Thought Picnic: Confidences, Not Secrets

Confidences, Not Secrets

In the broad scheme of things, we have no secrets; what we have are confidences that too often get betrayed in unguarded yet frank moments to others. 

Much as I hear and listen to a great deal, I am guarded about how I use what I have learnt. I could form opinions about people, but I am very flexible and, hopefully, tenderhearted, making allowances until indifference or unkindness breaks the bond.

Indifference is, for me, the most wicked form of expression in any communication, because it means there is no care, concern, consideration, or confidence. Whatever confidences you might have thought you had in that setting are then ready for the careless abandon of reason and a carefree dissemination to anyone.

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

Words have an effect, a great effect, when what should have been kept in mind finds an outlet to others. I am also a believer in the biblical saying, “From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.” Even discretion and moderation can scarcely stand in for self-control once you have resolved all inner contention and convincingly arrived at the conclusion you have uttered.

Being Spoken About

From people I trust, I have heard the most hurtful things, sometimes directly, though usually relayed to me through other channels. I bat them away most of the time; yet, in other situations, the covenant is broken beyond redemption, and the relationship sours or is terminated for my own peace of mind.

What we cannot avoid is that we will always be spoken about by someone else: in praise, in jest, in commendation, in spite, in jealousy, in rancour, or much worse. That is a given.

I have the outlet of my blog to reflect on these many things, and perhaps to limit the impact of malevolence whilst maximising that of benevolence.

Words That Wound

Perhaps decades ago, it was a guardian relating to someone else that I had been picked up off the street. I am grateful that my story, which has had many failures, has been greeted with amazing successes.

Another, whilst I was in the throes of personal angst and the loss of confidence to project myself, grew fed up with the process I took towards rebuilding character and purpose. Out of nowhere came words to the effect that my inability to produce results was inimical to their social standing; I was the illuminant of a bastard.

To them, that was a kind of radical intervention to jar my senses, but it did the opposite. It fell into that rubric of dripping criticism, the kind that strips you of your dignity to force a reaction and their view of the right result. It is about them, rather than you.

Shedding Old Skin

For me, there was no second instinct; I ceased initiating communication from that point. It is the kind of talk the speaker believes is necessary, but which the listener, with an appreciation of nuance and the use of language, would find, basically, unforgivable.

Yet these examples might tempt a recipient to deem such incidents forgettable, until you are broadsided by the notion that you are living a fake life. I do wish a whole lot of things were fake: the losses, the cancers, some experiences, a few tragedies. But what kind of a life would that be?

Perhaps, for once, I am not remotely my own harshest critic when I allow myself the pleasure of living, of loving, of existing, and of doing my own thing, unbothered by what others think, because that is their problem and not mine. Yes, the words do hurt, but they must not dampen the spirit of the joy of living. Like moulting, or the shedding of skin, some old bonds need breaking for the renewal of self.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

Twenty-Seven Years and a Day

A Manchester Eclipse

Time is measured in epochs that put our ephemeral existence into insignificance. I have been in the path of a few celestial events, solar eclipses that, without the explanation of modern science, would have left us in total dread and foreboding.

Today in Manchester, we witnessed a partial solar eclipse. Things did not really go dark, but everyone was looking up to behold this once-in-a-lifetime heavenly sight.

I could not get hold of eclipse glasses, so I improvised, making a pinhole camera. I probably needed a bit more depth to the box, but it occupied me enough that I did not dare to look directly at the sun.

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

Finding a Better View

As I live in an urban city centre with many high-rise buildings, getting a good view first entailed standing by the roadside, before I made my way to Mayfield Park, which we as residents sometimes forget is so close and quite vast.

I watched it well beyond the maximum before a lady offered me her glasses, and I then looked directly at the majesty of our universe.

Twenty-Seven Years Earlier

Twenty-seven years and a day ago, we had another solar eclipse. This one was quite prominent; not totality, but you saw and noticed the dimming of the light. As the light dimmed, it took on a sepia hue, almost like being inside a photograph from the 1940s.

It was also a different place. I was visiting a friend in the Netherlands, who lived out in the countryside at Doorn, and what a spectacle we saw in his garden.

Doorn is also the town in which the Kaiser of Germany spent his last days. Wilhelm II abdicated in 1918 and lived at Huis Doorn until his death in 1941; fittingly, he seems to carry that same feeling of the 1940s that the sepia light evoked.

The House at Doorn

My friend's mother took me on a tour of Huis Doorn. As her father had been the groundsman, their house stood on the grounds, and she, with the other children, would run around the house having tea with the Kaiser.

She showed me the chutes they slithered through to get from one part of the house to another: a historical monument, visited with a guide whose own history was formed within its walls.

A Turning Point

I cannot tell why an eclipse could be both momentous and auspicious. I did not see the future, for I had just come out of a seven-year relationship. We remained friends and planned a short holiday to Brussels.

As he returned to England, I headed north to Holland. Nine months later marked the beginning of a new life in the Netherlands, twelve and a half years of it. No, it was not to enter a relationship, though I remained in contact with my friend in Doorn.

Written in the Skies

And God said, "Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. [Genesis 1:14-15 NIVUK]

I do not do things by chance. This might be a harbinger of things to come; the least you can do is to be ready for when change and opportunity come.

Life is like a story written in the skies, sometimes clear, at times cloudy, and even, on occasion, in the dimness and haze of sepia. It comes as experience, to be written into memory and history.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

Thought Picnic: Meeting Your Estranged Children Where They Are

Adapting to a Changing World

I am constantly told that I need to make allowances for the older generation because they are set in their ways. This might be true, but the world is always changing around us, and thriving in any community requires steady, sometimes sudden, adaptations if we are to relate to people, events, ideas, and circumstances.

Whilst reading an article on LinkedIn titled “Meeting Your Resistant Children Where They Are”, I immediately realised that it seemed to address only one part of the wider issue of relationships. The article focused more on divorced parents and their apparently adolescent children, and I appreciate that the writer's area of expertise is divorce and parenting.

If I were to extrapolate, however, the issue extends well beyond divorce, which is merely one of the elements contributing to the breakdown of relationships, just as resistance is only one facet of parent-child estrangement.

The Generational Cycle

It is interesting to observe how we all move through the generational phases of life, beginning as children with parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, and then transitioning through these phases as those who came before us begin to drop off, in that natural cycle of life.

How we relate to those before us sometimes follows an established code of community, reverence, and respect. What rarely finds adequate scrutiny is the need to adapt for those who come after us.

For instance, when does a parent begin to see their child as an adult, one to be treated with some acknowledgement and, I dare say, respect for their autonomy, independence, initiative, and decision-making?

A Personal Reflection

Then again, this topic is probably too broad to be addressed in a blog, or from an amateur's background, even with the lived experience that might cloud one's judgement. My parents were never divorced; rather, with the palpable tension, the middle-aged theatrics, and the passage of time, they grew apart.

It might have been better had they gone their separate ways a long time ago, rather than being hemmed in by middle-class values until their cohabitation became untenable. Each kept their own record of what the other might or might not have done, and we, the children, were corralled into narratives that expected us to take sides; in the main, we tended to remain neutral.

However, to bring this conversation back on course, there is where my parents expect me to be, where they see me, and where I actually am. These are entirely different places. Whether I am a child, an adult, pliant, or recalcitrant, I can only wonder whether I am all of these at the same time. The fact that I have never been a parent might inform other perspectives.

Naming the Thing

Still, there is a name for the thing I am circling, and I only came upon it recently: relational maturity. It is not the same as being agreeable, nor the same as being patient, though it borrows freely from both. It is, rather, the capacity to meet another person where they actually stand, without insisting they first travel to where we happen to be waiting for them. I had felt its absence for a lifetime without ever knowing what to call it.

The question that follows is not a comfortable one: who is obliged to do the adjusting? Tradition has a ready answer, that the younger defers to the older and the child to the parent, and like most tidy arrangements, it survives chiefly because it serves the people who designed it.

Relational maturity refuses this one-way traffic. It accepts that adjustment must flow in both directions, that the parent who demands reverence might first ask whether they have offered acknowledgement. I say this as a sexagenarian, mind you, and not as a young firebrand with a grievance, for I am now of the very generation that is customarily granted the latitude I am here declining to claim.

There is a temptation to mistake all this for weakness, as though meeting people where they are were merely a polite word for capitulation. It is nothing of the sort. The mature party is not the one who folds; it is the one who can hold their own position firmly whilst still granting the other their dignity and their difference. Anyone can be tolerant of those who already agree with them; the test arrives with the person who does not.

And yet relational maturity is not infinite. There comes a point where meeting someone where they are reveals only that they have no intention of moving, and no interest in your moving either. At that juncture, the mature response is not to keep travelling toward a meeting that will never take place, but to disengage calmly and without rancour, which is itself a form of maturity.

Snipping the Cord

Certain interactions have rubbed me up the wrong way, and my reaction has usually been to disengage. People, and this goes beyond parents to siblings, relations, friends, and others you encounter throughout life, seem to forget that, regardless of what they assume ties you together, you can snip the cord and walk away, unbound, unfettered, and unconcerned.

The way you address and talk to people, their slight and unfortunate expressions of indifference, and the use of words that fail to give credence to the multifaceted nature of a person, or that fail to acknowledge the changes we see in ourselves and in others, can alter things so radically as to put them beyond redemption.

Tradition Versus Individuality

Tradition might dictate one thing, but personalities are individual and unique; they may not conform to any prescribed norms and may fall entirely outside our common frames of reference.

The question, then, becomes whether you are ready to shift your position, find common ground, seek resolution, and even accept that you were wrong, despite your ways being set in reinforced concrete.

The Cost of Indifference

I remember conversations and interactions that informed my decision to withdraw fellowship from certain people. You may not realise you have done something wrong, albeit inadvertently, but whoever is doing the kicking is rarely the one doing the hurting.

There might be another way to work through this, yet I am only human, and there is a dignity in that which demands the courtesy of others, regardless of the ties.

Restrict this ever-constant need to adapt our relationships, the need that keeps conversation thriving and engaged, all in the name of conserving what we think we hold dear, and the consequences will be exactly where we find ourselves, whether we are involved or not.

Honour and Provocation

Parents tend to think of estranged children as personifications of the Prodigal Son. Yet we, the children, eventually begin to see our parents with all their flaws, and for all the care and responsibility that went into their parenting, they were never in the class of God; they were simply human. Where the holy book says, “honour your father and mother”, it also says, “do not provoke your children unto wrath”.

Someone really ought to write an academic study on “Meeting Your Estranged Children Where They Are”.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

The Family We Inherit, the Family We Choose

The Family We Inherit

When I was a child, family was a map already drawn. There were parents at the centre, solid and unquestioned. Grandparents orbited with stories and memory; I even had a great-grandmother into my twenties. Siblings came later, not quite close enough to grow up alongside, as it was to fight with and lean on in the same afternoon.

As I grew, the map widened to include aunts, uncles, cousins, and distant relations whose names carried branches of a tree I had not planted, but to which I undeniably belonged. Nowadays, a name from that stock carries some resonance but no clear recognition.

Family, in those years, was inheritance. You were someone’s son, someone’s brother, someone’s nephew, someone’s grandson. You did not choose your place; you occupied it.

An Unspoken Expectation

The expectation, though rarely spoken aloud, was that one day you would recreate the pattern. The heteronormative construct was laid out as tradition, without any consideration that you might be differently inclined. You did not create yourself; you became yourself, but you were still required to represent them as part of that genealogical framework.

You would find a wife. You would have children. You would extend the line. The structure felt inevitable, almost architectural: generation building upon generation, each layer confirming the last. The scaffolding stood there as a template, but what sort of building would emerge once it was removed?

The Expected Script

In adulthood, society tends to follow a predictable rhythm of questions:

“Are you married?”
“What does your wife do?”
“Do you have children?”

Closer to the traditions with which I have some affinity, the question is inevitably:

“How are your wife and kids?”

These questions are not malicious; they are rituals. They affirm that you are participating in the established arc, that you have stepped into the role once held by your parents.

Marriage, in that script, is not just about love. It is about continuation, about replication, about becoming what raised you. In fact, the word used is “responsible”, and you are apparently not responsible if your image of adulthood is not framed as husband and wife, home and children, the next branch growing from the familiar tree.

My Reality

My name is Akin, and the centre of my adult life is Brian. Brian is not my wife. He is my husband.

He lives in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. I live in Manchester, England. And regularly, as often as we can, we both travel to Cape Town, South Africa. We met in South Africa and meet there because it was the first country to recognise and legalise same-sex unions.

Cape Town is not just a city for us. It is a promise, a rehearsal for the life we are building. It is where time feels concentrated, intentional, and fiercely protected.

Measuring Life in Countdowns

Everything we do is designed to maximise the hours we have together. Flights are booked with military precision. Calendars are negotiated. Work is arranged around reunions. We measure life in countdowns: how many days until Cape Town.

We have been together for over seven years. Seven years of distance. Seven years of choosing each other. Seven years of making geography bend as much as it possibly can to commitment.

The Conversations of a Marriage

When people speak casually about spouses, they often describe the ordinary:

Morning coffee conversations.
“Darling, what shall we have for dinner?”
“Love, how was your meeting?”
“Babes, did you sleep well?”
“I mean, how are you in yourself?” [I smile at this question.]

Brian and I have those conversations.

I speak to him first thing in the morning and last thing at night. That is not symbolic; it is simply how life works. He is the first voice in my day and the final presence before sleep.

The Fabric of Our Bond

We talk about finances, health, frustrations, politics, and our families. We argue occasionally. We reassure constantly. We plan relentlessly. We discuss where furniture will go in the Cape Town home, we have not yet secured. We imagine neighbourhoods. We calculate costs. We picture morning light in rooms that exist for us only in hope.

These are the conversations of spouses. They are not lesser because they occur across time zones. They are not diluted because they travel through screens. They are not temporary because they are stretched by distance. They are the fabric of a marriage, the centre of what tugs at our hearts.

Recognition and Silence

Yet the world does something subtle.

A man mentions his wife and is met with easy follow-up: “What does she do?” “How did you meet?” “Do you have kids?” The questions flow naturally, as though the script has already been agreed.

But when I speak about Brian, there is sometimes a pause, a recalibration. Not hostility, not necessarily rejection, just a slight disruption of expectation. And often, no further questions come.

While I appreciate that some people need time to get used to that construct, in other cases it is those who give no consideration to that reality who make this conversation necessary.

This relationship will not fade into insignificance or irrelevance; the indifference of the original setting I was born into will not obviate the consequential position of Brian to me and in my life.

The Unfitting Template

It is as though the conversation does not quite know where to place us. We do not fit into the inherited template of husband-wife-children-grandchildren. There is no automatic branch extending from us into the next generation.

We have no children. Our relationship does not replicate the structure we were born into. But it is no less central, no less serious, no less real.

We as individuals might have deigned to conform, satisfying the cultural expectations of tradition whilst complicating the lives of those who, in my view, would have fallen victim to a lavender marriage, one in which our intimate desires were met elsewhere, where a wife could not compete.

We chose instead to be who we are, without scandalising others through the revelations that might have emerged from the liaisons we had proclivities for.

The Myth of Continuation

Much of how society recognises marriage is tied to reproduction. Parenthood acts as proof of adulthood, of stability, of contribution to the future. Children become the visible extension of a couple's bond. Yet even people within those constructs may not have children, for all sorts of reasons.

Without children, a relationship can seem, to some, self-contained. But what if continuation is not only biological?

Brian and I are building continuity of another kind: continuity of devotion, continuity of shared planning, continuity of showing up, again and again, despite visas and airfare and the blunt inconvenience of geography. Our lineage may not be genetic, but our commitment stretches forward just the same.

Cape Town: The Dream

Cape Town is the convergence point. I fly from Manchester. He flies from Bulawayo. Two separate lives narrowing toward the same coastline.

We walk the same streets each time as though tracing the outline of a future. We talk about where we will finally set up home, not as a fantasy, but as an inevitability we are patiently engineering.

The Sacred Mundane

That is our dream: to close the distance permanently. To wake up in the same space without calculating time zones. To make breakfast without screens. To argue about which cupboard the mugs belong in, or the clocks on the oven, for which I have been accused of having OCD.

Domesticity is not mundane to us. It is sacred.

The Centre, Not the Periphery

Whether others like it or not, Brian matters. He is not an aside in my story. He is not an interesting footnote. He is not an exception to a rule.

He is my husband, my partner, my integral and significant companion. The person I consult first. The person whose opinion steadies me. The person who knows the texture of my thoughts before I fully articulate them.

The absence of children does not shrink that reality. The absence of a wife does not make it incomplete. He is my full responsibility, before all others.

The Family I Choose

As a child, I belonged to a family I inherited. As a man, I have formed a family I chose.

It may not look like the one that raised me. It may not produce grandchildren. It may not trigger the standard conversational questions. But it is no less a family.

Brian and I are building something deliberate, intentional, and resilient. Every mile travelled, every reunion planned, every late-night call is a brick in that foundation.

Family is not only about bloodline. It is also about allegiance, about persistence, about saying, across continents and years: “You are my person.”

And that, however quietly the world acknowledges it, is marriage. That is just the way things are.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Committing The Treason of Solitude

Misunderstood Perceptions

How I am viewed by others leaves me baffled, if not surprised. If I am not generally considered a curmudgeon, it is assumed I have a temperament easily disposed to petty angst and fits of pique, with a tendency to take offence without cause.

How this figment of imagination takes hold and plays out, as if an alter ego of mine has supplanted my reality and taken my place interacting with others, escapes me. It would be unkind to suggest others are getting ahead of themselves.

My True Nature

In my mind, I would think those with whom I have issues would be in no doubt that I have issues with them, despite every desire for them to think they have done nothing wrong.

Much as I tend to be a loner, keeping to myself and enjoying my own company in the confines of my bedroom, oblivious of the world, I do not pick a grudge for the sake of being contrarian.

The Demands of Others

Indeed, there are times I want to be left well alone. It is a prerogative I seem to have no unilateral licence to exercise without question; there are people who simply need my engagement regardless of my situation.

Tribute, attention, communication and calls must be made or answered, or an inquiry is instituted bordering on an inquisition. My guilt is decided without the option for innocence, all in a day, or even shorter, between dawn and dusk.

No Hiding Place

In this, I have no hiding place. My solitude is a room with too many keys, distributed freely to others who enter at will, demanding tribute in the form of my time, my attention and my immediate response. No excuse is ever good enough for breaking formation; I must meet expectations or face sanction.

If I had the temerity to consider changing the locks, just imagine how the charge of treason would stick, because I belong to something beyond myself. My boundaries and borders are without demarcation, access taken rather than given.

Why does a moment cloud and crowd out the significance of the enduring, from which the narrative and story bear their existence? I suppose I would never understand where, for some, the spectrum of security is transient, whilst for others it is a bond of endurance that cannot be nicked by ephemeral conniptions.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

Radio silence as good therapy

The Value of Relationships

The past two years, with all their trials, have offered a profound lesson in the importance of relationships; those that endure and those that falter. Relationships exist along a spectrum, from those that nurture our innermost selves to those that deplete us.

Against this backdrop, I have begun to treasure those rare connections where vulnerability is met with empathy, and where the bond transcends circumstance or convenience.

At the other end of the spectrum are exploitative and self-serving relationships, built purely on transaction. They thrive when needs are met but diminish rapidly when expectations go unmet, leaving little room for understanding or compassion.

No showing they care

Sadly, I find few examples of truly healthy family relationships. Expressions of care are often superficial, their evidence weak or absent. That realisation has prompted a deliberate withdrawal, a choice to preserve space for safety, clarity, and renewal.

As September unfolded, following months of chaos and emotional upheaval, I decided to impose complete radio silence on all communication from Nigeria. Messages remained unread, calls unanswered, and I extricated myself from group chats.

While part of me was unsettled by the choice, another part found unexpected peace in it. After thirty-five years away, much of what happens there no longer requires my attention. Most interactions involve people I have never met and could hardly recognise in passing.

Distance became both shield and salve. It allowed me to detach from the drama, rumours, and constant reinterpretations of events that once held power over my emotions. Too often, such narratives are presented as truth yet serve only to unsettle, casting doubt on where fiction ends and reality begins.

Nurture the profitable

This uncertainty highlights the fragile nature of some relationships, as they exhibit little evidence of trust or goodwill, with corrosive elements overshadowing any kind of beneficial aspects.

By carrying this silence into October, I found calm. The reward was a steady quiet, being neither perturbed nor disturbed. It allowed me to engage, when necessary, on my own terms, or more often, to refrain from engaging altogether.

We should constantly review the quality and viability of our relationships, regardless of what has hitherto made them significant, for they might have fallen into disrepair and become unprofitable.

If I sustain this until year's end, keeping close those who truly matter whilst maintaining distance from those absent in my darker hours, I believe I will emerge stronger and healthier. That, at least, is my conviction.

On parental interference and sundry matters - III

A Problem Child

I have a blessing; I still have my parents who are alive and well, but we have a situation where we are estranged. This estrangement is probably because they are embarrassed or ashamed of me, and that is something we all have to deal with in life when it comes to how we live and the choices we make.

In those circumstances, I have taken measures to manage their exposure to these things, sometimes by reducing or eliminating communication.

For those children who have made their parents proud without having to sacrifice anything of themselves, I guess you are doubly blessed. The stars were aligned, maybe angels were even singing to the shepherds in the fields, as wise men journeyed with presents of gold, frankincense, and myrrh from the East to herald your birth. Oh, the prophets foretold it all.

I was not that child; I was different, difficult, and diffident. I was at one time smart and then considered stupid; for a while, trusted, and then not trusted. I was a handful to my parents, yet a product of the environment I was in.

We Were Not Friends

My African parents made many assumptions about what they thought I had learnt from examples that were not always obvious, for instance, the handling of money. Heck! My father is an accountant, but tell me, how do you pass down the genes? I guess only one of my siblings pursued a career with any semblance of that profession, so much for the power of example.

My parents are of the generation that maintained a certain status and stature, with a school principal for a mother, someone moulding impressionable young lives. The pressure to perform was even more stifling, the need to impress was necessary, and every failing was condemned with such excoriation it left an indelible mark.

Then I failed. I failed woefully, twice. I started courses at two polytechnics, both ending with the advice to withdraw. When I look back, I realise I was clinically depressed; my mother had Psalms and white-garment prophets on the rolodex of that time, and I found religion. I had finished secondary school at 15 and was starting all over again at 20.

A Different Parent

The difference this time was being under the guardianship of an uncle, my sadly departed Uncle Cash, a close relation who had experienced failures early in life but had become very successful in his chosen profession of insurance.

That relationship was different. It was not built on a yearning to show power by demanding and comparing, but on engagement and an appreciation that I was a person first, with my own beliefs and persuasions that could be accommodated within his mentorship and guidance. My parents backed off a bit, and I thrived.

The purpose I gained moved from setting goals to make others proud to achieving success for myself. I had the power to make my own decisions, based not on what others thought, but on what I thought was best for who I was, what I was doing, and what I aimed to achieve.

We Are Really Strangers

In their eyes, I could very well still be the child they once knew, because we grew so far apart from the day they sent me to secondary boarding school. They knew one child; I am a different man, and their child still.

In the same vein, my parents have changed from the people I once knew, even as some characteristics remain, and we have never really had the time to compare notes about who everyone turned out to be.

I have issues and misgivings, many of which I have written about in my blogs. I think I have had a reasonable relationship with my father and a rather volatile one with my mother. Even as I think of them and love them, there are elements of past resentment and abandonment that have taken hold as I review their parenting of me as an individual.

My parents, I can understand, have their concerns too: they have a firstborn son who is gay, has never married and will marry a man, has no offspring, and whom they have not seen in decades. And I am comfortable with all that, because it is my own life and not theirs.

Let's Do This Again

On my Facebook page, I have a friend request, the inspiration for this blog, because it is from my father, who I once blocked, then unblocked, but did not re-establish the friend relationship. After all, he conflated the situations of parent, participant, and policing.

Allowing him to participate in my social media activities meant that he began to police me, and then I got the message: “The earlier you make a good change in your lifestyle the better; it is not too late. All the best”. I was 53. I am going to be 60 in December.

You know what? I’ll accept that friend request.

Blog - This is my life, this is me

Blog - On parental interference and sundry matters

Blog - On parental interference and sundry matters - II

The hole relationships leave

Just the way things are

On my return from South Africa in early September, two things were clear. I did not worry about the state of my home, and something I had left on the counter intended for the freezer was still there, growing mould and displaying every sign of culture that should not be inhaled.

This was because, for the first time in about eight years, I did not have a house sitter, a friend with unrestricted access to my apartment at any time for his convenience rather than mine.

While I always appreciated his presence, he had a peculiar habit of rearranging the place to such an extent that, on my return from holidays, I could scarcely recognise my own home.

An untenable situation

The final straw was when I returned from sick leave in December, after being away for seven weeks. Following a 14-hour journey, I had to run a vacuum around my home before I could sit down and catch my breath. Meanwhile, he was there packing a bag, even though he knew I was returning that day.

It was never required of him, but he was always helpful around the house: doing basic cleaning, taking out rubbish, or managing recycling. Besides, as people living away from close family, seeing each other often meant anyone could ask the other about their well-being, knowing they had current information.

However, I had had enough. I asked for the keys to my place, and since then, it seemed the true bond between us was access to my apartment rather than a nearly decade-long friendship. Even when I email to ask after his well-being, he rarely responds; no one truly knows the other anymore. We have entered a state of indifference bordering on obsolescence.

The hole relationships leave

Looking at the state of my living room this morning, I felt a hole that had widened into a chasm after my friend's withdrawal. I only took the keys from him; I did not end our friendship.

Yet, how anyone perceives the other in any relationship can be an inscrutable mental process, revealed only when circumstances push us to confront who we really are.

All relationships introduce something into our lives: the good, the bad, the ugly, or the simply nonchalant. When the relationships fade, we lose something, regardless of its size. Our friends are warts and all; much is tolerated, forgiven, and given leeway until limits are crossed and irreconcilable differences emerge.

Then, for me, it is time to get my act together and look after myself better, for my health, my mind, my relationships, my apartment, my environment, and every other aspect that fosters a sense of contentment and fulfilment. C’est la vie.

Thought Picnic: As Words Shape Our Understanding

The Language of Identity

There is something profoundly fascinating about the power of language and how a simple misspelling can open doors to philosophical musings.

Recently, I encountered a thought-provoking juxtaposition—"child" misspelt as "chide"—and it sparked a reflection on the delicate dance between correction and nurturing that defines our relationships.

The twin burdens of correction and care

"There is much to say about the chide and much to pay about the child." This phrase has lingered in my consciousness, revealing layers of meaning about how we navigate our connections with others.

To "chide" represents the corrective aspect of relationships—the moments when we feel compelled to guide, correct, or redirect. These instances of criticism shape the dynamics between parent and child, teacher and student, mentor and mentee. The way we deliver these corrections speaks volumes about our values and communication skills.

Yet, the "child" symbolises investment and responsibility. We "pay" not merely in financial terms but through emotional commitment, sleepless nights, and the constant balancing of protection versus independence. This metaphorical payment represents the sacrifice inherent in nurturing another's development.

Finding one's voice in linguistic exploration

What fascinates me about this wordplay is how it illuminates the delicate balance required in meaningful relationships. Too much criticism without demonstrated care creates resentment; excessive indulgence without guidance leads to underdeveloped potential.

I'm reminded of other linguistic explorations, like discovering the Yoruba word "àwọ̀dọ̀" for "wrist" alongside variations like "Ìgbànkáwọ́" (literally "joint of the hand"). Language offers multiple pathways to understand and describe our reality, just as relationships offer multiple approaches to correction and nurturing.

The perspective of experience

Having navigated my own complex journey—including health challenges that have shaped my perspective—I've come to appreciate how words and relationships intertwine. When I faced cancer treatment, the words others chose either strengthened or diminished me. Similarly, how we "chide" and how we "pay" in our relationships determines whether those connections flourish or wither.

The juxtaposition of these concepts reminds me of what I've observed in Manchester—the countless human interactions that reveal our deep need for both guidance and support. Whether it's the passionate polemicist on the bus expressing unresolved grievances or the young men seeking viral fame through destructive acts, we see the consequences of imbalance between criticism and care.

A consideration of others

At its core, this reflection on "chide" and "child" speaks to consideration—recognising others and treating them with the respect we ourselves desire. The unwritten code of conduct that guides civil society rests on this simple principle.

Perhaps the African proverb puts it best: "A child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth." In our words and actions, we either offer the warmth of belonging or risk driving others to destructive means of being noticed.

As I continue to contemplate this linguistic interplay, I'm reminded that in both words and relationships, balance is everything. There is much to say about how we correct, and much to pay in how we nurture—and finding harmony between these aspects may be the most important work we do.

Postscript: This conversation started with thoughts on a WhatsApp chat where I surmised, "There is much to say about the chide and much to pay about the child." The rest results from interactions with a number of AI bots writing in my style.

Thought Picnic: Emotional abuse masquerading as peace making

Setting the Thought

One thing I have striven for, and perhaps never fully mastered but have always applied myself to learn, is to have good judgment coupled with the instinct to do what is right. I need to be assured that I am directing my energies towards benefit, not only for myself but also for others.

Then again, regarding the pursuit of happiness I have written about many times before, having material means and provisions is not inherently the main source of happiness; it can also be the cause of great misery.

However, if you find yourself with the opportunity and privilege to make others happy, it is quite likely that you will end up happy as well.

The Responsibility of Cultivating Relationships

You might wonder how the thoughts of the previous paragraphs are connected; I see them in the context of cultivating relationships—some enduring, others fleeting—yet all meaningful for everyone involved.

Imagine the responsibility of a pilot of an aircraft: even if one might say unwittingly, you are in charge of a vehicle worth over 100 million pounds or dollars, but more importantly, you carry a cargo of human lives that you cannot take lightly, numbering around 200.

Appreciating the weight of that responsibility instils discipline, self-control, and the importance of working with your team to ensure your duties are carried out with excellence.

In our endeavours, we may not be pilots, but we are pilots of sorts. Whether as parents, teachers, or professionals in fields like medicine, engineering, law, finance, or the humanities, there is impact, consequence, risk, and reward.

Human lives are affected, and relationships that matter can dissolve through poor judgment, bad faith, a bad attitude, bad behaviour, or simple neglect—failures to recognise and address issues in our development that become disadvantages.

A Consideration of Others

All of this hinges on the issue of consideration—not of ourselves alone, but of others—because how we involve ourselves can affect others more than we realise, often because we are solely focused on ourselves.

This year, during two nuptial preparations, I have observed a profound lack of good judgment and an absolute inability to include important people in planning, organisation, and execution.

This has left relationships strained, with attitudes ranging from nonchalance to indifference from those whose various contributions could have made the events more successful.

We should not delude ourselves with the hubris of thinking we matter more than we do to the couple beginning their lives together. However, there must be a way to address issues before resentment develops from being ignored.

It is merely emotional abuse.

Yet, for those with the greatest influence, tolerating the worst offenders while appealing to the good nature of the offended is not peace-making; it is emotional abuse, emotional blackmail, and worse.

The points I initially intended to address will have to wait for another time because the crucial issue here—emotional abuse—has now become the focal point.

Good judgment fosters the development of relationships, especially when considering how the responsibilities we have, acquire, or are imposed on us can make a significant difference in the overall happiness of all involved.

Thought Picnic: Time

Time is not a property

Time is a gift we usually do not use properly or cherish its utility. The time we should make for ourselves, for others, or for things. Using time judiciously without wasting it, for ourselves or for others.

The reckoning accounted for in the scheduling and keeping of appointments, giving little room to tardiness out of consideration, courtesy, and respect. We get away too often with not being punctual and having excuses for why we have failed on our part.

There are many facets of time and timekeeping, having an agreed datum for a time reference, that time is not just ticking away, but correct on every timepiece in whatever location, so no one is confused about what the time is. If any time is askew, it should only be in a reasonable margin of error of the magnitude of a few seconds and never more.

Time is a generous gift

Beyond the exactitude of time, the most critical use of time is finding the time and making the time to cultivate relationships, to create wholesome and life-enhancing connections with ideas, people, and events.

After the fact, we find ourselves regretting not seizing the opportunities that time has afforded us, but we are allowed to pass until it is too late. We give time to the negative in holding grudges and offence when should be constructively changing the paradigm for the beauty of fellowship.

Certain things are irredeemable, yet until we have tried our best at redeeming them, we let things lapse and ruefully review in the dreamy unreality of a parallel universe that could have been the universe we inhabited if we made better use of time.

Time is a gift; it is a present we need to be more grateful for and be profusely thankful that we are given a measure of it to make the best of life and living.

The gents are gentle on my mind

Sometimes, you just need the help

Yesterday afternoon, I braved the idea of going out for essential shopping for the simple reason that the kind of domestic help I require is unavailable.

Thinking to 15 years ago when I had my other encounter with cancer, I had the prospect of being discharged from the hospital early, but only after they had arranged for a nurse to visit me at my apartment every day.

Until that arrangement had been secured, I was not going to be let out of the sight of the ward nurses and staff until the logistics were sorted out. It happened that my on-off partner did come to stay with me for a few months, ensuring the very basic domestic issues were taken care of apart from the fundamental ability to cook.

The difficulties with getting good help

In this new dispensation, it has been a bit different, an old flame does visit to help with things, but we can agree that it is both sporadic and unreliable. Some have suggested I get a carer to manage things, without considering that would entail a specific set of instructions and particularities that it has taken a good while to even school into those who know me.

Imagine sending a stranger to specific shops for particular things without any consideration of substitution, I know what I need. I cannot have artificial sweeteners generally as they can worsen migraines, beyond that, they will aggravate issues with my waterworks. We can get cranberry juice from any shop, but they all have artificial sweeteners except for the brand bought in the large M&S supermarkets, the smaller M&S shops stock the artificially sweetened varieties.

My kind of shopping revolves around different supermarkets for choices based on brand, variety, quality, cost, and knowing what works for me. My sojourn into the city centre yesterday which was just over two hours visiting four shops included three toilet visits.

All the gents are gentle on my mind

The first, an urgency that presented before I had reached the tram stop, some 700 metres from home. I opted for the disabled toilet in the central library because access to the public toilet in the city council annexe which was nearer had been obstructed by police activity.

In the end, I used my Radar key thrice, to gain access to the disabled toilets and for once, all the three toilets had coat hooks for my coat and hat.

What is different is I used to walk to all these places with ease but between the strength to perform and the anxiety of toilet needs, each outing requires careful and deliberate planning apart from appreciating that the reliance on others can be a bit stressful. They have their own lives that you can only rely on what they offer rather than on what you need and demand.

Making the best choice for recuperation

Back to the issue of having the support and care for domestic arrangements, I have a partner, we are in a long-distance relationship, and this presents an opportunity for them where they have heretofore felt incapacitated to help from afar.

I continually reassure him that I still have his best support in the circumstances. How better to recover and recuperate than with a loved one; paying a stranger to attend to you might work where those you would typically rely on, willingly abdicate that responsibility and generously cater for the alternative, but you are left to the mercy of the stranger’s humanity being a bonus, if available.

I guess few would never be convinced of the validity of our relationship, but that is not my problem. I understand it would take travelling almost 10,000 kilometres to be in receipt of that support and care.

I think it would be more than worthwhile for me, for him, for my recovery, and our relationship. He knows me, he knows my needs, he understands me well, and we are coming to six years together.

I am glad for the fact that there are more people who understand the intrinsic value of people, setting, and relationships for recuperation, I intend to make the best of it.

Thought Picnic: Back on the treadmill of worthwhile relationships

Like a work of nature

Worthwhile relationships need to be cultivated; they are the product of complex dynamics in our humanity and interactions which I have learnt through experience might be difficult to understand.

This is not a zero-sum game, such that what you put into a relationship is what you get out, the transactional kind carries lofty expectations and extraordinarily little reward along with disappointment and disillusionment.

Cultivating relationships is like farming; you prepare the ground, sow the seeds, and let nature take its course; the sunshine for warmth, the rainwater for life, as the seed germinates, sprouts, grows, and thrives.

There is a concept of time and duration to it that matures relationships. We all need a personal experience and revelation of planting seeds and watching the wonder of nature, from seedtime to harvest.

The work is a cycle

Yet, it is not just about harvesting, it is a continuous cycle of life. Like a farmer, you work the land of relationships and experience the wonder of things you could never have imagined.

Certain emotions come to the fore quite unexpectedly, in how care, concern, and consideration for another create endearingly invisible and significant bonds.

These relationships can be familial, but we are all too aware that blood does not assure the best of relationships, it might be the start of something, but it goes beyond that.

It is in how we choose our partners and friends, and what we do to maintain relationships and maintain is such an inadequate word for it because it is not perfunctory.

Knowing the work that works

Yet, in the moment of vulnerability and adversity, you begin to see the quality and value of relationships, like who is still about watching out for you when there is nothing you can do for them except respond and engage.

Among those relationships that reach deep into the soul of whatever makes us human, you might have a hand and a half to count on.

I have many friends, but I only have a few friendships that are the substance of relationships to be cherished. You cannot account for how others feel about the people you choose to form these relationships with.

It is sometimes interesting to see the perspectives of others and realise how things are different. You should, however, be discerning about cultivating your relationships based on the viewpoints of others, for what is significant and valid for them might not be relevant to you.

And what works for me

As I end this rambling piece that I am not entirely sure makes all that sense, sometimes, we never really know how truly and fondly liked and loved we are by those with whom we have cultivated relationships in the main, and then others who for all sorts of reasons and issues in life might have failed to register until the point where we are sorely missed.

Just to check if I was still with it, before publishing this piece, I did a search on my blog for ‘Cultivating relationships’ and I had written one as recently as last month and then as far back as the year, 2007.

I am onto something. Then, there may be fences to mend and others to abandon, and then certain relationships are, unfortunately, not worth it. Yes, crops do fail. Such is life.