You can only play the cards you have

The things that I watch

I am a fan of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that anytime I light up my Amazon Fire Stick 4K*, I log on to YouTube and catch the most recent episodes that were recorded within the last 24 hours. The kind of insight and commentary he brings to the issues of the day usually has me applauding from my sofa in awe.

One section of his monologues that intrigues me is the lead-in to his Meanwhile polemics, it is made up of two counterintuitive deliveries almost nonsensical yet quite studied, I have myself wishing I could write like that. Then again, talk shows have writers, so these are more a confluence of crazy ideas than the individual genius of one, though the innovation itself might just be that of one person. What do I know?

The cards you’re dealt

Anyway, in another segment that gets played every few weeks, a guest is invited to participate in the Stephen Colbert Questionert, a series of 15 questions that presume to give a better knowledge of the person being interviewed. On this occasion, it was James Taylor who for the last question, Describe the rest of your life in five words, answered, “Play the cards I’m dealt.”

Now, I am not a card player, I only barely know anything about hands in poker even as I have if I remember correctly written code to randomly deal cards to present a winning poker hand, 2-Pair, Royal Flush, 4 of a kind, that sort of thing. I doubt I would ever have the proficiency to play cards for money and not that I would countenance that level of folly.

Any fool’s poker

However, I understand a few principles around the game, when cards are dealt, you cannot choose what you get, that’s just luck or fate, depending on how you view things. When the betting starts, reviewers might suggest the hand you have has more chance of winning the pot than the other person. Then other cards are put on the table, so that between the 3 you have in your hand and the 2 that end up on the table, you come to a decision, on who has the better hand.

Forgive my amateurish descriptions. Sometimes, you’ll fold because you do not think you have a chance, maybe you can raise the ante because you are surer about what you have got, then, there is a bluffing where you suggest you have the best hand and dare the other person to call your bluff, beyond the basic skill, it becomes a game of wits. Someone with the right kind of resolve can win over a good hand and this happens.

Fundamentally, whichever way the game goes, you can only play what you have got, never what you wish you had. Then even if you had everything in line but your bluff was not up to standard, the game might end early without you getting others to commit more to the pot for a bigger win. Let me exit the stage left at this point.

You can only play what you have

In life, we analogously in a card game where by fortitude, destiny, luck, fate, or blessing, we are dealt an experience of life that we have to live to the best of the capabilities and possibilities we possess. Nothing is perfect and even the perfect goes awry. We are left with having to live life as we find it and make the best of it to the squander or the prosper, then it could just be average and that in itself may not essentially be bad, just do your bit.

We can daydream and wish we were living another life, get into a transponder and be translated into that alternate universe where all those dreams are living realities in the midst of the same faces and issues of life. A good hand in a bad setting of a paltry pot for the winnings. You begin to realise the futility of it all, for no matter the number of infinite universes we might visit, the same human issues will exist. We might as well stick with the universe we know rather than the one we are introduced to as newly arrived foreigners in a strange land.

This is not against the march of progress, we can do a lot with what we have, we can have dreams, live with hope and march towards the realisation with purpose and determination. We can only do that with what we have rather than what we wish for. And so, I could well understand what James Taylor meant by “Play the cards I’m dealt.”, for life whichever way you live it or refuse to live it would always be, what you make it. And from the music, according to Leon Patillo, ‘all of your dreams can come true.’

Blog - The bird in hand is all you have

* All my media content is now delivered through this device to my Smart TV, I switched off my TiVo device over 2 months ago because it was just consuming electricity, the device allows me to download all the apps I need to watch everything I am interested in.

To what end ... is ingratitude?

Be thankful for everything

I saw a tweet earlier that made me reflect on the power of gratitude and the curse of ingratitude. This person out of the blue had paid into the account of a cousin, not substantial and yet not insignificant. The cousin rather than thank his benefactor suggested he was too big for the ordinary sum of money paid into his account. As fate would have it, the transaction was reversed, the benefactor richer with the opportunity to bless someone else, the cousin left with nothing.

So many thoughts crossed my mind about the reaction of that cousin, the thinking that informed him that it was better to project entitlement rather than gratitude. We make interesting assumptions about others when we have needs and ask for help without any inkling about the other responsibilities and calls upon the resources of the benefactor.

The tendency to feel that in the midst of our pressing need we have become the centre of the world to which everyone else should beckon first with priority before anything else is inconsiderate, selfish and demonstrate a lack grace.

You can’t decide for others

You cannot decide for a benefactor how they should dispose of their resources whether they be parsimonious or generous, it is their prerogative alone to decide who to give to and whether they are disposed to give at all. Now, even if the beneficiary is a person of great means that the gift is little or insignificant, the better sentiment is to think of the motive and the consideration with a thankful response.

I constantly check on my thankful spirit, whether I have been appreciative of the little as I have been of the much. I want my sense of gratitude to be alert, full of initiative and ready to give expression long before it is instigated. Its importance can never be overstated.

Gratitude as talent

I am reminded of the parable of the talents in the Bible, where a master about to travel distributed 8 talents amongst three servants. To one was handed 5 talents and I presume that servant had the capacity, the aptitude and the responsibility to handle 5 talents, when the master returned, he had doubled the investment. To another was given 2 talents according to their ability and the same doubled that investment. [Wikipedia]

The last was given one talent, my view is the servant given the talent for that sake of not being left out, the servant from the master’s opinion had none of the capacity of the other two servants and the master was proven right, the servant buried rather than invested the talent, then blamed the master for his failure to act like his wiser colleagues.

That one talent servant had the talent taken off him and given to the servant who managed 5 talents. The one talent servant was then thrown out of their job into destitution. In today’s setting it could be an unproductive employee who gets no promotion then gets sacked and receives no positive references to help them along.

Appreciating the power of gratitude

Yet, the spirit of gratitude is an enabler in ways we can never fully appreciate, it is in the being helpful, being considerate, being respectful, being available, being generous, being empathetic, having a listening ear, it is the open mind, the open heart, the open hand, the accepting rather than rejecting, the presence of mind to find a good perspective regardless, overlooking offence in the quest for agreement.

You get remembered favourably when opportunity comes, next time the benefactor has much more to give, I doubt the cousin will be in the list of those to be blessed. Ingratitude closes the small doors that lead to the grand gateways to amazing things in life. Sometimes, we need to have periods of introspection that help us realise whether a sense of ingratitude might have closed the door to new opportunity and make to redress that failing.

I have too many examples of where my perception of the power of gratitude as expressed in this blog has given me amazing opportunities and successes. I am thankful for the little and the plenty, every blessing is worthy of a sincerely grateful heart. There can be no good end to ingratitude but loss, penalty, punishment or to be forgotten where others are remembered, it is self-harm masquerading as arrogance, pride, delusions of grandeur, or an inflated sense of self.

Courtesy of the William Kentridge exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town.

Thought Picnic: A note of self-encouragement

In a moment of reviewing personal veracity,
When one encounters the doubts of innate capacity,
Within the resources of varied capability,
Always lies amazing ability.

That even in the throes of vulnerability,
Having weathered the onslaught of imbecility,
There is every probability,
Assurance remains of adequate facility,
In that I find agreeability.

When you stand with integrity,
And consider things in tranquillity,
Whatever the fragility,
It cannot temper your agility.

Introspection hones your acuity,
Reveals many a possibility,
Nothing will end in futility,
For we are born for irrepressibility,
In utility is great formidability.

Thought Picnic: The expanding capacity of relationships

London inspires

Looking out this morning at an amazing view of London from the sixth floor of an apartment presented a panoramic view from the Tower Bridge to Vauxhall which took in iconic features of London as the Gherkin, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Tate Modern and the London Eye.

The beauty of London from a height cannot be denied, to wake up to that view daily can be a source of inspiration quite different from living London on the ground level. That is not to talk of how London is lit up at night from the Shard to other tall and significant buildings.

Relationship hooks

Yet the subtle and unspoken message is in relationships that bring with them new experiences and knowledge that become part of us by communication, interaction and fellowship.

For instance, the view I appreciated this morning came as a result of a relationship, that it is a residence of my host might leave this fact uncherished and somewhat made light of.

Then I look back at my love for history, for architecture, for travel and for adventure and realise my various relationships brought with them opportunities that expanded my horizons to new revelatory things about my partner first and then about other perspectives I would never have seen if I were not in that relationship.

Strive for profitable companionship

This is why it becomes needful to seek companionships and relationships that stretch us, taking us out of our preconceptions, prejudices and comfort zones to view and inculcate the different, the diverse and the other.

If I were to go out on a limb, I will say relationships extend our capacity, whether those relationships are good or bad, what matters is the lessons we learn from information and knowledge that comes with those interactions.

When we look back at our relationships with that in mind, it is very possible that we will learn to cherish each and every one of them better and if we are to explore opportunities for new relationships we will have the mindset of always taking the positives regardless of the uncomfortable negatives.

Nigeria: 34 burnt to death siphoning oil

Pipeline breach deaths again

There is a fundamental issue that does not seem to receive adequate redress in Nigeria. It has become so recurrent that it is both an embarrassment and a tragedy.

News arrives that another pipeline was deliberately breached and in the process of people siphoning highly volatile and flammable fuel from the pipeline it was ignited and at least 34 people have been burnt to death. Exactly a year ago, we had the same thing happen.

The toll would definitely be higher for those who have momentarily survived with serious burns that may not get adequate treatment from our poor triage services.

Fuel for cooking

Evidently, the reason why these pipelines are breached is because fuel is needed for literally everything in urban settings like Lagos, first for cooking, then for lighting and transport.

Cooking most especially makes the most demands, the West African cuisine does not lend itself to cold foods that much, literally everything needs to be cooked and spiced – all for taste and the prevention of food-borne disease or dangerous parasites.

That does not in itself justify the vandalising national infrastructure for personal needs and that is where the government of the people for the people has a serious responsibility that it has failed to wake up to.

The transport angle becomes a harrowing tale of despair and the hopelessness when petrol stations were giving priority to hearses that had to show the presence of cadaver cargo to be served – it makes you weep; though this particular case was in Zimbabwe.

Affordable fuel for the people

Nigeria being an oil-producing nation should have in place the means and infrastructure to ensure that this oil is both available and affordable to the general populace.

We need to invest in refining capacity that means both the needs of our contracts in the international marketplace and the critical needs of our people for the primary aspects of survival and development. It is outrageous that Nigeria as the 7^th largest oil-producing nation in the world needs to import refined product to meet its needs.

Again, people cannot continue to countenance that fact that the pipelines in their backyards are the source of such unbelievable sums of money that comes nowhere near affecting their lives positively.

It is this same problem that gives oxygen to the insurgencies in the Niger Delta Region, people seeing their land and water laid to waste by national and international conglomerates; the profits from extraction ending in white elephant projects or corrupt enrichment.

There has to be fairness and equity in the management of our natural resources for the benefit of all people of Nigeria and it takes a government that understands its mandate to govern and service to humanity to take on that hard job.

They perish for need

The folly of people who approach leaking petroleum pipelines going from the many incidents that have happened in recent years is lamentable, but the underlying problem is evident – they cannot afford what is supposed to be a produce of their own land and our attention to protecting national infrastructure through maintenance and security is very poor.

It is a very horrid thing for those whose lives were lost and a sad time for those they left behind, possibly on the premise that they only wanted to feed their families and needed fuel to cook the little food they had to share.

Get doing something

The criminal element needs to be addressed, but the issue is in the causes of this activity, we should not need another panel of experts to write another white paper about the obvious – some sleeves need to be rolled up for this matter and none of getting it bogged down in some task force quango.

There have been probes which are simply a euphemism for appearing to do something but really achieving nothing and learning no lessons, they are a travesty.

May they who have perished in so horrific a mishap rest in peace, one cannot begin to feel the pain of it all – so sad it is.

Other readings

The affordability of refined product in Nigeria – Chippla’s Weblog

Nigeria: They were burnt like tinder to cinder – March 2007

Unnamed, unknown, unsung and undone in Nigeria – May 2006