No More Fucks to Give: On Experience, Rejection, and Self-Worth

An AI-generated infographic on the blog content. (Click to enlarge.)

The Weight of Experience

I have met, read about, and heard from people who tell me it is tough out there. This is not for any want of skill or expertise; these are people who initiated, executed, and commissioned projects and programmes in-country, abroad, and within global conglomerates, bringing function and functionality into existence.

Yet, for all that wealth of experience, along with continuous adaptation and change, a keenness to keep abreast of developments, and a depth built over decades, the market for talent seems to have closed its doors. It offers little opportunity for the kind of knowledge and insight that would profit any organisation daring enough to venture from the packaged to the rugged.

Six Hundred Applications

My own experience of this came through posting around 600 applications for jobs I not only believed I could do, but for which, at times, I was overqualified. Still, you stick your oar in for the prospect of being seen and recognised enough for what they might think you can do.

At this point, it is not a case of looking for achievement. While we can set new goals for the circumstances in which we find ourselves, there is little else we need to prove to anyone, apart from the excitement we feel in doing things, doing them well, and then being given a platform to pay it forward through mentoring, coaching, and helping others grow.

The Toll of Rejection

Each application went out on the wing of hope that the response would not be one of rejection, but an invitation to have a conversation. Those who do not know you might subject you to unconventional questioning that borders on interrogation. You half bite your tongue at being patronised, belittled, or even humiliated, because they seem to hold all the cards while you are trying to be seen beyond what your CV says about you.

This process is not without a toll on your confidence and self-esteem. You begin to measure yourself according to what you are offered rather than what you are worth. It becomes a gradual, humbling climbdown; the high they think they are offering sits at a low you had never countenanced, perhaps not in two decades, but that becomes the price for being, unfortunately, out of the game.

Stooping to Conquer

Invariably, we stoop to conquer, resetting our expectations and redefining our horizons as our laurels begin to hang on the walls that deign to accept us. Perhaps some recognition comes with it, once they realise we were more than a bargain snapped up by a market less astute.

The corporate world might forget one thing. Where others are still in pursuit of hierarchical reward, we, after almost four decades in this sphere, probably know all the machinations of office politics, the power plays, and the egos that so easily toxify an otherwise conducive workplace.

A Word to the Weary

Indeed, I encourage those who have been denied prospect after prospect not to relent; perhaps some recalibration is all that is required. I remember all sorts of things said about my old CV. It was rewritten, redesigned, and refurbished until I could almost no longer recognise myself, my work, my voice, and what I could eventually defend. In the end, it was the old and trusty CV that won it.

Finally, I enjoy what I do as a senior sort of geek. I will not be disrespected, and I will speak my mind. I do not need to be confrontational, but if circumstance demands it, the challenge will be met. And heck, many like me have no more fucks to give; annoy us and we are gone. Thank you.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

Thought Picnic: The Many Mirrors of Criticism

The Mirror and Its Drip

Criticism is a mirror, but not all mirrors are polished the same way. The polishing might bring clarity, or the mode of polishing might scratch the surface and distort what we see. When we look in the mirror, we hope to see the best reflection of ourselves rather than a caricature that makes us recoil.

Dripping criticism is subtle and persistent. It is the raised eyebrow, the “interesting choice” comment, the slow leak of disapproval that erodes confidence over time. A manager who says, every week, “We'll need to tighten this up eventually,” without clarity or support, creates doubt rather than direction.

I dare say this almost always comes from familiar settings: the parent who has constantly said something that becomes ingrained in memory, a habit formed with the intent to change yet one that does the opposite, creating tension, resistance, and resentment.

Left unchecked, those early and well-meant words settle into the inner critic we carry into adulthood, a voice that goes on speaking in a parent's cadence long after the parent has fallen silent.

Burning on Contact

Caustic criticism burns on contact. It is sharp, often clever, and sometimes public. “Did you even read the brief?” may get a laugh from bystanders, but it scars the recipient. Its power lies in humiliation, not improvement.

Its purpose is to reduce a person to insignificance; it highlights inadequacy in order to expose weakness. The person on the receiving end is likely to shrink, wishing the ground would open so they might fall into the crevasse. It is wholly unkind, the bailiwick of the sociopath.

Tearing Down

Destructive criticism tears down without offering a path forward. “This whole plan is a mess” ends the conversation instead of advancing it. It may be emotionally satisfying to the critic, but it leaves both the work and the worker diminished.

This goes beyond cynicism; it is the need to complain without helping or offering solutions. It sees the problem clearly yet fails to realise that identification is not resolution. There is a close cousin here in withering criticism, the scornful, contemptuous remark designed to make a person wilt on the spot.

It borrows the sting of the caustic and the finality of the destructive, which is perhaps why it is so hard to place: it wounds like the one and forecloses like the other.

Care and Clarity

Constructive criticism, by contrast, is anchored in care and clarity. It names the issue and points towards growth. “The introduction is strong. The argument would be clearer if you added evidence in paragraph two” respects both the person and the goal. It assumes capability.

This brings the best of helpfulness to the fore: empathy, guidance, and emotional intelligence, which engender growth and productivity. It takes a wholly different mindset. Yet every sort of criticism, given with the right intentions, can become constructive; it depends on motivation, desire, and drive.

Gentler Forms and Love

There are gentler forms too. Reflective criticism asks questions rather than making declarations. “What outcome were you hoping for here?” invites ownership.

Self-criticism, when healthy, refines craft and character; when excessive, it becomes an internalised drip. Cultural criticism challenges norms and systems rather than individuals, asking whether the rules themselves deserve revision.

Ultimately, criticism reveals as much about the giver as the receiver. The best criticism carries three traits: specificity, proportionality, and goodwill. Without goodwill, it corrodes. With goodwill, even hard truths can build something stronger than what existed before.

Its reach is wider than the work in hand, for over time criticism shapes confidence and character, bolsters or erodes self-esteem, tips us towards obstinacy or leaves us open to persuasion, and quietly colours the way we see the world; but that is a thread for another day.

Beyond goodwill, perhaps the real driver of the best kind of criticism is love: a deep love, concerned to bring about the kind of change in others that we wish for ourselves. The root of that is self-love, from whence springs the ability to love and to be loved in return.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

When we stand up, we identify with shared victimhood

Deeper human interest

Much as I am more inclined to what documentary type programmes like railway journeys that serve as excursions to places around the world along with biographies and the histories of people, places, cultures and events, detective drama can be considered an unhealthy diet in understanding the nature and motivations of people.

Last night, I watched an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit which explores themes of sexual abuse and violation, some involving deaths and how the investigation unravels into some sort of closure. In this case, a teenaged popular social media schoolgirl was drugged, violated, photographed, and humiliated by the publication of her pictures.

Exhuming the truth

The process of getting to the truth of what happened went through closing ranks, accusations, bullying, threats and almost irreconcilable breakdown of relationships and friendships. That the boys involved were presumably friends of the girl was unfortunate, but the issues of teenage angst were quite adequately covered.

In the end, the truth of what happened was discovered without the need for the victim to relive the whole ordeal in court. The culmination was in the lead female police officer, Olivia Benson, visiting the school to discuss the issues around abuse, cyberbullying, and consent. The victim took the stage with the police office relaying what she went through, being the stronger through the experience.

Standing up to identify

Olivia Benson after giving a short talk persuaded everyone to participate in an experiment, instructing them all to close their eyes before asking the pupils affected by scenarios she painted to stand up. Those who had bad things said about them, those who had been humiliated, those who had lost friends due to some adverse situation, those who had been shamed or ridiculed, those who had been bullied, those who had been physically abused, those who had been sexually violated, and so on.

In turn, they stood up with more than half the audience standing, they were asked to open their eyes and which point Olivia Benson said, we are not alone, everyone is affected by these things and fear keeps people from talking of how they are have been victimised. Some then took the opportunity to talk of their own experiences, victims, bullies, or the silenced.

Talking helps people deal with the issues and knowing that the other people might just be as affected means we can help each other.

We share experiences

I already had tears in my eyes, I could be quite a softie when it comes to deeply emotional issues as this, much as I could relate to it all. I could have stood up for each scenario, the story of ostracism, victimisation, abuse, ridicule and damaged relationships could make books but for the saving grace of those things not ruling one’s life or defining the person one is.

We find that we need to stand up and be counted, not so much as victims or survivors, but as those who have experienced things to share amongst others to give each other support and succour drawing sympathy and empathy out of our involved humanity. I find it strange that a blog I wrote over 13 years ago when I first shared my story of child sexual abuse is being read a lot recently.

Blog - My Sex Post (January 2007)

Then, the blog was hosted elsewhere, and I was amazed by the number of comments that came in from others who had been abused and violated by paedophiles and hebephiles. The blog was like standing up to the prompting of what you might have experienced in life. That is why I write about these things, the taboo subjects that we have kept silent about with the hope they would sink away into the depths of passing and forgetful time, even if the scars take much longer to heal, if ever.

If we can, we need to stand up and be counted, so others might feel counted and not alone isolated in the thought that they are to blame for the harm inflicted on their bodily, mental, and sexual wellbeing.

Childhood: Remembering the times I had no one to talk to

If we could turn back time

I do not know how I would have been able to help my parents redo elements of my upbringing that might with hindsight has made me a better person. However, I do notice there are things that I picked up by example and other things that probably would have been better imparted by clear instruction and relatable lessons of life rather than relying on the osmosis of parenting.

Two specific things I think my parents left to osmosis, the hope that I turned out the way they expected without their active engagement, first, the management of money and secondly the real usefulness of school and academic achievement. I think I understood I was lacking in financial wisdom when I was sent away at 10 to take common entrance examinations.

I was given some money which I frittered away and spent on things I rarely had access to like comics and gave some away to the cousins who could take advantage of my naivety and generosity, I was no wiser. During that visit, I was also given money by relations, it is strange as I remember today that I was able to account for everything I was given by them, but not properly for what my parents gave me. The way the questioning went, about how I spent the money suggested they were quite displeased with me.

No reason I knew

I attended primary school because that was what you did, I effortlessly passed my examinations usually coming second or third in the class, but I hated revision or homework. There were many times I was caught out in class, lying that I had submitted my homework when I had not. It was a shameful and embarrassing experience when Mrs Onyemenam would put me in front of the class and have my classmates call out in unison, Liar!

There was a time I was a bedwetter both at home and in the first year and a half at secondary school, yet, in the almost 5 months I spent with relations in Lagos and Sagamu before secondary school, I never once wet my bed until my father came to visit and I spent the night with him at his hotel when he was down for a business trip.

Blog - Childhood: Atòólé

In secondary boarding school, I probably had serious child psychology issues that were attended to with rituals, amulets, and crazy animist practices. I always lost my things, rarely took notes in class and by the third year, I played truant hating some of the classes because they were exhausting and boring. It ended up on my school report, my mother a school principal was completely exasperated that she had a truant for a son.

The cane was not my bane

Whilst I never face corporal punishment for my academic achievements or failures even when I had to withdraw because I failed a repeated year in polytechnic, there was no shortage of criticism and excoriation especially from my father, a brilliant and a high-achieving accountant who must have sometime wondered how I came to be his son.

I can say in polytechnic I was clinically depressed, I had instances when I attended classes and I could understand what was going on or why I was there. I was not abusing substances or anything, I just had a head that seemed to be completely unaware of what I was doing. It is strange that I seemed to keep my sanity by falling into religion. It did not make matters any easier at home.

It was in these areas of disagreement and misalignment with my parents’ philosophies that I suffered the most and received the severest corporal punishments, they together ganging up on me, it was also an opportunity to humiliate, as I was ejected from my room and made to sleep on the floor.

The home was not a school to success

Now, in the minds of my parents doing everything they knew how to bring up successful and well-adjusted children, they were doing their best with the tools they had. Too many times, the comparison was the weapon to refocus, an uncle there or an aunt there who somehow had some opportunity but apparently wasted it became the terror of what you did not want to be.

In the end, the greatest lessons in life that helped me out of the rut I was in was not the discipline, the disagreements, the fights that included a headbutting from my father, or that backhand swipe of my mother that so connected well with face momentarily blinding me, it was in the understanding of other uncles and aunts who had experienced failure and overcome those circumstances to be successful.

It is ironic that many of them had some guidance from my parents when they were at their lowest ebb, they repaid by giving their nephew allowances, opportunity and encouragement to turn my life around and believe I really could make something of my life. None of this is to spite my parents, but there are aspects of child development that have left scars even if they seem to be healed.

Thought Picnic: I will remain curious and work on it

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Who is me again?

Recently, I think I have been searching for a better understanding of myself, a kind of review of my past, my present, my prospects, the circumstances in which I find myself, what might need tinkering with and what other things must radically shift.

I guess I am constantly challenging myself to appreciate if I am achieving and contributing, whether my ideas are sound and what I need to do or where I need to go to get inspiration and insight for whatever I am faced with. There are days I do not think I have done much and there are many caught between the shame of being slothful, the guilt of not achieving my goals, the embarrassment of being caught out and the humiliation of being shown up.

Finding my place of vulnerability and being able to deal with it is still a process, the way I find it difficult to ask for or seek help when I need it most. I am working on finding the voice to fix the things I am uncomfortable with.

Guarding the influences

This Coronavirus pandemic lockdown where you are left alone and with your own thoughts, many influences begin to insert themselves in your life, usually from social media and television. I do manage my television influences better than I do social media, especially Twitter. So much jumps out at you to enrage you that you need to condition yourself in terms of initiation, engagement, response, contribution, restraint, disengagement, or indifference.

Then, I am getting better at extricating myself, I do not need to be drawn into issues that drain mental energy, denigrate, or are unedifying. The unpersuadable are just unpersuadable and it is important to see the trait early before the fruitless frustrates. Most importantly, know the unnecessary for it is unnecessary, something to be ignored and where the temptation to tweet must be resisted for your good.

I will remain curious

As I go through this developmental process, I have been trying to find fulfilment in the things I enjoy without having the things that drive others define my sense of achievement. Listening to a number of discussions from many interesting people, the pep talk is quite off-putting to the point of detestation.

The life coaches and motivation speakers who go on about using this period of sequestration or rather retreat to say you should focus on something, have a purpose in life or pursue your passion, without which you have underachieved leaving you an anxiety wreck as you realise you have let another day slip useless away, again.

Blog - Thought Picnic: In the days of useful ideas

Elizabeth Gilbert in a recent TED discussion brought in a new thought process, suggesting we exercise curiosity; a kind of interest probably in the mundane, which I do so well, observing beyond just seeing, the stakes she said are lower, there is no anxiety, for looking closer brings to light things easily missed.

I know I am curious, it feeds my learning, the learning to love myself more, it brings insight, it is questioning, precocious, inquisitive, challenging of the norm and I might just end up being proud of myself, grateful of the wonderful people and things that enrich my life. I think I am comfortable with that.

England: How Lewisham Single Homeless Intervention Prevention humiliated me

Dead with connections

It was a shortcut, leading to a park and then a station unto the road I needed to walk up a hill to the place I had stayed until today.

On both sides of the path that seemed to split an old graveyard into two were tombstones of the long dead and buried, remembered by the names and the dates of birth and of death, sometimes with the years numbered, maybe with other family or information of relationships to those who put them there.

A father, a mother, a sister, a brother, a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, there were connections, with the place, with people and with a time, that is why they were there.

No protection for the living

Even then gravestones followed a trend, some were shaped in stone like Egyptian sarcophagi, maybe in celebration of the eternity of burial exemplified by the Pharaoh’s tombs of old, protected with curses and scripts that have no significance to the grave tampering archaeologists who brought us the remains of Tutankhamun and that cohort.

No, there is no protection for the dead as there seems to be no protection for the living if they do not tick the boxes of eligibility even if the person is in dire need representing an exception to the rule.

My grave circumstances were brought into stark relief when I strode down to the Lewisham Housing Services and there was nothing in my story, voice or plea that could made me a priority in their eyes, I had no connections with Lewisham apart from 5 weeks that I have lived here, but then I have no particular connections with anywhere else in the UK, I am as good as a just returned Englishman.

I’m no prodigal son

Maybe the lady was exasperated with the audacity I had to walk into any council office, talk less of the one she sat in to ask for help, I could have another set of phone numbers to add to the 5 I had called for advice and help – I was fast becoming a homeless switchboard.

Then I was asked why I had not made plans for my resettlement back in the UK before leaving the Netherlands last August, it is like asking the prodigal son in the Bible why he had not made plans for settling back at home when he literally had no claim to anything but the mercy and kindness of the people he left behind, especially his father.

The questions plumbed the depths of absurdity, there was no room for embarrassment but to state the facts and the fact is an Englishman who has generally lived an independent life and has now only resorted to state help in an emergency and desperate situation has no chance on God’s good earth of getting help today – there is no face of humanity or compassion to register in sympathy or empathy, rather you are met with obstinate indifference, apathy and checkboxes.

Scolded in my adversity

My humiliation was completed like the exhumation of the graves of yore when after I asked to make phone calls in a quiet corner of the empty waiting room, with the unfortunate result of not getting through a legal advice service but then called the hospital for help, I was curtly asked to leave, in the eyes of the doorman, I had become a vagrant, a nuisance and an inconvenience.

My voice trembled as I stepped out apologising profusely for taking up their time. I will come through this with my head held up high and for those who staff the Single Homeless Intervention Prevention office in Lewisham – I am single and homeless but you did little to intervene or prevent the predicament I was facing – we will meet again, God willing, I will be in better circumstances to say I saw the next day, in spite of and despite you.

Thank you.

Opinion: Where Do You Stand on the N-Word?

The Education of History

There is a great clamour for education, education that changes the circumstances of a person, lifting them out of situations that tell a compelling story of social mobility where the success we see today is far from the lowly beginnings that will resonate and offer hope to others.

However, with education, I adjure you to get history, a sense of history, the lessons of history that will hopefully ensure that you have learnt from the mistakes of the past and can build on the foundations that were laid before.

Those who carry that sense of history when celebrated can find such inspiring words as were spoken by Oprah Winfrey when she was inducted into the NAACP Hall of Fame in 2005[YouTube] – “Because they were the seed of the free, and because they were the seed I get to be the fruit.”

Getting the Perspective of the N-Word

Beyond the uproar that accompanied the means-profiling of Oprah Winfrey in Switzerland in that CBS-ET interview there is an even more significant aspect of the interview that is being lost, it is in the use and the context of the N-word. See the later part of that video.

This is what Oprah Winfrey had to say:

“I do not run in the circle of people who use the word loosely or use the word because for me, it is out of respect to those people for whom that was the last word they heard while they were being hung, it’s the last word they heard when they were being fired, it’s the last word they heard when their house was being burnt, it’s the last word … it’s the word they heard every day when walking down the street, when they had to step off the sidewalk and let other people pass.”

She concluded by saying, “I owe them the responsibility and honour by not trying to denigrate them as they were by using that word.”

There is no other history for the N-Word

The N-word is loaded with history that some of us have never learnt and those who have learnt have easily forgotten, but the memory of those it was not a few generations ago to bear the humiliation, carry the repudiation and live the seething hate that denigrated a people to almost insignificance cannot be abolished to a trend and fad that is gaining currency amongst our youth – a people without a history are a people bereft of roots, swept around like clouds in turbulent winds without stay or anchor.

No, my friends, we do have history, documented and living history that should hold a significance in the journey of life that we experience from a record of our ancestry to the gifts that we bequeath those who follow us – there is no respect in the N-word, it cannot be gentrified away from the seed, the tree and the fruits that have ripened and been eaten by those who revelled before as the necks of those before us bore the yokes we can never imagine or fully understand.

If there is anything that we can take away from this, it is that there is no other parallel history of the N-word that means nice, beautiful, acceptable, honoured, revered or desired.

Standing as 10,000

Oprah Winfrey sadly appears to misquote Maya Angelou in Our Grandmothers when she says, “I come as one, but stand as ten thousand”, it is no less significant in the misquote or paraphrase, it is laden with meaning and a clear perspective of history, knowing the road she has walked and where she has arrived today.

This is what the part of that poem says:

No one, no, nor no one million
ones dare deny me God, I go forth
alone, and stand as ten thousand.

Where Do You Stand?

The question then remains, shall we - with the sense of history that underpins the present in which we stand on the shoulders of the many who marched, walked, talked, prayed, were harassed, were beaten, were murdered and were martyred for the cause that gives us the humanity we now enjoy – go forth alone and stand as ten thousand for the shame and humiliation they suffered by celebrating the name that made our history so blackened by suffering and denigration as our new identity?

I say again, with education, get history and with history, get enlightenment for the N-word was given to call our grandmothers worse than the master’s dog, it must not cross our lips again, if we really know who we are.

The doctor says good riddance

The doctor has moved on

I was writing the piece below as the news flashed that the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Nigeria has resigned. I am impressed with her grace her sense of integrity and the way she has maintained her honour.

This is all because a bumbling patriarchal president had turned his cabinet into a chess-board full of pawns that could be moved and sacrificed with impunity.

It is a loss to Nigeria that a technocrat of that worth and values should be frustrated out of service to her homeland, whilst we hear that Nigerians in Diaspora should return to help build the nation.

Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala would be the banner to the fact that we do not have the kind of government that helps develop the worthy and patriotic cause of serving our great nation of Nigeria. It is a sad day indeed.

The humiliation of the doctor

As the debate heats up on Ayoke’s Exodus; about the importance of the Foreign Ministry in relation to Finance Ministry in Nigeria.

One must once again look at the situation where the erstwhile Finance Minister who is now the Foreign Minister was stripped of the leadership of the Economic Management Team.

My view is that developing economies have more to gain in promoting trade and development which is linked to the management of resources and consequently their economies than trying to peddle vacuous influence without requisite backing of good governance and sensible economic policies.

With Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala being stripped of this economic profile and then being advised to concentrate on the Non-Aligned Movement, this makes interesting reading on deeper analysis.

The Non-Aligned Movement does not include any country in the West, probably; the only countries of note would be Nigeria, South Africa and India, with China as an observer.

The rest of the list which consists of 55% of the UN lists the poorest and the most deprived countries that require aid to keep things together, including the State of Palestine. I must say, it includes all the OPEC countries.

What is the relevance of the NAM?

However, in a new world order where globalization, makes every economy susceptible to global financial swings and machinations, one wonders the value of the NAM apart from the kindred spirit of having been colonized or having once had their economies shackled to IMF poison pills.

Also, the 14^th NAM summit is in Havana, Cuba between September 14-15, 2006, whilst the 2006 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group is in Singapore between September 18-20, 2006.

No marks for thinking the more familiar face of a former vice-president of the World Bank could help a lot more in the negotiations than a meeting Nigeria would be the proverbial one-eyed man