I am a story teller, every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.

I would start by explaining the creative I came up with for this. The carved wooden image signifies a small boy, his walking/marching posture depicts movement and progress, he’s growing into a man. The tie-knotting hand is the boy that has grown into a man, depicting one who is ready to take his world by storm, that’s the city beneath him. The three footsteps in the backdrop show impact, consistency and continuity. This is a sophomore.

The natal clock chimes again, the time of the year when everyone shows you love for 24hours. You know what I call birthdays? Nature’s 365 Rotational Policy of Attention. This is because the people that call you and put up your DP everywhere may never contact you again until the next 365days. All the same, it is important you feel the excitement. For me, in the middle of the excitement, my head was fixated on writing this sophomore.

To be stuck with a writer’s block is the last thing that you want happening to you especially when you have taken it upon yourself to drop a year note on every natal day. One side of me was elated and could feel the empathy the other side merely moped on, the last looked sternly; he’ll smile when he’s impressed. Dissociative personality disorder can be this real.

Research has come to prove there are different sides of a person, every person, and each side has a definitive reaction to according to certain situation. For me, I name my sides by the names I go by – Paul, Oluwarantimi and SuperAkerele they are like a PH scale. In that order, Paul is the meek and lowly ‘boy’, one every parent use as a reference point for good behaviour. As good as he seems, he is very boring, bland and unresponsive and unadventurous. Zero wit, non-existent, bland and timid, he’s too good to be true. I’m the last person that wants to go into life that way. Paul was too good for me, remember, ‘the boy is good, apa lo nje be’. Paul had to go, he’s in my past now. As it is, few people still call me by the name; they are in my past too. I dropped the name as soon as I got into UNILAG, I reckon girls would have trouble pronouncing it because it might ruin their lipsticks.

There came Oluwarantimi, I like him to bits! He’s everybody’s guy, smart, popular and he’s everything you’d want to describe anything scintillating. You can almost never miss him in a crowd, he attracts goodwill effortlessly. He’s the reason for me being an unrepentant nomenclatural narcissist. Nearly every day, I indulge myself in reminding myself how lucky I am to have me. You can’t beat how much I am besotted, it starts with the name. It got to a height on a certain day and I came up with a poem with my name as the central theme. Oluwarantimi. As ‘blow-you-off-your-feet’ as he seems, he is too emotional, very soft on the inside. – one attribute I dislike about him. I detest the fact that he’s emotionally fragile and cannot hold his own in matters of the heart. You don’t want a fully grown man awake in the middle of the night, earpiece plugged in, staring at the ceiling for cupid reason. Stupid cupid!

SuperAkerele! He steps in like a boss, he sort of acts as a rain check on the emotional tendencies from ‘Ranti. He is the tampon blocking the flow of emotions, a job he does perfectly well, with complete finesse and sterling accuracy. When he’s not at that job, he’s an enigma! He never shows weakness, he’s impregnable. He’s superbly confident, nearly cocky and sometimes arrogant, I’d have to admit. He’s addicted to discipline and perfection, nothing less. People who don’t understand the difference between cockiness, confidence, arrogance and pride think he’s proud. Regardless, he kingly sits atop a high throne of debonair. He’s kingly, he’s royal, he’s regal. SuperAkerele! He’s the man who built the hospital he was born in. He’s never upbeat about anything, everything comes to him. He’s the definition of Robert Greene’s 34^th. “Be Royal In Your Own Fashion; Act Like A King To Be Treated Like One”. “The way you carry yourself will often determine how you are treated; in the long run, appearing vulgar or common will make people disrespect you…by acting regally and confident of your powers, you make yourself seem destined to wear a crown” That describes him. He’s a sphinx, an enigma, extremely intellectual and witty. He’s never wrong, never apologizes and devoid of human empathy, regardless. A being of few words, though he is the eloquence of excellence. From the way I write about him, there’s no telling he is my favourite part of me. Sadly enough he doesn’t get to come around very regularly.

Like I mentioned in Man In Progress, I I have grown up to think my surviving depended on books. Maybe it actually does. I started out life as a nondescript kid. One that never did home works, hardly knew a thing in school. The carry first from back child, slow and sluggish to the uttermost. My big break came in Primary 5, when I answered a question in class. The previous day, my dad made me read a book, Trial of Jimmy Johnson by Sly Edaghese. There I met the word “Septuagenarian”. The next day, with bated breath I watched my teacher, Mr Emmanuel; tear into the class because no one knew the meaning of the word. His body convulsed in rage as he brandished his weapon (a cane) in our already teary-eyed faces, his over-sized white shirt seem to make a moving scarecrow of him. After about a full minute of ranting, scared and shy, I raised my hand. Half expecting me to misfire and half amazed it was me, he motioned to me. I stood up shakily, spelled the word and gave the meaning. Out of shock or surprise, I couldn’t tell them apart; he gave me a rousing induction into the class hall of fame which contained just two of us then, Mustapha Tobi, one Maths/Quantitative Reasoning guru and I, English/Verbal Reasoning. He ordered the class to give me a resounding applause. Everyone happily clapped and cheered, I had saved the day, and this has to be my finest hour, yet. One moment I cherished and wanted a repeat. Then I started gathering literature books from everywhere to read, I knew new words, I was on my way to becoming an intelligent intellectual.

There and then, it struck me that reading just makes life better. I just decided to read and never stop. Today, I’m the better for it, reminds me so much of the Ben Carson’s story. Before that day, I wasn’t particularly book smart or I never saw myself as one. When I was leaving secondary school, I won the Best Graduating Student in external exam.

That same school holds fond memories for me. Everybody has one tale or the other from high school. One fond memory I can recollect from the school is my one very ridiculous “romance” with my Muslim crush. The crush, which felt like love then, was quite strong to blur the line of religious impediment between us. It was the time where we bought JAMB forms and filled out our prospective schools. After weeks of stylishly asking her when she’ll buy her form, she finally did. I remember watching out for when she’ll fill it. Then she started out at it one afternoon in class. I passed her seat severally trying to catch a glimpse of what school she’ll fill, to no avail. Finally, stealing a seat behind her, I peeped over her shoulders and saw UNILORIN stenciled as Most Preferred then other schools in other categories. We’d go to the same University, I’ll date her, then we would get married, I thought. When I’d be buying and filling my form, the only difference was my passport and name. That year I read hardest for JAMB, scored 265 and had 83 in P/JAMB. They still didn’t admit me. I was distraught! Amean! Scored that much and I won’t get in the same school with Aisha Salami?! Unthinkable! I couldn’t be appealed. But then, time has a way of healing anything, doesn’t it? Well, now she’s in (the) UNILORIN and I’m in UNILAG, we barely talk.

Love. I’ve felt it at its best and at its worst. In the height of Coca-Cola’s Share A Coke campaign, someone saw my name on a Coke bottle in Surulere and brought it all the way to me in school. Although I suck at showing emotions, but it struck me as one act to hold dear for a long time to come. With days apart, another friend also brought a Coke bottle with “Ranti” stenciled in front. I was close to tears on the two occasions, really close. I still have the two bottles intact, except that they are not as chilled anymore. I really have a fear of drinking; I’m worried I’ll choke from too much love laced in it. I’ll possibly return it back to the owners, accept it as my insignia. All my friends everywhere make me feel like the most loved human on the planet. Big shout out to every one of you that supports my writing one way or the other, y’all motivate me to be the best I can be, you’re very dear to my heart. Stay tuned, we’re building a dynasty, and it can only get better.

On friends, I have an endless list to myself. There are some I won’t exchange for all the gold in the gold coast, nor all the pretty ivories in Ivory Coast, nor all the chickens in the Republic, or all the turkeys in Turkey, or all the coffees in Europe, or all the teas in China! Since I have so many, I keep a few close to my heart. If you’re reading this, you’re close to my heart and I won’t exchange you for a bucketful of China tea, nor perfectly brewed European coffee, turkey, chicken, ivory nor gold. You’re that dear to me.

The transience of life means more than the brevity of it; it means you have to do whatever makes you happy at any point. You have only you! Always remember, in the pursuit of happiness, self-aggrandizement is the key, possibly the only one. When you define your happiness by some point in the future, it would never come.

On days of darkest despair, days when the floor is more familiar than the ceiling, you have only you. In the lowest abyss of despair, remember everybody falls sometimes and you have to find the strength to rise. Overcome the odds, you don’t have a choice; you’re stronger, stronger than you know. May the life hidden deep inside your heart find the life waiting in your dreams. May the laughter you find in your today wipe away the tears of yesteryears. Your dreams are tomorrow’s answers to today’s questions. Regardless of the winds in your sail, you may never be able to change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust your sails to always reach your destination. A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his reward is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

All year round, I’ve had to make striking decisions between two extremes. Like Robert Frost in The Road Less Taken, “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.” On this road less taken, I’m purposeful in pursuit.

“Ponder on the path of thy feet and let thy ways be established” – Prov. 4:26

Akerele Oluranti; 5:13am
August 2^rd, 2015.
paulakerele@gmail.com
Twitter:           @Super_Akerele
IG:                    superakerele