you must go now so that the vengeful gods do not harm me.
I have met some people who are full of bile. Dissatisfaction is their middle name, they are the jealous ones. 'Why does he strut so; is he better than me? What does he have that I don't? Who does he think he is?' If you have met these kind of people, then you are old enough on earth; they are all around us and they make me sigh. For goodness sake, if he seems better than you pray to God to improve you, but leave the poor guy alone!
It was uneasy for this strange man to preach a new gospel of resignation. The Jews would none of it; Pilate asked the worth of his truth; he was to die for the world. Jesus claimed to be the son of God but according to Mosaic authority he was a blasphemer. Upon the cross they nailed him,
mocking and jeering ‘He saved others but cannot save himself.’ Till giving up the ghost he accomplished the prophecy. ‘It is finished,’ he said; ‘into your hands I commit my spirit.’
It spurs me, your singing, makes me feel light and cheerful because I love you and your voice is your part in the joy that is my heart and the radiance of that smile of yours that imbues in me a wealth of feeling; do keep singing then, I pray you my love.
On that hill songs by a humming bird remind me that eternity calls after years spent on the journey of life. There are many roads to living; life calls, attracts and shapes for perfection,
intrigues ever so real and ever so daring all make me realize the potency of a blitz at survival,
another prism from which life can be viewed and braced. If we relentlessly choose our own way
we would only be able to waste ourselves on an energetic chasing the wind in our mock perception of life.
Like salt on an earthworm is bad news, when you are resting you suddenly jerk up and say, ‘Say what, say what? O dear, do you mean this!’ Well, you must be sure to ask me when next
you have bad news if I am ready to take it. Fine – Jesus has called us salt of the earth, but I am no earthworm, and you have no legal right to perturb the peace that is socially mine.
The priest is in the chapel praying; the missal is by his side, and mass servants are dressed in enviable attire. ‘Dominus vorbiscum,’ he intones; to which the reply comes, ‘Et cum spiritu tuo.’
There is pontification and the prayer is ended. Latin has confused the audience; who is deceiving who?
Strained and drained of strength for the journey that ails and pales and makes youth age. O make me tough, I pray you gods; harden me with pain, deaden my senses with teary pathos, make me feel the stab and jot of more distress; if tears be my drink each and every night, I shall soon become impervious to the company of melancholy.
You are lonely, you swoon in melancholy; the bustle outside does not concern you, it is for the happy ones. You are thinking of the hollow in your breast; love is lost and far away, twilight every moment; Aurora is gone; she cares less for your mood; but even the day she returns what can you do?
When you are asked to choose between love and money as a young girl born with a wooden – not silver – spoon, what will you pick? Do not say love, unless you wish to deceive yourself. I am told that women are to be loved; but that love is sometimes too feeble even in her own home, so that when poverty comes in at the door love instead of struggling him away flies out the window to God knows where.
Most of the great men we know had or have best friends to understand and care for them.
In the faces of my comfortable foes there is a smirk; they delight to see me suffer so they can gloat. They come to me with fake smiles, hoping to try my patience, hoping to show they are better off than me. I look to God from their treacherous visages; whose report have I believed?
None but His.
My darling, it is for you I swot thus, to make money and marry you; I love you it's true, but that does not put food on the table, roof over your head; clothes on your body. If I love you truly, let me work then so that when I am ready to ask: Will you marry me, you would be ready to ask in return: Can you handle it? I should then say yes and say it with gusto.
My girlfriend was just pretending when she moaned last night; she had done it many times before and why did she not whine the next? She has used me; she found one virgin sucker and she played a fast one, I fell cheap at her feet. I am hurt deeply; the encounter was not even sweet. I had heard so many tales, but reality is drab compared with. I have fallen I concede, but I must rise; this girl cannot sell me so low, I am worth more than that.
My heart palpitates and my head aches too; the sorrow proved too much to bear, yet I had to bear it, had to endure a lifeless life. My heart palpitates because there seems to be no remedy, because there seems to be no end to the miseries attacking my soul trying to wreck my mind. My heart palpitates because I am unhappy; unhappy because I am poor; poor because I am destitute; destitute because I am forsaken; so my heart goes on palpitating without end, without respite.
I have a life, I have a family; I have myself, and I have a God. My life has me, my family has me; myself has me, and my God has me. Do you have a life; do you have a family; do you have a self, and do you have a God? Does your life have you; does your family have you; does yourself have you, and does your God have you?
So many people do not have a home; sure they have a house, but not each house is home.
They say home is where the heart is, not cushions and a rug but smiles and a kiss. They look hard for love, the house walls them in; they embrace the streets trying to ignore the din. Where can my soul rest from the nagging pain; where can I go to escape from feeling the loss again?
How would you feel if you spent five days in a cosy inn only for you to come back to your poor, poor shack? How would you feel if you ate good food for five days only for you to come back to dry bread and lean meat? How would you feel if you mingled with great people only for you to come back to mediocre creatures calling themselves individuals? If you experienced heaven and came back to earth after five memorable days, you would feel nostalgia.
Novelty requires strength; we need to be strong to break those fetters that cage us in, that say, ‘Quo vadis? Stay and refrain from movement.’ But we would move, here is not best, our chests rise for what lies ahead. We must proceed; move we must. Yes, we need strength, and God will avail it us.
Beauty is not just a thing to praise; it is a thing to watch closely and ape.
Oligopoly of slaves is an aberration of human rights; we are too fiendish to notice that when these rule us, mediocrity holds sway: They will beat, they will rob, they will be corrupt; they will steal, they will kill, they will be uncouth; we had better had the kings or even the colonizers; we had better had the pope or even the industrialists, but once we are ruled by the likes of you – Aha, then we know we are in soup!
Only when I am sad or irritated do I wish to escape from myself. Irksome boredom trying to hem me in is an enemy; a wise man has said: Give me freedom or give me death; I say give me both, but only at the proper time.
I think of a golden sun today; he is mercilessly sharp and will tolerate no forgetting to dress light. He had given the warning as the clouds lost their gray; he had sounded the note as the trees stood oppressed; yet you took no warning and came off ill for it. You may need to take your time, or simply get lost!
When the mood is high and you to run away with yourself, just be patient or you may hit the rocks. A little restraint will do no harm; hang on to ideals from long ago so that you do not miss the track which you hitherto knew so very well.
When I quarrel with God about suffering, even those who have suffered more will say He is in the right.
The power and art of the waterfalls is like the magic of sex.
It remains in the power of man to say yes to love and no to everything else.
Let us not be like two priests quarreling over a parish or bowing to Voltaire's quip that a priest must envy the other.
This is nothing but living faith: a man reaching out to self actualization at all costs.
Courage is everything, and power is the aftermath, the veritable dividend thereof.
We do not do things because others are doing them; we do things because we can, and love to.
Faced with the option of worrying and having faith, the latter is the medically preferred.
No foreign aid can ensure a growth for Africa that her leaders have not desired and worked towards.
Some days are like this, when I am hungry and cannot eat, when I am tired and cannot rest, when the end seems to have come though life is only just beginning.
Since the Lugard blunder of 1914, Nigeria has been living like the trinitarian Godhead: Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa - all in one supposedly united nation-state.
The beloved of the Spirit is His Son, and I am the Son of the Most Holy Spirit.
Mundialism is all you think it is: a religion, a way of life, a spirituality - everything; but it is essentially disembodied; I do not claim to be Jesus; only Jesus is God, and only God can save.
I tell people that religion is no longer enough. Religion is what a group of people feel about God, it rarely is what God is; now, God is enough, yet religion insufficient as it is is the end of human life in a cosmic setting.
Intelligence is the ability to articulate ideas, to feel the need to learn, and to put learning to sufficient use.
All of life is but a question of authority.
Everyone knows what he is doing, but no one knows what is doing him.
For a great man, the world is home and humanity, siblinage.
Where a romantic would say I love you in response to a gift, a cynic would say I owe you.
Faith is no more than a spiritual attitude that inspires confidence, makes for perfection and actualizes dreams.
Be dauntless; push for what you believe in. Never say it is not possible - don't sell yourself cheap.
Poetry really is compact business.
If you do not kill a cancerous growth on your body, it will kill you; so kill it first - why die before your time?
Never give anybody cause to doubt your stand on any issue whatsoever.
The wife that encourages her husband to seek another wife will soon have a competitor to struggle with. I will not allow my enemies win the war that concerns me.
On the day I wed I become a new person.
Searching still for truth the philosopher knows that all his effort is not supposed to be in vain.
Getting a first class is a big plus for me - I have to try my best to make it. With God's help of course.
I have sometimes been confronted with ratings that are obviously not me - I shouldn't let all that bother me, should I?
Confronted with an earthly eldorado I feel like crying tears of joy; shocked with a dastardly status-quo I feel like weeping tears of grief.
Share whatever little time you have.
About the poor of Old England, Hans Christian Andersen said they stared at the faces of people seeking pity - what would he say about Africa now; but I hope it will not always be like this!
Controlling my emotions is a primary duty; regrets, fantasies,wists all need to be reviewed.
Having felt earthly joy you do not wish to leave; having felt heavenly bliss you do not wish to live.
The problem with Africa is that we have too many heads and too few hearts
You need a large heart to support a wide head.
Why do envy and spite put so much sand in our cassava - it makes me sigh!
Growth brings healing, and healing an integrated wholeness that enraptures being.
You wonder at those dramatics of genius - it's the spirit that gives them.
To sigh deeply from the heart brings its own relief.
One thing I come to appreciate about God is His purposeful expediency
God, remove wickedness from my heart and preserve me from those from whose hearts you are not allowed to remove it.
Learn to avoid wicked men - an arm's length is not enough
It pays to trust God - yes thousands of dollars!
In the rain we can think of the sun that will come out tomorrow.
Let us swell, let us grow large; larger than life, larger that the blocks that seek to cage us in; let our dreams come true, our names outsound our deeds; let us become great, let us be the best we can.
You guys make me cry shamelessly whenever I read this thread. Forgive me; I have been told all the time that I am emotional. You all make me happy. I love all of you, each one: Opokonwa, I love you; I long for the day I will meet you. You are a big boost to this thread; a veritable catalyst. I could never have done what you have as Leader. In my time, the thread moved one page in three days; now it moves two pages in one day. Believe me, I checked. What this means is that by January next year, this thread may have more pages than the Job forum itself that houses it. Opokonwa, I am filled with affectionate awe.
Wandel, I am proud of you. My dad read Economics at the University College, Ibadan, but he did not make a first class. That you did what he could not do probably means you are greater than he. I know that Intercontinental has greedy eyes for the best; it is no wonder they took you. You make me very glad. And when NLNG calls you, you will have tasted three wonderful employments in one year. I am filled with admirable reverence.
Tolagbaju, able first classer and proud NLNG hopeful, I salute you. It is not easy to be you: unique, ambitious, intelligent. You remind me of Achebe's Nza, who felled all the spirits across the seven seas. Only in your case, you will not be so foolhardy as to wrestle your chi. Your destiny is so bright, we may have to wear shades to look at it. I am filled with fraternal appreciation.
Kenosky, like you I am addicted to this thread. Under Opokonwa's admirable leadership, we have become more of a family, and undoubtedly the best thing to have happened to the Job forum on Nairaland. We are a huge inspiration to one another, and to all the people who read this thread. We speak of a Nigeria they probably never thought possible. We tell them, 'We are your brothers, and yet see what we have achieved. We are young, but we have pushed out our chests as if quarreling with the wind. We have damned the consequences to prove us men; we have braced the glowing heights. And if we can, you too can.' I am filled with hopeful joy.
So let my heart run the race of nymphs, skipping wide and far, berthing tides akin to the breaths of the shadoofs of Egypt in glowing summer; jumping in friskiness like the lambs, and coursing the hills like Maria, with the chirping of the birds in their chorusing after the coming eves. In my heart will now resound the magical ululations of peaceful exhultation, unabashed and unafraid of future strife reminding me of the fact that I came from dust, and it is there I will return.
When I see you all do what you do, and inspire me by it; what spirit, or what man can tell me, 'Be still'? I will be what I will.
I love you all.
| This may be the last time I will post on this thread. I may not be able to deal with the emotions here anylonger. | ||||
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Opokonwa, I greet you. In our culture it is said that when a man visits his brother and comes in peace, the host brings out a kolanut. Nwannem, I receive a piece from your hands, and again I greet you.
Your posts are very prompting. After reading from you, I knew I must post. To start with, I sympathize with what the white man said. Most times, I confess, I am tempted to say this: it appears to me that the black man is inferior. I beg you, Opoks dear, not to crucify me for saying this, but that has been my experience. Or could it just be that I have the misfortune of always encountering the wrong people? The usual Nigerian I meet daily seems always to have this inferiority thing about him. Yes, I have said it before: the average Nigerian seems to be nursing some hidden wound, and going about wanting to convince all the world that he has no wound at all. Have you not noticed the I-am-better-than-you attitudinal stunt they always seem to sport? I may be wrong, but many times I have turned the matter over and over again in my heart, and I land on the same hypothesis: it appears to me that black people are (perhaps) inherently inferior to white ones. Or, it appears to me that black people need a psychoanalytic renaissance to become great people. Either of the two; or both. But I beg you to pardon me for saying it. I do not say it to ridicule the black race; I say it to reveal what has been in my thoughts.
My friends who live in the States: Ejiofor, Jude, Thaddeus; another Jude; Adilah, Onyechi, Nneze, Sade, Kevin; Sharifa, James, Eileen, Raymond, Amadi, and so forth all tell me what obtains there, and I myself have encountered Americans and whites myself. They tell me that over there, white people love great things and people. If you say or do something wonderful, they wrap you up in their arms and say: 'Waow! Way to go, bro!' The day Sade, a black American, took a glimpse at Ninety Negro Numbers (the entire 258 pages), she wanted to run mad (that was how it seemed). She said: 'You wrote this? My! I love you; I love you; I love you!' I mean, she kept on declaring that she loved me that I began to wonder if she was real, or simply a clown. And there are many examples besides. These people seek out the best in you and try to turn it into something good.
But what do we have here? Most times, I actually feel afraid to do anything good. Let me give you an example of what happened today at the office: A customer came and said he wanted a cash-backed facility. I was the RO around, and so I prepared the paper work and took it through the necessary authorization process. Then I brought it to the Funds Transfer person to book it. He said he did not know what a Cash backed facility was, and so I took time to explain to him. As soon as I finished, I stood up to go back to my desk, and then another officer who had been sitting next to the FT guy just blurted out: 'Chei; I envy you-o!' I was embarrassed. Instead of concentrating on his work, he was busy listening in, and in his own words, envying me. I sighed, and at once felt like running away into oblivion. I said to myself: Where can I go to and be ordinary, and belong, and fit in and roll with the crowds, not a place where even those that are older than I am put Mr before my name! It's so frustrating!
There's this guy in the office; I actually thought we could be friends; I actually felt I liked him; he seemed to have the usual things that make me like a fellow: a charming personality, with a touch of handsomeness; a free-spirited manner; you know, this happy-go-lucky, back-slapping, huckster-like, hippie style, and all that; but sometimes when I am near him, he puts on a pair of reading glasses, as if I were some kind of university professor. Bottom line: These people are driving me crazy. And these days I think this was exactly what drove my father to kill himself. Maybe it wasn't even Ambrose's juju only. Maybe it was all the inferiority around him that sickened his soul so much that he had to take his life. He found no way round it. I myself may kill myself if I cannot leave this country soon enough.
I want to go to a place where I am accepted; a place where when I ask a question I am not seen to be too inquisitive; where if I give a suggestion I don't seem to know too much; a place where no one has to call me Mr. Sam, instead of simply Sam, or Oga in derision. I want to go to a place where when I enter a room, someone shouts from one end: 'Hey there! What's popping?' And he runs towards me, and we lock in embrace; then he slaps my back and makes a snide comment; I give him a piquant rejoinder, and he laughs, then he says, 'You're a-okay, bro!' And then we go buy sharwamas and lounge, rap up the chicks, and hang out at the gym. I want to go to a place where my intelligence is adored and not disdained; a place where people hug me seven times at least, each day.
Oh, how I recall the day we went to represent our school at Abuja! There was an American delegation there. Sade came (that's the woman that saw my book and kept declaring shameless love). We had finished the session on Public relations and were coming out for recess, when I ran into her. As soon as she saw me, she threw herself at me with such passion and squeezed me to her breast and said: 'My son!' A woman I did not know from Adam was calling me her son. I felt so loved, so wanted, so full of a sense of belonging. No rancour; no competition, no jealousy, just love. She said, 'My son!' This has never happened to me before.
Hmmm. I am praying feverishly that I will go home this year, home to where I belong, home where I do not have to be apologetic for being who and what I am; home where my heart is. Today the primaries in Texas and Ohio take place, and all my heart is going out to Senator Obama. O God, let him win. (God bless America!) And may the day come when the psychoanalytic renaissance I spoke about for the black man be a reality. I have no friends here. Not even on this thread do I truly feel at home; not anywhere in Nigeria do I feel loved and appreciated; maybe because the average Nigerian is so busy envying each and everyone else, that he can have no time to love; or maybe because love simply does not exist. Maybe. But these days I am learning not to care for love. I am thinking outside the box, trying to claim for myself a certain level of individual success that the black man probably does not permit himself to attain to, in view of all the pervading pettiness. In spite of his religion. Which brings me to another issue.
Opokonwa, I am not surprised that most of the people that acquired phenomenal wealth were not religious. The NLNG wait, you must know, has taught me quite a lot. Religion in itself is not reality. Permit me to say this. By the very way it is structured, it seems to me to train the mind to be unreal. Karl Marx, you would recall, called religion the opium of the people. It seems to me to be like a reaction to a state of life that the religious person refuses to accept. Let's go back a little bit, taking for our case study your own religion, Christianity. Jesus, you recall, was poor; and his reaction to that poverty was to make it irrelevant to those around him that were similarly poor. He preached a state of life wherein one could see their state of poverty not as a curse (which ordinarily it was because it meant lack), but as a blessing, as it exposed the person to supernatural reality; to a state of existence where wealth and status were not supreme, but a state of holiness (faith in an extramundane reality, or God; hope in a level of existence above the norm, or heaven; and love for all manner of men regardless of status).
Yet what do we see today? People are using religion to pray for the same wealth that ordinarily was the logical opposite of true religion. Even Jesus (Isa eis Salaam) said: 'You cannot serve both God and money.' You know, I was surprised when I turned on the radio the other day and heard a preacher woman saying that true Christians were supposed to be rich because their God could 'satisfy all [their] needs according to his riches in glory.' Strange. These people are turning faith upside down, and perhaps that is why religion as we know it today has lost a good portion of its credibility.
So it happens that religious people who seek wealth are falling into the cognitive dissonance of wanting repugnant concepts at once. A repugnant concept in this regard (for those that did not do philosophy in school) refers to a statement that negates it precursor; for example, the statement, 'I serve an unholy God.' This statement in the ordinary sense is repugnant, because it is generally presumed that God is holy. So if religion points to God, and seeks the soul, yet a religious person wants to acquire wealth that essentially is fleshy, that person is chasing two parallel realities that ideally should not meet.
Recall too, that it was when the Holy Roman Catholic Church started selling Indulgences (spiritual gifts) for money (materiality) that the first schism (Luther) took place. And even today, our popes and cardinals are more or less proud princes instead of faithful holy men. But of course, I do not criticize them. I myself reason with Jesus: If I cannot serve both God and money, then I am content to serve money and leave God. I want to be stupendously rich, and like I told you earlier, I have chosen to have no religion.
But you know the catch? Though I have no religion, that does not mean I have no God. I do not say there is God; but mark this clearly: I do not say that there is no God. I am neutral of the subject.
| Listen. I'm not an authority on religion or anything of the sort; so at best I can only offer a philosophical overview of the subject. I do that below. | ||||
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| Kenosky, kind of fun routine you're having. Some people have bleaker prospects, and still can't complain. I mean, if we in Nigeria think we're having a tough time, what will those in a country like Zimbabwe do? What I can say is: those who are lucky to have good life situations should enjoy it, gratefully if they care to; and those who have worse life situations should endure, without cursing God. Some get to choose food, while others can't even get to eat. You know, there are some families where if there are four children, four dinners are cooked. I mean, it's something like: 'Dipo, what will you eat?' And he says, 'Indomie.' The cook notes it down. 'Seyi, kilo fe jeun?' Seyi says he wants beans and plantain, and again the cook notes it down. Then it is Yemisi's turn. 'Yemisi, what will you like to eat?' Yemisi is watching Little Women, and her eyes are glued to the teevee, so the cook has to repeat her question: 'Yemisi, small madam, wetin you go chop?' Yemisi is furious. She has warned Bilikis, the maid, never in her life to call her small madam. The errant maid, in any case, would never take correction; she will tell daddy when he gets home. Of that she is sure. 'I will eat fried rice and chicken.' 'But chicken don finish.' 'Then go and buy more, and stop disturbing me for Chrissake; can't you see I'm watching Little Women!' The cook notes it down, and finally asks Yetunde, the pretty one, 'Wetin you go chop, smallie?' Yuk! Not again. 'Stop calling me smallie, Auntie Biliky!' 'Sorry, fine girl; oya tell me wetin you go chop, na.' Yetunde thinks carefully. 'Aha! I will eat fried yam and fried eggs.' The cook notes it down and goes on to prepare four different dishes. | ||||
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April ends today. At the start of April I shared with you all the 22nd Anniversary of my father's death. That was on the first day of April.
On this last day of April, something different has happened. I have got my visa to the United States of America. Only today, for the first time in my life I went to an embassy, and for the first time in my life I took an embassy interview. And for the first time in my life I got a visa, to the United States of America.
Soon I shall get on a plane and go to the USA to be a Graduate Teaching Assistant at a University that has paid over 44 thousand US dollars to give me free tuition, free health insurance and free accommodation, just to help teach their undergraduate students and earn a master's while doing so.
I love America.
| Do you guys sometimes take time out to think about the slaves that were sold very long time ago to the white man? They went in sea-going vessels to a new land. They toiled for the white man for very many years, and even when they were free they could not find their way home. | |
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What have you been fighting for; what is the reason for the sweat that cleaves to your brow, that tired grunting? You are discouraged, worried about a situation you seemingly cannot manage; you are despondent. Is there a lost cause, something you had spent energy on only to see it fall like a pack of cards; your life's work wasted at your feet? There is no lost cause; you have tried and failed, but recall Lincoln; he tried and tried and tried again.
I have been quick to get paranoid, swift to become afraid; I have been a fool when I should have stilled; I have been swift to get paranoid over nothing but the fear I find deep in my heart, that fear deep, deep inside. I have been quick to hate myself, hurried to pass self judgment; I have been an idiot when I should have calmed. I have been swift to be the devil over my future state, not realizing the power, the one God has. I have been fast to forget, quick and speedy to hate; to critique my soul, to say this and that about my life; I have been a fool, an idiot, a scallywag, a nitwit; I have been a fool!
Do not let anger eat your heart because of them, because of those oppressors of yours; those that disdain you, make you feel distraught. They are not worth it. You think they are happy? Forget it. The frustration they mete out to you is that which is in their hearts, placed there by circumstances, unfortunate occurrences, malicious reprisals, wasted dreams, confusion of sorts; lackluster glory, repartee of evil sensations that choke them all the time; they are hollow, they do not feel the breeze or genuine sunny warmth; they do not caper like frolicking monkeys or kiss the reverse palms of happy girls; they do not swim in the streams or dance at the shading of the day bearing the moon's fainter glow. Disregard them and be yourself; swell all you may; refuse to let them define the pace along which you walk. If you act big, they will hate; if you act small, they will enslave; if you do not act at all, they will wish you dead.
When I first came to America I was very poor and I had to scrape to adjust to life. Some people helped me and others did not. Those that helped me, I do not know why they did; and those that did not help me, I did not know why they did not. But you know what? I helped myself like I had done in the past; and like I had done in the past, I succeeded and moved on.
It seems to me that there are very different stories possible, depending of course on who is viewing the world, and through what lenses he is viewing it. The oppressors, depending on the story, keep changing so much so that it is always difficult to identify a constant one.
2 comments:
I think life is all about making progress. You know what they say: "Great minds discuss ideas."
is this kuwena of the NLNG thread on nairaland. hola at me t dolchic@gmil.com
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