Being the salt of the earth

Making no apology

I sometimes find myself warning friends and acquaintances about associating with me, not because of who I am but out of concern for them in terms of how I am perceived by others. Somehow, some people who have publicly associated with me have been ostracised or penalised for no other reason than their humanity.

In a way, I represent a kind of independence not beholding or dependent on anyone, system, or situation. I am outside the ambit of influence of some who think people like me should be in the closet, depressed and fearful rather than living beautifully, thriving, and enjoying the kind of happiness that has never been in their purview.

I’m just me

Not that it bothers me in the least, I have always been who I am, level-headed, playful, seriously unserious, clowning about, easily accessible, hopefully sympathetic, and empathetic for humanity and humanitarian causes, with a liberal worldview of living and letting live, avoiding unnecessary confrontation and giving many much latitude in the benefit of the doubt.

Those quite close to me might wonder about my kind of crazy that might be mistaken for a negative when it could well be stooping to conquer. I want to think I am not a difficult person or even one difficult to understand. Yes, there are seriously misunderstood or underappreciated aspects of my person and personality, if I were so totally predictable, where would the mystery be?

I am spice

Yet, I appreciate those who see more in me that on the surface, who do not pass any judgement until they have duly and properly engaged me, who that sought to know me as a person rather than a label or an object, who have grown to respect me for my views and opinions no matter how they might differ from their outlook.

In the end, we have to share this world and this space, we would not agree on everything, we can respectfully agree to disagree without becoming disagreeable. Heck! We might even become friends with aspects of common interest, accommodating of each other in the broadening of our horizons. I have a teachable spirit and an inclination to learning. I hope to give my curiosity the widest field to explore whilst never losing my sense of youth and almost childish precocity.

I am without negotiation who I am, if you can’t take me by the spoonful or by the pinch of salt, I would never be any less one of the condiments of life, whether you choose to spice your life with my presence is neither here nor there. I would remain the best human I can be for myself and to anyone who considers me such.

Adolescence: Revisiting the RSS Class of 1981

Calling from the deep

This morning as I got to work, my phone rang and at the other end of the line was a voice I could not make out. A name and my memory went into a tailspin, I was trying to remember a quinquennial period of my life that ended just a few days over 36 years ago and my recall was not recalling much.

Apparently, one of the most enterprising of my secondary schoolmates, and I mean that in every way, he drove his own vehicle to school, but was not given a parking space within the school walls. He had set up a WhatsApp group and invited the class of 1981 to join. I was added to the group and very few could remember who I was.

Now, that I think of it, apart from my sadness at the way the Parents and Teachers Association of my secondary school treated my class in the summer of 1980, I have hardly written about my secondary school life. Yet, it is not without event and adventure.

More fiends than friends

One other thing is I have not necessarily kept contact with the closest friends I made in secondary school, from the scoundrel to the evasive, the fleeting contacts we made afterward only showed how divergent our lives had become. The common strain that brought us together was kids born abroad and with another bedwetters, but that did not beyond school materialise into friendships.

It is strange that in a conversation with my dad some time ago, he noted that I had not cultivated friendships with my secondary school mates. Then I think of friendships I have tried to rekindle from my primary school days and other friendships that have lasted a lifetime from my post-secondary school days.

There are issues that seem to set my secondary school relationships apart and I do believe the time has come to begin to document those parts of my history. Then again, I have acquaintances I made in secondary school who have indeed become friends, not only that, I have made friends with their relations too, who in some cases have married into relations of mine.

My large family of One

However, this collision of the shadows of the past with the intricate and delicate balance of my present brings some interesting areas of complex and somewhat strained conversation. We all make assumptions about the lives of others following a particular trajectory when in reality, that is rarely the case.

I have to tackle the very extant and pertinent question, “How are you and your family?”. Indeed, I have woken up in a jolt from the nightmare of dreaming I had a wife and two children. The thoughts even in the dreams questioning how all this happened to me without my involvement.

I was once integrated with a nuclear family until I was 10 before I was sent to boarding school, after that, the family was a nebulous mix of close and distant relations, many of whom I now hardly know, some have already passed on and others I relate to on Facebook. I have three half-brothers I have never met, one of whom is already a father.

In my bowels, I have reached the age of grandfatherhood, I know this because one of my very close friends who is much younger than I am has been a grandfather for at least 5 years. Yet, I cannot say I do not have a family, rather, I do have a family, it is a large family of one. I never married, I have never had kids. To enter into much more detail about that would challenge the seemingly conservative disposition of some of the entrants into the WhatsApp group.

Conserve on the detail

Suffused with religious supplication and the grandiosity of prayerful incantations, the more liberal matters of a life less ordinary may not be understood, neither would I want to impose any of my worldviews into the Remo Secondary School (RSS) Class of 1981.

My family is well, I am glad to reacquaint myself with you all, of all I can remember, we at least liked each other and there was rarely if ever, any hate or animosity between us. I look forward to recalling the wonderful memories of my early teenage years. I finished at 15, and I guess most if all are now over 50.

For God and Fatherland was the motto of the school, I guess, I am not doing much for either today, on reflection, there is much to be said and much more to be forgiven.

Thought Picnic: When in the face of beauty, words fail me

I behold

It is a reaction I have relived and experienced from as far back as I can remember, probably four times until once again today; a look, a face, just the face, the eyes, the nose, the cheeks, the smile, the perfect sculpt of art indescribable and at that instant my heart begins to melt.

My knees buckle, my heart races, but there is no lust or yearning of that sort, just a desire to be close, to be a friend and nothing more.

From afar but close enough

No, I would hate to ruin the adulation and awesomeness with any intimacy beyond deep appreciation that such exacting work of divine providence is bequeath on one person for which even the most sceptical will avow that a hand beyond sight does wonders of words beyond expression on the visage of another.

Then I pray, in the weakness that has overcome me, keep me from being besotted, deliver me from infatuation but these things rule my heart and deny my head the vetting of common-sense because there are times when just following the heart is the revelation of the beauty of nature and that of mankind.

Nay, words fail me.

My own history began on the 21st of December, 1965

Words and names

As I was told a few years before, I really was not expected the day I arrived and I did not get to go home until two months later.

Meanwhile, the somewhat accidental parents set about preparing for my arrival home and not three weeks after, the Registrar of Births and Deaths in the Walsall First sub-district typed in four names the first from my paternal grandfather, the second from my father and the third from my mother and my surname - meaningful and interesting as I began to master the Yoruba language.

Yes, I was a boy born on the Twentyfirst December 1965; the date was spelt out in words on the certificate of birth and thus began the documentation of my history.

Thank you all

So, today, after a time that has been eventful as it has been interesting, I find myself, 47 years young thankful, grateful, blessed and favoured in more ways than I can find words to express.

For the life I have lived, for the successes I have seen come and go but with undiminished hope of even better things to come, I have much to be happy for.

I have family, relations, friends, acquaintances and well-wishers who have sustained me through times that many hearts would have failed to see through, I have people who believe in me, people who trust me, people who lift me, people who praise me and people who honour me, all beyond anything I could ever deserve; why would I not be full of gratitude.

And thanks again

To God the strength of my life who gives me reason to expect beyond what I can imagine, I thank God for my wonderful 47 years and I thank you all for celebrating it with me – all your messages have been amazingly comforting, your generous help has been more than timely and for each year I get to see the glorious 21^st of December again thank you for being my friends.

I am still standing – Cheers!!! 

Thought Picnic: The genius of Facebook

Facing the past happily

I was chatting to a friend I last saw over two decades ago, he was one of my best friends when we were in secondary school.

The fact is for all the keenness of my memory about so many events of my past one aspect gives me concern, that of names. I have had too many instances where I have mismatched surnames and cannot for all the familiarity I had with the same people remember that essential piece of information.

Obviously, when the name showed up as a Facebook invitation, there was instant recognition with the mental slap on the head as how I could ever forgotten ever.

Everyone is a friend or a fan

However, for all the negative uses of Facebook, when I got chatting to my friend he highlighted something about the Facebook service that should have us in gratitude to whoever thought us the idea and implemented it.

Now, I have many friends on Facebook because the basic concept of interaction is Friendship and that is between people, when dealing with an organisation, institution or some personality as a public figure their profiles offer a different mode of interaction which allows you to click on the Like button.

In essence, you befriend people you know or seek to establish some relationship with and like things, objects or people you are fans of.

This is the air travel of interaction

Before Facebook there were few services that offered the means for re-establishing contact with long lost friends, you wondered where they were, what they did, how they have changed and so on; they were memories – sometimes keen, sometimes faint but we were in terms helpless and just let time run its course.

I am on many networks and have registered on alumni management sites but none have come close to the kind of social interaction that Facebook offers to rediscover and reacquaint yourself with your past; memorably nice or downright rotten.

You do have to filter your reconnections; I refuse to allow my curiosity to know to drive me back into the arms of the dreadful nightmares of the past, they are best left latent maybe even forgotten and never rekindled, no, not for a second.

Facing a broader spectrum of your history

So, as I have written before, Facebook has brought me in contact with family and relations, some so extended and the first time I met then was on Facebook. In my 40s I am making new contact with people I went to school with in the 70s and early 80s, it is surreal.

Such opportunities never existed except at alumni reunions but with the world being an ever smaller place and people travelling even further afield than before the opportunities for live meetings are more diminished.

You make a friend on Facebook and literally all the gaps get filled at an instant depending on the information shared and people share as much information to what is primarily their circle of current and close circle of friends which gets cascaded out to others who are acquaintances and long lost contacts who have become Facebook friends.

So, what Facebook has done for the rekindling of relationships is phenomenal despite the misgivings of many, it brings you back into the broad spectrum of all the people, issues and circumstances that have defined your experiences and history; crowding them into your present and forging and future that would be interesting to control, if you can.

Facebook is no joke

Looking beyond the technology and vehicle of social networking there is something greater at play; what you choose to do with those re-established relationships is left to you and how you handle those you have never had but now have to opportunity to tend, grow and foster might well define who you might become.

For all the figures, ratings and daily interactions that range from trivia to downright serious, Facebook in its concept is a work of genius and its ultimate uses have probably not yet been imagined by those who started this amazing experiment.

If there is anything you can take from this realisation, it is that Facebook is no joke, you constantly have to ask yourself about what you share, what is private, who you are willing to meet, what you are ready to relive, if you should curb your enthusiasm and whether you really can handle what Facebook brings back to you.