Of Bus Screens and Wandering Thoughts

A Lazy Saturday's Prelude

Through Saturday, I vegetated at home as I began to binge-watch the second series of Bull, a television programme about trial science which I find quite fascinating, whilst also putting me at risk of learning things that might make me more forthright and less personable.

At the back of my mind, I agonised about getting some shopping done. This involved catching a bus to the ethnic grocer's first, then walking up to the affordable supermarket, before returning home.

As the ethnic grocer closed at 9:00 PM and the supermarket an hour later, I could spare a few more hours of lazing about until I really had to get out; otherwise, the shopping would have to wait for another day, an idea that held no appeal.

Setting Off at Last

When I did eventually leave home with barely 90 minutes to go before the first shop closed, the nearest bus stop, just half a kilometre up the street, was closed, so I had to walk further down to the next one. On another day, with enough strength and the leeway of sufficient time, I would have walked the whole way and clocked up a few thousand steps in the process.

The Bee Network buses on the Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) enterprise are part of a modern integrated service under the mayoralty of Greater Manchester. There is an app to check routes and timetables, along with the current status of buses at specific stops.

The Trouble with the Screens

On the buses themselves, the contactless payment method is a convenience, but it is the screens showing the route and next stops that I find most useful for keeping my bearings. Unfortunately, on the bus I boarded, the screen was stuck on stopping information from well before I got on, and that was annoying.

I thought it was a case of broken windows syndrome, with such a minor detail of keeping passengers apprised of the journey and the next stop not being attended to as part of a pre-flight checklist for bus transport. I was remonstrating quite vehemently in my mind, with a view to writing to TfGM about the malfunctioning information screens. I had seen this many times before.

A Curious Coincidence

I had barely put together the words and suggested tone of my missive when, four bus stops after I boarded, the screens seemed to catch up and start working. That was uncanny, as it had me wondering if I now had the means to project my thoughts, not just for registering a complaint, but for the remediation and resolution of an issue to a satisfactory standard.

By extension, this would also suggest that I ought to guard my thoughts and arrest those straying out of the bounds of reason into the outlandish.

Others might put this down to coincidence, when it seems propinquitous enough to aspire to the causative. I do not know, but I was glad the screens got fixed, and I allowed myself the wry thought of levitating my shopping bags home instead of carrying them.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

In Wine, In Play, In Anger, and In Indifference

Wisdom From the Mother Tongue

Yoruba provides a rich seam of wisdom that, even as a second language, I have mined to find gems that sparkle and light my path. “Ibi eré ni à ńmọ òótọ́ ọ̀rọ̀” is a saying that has meant so much to me; it has made friends and broken relationships. “It is at play that the truth spills out.” That would be a liberal translation, and I'll stick with it.

The Romans arrived at much the same conclusion by a different route. “In vino veritas,” they said, “in wine, there is truth.” Where the Yoruba sage observed the loosened tongue at play, the Latin observer found it at the bottom of a cup. Two cultures, two settings, one shared recognition: the heart, given any opening, will speak its mind.

What reinforces that viewpoint comes from the words of Jesus Christ in the Bible: “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45)

A Watch Over the Lips

The unguarded expression, spoken without thought or consideration, regardless of disposition, is one reason why we need a watch on our lips. So says the Psalmist, in a prayer asking for divine assistance in controlling one's speech, preventing hasty, sinful, or hurtful words, and acting as a guard over what is spoken. (Psalms 141:3)

It takes only a moment of lacking restraint, and everything comes crumbling down: the dismissing of issues consequential to others, simply because there is no background to their stories beyond what surfaces at the point of interaction.

Yet everyone has both the prerogative and the right to be unburdened and unbothered by external issues. In some cases, silence trumps expression, but that requires a modicum of discipline.

The Many Faces of Unguarded Speech

Wine and play are only two of the settings where the heart slips its leash. Anger is another: the row that begins over a small grievance and ends with a cruelty no apology can quite retrieve. Tiredness is a quieter cousin, where exhaustion strips away the patience that ordinarily holds the tongue in check. Grief, too, can sharpen words into instruments that wound bystanders who happened only to be nearby.

There is also the casual cruelty of group settings, where a joke at someone's expense earns laughter, and the laughter encourages the next, sharper jibe. Social media has industrialised this dynamic; the keyboard is a kind of wine in itself, lowering inhibitions whilst removing the face that might otherwise have stayed our hand.

Then there are moments of fear, jealousy, or wounded pride, when the words we reach for are not the ones we believe but the ones that will hurt fastest. And let us not forget the seemingly innocent slip during gossip, where a confidence shared in trust becomes currency in another conversation entirely.

Seven Words, One Covenant

"I don't have the energy for this." Those are seven words that broke a covenant, though one can be certain they would be used to castigate me as truculent, impossible, and recalcitrant. My relevance is transactional rather than in recognition of my own journey or story. I have my own issues, but everyone needs to see themselves in the mirror, too.

Going back to the verse I quoted earlier, an interpretation would suggest that a person's words reflect their inner character, thoughts, motivations, beliefs, and emotions. The "heart" represents the core of one's being, and what is stored inside inevitably spills out through speech.

The Fool in the Play

As a student of myself, and sometimes of others, I have learnt a lesson about the heart once again. It does not take drink alone to loosen the tongue; play, anger, fatigue, grief, indifference, or just plain spite are enough.

You had better be attentive to what is being said before you become the fool in the play where you are also the lead.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Thought Picnic: Adversity Reveals True Love

Finding Clarity

I have just stepped out of the shower to warm up because I was out in the cold for an extended period. My moments in the shower can be thoughtful and meditative; the washing of water seems to include an invisible internal cleansing of the mind, allowing clarity to emerge.

On the last day of my 59th year, it has been slow and perhaps somewhat lazy. Though I intended to do certain things, I was caught between youthful rampage and ageing progress; my voice reduced once again to a slur, revealing fatigue and lethargy, yet my mind was in overdrive.

Reflecting on this year, I decided to focus firstly on caring for myself, leaving behind situations and complications that caused unnecessary anxiety and stress. This was especially true in my different relationships and the communities to which I belong.

When Family Comes Last

Regrettably, family was last, with respect to friends, church, support groups, and work. In all those areas, I still maintain some influence and respect. I can offer advice and anticipate a degree of consideration, even if my nuggets of wisdom were not always valued.

With family, I had become like a clashing cymbal. I am contacted for a viewpoint, but they have already made up their minds. It was as if my perspective no longer mattered, and this was inadvertently displayed through many significant situations within the extended family network.

I had to decide that there was no point in being the dog barking in the dark. I will not become like Ahithophel; it’s not the end of my world or the world itself.

Having faced two bouts of cancer, I see similarities between the support I received then and now. Apart from my other sibling abroad, there was none. My transactional credit waned during periods of adversity and ill health; now, it counted for little beyond platitudes. The mere fulfilment of all righteousness could not be achieved through a cursory glance.

Adversity Reveals True Love

It brought to mind a song by Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey from the 1960s, “Ọ̀rọ̀ ṣeni wò, kálè mẹni tó fẹ́ ni.” This translates to, “May a momentary adversity reveal those who truly love us.” Perhaps I am truly loved, but love must be active, tangible, experiential, and felt. Somewhere along the line, that familial connection was lost in its journey to me.

My focus on other relationships became a source of strength: the unconditional love of Brian, the prayers and counsel of my best friends, my neighbours, and at church where everyone was concerned about my wellbeing, and at work, where professional support systems and the understanding of many who have been touched by cancer in their own families meant they appreciated some of what I had gone through.

Peace in Letting Go

Then I no longer need to hold anyone to account. They have their own lives to attend to, and the deliberations leading up to any decisions made contrary to other counsel are their prerogative, over which I should not arrogate the power to control. It is essentially none of my business.

However, the radio silence I have self-imposed since August has been a source of peace and rest, whilst I devote my energies to regaining full strength and vigour.

I keep all of them in my prayers, supplicating for their wellbeing, health, prosperity, and peace. May the goodness, peace, and blessings of the Lord continue to abound in grace and mercy with lovingkindness towards us all. We are signing out of 59 at midnight, by the grace of God.

In a year of remembering Dr Willy Legg

In a year of remembering

I never met Willy, but we had many conversations on WhatsApp and when he moved into a nursing home, there were bits of interaction when Brian went to visit him.

Last year, as Brian was about to leave for Cape Town to help me recuperate, he visited Willy and part of what transpired was Willy had a premonition and said he'll be gone before Brian returns to Bulawayo.

We were only about three weeks in Muizenberg, near Cape Town, when the news came that he had passed on. There have been snatches of memory and recollections since, many quite interesting and fond too.

I share one such memory below, which was a comment to the blog I wrote in tribute to Willy, a year ago. Unfortunately, the contributor did not leave a name.

The tortoise she birthed

To add to your fund of Willie stories: In amongst all the normal activities of being a clinical student in Harare Hospital, Zimbabwe, occasional remarkable incidents stood out.

One day, someone mentioned in the tea-room that there was an especially unusual case in the maternity unit. It was definitely worth going to see, and it involved a tortoise. Along with Willie Legg, with whom I was then sharing a house, I went to have a look at this 'most unusual case'.

In one of the small side wards holding the recently delivered mothers and their babies, we found a perfectly ordinary young mother in her bed; the adjoining bassinet contained a somewhat dusty but otherwise perfectly ordinary adult tortoise, complete with a few lettuce leaves.

Luckily, Willie spoke perfect Shona, so he asked the mother what her exact story was. She told him she had gone through her pregnancy without any real problems and had an apparently normal delivery in a district clinic. She had been greatly distressed when she was then presented, not with a swaddled baby, but a swaddled tortoise.

According to the established protocol for such things, she was transferred with her new and very obviously 'abnormal' baby to our teaching hospital, as this was a most unusual complication.

It appeared impossible to either of us that anyone could ever accept this story, so we asked the young midwife working on that ward what she thought of the story. She said, and I quote: “No, it could not possibly be true. I have examined the tortoise and noted that its umbilicus is fully healed.” I took this as a valid point, but not a completely satisfactory answer.

Naturally, we were nowhere near the end of the story, as the police were already on the case. It was soon confirmed that the clinic midwife had accepted a significant sum of money to give the newborn baby to a well-off local woman who was infertile.

The tortoise had been substituted for the baby, with the hope that this unsophisticated young mother would just accept this reptile as her unhappy lot. Luckily, this never had to happen, and justice was eventually served.

Blog - Dr William George Wykeham Legg (Willy)

Thought Picnic: How we weep more than the bereaved

Managing the inputs

I have experienced bad dreams, some quite vivid, usually caused by medication I am on, but I also have a very active imagination. I can easily conjure up anything, which is why I control the kinds of input that enter my thoughts, especially what I see or watch.

For that reason, I do not watch horror films; childhood memories of terrifying events keep me guarded about the conversations that reach my ears.

When I was twelve and in secondary boarding school, one night I dreamt that something terrible had happened, and I believed that dream. I was inconsolably distressed most of the day until I received news that everything was fine and that the situation had been a creation of my mind and imagination.

Controlling your thoughts

The mother of a friend used to enquire about him, but her thoughts were filled with worries about something bad happening to him. Although he might be prone to mishaps, I gently advised her to change her thinking and to remove her anxiety by thinking good thoughts when they had not spoken for a while. I told her to surround him with positivity rather than dread.

A certain principle applies: if you have nothing good to say about something, then say nothing. Similarly, I suggest that if you have no good thoughts about something or someone, abandon the negative thoughts and seek better ones for your own peace and well-being. Your thoughts do not necessarily control the person you are thinking about.

How we manage the influence of premonitions, foreboding, and anxiety depends on how we train our minds. If I wake up thinking something bad has happened, I do not immediately accept that as my reality without evidence. I am more likely to comfort myself with the thought that all is well, or to pray for peace and calm amidst the uncertainty—this is better than being driven by every gust of fear and doubt.

A ship caught in a storm will likely founder if the captain and crew do not keep calm, and lives could be lost in the process. We are the captains of our minds, managing the storms of thoughts that pass through them. Yet, we sometimes give these thoughts life by voicing them or acting upon them.

Living with better thoughts

I understand that after a cancer diagnosis, some people might be worried and concerned about me. I cannot fully imagine how they felt, but I was at the centre of that situation. I had the cancer; they only had their imagination. Perhaps if their thoughts had been encouraging about better outcomes, I would have appreciated their positivity to help my situation.

You cannot live solely by the thoughts of others, especially in adversity; you need sources of upliftment that dispel the worst fears. I did not dwell on how cancer might kill; instead, I listened to messages about healing, health, living, thriving, and being strong. Out of over thirty hospital visits, only twice did I have a chaperone—because I needed to keep my thoughts positive.

If I, as the person most affected, can maintain hope, and there are many in worse situations who are not thinking the worst about their circumstances, why then are others we consider close to us full of fear, anxiety, and worry on our behalf? It makes no sense at all. There might be an inadequacy in their development of positivity and faith.

Listening carefully

The other day, after telling someone I had had cancer twice, instead of listening to what I said, he began to talk about herbal remedies and the supposed causes of cancer. A musician by profession is quite a leap from an oncologist. I was so irritated by his ignorance disguising itself as knowledge.

I know the effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy; they can be deadly, and side effects are horrible, but we do not abandon cancer treatment. In most cases, we manage the side effects and ultimately recover.

After all this rambling, perhaps the best thing to say is: please, do not weep more than the bereaved, worry more than the affected, or be burdened more than the truly infirm. Carrying an imaginary burden heavier than the real one is a feat beyond belief.

When we manage our thoughts properly, what might be pity or sympathy often turns into empathy. We walk that long, hard mile in another's shoes, understanding them instead of making it about ourselves, our thoughts and emotions shifting focus away from them.

It is well.

Nickel Blogs - Blog by blog for 21 years

A House, A Home - Anna Wilson

The first brick

I thought the 8th of December 2003 was a weekend, but it was a Monday. Now, I cannot recollect what I was still doing in a Berlin hotel the day I wrote my first blog. I must have been on holiday.

I had been sharing some of my views with a closed circle of friends by email, but it was not efficient, and frankly, some were rather fed-up with me clogging their inboxes with musings and rantings. Did one not ask that I be more authentic, and by that, suggested I was putting up a façade?

Blogging was becoming a trend, it was the subject of an interesting report I caught on CNN when it was the global news outlet pumped into every international hotel room. Quick research on how to start a blog landed me on a website managed by a small outfit in Scotland, and http://akin.blog-city.com/ (now defunct) was born.

Building homes

Even blog hosting sites could not stay the course as I received an email in late 2010 that the service would close in January 2012. That began the process of migrating what we now call content to Google’s Blogger and https://akinblog.nl, over 1,500 of them, a manual activity and what I lost in the process was the engagement and many link references.

Brick by brick, blog by blog, I built a house and a home of thoughts, views, opinions, and perspectives. I have been writing about what I have experienced and how it might affect me or others for 21 years. It is as easy as it is hard. I have 4,177 blogs, including this one, with over 8,300,000 views to date.

A place of blogs

I am commemorating today with a song written by Anna Wilson for Habitat for Humanity International because every sentiment expressed in that song applies to this home that my blog has become.

Finally, thank you to everyone who has visited my blog for whatever reason, some interacting by leaving comments or engaging me directly. I found a quiet corner and you came to say hello, I appreciate you all and hope you will continue to visit and interact with my blog and me.

Here’s to many more anniversaries. In human terms, the 21^st signifies the key to life and the anniversary gift is nickel. Let’s keep building homes for every expression of humanity, brick by brick.

Nickel Blogs - Celebrating 21 years of blogging

Nickel Blogs - In view of 21 years of blogging

Nickel Blogs - 21 years of telling better stories

Nickel Blogs - 21 years of going against the grain

Nickel Blogs - 21 years of articulating the identity spectrum

Nickel Blogs - 21 years of going against the grain

Developing a life of views

It would appear even to me that my blog has developed some unintended characteristics, but these have become some of the elements that give context to what I write.

For instance, one regularly occurring theme is the Thought Picnic which began just like when the blog began, in a hotel room on one of my travels. I was in Antwerp during my news junkie days when another of those Israeli-Palestinian conflicts was in the news.

The world news channels gave an Israeli representative a global platform to which she relayed to my unmistakable hearing, “We have to tell the world our truth.” Not the truth, but their version of the truth, which in its narrative was as far from the truth as the opposite cardinal points of the compass were from each other.

I found myself carted away in my mind’s eye on a picnic into a wilderness left to my thoughts to contemplate the seemingly intractable issues of the world around me. Indeed, I wander away in thought, into things that seem silly or complex. Those who have wondered what goes on in my head want to venture in there as I warn them it is probably no place for the sane.

Becoming an alien to the contemporary

You might also wonder why I have a theme titled Essential Snobbery 101; it is hardly about snobbery but a reflection on how norms have changed over time that some of us despite adaptations still find certain attitudes and behaviours unbelievably strange as to wonder if we have been visited by an alien civilisation.

There are themes dotted around this blog of 21 years, they are informed by perspectives and outlooks that might differ from how people would generally view things. There is a surfeit of commentary on the issues of the day, and where I have an opinion, I dare say it is rarely on the well-trodden ground of thought.

Challenging the orthodoxy brings conflict and controversy, however, celebrating independent thinking should never go out of fashion. Even when I was involved in syndication, remaining unaffiliated and so not beholden to a corporate policy mattered more to me than gaining a wider audience.

Nickel Blogs - In view of 21 years of blogging

It might be a low-key affair

I obviously had great ambitions for celebrating the 21^st anniversary of blogging in a week’s time, but that takes both organising and promoting, activities I cannot say I have the skill for.

Nickel Blogs - Celebrating 21 years of blogging

As it goes, I might just settle for a celebratory blog and a review of things that have caught my attention and interest over that period. The blog itself remains a personal blog even as I find that it garners a global readership and has been achieving record monthly visits for most of this year.

While storytelling has not gone out of fashion, it is a shame that personal blogs of a non-profit nature have waned in significance. As I have alluded to, other forms of expression and media platforms have taken hold as global attention spans have become more engaged with the stimulation of different senses for thrills.

Longevity can be impactful

The other day when I introduced a colleague to my blog, the first thing that caught their attention was the collapsed year archive that read as far back as 2003. Some people even thought I had a journalistic background; I have rarely done anything in the arts and humanities since my secondary school days. However, I do have an interest that might eventually inform a graduate programme.

If anything, the longevity alone can be interesting. I have not made many changes to the blog even though some static content does need to be updated. I won’t even ask anyone to wade through almost 4,200 blogs, but the “Random Post” button on the desktop or non-mobile version of the blog can lead to interesting topics.

Meanwhile, I will post a few thoughts until the anniversary. Thank you for visiting my blog.

Dr William George Wykeham Legg (Willy)

Sadly, it happened

As we suspected without putting words to our thoughts, a message that we received late yesterday came with the confirmation that a friend had passed on after a protracted illness.

I never met Dr William Legg, known as Willy to many; he was born in Zimbabwe and even though he travelled the world for work and his medical education, he was Rhodesian and Zimbabwean, part of a cohort of typically white Africans that apart from their distinctive appearance would pass for native in manner, tongue, and probably outlook too.

It was through Brian that I made an acquaintance with Willy, who was ever courteous, wise, and, well, naughty. I guess with the people who crossed his path due to his profession, you acquire a facility to engage anyone at any level and keep them totally at ease.

Some interactions to note

Whenever he asked Brian to pass his regards to me, there was something lewdly impolite that he also expected Brian to do, to ensure I got the message completely. Seeing my interest in not just Brian but Bulawayo too where he lived, he sent me an old hard-cover book on Bulawayo that contained language that would not pass the censure of a copywriter today.

It depicted a time and place that once was with an engaging narrative that made you want to make off to see, feel, and experience Zimbabwe. There was an expectation that we would meet as he desired to take me to the Matopos Hills, and I was more than interested as that is also where Cecil John Rhodes was buried.

A thought in closing

Alas! We never got to do that, as I have yet to visit Zimbabwe, and he had become quite increasingly frail over the last few years. While having a very active mind to the end, his body literally incapacitated him.

I have heard and read many stories about Willy. He spoke fluent Ndebele, could make chapatis from scratch, was a doctor to many, and a teacher of the medical sciences to many more.

To Brian, he was a friend, a boss, a confidante, a mentor, a father figure, and much more. It is with him that I grieve the passing of Dr William Legg. May his gentle soul rest in peace.

To that lonely man of Quernmore

The England that was

A big house stands lonely in remote Lancashire in the hilly countryside that looks far away from anything known bequeathed in a legacy to a man who served a family for a long time, and it became his hideaway.

Born in the closing of the Depression just as the Second World War began, to a young couple who might have ancestry that stretched to the ends of Yorkshire, steeped in the Victorian working-class values of duty and service, of which they were obviously exemplary.

The road sign to this village is one of those English placenames that is a Shibboleth, it sets apart the locals from the outsiders, and fascinating it is.

Happy and sad together

And 80 years to the day, tragedy and fortune struck, in Arnhem a father never returned and in Lancaster, a girl was born, and so was a life so marked from that day until the very end. He was the grandson of grieving parents as his mother cradled his little sister in her arms.

This is not my story, but one for which I seek to remember a man who was uncle to my friend. We all have uncles that we fondly remember, who we know and yet do not, whose persona reveals cleaves of the unsearchable travails of life represented in their quirks and tics.

In the passage of time, mother passed on for he never left her side to travel or get married, a lifelong protector even from a boy, seeing duty like he might have been told by his father as he left for war, make sure you take care of your mother. And now, he also had a little sister to watch over too.

The forever memories

When I met him during my many memorable sojourns to Lancaster for Christmas, his impression of things might have belonged to a forgotten age, but nothing he said was out of malice, it was a way of making conversation and you dug deep for wit and laughter rather than take offence.

I knew once the bond that brought us all together at Christmas had gone, he would become a total recluse back in his big house out of reach and out of sight, usually sought by his nephew and rarely seen except for letters and notes. He was free from the oath to care for his mother and the rest of the world could care for itself.

No one could blame him and what might never have been truly known was he was both liked and loved, every visit to another village in Lancashire would include the thought to ask after him. We sadly learnt that he had left his footprints in the sands of time now only to be remembered with a sigh and in dreams.

The lonely man of Quernmore (KWOR-mər) is gone. May his gentle soul rest in peace.

Photons on the Prostate - I

Change and difference

I guess this does not really fit the Men’s things blogs so I have decided to write about my radiotherapy treatment as Photons on the Prostate, basically on how I feel and other experiences. The Image Guided Radiotherapy treatment I am having uses a photon beam rather than a proton beam. [City Of Hope: What’s the difference? Photon and proton radiation therapy]

We are advised not to change our eating habits, but there is no way to prevent changing something when met with the prospect of treating cancer. You adjust or the situation forces them on you.

The first thing I had to sort out to prevent bowel gas was in the drinks, and I miss the fizzy comfort of bubbles dissipating on my tongue as sparkling water creates a sating sensation even before you have swallowed. Still water is so bland and ordinary, it is how things are.

Dishwater tastes so good

Returning from the hospital yesterday, I stopped at my local supermarket to get decaffeinated tea and coffee, how this effluent of dishwater was ever palatable escapes me. The coffee having lost its potency with the absence of caffeine is perceptible to taste, at least to mine.

Two cups of coffee later, I can understand this is being done for a cause as there is no way I could have been persuaded of the benefit of it, I shall persevere. What I have not dared to try yet is the decaffeinated Earl Grey tea, I guess I’ll just pinch my nose when I drink it.

Getting tired of food

In terms of side effects, whilst it is early days, I do not seem to have much of an appetite for food, I have already been skipping meals long before I started treatment, an anticipatory response that I need to counter. Every desire to cook deserts me too.

There is some tiredness and early morning insomnia, whether related or unexplained, I cannot tell. A feeling of bowel discomfort with some urgency that is not presenting effect, I can only wonder what that is.

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - II

Blog - Men's things

Men's things - XVIII

Rescued to the uttermost

The righteous person faces many troubles, but the LORD comes to the rescue each time. [BibleHub: Psalm 34:19 (NLT)]

This thinking is the fundamental of the challenges and triumphs of 2024, so far. The thought of rescue is a mindset that I am not alone and that there is help well beyond my capability, facility, or resources that plucks me out of dire situations into safety and security. This is a blessing as it means one is neither hopeless nor helpless.

In writing to a friend, to whom I was relaying the events of this year I realised that each month brought interesting and wonderful developments, I am full of thankfulness and gratitude, everything will turn out right.

A blessed year showing up

In January, 2023 had come to an end without any idea of what the New Year had in store, I attended a church service in the suburbs every turmoil set aside for fellowship and praise. Then I had to face some realities, a need for reengagement and the niggling issue of a blood test that had indicators of concern. I received good news and an invitation to attend the doctor’s surgery for some tests.

In February, the blood tests showed that I had anaemia and on the other front, a prospect was taking an inordinately long time to complete. I got to travel the farthest I had in more than 18 months and met up with some old friends who were glad to see me but preferred another. As I boarded my train, a blessing dropped into my life and a moment of great change beckoned. What I wanted was only deferred, I just needed to be patient.

Wisdom is the principal thing

In March, my joy was complete in that I was glad to be counted among the living, the thriving, and the blessed. On the blood front, the anaemia was dealt with, but my prostate was telling concerning tales. That needed checking out. Meanwhile, I had to manage my particulars and experience to fulfil all the requirements for an engagement which was sometimes stressful but not insurmountable. Where I ran out of ideas, wisdom came to rescue me in ways I could not have anticipated.

In April, I was ready for a new challenge even in areas where I thought I had little expertise, I felt it was an opportunity for growth. My doctor had a quick touch and felt my prostate was enlarged too and he referred me to the urology department of our NHS trust, and this set off a range of other tests and the need for an MRI scan. I had much better music to listen to this time.

You are owed an explanation

In May, as I was taking things in my stride, I was invited to the hospital to discuss the results of the multiparametric MRI scan. I had many questions before I could agree to have a biopsy of my prostate. The challenge of facing paternalism in medicine, where they do not believe you should be intimated with every detail that leads to a decision reared its head. We had an interesting encounter and a lasting lesson: I need to be treated as knowledgeable and respectfully informed.

In June, it was just a short email informing me that a period of review had been successfully completed. My annual checkup contained information that should have been better managed as I had not seen the consultant before the detail ended up in my notes, it was a careless mistake. However, I knew it was prostate cancer but that had to take a backseat, I was going to see Brian and that was a beautiful thing.

Celebrate life over adversity

In July, before returning to discuss the options for the treatment of prostate cancer. We had a wonderful time in Cape Town. Understanding what prostate cancer meant was daunting and neither of the intended procedures seemed pleasant when looking at the post-operative or post-treatment situation. I was sanguine as I began to understand things better to do things I had only dreamt of being able to do.

In August, I found myself embedded in a changing and exciting process where I automated and facilitated things that at first would have been painstakingly difficult, manual and prone to error. My confidence grew in areas where I would not have projected my abilities. Then another encounter with medical paternalism was both challenging and upsetting. However, I had got all the information I needed and was ready for my treatment plan.

Maintain the God perspective

In September, there is growth, blessing, anticipation, and expectation. Even as I begin treatment next week, I am also enjoying what I do, each challenge becomes an opportunity to see things differently and find solutions in exciting ways. I am thankful for the blessing of confidence, comfort, and love. To have love and friends who care so deeply and fondly for you makes it a wonderful world.

There are more things of goodness, mercy, grace, favour, and blessings, to come. I am irrepressible because the Lord delivers me fully, wholly, wonderfully, and beautifully. My mouth is filled with testimonies, this little inconvenience will pass, and each subsequent month will have more amazing things to share. The men’s things will dissolve into nothing, and God’s things will be astounding miracles.

Men's Things Blogs

Blog - Men's things

Blog - Men's things - II

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Thought Picnic: In showing is the shown showed

Preparing enough for things

Preparation can easily become the excuse we use for not getting some things done. Decisions on what needs to be done and how to get it done whilst trying to ensure once the process has started, it is not impeded by some unintended issue or circumstances.

How this can so quickly exacerbate procrastination is another thing we rarely acknowledge. A task suddenly seems onerous and the path to accomplishment literally insurmountable. The journey of a thousand miles never gets started because we see the thousand miles ahead rather than begin with the first step and see how each step brings us closer to our destination.

Indeed, we must prepare for the obvious even as the clichéd saying sounds in my ear as I write, “Those who fail to prepare, prepare to fail.” Some knowledge and insight is useful, experience gained from different sources can help too.

Accomplishment must be the goal

The direction of travel should be towards some achievement or accomplishment, bringing things to conclusion or completion would show that whatever effort has been applied to something has something tangible at the end.

Our thoughts are vehicles of many ideas that may never see reality, yet it is our ability to imagine that gives the foundations to the things we build or produce.

The power of the imagination to create worlds of fantasy that become fantastic worlds lived in, is one feature of humanity we fail to exploit and even when we know how the divine can bring to pass the apparently impossible, we limit ourselves to the perfunctory, lost in dreamland with wishes rather than faith.

Showing shows completed activity

The other day, I saw someone with such big ears. I was afraid my thoughts about the ears might be heard by them. I tried not to consider that possibility even if it could be scripted into a science fiction fantasy film with interesting or thrilling storylines.

Then, the many stories or things we have written that never left the draft stage, they are in an incomplete state, they represent activity without accomplishment. We can be satisfied something was done but there is nothing to show others that we have done anything. It is like an assignment done but not submitted for scoring. You cannot get grades for work not given up for vetting.

Likewise, a blog not published is well, not a blog, because no one knows what you have done until it is shown for others to see. So many lights hidden under a bushel, talents buried instead of flourishing makes the reticence to show what you have the gift of not entirely one of shyness that we assume we have but it could also be seen as in the parable of the talents in terms of the unprofitable servant too. {Bible Gateway: Matthew 25:14-30 (NKJV)]

Clippings of the thought and drippings of the thoughtless

The matchup of views

There are two versions of my blog, one which I wrote expressing some feelings that I would not be able to describe after some attempts at doing so, and then I decided to pass the text through an LLM grammar checker with a preference for English and when unqualified, I mean what we speak in Great Britain as opposed to that spoken across the pond.

The tone I went for was emotional rather than casual, formal, laconic, or something else I cannot remember. At Brian’s inadvertent prompting, I won’t even tell which version was the original and the edited and none of the customary delineation of paragraphs and sections, the title of the blog however is original. We can’t give everything to AI when we can allow some human intervention.

To make it even more atrocious but not as bad I had some machinations that crossed my mind as I typed this, I won’t set out where one begins and the other ends, the evil thought was to intersperse the paragraphs. As Brian is wont to say. “I’m not that bad.” My response? That’s between us.

With many thoughts coursing through my mind, I found myself reflecting on a difficult telephone conversation that had left me feeling unsettled. Though I endeavoured to remain calm as I respectfully explained my perspective on the importance of patient-centred care, I sensed tensions rising.

In my attempt to process the interaction, I began writing but soon realized my thoughts lacked focus. While I had intended to respectfully express concerns around communication and coordination of my treatment, my emotions had made it difficult to do so constructively.

Over subsequent days, further challenges with the navigation of my care only added to my feelings of frustration. Multiple attempts at documenting my experience proved futile as overwhelm took hold.

However, with time and distance, clarity emerged. In reframing my goal as open dialogue rather than accusation, I was able to convey my perspective and needs in a balanced manner. Though the road to resolution remains long, small steps toward understanding are progress indeed.

With many thoughts coursing through my mind, I had begun to type away, the discombobulated scratches of the upset that resulted from a telephone conversation that soon lost cordiality for tempers rising.

Surprisingly, I held it together as I lectured my interlocutor on the primacy of the patient in the decision tree of treatment options. I was pulling no punches because taken together, one had become a bystander where full disclosure and engagement should have been the rule.

Six good paragraphs in, I was exhausted, that I put it away thinking I might find the wherewithal to complete it, but it was flailing without direction, and I doubted my ability to rescue it.

Half a day later, another phone call was ping-pong between oncology and urology, with little consideration given to the fact that regardless of department responsibility, I was at the receiving end of their inability to coordinate and the poor management of my case.

I started another write-up and before I could complete the first sentence, I had lost interest and inspiration, it was compounded exasperation seeking the travails of frustration that I have tried hard to avoid with sanguinity.

A day, another, and another before I settled at the keyboard for a third attempt taking a totally different slant from the first two attempts.

It turned out a lot better and much shorter than I expected. I guess some events can snatch away the will to see some things to the desired conclusion.

Thought Picnic: How cancer can change stories and perspectives

How times change the context

My autobiography has been a desire to complete for over a decade, yet my mastery of short-form writing in blogs has not particularly translated into the kind of story I have wanted to tell and have hoped others would like to read. I wonder if I need to go back to school for help with this.

Until a few months ago, beyond the bifurcation of timelines identifying life before and after cancer some 15 years ago, I felt I already had a compelling tale to share. Much of it has been articulated in blogs or in conversation, but in snippets of relevance or timeliness, depending on the setting.

Then, I guess I somewhat had the thought that I might encounter cancer again, but I do not think I prepared myself for what it might be. My greater concern was with living and living well. The things I sought to give me belief, confidence, and faith revolved around having the means and capacity to do things that were the substance of dreams becoming true.

How cancer redefines priorities

However, as time moved from March into April and May where tests and scrutiny had taken an unexpected direction in the prospect that my prostate gland might be misbehaving, the context of my thinking began to shift to healing and living.

The storytelling would obviously evolve in view of these new developments. Sometimes, it is an urgency to bring to a presentable state a work worthy of publishing and then the other is wondering what other stories one should wait to tell either because it is still raw or there are expectations for which one should account for.

I take each day as it comes, blessed and thankful for the gift of life and the engine of hope that propels me beyond the things that seem both insurmountable and impossible. The tendency to measure or compare against another brings foreboding or angst is one that should be consigned to what is written in the volume of the book about me. [BibleHub: Hebrews 10:7]

For it is indeed written, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” [BibleHub: Romans 1:8]

Thought Picnic: The little foxes of pique

The inexplicable imponderable

A mobile phone holder on my office desk disappears and there is no other explanation for the disappearance beyond the likelihood that the other person who has full access to the apartment has moved it, used it, and lost it.

Yet, we are left to consider the unexplained in terms of the improbable when it is so patently not the case, for to level an accusation might sour the relationship whilst your sense of discomfiture is hardly assuaged by the realisation that you are losing control of your entire to trusted forces out of your control.

Take another example: a wallet that was vacated of essential things with some unimportant items left therein was placed from clear recollection on that office desk the night before a journey. A week later, I got a call that it had been found in the garden that I had not passed through for close to a week before my journey.

Then, it had rained for most of that week, but the wallet was dry having been picked up that morning by a jogger who happened to spot it on her way out for morning exercises. I find myself caught in another debate of the ridiculous. I guess the wallet just thought it was stuffy in the apartment and decided to step out for a walk, then could not find its way back home.

The obsession proposition

Much as one attempts to be unbothered by the minutiae of the hows and whys of what people do out of commission, omission, absentmindedness, carefulness, or carelessness, all of that never really matters if it is not noticed. My inordinate attention to detail that has found the trenchant criticism of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), is simply a need to maintain some order amid many other chaotic things totally out of one’s control.

You wonder, why people change things that have always worked for something that they have not had the opportunity to assess the efficacy of. The seemingly immediate advantage is lost to the long-term inconvenience that could exacerbate the annoyance of others.

Patterns are distorted as your record of how things were is displaced and influenced by thinking, events, or people working from a different perspective and have an inclination to tend to an alternate frame of reference. We all suffer from the inability to be inclusive of all the parameters that could make for a perfect setting.

Leave things where they were, be inquisitive but resist interference, consider the quirks of others which are quite different from their faults, and know when to accommodate rather than repudiate. The subtle traversal of advice to correction lies in the deft art of communication. For all times, know the clock should never be wrong.

These are the little foxes that ruin the vineyard in bloom. [BibleHub: Song of Solomon 2:15]

May I suggest blogging is easy?

Words always flow

A thought springs to mind, you reach for your laptop and flip open the lid with the confidence and purpose to write something. In the process you get distracted, a YouTube notification on your mobile phone and you are watching a performance that brings tears to your eyes.

You were thinking of writing a blog that you never even had any concept of how it would turn out and now, the trick you used to play of just typing and hoping the words come as you type is not working.

Bludgeon the block

Something suggests you have Writer’s Block, but chance would be a fine thing, because a block is more topical than incidental. I aver that it is when you have an intention that you suddenly cannot act on, that is a block.

In other cases, practise with thought processes allows you to write something, the quality of which might be questionable, and yet its beauty of expression is interesting as craftsmanship speaks for itself to the admirer and the critic alike.

Then if one were to close a blog as one were having a conversation following the basics of what a personal blog entails of how you feel, what you see, and how you are affected, you already have enough paragraphs for another blog. Then conclude with a full stop.

Need not bother about a hat

Travelling lighter than usual

When I stepped out of my home with 3 suitcases and many other things just a day over 3 weeks ago, I had the feeling I had forgotten something, but had no time to think of what it might be.

There was an Uber cab waiting to convey me to the airport and for the strain of trying to travel light, which I rarely do even as I worked hard at accomplishing that goal with much sleeplessly tired effort, I had for my early flight not slept overnight.

Wherever I laid that hat

On getting to the airport, I retrieved a trolley with difficulty, had my suitcases loaded on and made for the terminal when I realised what I had forgotten my hat, my straw grass hat which works well for the summer days, though it might have been useless for the winter days of Cape Town.

What I could not decide on was whether I had left my hat on the rack at home or in the Uber cab. I had the good feeling it was at home, that in my apparent rush to leave at the witching hour of just after 3:00 AM, I had left home quite unusually without a head covering.

It could have bothered me if I did forget the hat in the cab, but it was one of those instances where I felt either way, I’ll deal with it when I get back. On occasion, I had the feeling to order a replacement because I got the hat about 7 years ago and it was ordered on Amazon from Germany. A voice whispered in me, not to jump to that conclusion.

It really did not matter

Having the choice of asking my house sitter to check and confirm whether my hat was on hat rack did occur to me, but I left it at that. I had another 7 or 8 hats in my baggage for my destination, the world was not going to end because of a straw hat.

When I returned last Tuesday, it was not the first thing I checked as that was not on my mind, one of my other hats was already adorning my bald head. As I took it off to hang on the hat rack, I noticed the straw hat. It was at home, all along.

It is funny how the foregoing might have served as an introduction to a piece about how we bother ourselves about little things and overcompensate to remediate for certain failings or inadequacies. In fact, I did see a few straw hats in Cape Town, I just ignored the draw to try any of them on. I was having a good time and that is all that mattered.