Puto ita scribo…

I think, therefore I write.

It’s 2:30am, I should be wishing myself “Gratulatory felicitations to you on your natal day…” my phones are buzzing with messages from all over the universe. Apparently, it is my turn on Nature’s 365 Rotational Policy of Attention.

This is the third piece of my MIP series, somehow I’ve managed to keep up appearances every year since I started 3 years ago. Now I can’t help but have the cold shivers whenever I think of August 1 – sounds like a race to time. Usually, there’s a lot to write about – from events in my past life to more contemporary ones, especially in the last one year.

The last one year has been particularly remarkable for me, one major highlight of it was my decent shot at personality branding. Decent because it got positive reviews from major stakeholders and sectoral players which gave me the much needed gusto. There were thumbs up from every corner, I loved and savoured every bit of it, but very people knew the extent of work that was put into the process. Fine output no doubt, but the process was a hang! 6 months of research and another 4 of designing the actual logo, after being in a fix to decide which brand icon was better to be used. I thought and thought, animals and objects that denotes power and strength and courage and authority and excellence – all rolled into one. After drawing up a long list, I came down to sitting with three – an eagle, a crown, a Chess King. After many weeks of deep thoughtfulness – one of a journey into the realm of self-realization and by extension, actualization, my big break came. One somnolent evening, I was taking a leisurely stroll around my school, (now my alma mata) I stumbled on a quote veteran war leader Napoleon Bonarparte:

“I’m not afraid of an army of Lions led by a sheep, but I’m afraid of an army of sheep led by a Lion“.

I stood for a minute as the message sank in, while every letter reeks of courage and all, the subject used began to have a more detailed look to me. LION!

Why? How did I forget? My face lit up with excitement as I began to hurriedly settle before my system to set the design motion into gear. I started on a wild limitless research, gathered anything and everything on Lions – documentaries, journals, NatGeo Big Cat clips, everything and anything. I was even close to sending the world’s best Lion Whisperer an email on behavioural patterns of the majestic cat. How they fear totally nothing, why and how they risk all to get one. Is it just a predator instinct? Or were Lions specially made by the creator? Coudibee I’m a Lion in human form? My quest for more knowledge was becoming more insatiable by the day, the more I knew, the more hungrier it leaves me.

Ultimately, I knew I was going to succumb to the well researched fact that just like love, our quest for knowledge far exceeds what we can get. At the end of the day We Need New Names was created – copped from Zimbabwean writer, NoViolet Bulawayo, the title depicts a milestone on the road to self discovery – the long walk to freedom.

I’m a pragmatist, an blind optimist and a futurist with a thought process exclusively turned out to the future. I have a firm belief in the self, i.e the belief that everything you need to get ahead in this lies right inside you. As humans, we try to rely on our life’s participants and circumstances for safety, security and self-worth. But all of those things are found from within. More often than not, I do not engage in motivational books and attend life coaching seminars and all of that, I believe those should be an addendum to the self-motivated person. Why? I’ll explain what I call “the theory of diminishing intent”

Sometimes, these life coaches and seminarians are sourced and invited to do what they know how to do best – show you the secret of success, right? Now, you’re seated in the hall, listening with gusto how this man achieved so much with perhaps so little. You’re fired up, as much as he wants you to, given the right doses of theatrics employed too. You have this illusionary belief that once outside this hall, you’re ready to conquer the entire universe – no, Napoleon didn’t do enough. You just need to step out of this hall – the only thing holding you back from achieving your dreams is the usher at the entrance who wouldn’t let you disrupt or distract other participants by leaving. So you sit still, the man at the podium reels off quotes with mind-blowing alliterations that hit you at the right places – you’re vulnerable, he is well rehearsed. You watch with dreamy eyes and an awed countenance – this man has to be My Lord and Saviour they spoke about, if only I could touch the hem of his garment.

Finally, he’s rounding off, he probably drops a few complimentary cards for mentees of which you’re already his ‘forst born‘. The food served means nothing at that point, you’re not hungry, but you don’t like food wastage, so you wait for it. You’re ready to take the world by the scruff of its collar, you dare leave this hall, you’re the next best thing that ever happened to mankind, after Calvary. At this stage, I say you’re “possessed by the CAN-DO spirit“. You tell everyone that cares to listen: “men and brethren, WE CAN DO!”

The next day, you sleep and wake up to no electricity, no money in your bank akant, your GP is low, your relationship/marriage is still as comatose and jerky as ever, your business is sunk in debt, your finances are dwindling, your whole world needs that ‘hem of his garment’ touch. You’re slipping into despair, but no, the keynote speaker from yesterday couldn’t be wrong. You start your day with a tinge of positivity, but as the day wear on, you burn out slowly but surely. You close the day with the same harsh, spiky realities you started it with, maybe even worse, you tell your inner circle: “men and brethren, CAN WE DO?”

From then on, life didn’t give you a breather, you got more hits and plummeted into the abyss of despondence. Your belief, whipped up at the seminar to be as high as the Empire State now records a new level of disgraceful depth, it sums up to: “men and brethren, WE CAN’T DO!”

What next? Attend another seminar and repeat process? I think not.

This last stage is what I’m being bullish about, those moments when your heart is convulsed with pain too deep to know any mirth. When the burdens press and the cares distress, when the days are weary and the nights become long and dreary.

The long walk to freedom is a charge, a war cry, a subtle clarion call to the journey of self-discovery and being your own muse while you’re at it. To be your own muse entails more than paying lip service to whatever precipitated your search of a muse. An unsavoury experience, could be disappointment, academic somersault, a failed relationship wherein you invested a lot of time and emotional energy. Really bad that you have exerted so much, it left you completely drained and exhausted to the uttermost. You’d crossed all the lines and broke all the rules. You can swear never to go near any of such mentally unnerving misadventures as your most recent experience could be best described as a fantastic effort in futility. The thing you thought was – wasn’t, the thing you thought clicked – clickn’t.  The thing you hoped for didn’t come through. Your ego is crushed, your hope is gone, the last candlelight of hope just flickered into nothingness. But finally there is something to work with – the wisps of soot, you’ll need them to start out on your long walk to freedom.

By starting out on your long walk to freedom is an indirect acknowledgement of your current state. Regardless of what the seminarians and authors tell you about not accepting defeat – I think there’s no greater place than the place of surrender. You should learn to use surrender tactic to transform weakness into strength. The place of surrender – here, you’re pliable, malleable, bendable and teachable – these are your greatest advantages in getting an ultimate healing, because when you reach the end of yourself, the big break happens. Your walk to freedom would be a lonely, tiresome, torturous journey, but it is all shades of worthy – you owe it to yourself, you are your own elixir. On this long walk, everything good will come, detractors might find you, but just like the dancer was thought insane by those who could not hear the music, the walker was thought a stray by those who could not see the path way.

All these lines tell you the story of who I am, so many stories of where I’ve been and how I got to where I am. But these stories don’t mean anything, when you’ve got no one to tell them to – I’ve got y’all, my stories mean a lot…

Here’s to God, my Chief muse and eternal support system…

Here’s to my family and friends and supporters…

Here’s to you reading this, trumping up support…

Here’s to you who’s trying to get ahead in maze called life…

Here’s to my three brothers…

And, here’s to SuperAkerele – even when I was dead broke, you made me feel like a million bucks, I was made for you.

Akerele Oluranti;
4:47am, 01/08/2016
paulakerele@gmail.com
T: @Super_Akerele
IG: superakerele