SHORTICLES IX

 
WHY ESCHEW GOSSIP?
 
Gossip seems to be the most basic form of communication for thousands of years, It is gossip that convey information from mother to daughter, teacher to student and most especially among our religious others. It’s hushed mien relaxes, and opens one up to the nudity, and intimacy that impresses immediately, seeping immediately into the short memory, it’s cocoon reeks trust and it’s secretive and hidden feels important. Gossips are embarrassing in that they are life lessons and experience in play that we can learn from by the way. Embarrassing because it is just nudity in form but nudity in listen and nothing quite equates like nudity or death.
Jews and Italians mostly gossip at dinner and their success isn’t completely far from the comparison that rears as a consequence of knowing the better other.
 
Gossip teaches life by experience in real time and with signs to watch out for, though like all things it’s moderation is it’s caution and it requires the quiet of place and trust of other.
Did you hear Sandra's back?  - Yea?  That’s what you get for running away with a boy you just met
That puts caution on a latent enterprising naive, -I don’t what to to end up like Sandra, - Woah Sandra what happen to her? Another person learns
 
We should gossip, in good faith and If we are caught can proudly say Oh we were just talking about you, learning from you so to speak and the most from a matured mind is a shrug, sigh or throw of the hands in abandonment; In trust Oh well.. he might begin, narrating better and even end up getting some good advice and even some help albeit monetary. It reaffirms our apprenticeship of life as a whole giving us the strength of our together to collective tackle issue and combine our collective intellect on the individual issue, solving it faster.
Why shouldn’t we talk about our own human fellow and learn from them, when an entire field is called History which is infact Gossip, though of the dead.
In Africa it is shunned and harassed among older people even their circle of elder is in actuality a gossip circle Almost if yo haven't earned to gossip or condescend. Africa is without  enough love to brave that gossips  aren’t just conversations in mockery of, nor enough care to proudly proffer a l solution as a consequence.  It is tied to the individuated, hyper vigilant solipsism that centers our backwardness, with our bulk, people are left to deal with their problems on their own due to a lack of trust.
Without the conspicuous show of love, and concern that gossip entails what else would we have if not sheer indifference and quite easy to dish too. It  takes effort to  want to or even say about another, care to want someone to learn form, civility to normalize it, maturity to have it done at dinner evern with  the person present, trust to listen to opinions aired without feeling antagonized.
why eschew gossip when it is all there ever is.
 
 
EUDAMONIA
 
Sometimes we long to be bathed and caressed but the pragma of our society even makes rare among couples the sheer feeling of having hands run along our bodies. It’s an especially I now can enjoy in the eudamonistic way the Northerners barb their hair. I too now am bald, barbing became expensive with the cost of fuel, with a new blade every time, I run to northerners to bask in the caress of a vulnerability, a sling blade in a canopy of content I relearn from.
How the northern barbers became a way for me to me mothered and pampered. I look at the gap tooth of my assailer whom I trust with the sling blade.  Cutting the razor into two for a single efficient use ,he smiles at me and calls me “alpa” ( an hausa intonation for alfa which means Priest) a little bismilahi before starting and I enjoy the feel of his palm on my head and the bare of my neck, he shaves clean.
Soap soaked finger into my nostrils he cuts my nose hairs with precision and I feel dreamy. The Indians call it Vaisvana he is focused on the single patronage, looks at my head, and cuts in between my eye brows,cheeks and chin, in my ears too and cuts the hair there.He raises my face to really look at me and I fall in love very single time. He smiles at me, I smile at me, and it hurts me that I can’t speak Hausa proficiently for I might get some philosophy or politics out of him.
And for a while, my head is in someone else’s hands, shielded even for a moment from life's troubles shielded from my self even, It says I am taking care of you now and I close my eyes in thanks.
 
This content is what  300 naira can get you in Nigeria sadly it use to be cheaper, But the value is in seeing in a man who love what he does with his hands and is content in his own work and I wonder where and how I can replicate such peace in my own pursuit of money.
Why are the northerners the least ambitious and also the most wealthy? And how can I learn from their patience? Obviously he has a wife and a child, and on the average of a pack per day He could make 2 thousand naira a day, while eating very little because he doesn’t exert himself as much and he has no shop. Since he eats little he is able to send to his family in the village more than the average teacher can in a month, to where the money has more value.The leisure with which he lives in the city is germane as he isn’t tied up with costly family life, he can have that cheaply in the village and leave it when he returns to the city. If our currency was protected the Northerners had mastered how to live the best of both lives and there is a lot we can learn from studying them. Without a shop, sharing a room with friends, they remain boyish, are lighter, adopt  a very minimalist life. I feel warm when I watch them as they remind me of Whitman’s poems, and Thoereau’s walking. I posit we study the Northerners because they have almost perfected the Nigerian living  If only they know they have.
 
 
IN HONOUR OF A CZAR

I recently went back to my Alma mater, nostalgic remembering reading and rushing through these walls during exams. Sadly, the lizards have completely take over the school, frequent accidents, new structures and inability to maintain existing infrastructures. The proliferation of businesses, students playing pool in the walkway and I thought what  the current JAMB Registrar would think of these “progress”. Sadly all the communists were all gone and trees were being felled in their hundreds. As I looked at the classes I once called home,  I smile at remembering my First  ever silent revolutionary I Dr. Saad Yemi Omoiya  who died after a brief illness. And who I believe was on the verge of solving the Ilorin problem. I wouldn’t put off the mystery of his death to how close he was  to figuring out the identity crisis that bedeviled the state; Is it Afonja breakaway town or Bayajidda’s Banza Bakwai.
We had  what the Buddhist call our teacher student connection in the teaching of Russian’s History and French Revolution. he fought for our exams to be computer based to much dissatisfaction from the History department. An intinerant scholar and a  model of elegance and simplicity you would only hear him say Don’t worry your head laughingly.To our defense he told them  These student still have a long way ahead of them, don’t frustrate them with these exams. One can never forget a person like that, To take a stand and brave silently that hard and lonely road is emulous to me. He was a Czar in every sense and may his soul rest in peace. Don’t worry your …
 
WHY NOT GONZO JOURNALISM??

Journalism can mostly feel like reading up on and getting holed in one’s mind’s corridor just to throw your stone from there. Few really go undercover and gonzo, few actually live their story.  In this world of Corporation owned news outlet and half truths. Why not go there and be a part of what you are writing or  what you intend to write.
It requires getting literally to the root of your write-up  and doing so as austere as possible. Gonzo Journalism is Journalism a la Orpheus, in which as you go digging, You are dug into also.  Mininng the well of your psyche and finding much of yourself as well as the story. Posited and popularized by Hunter Thompson. Whose exploit on drug binge birthed the movie Fear and loathing in Las Vegas, coupled with his  episodes with the Biker Gangs,  he believed in the wringing  experience deepens and enrich the writing and evern emblazen and glaze the souls in the fire, in that in life is sum of experiences, the warmth of acts.
 
Quite cheap and surreptitious, you are Immersed in the experience, play acting, enjoying and  mimicking peasantry Like Bergson you would be sucking at the marrow of life. With your immersion immersion, you get to really feel every subtle thing that is particular to the experience; The weather, the smell, the taste of the water, the scent of the people, collectively feeds your reporting experiences, getting you to the truth and not just  it’s immediate but also it’s remote factors
Traveling is one of the true cost of Gonzo journalism and not overly putting your self in harms way.
When the bus breaks down it is an opportunity to learn more you cant be frustrated, You might inquire about the place and take some photographs or even highlight there. You might want to know the passenger beside you and see what you can learn from them, but sometimes a headset provides better company, in the local community you should be a part of them and learn more from them also.
 
It has become more recently the goto for indie and hippie bloggers tired of the conventional journalism who make  mostly documentaries. Funding and sustainability bedevils this rich and pure journalism but with the crave for documentaries, and general distrust of mainstream news media Gonzo journalism might be on the rise and will find it’s place, more so in light of today’s world.
 
 
JALABIYA: THE CLOTH OF THE FREE

I'm not going to start teaching you what cloth to wear since…, what? I am! When it comes to wearing cloth a JALABIYA seems like the perfect piece of clothing. Not only is it light and freeing, it aligns and augur with not only with our climate in Africa, but also in temperate region a jalabiya and a leather jacket is the monk’s dressing. You share that freeing feeling with the greats in that Jesus wore a jalabiya and the Buddha also wore one.
It is the cloth of freedom, and You look simple and unseeming at first, until someone sees the Hublot on your wrist and knows that nothing plays better than playing down. It keeps you cool, aerates you better and make you feel free. Like a desert dweller, the wind is your carrier and you feel angelic.
You swing around or can remain standing, it extends your trunk and makes you a tree. There is a lot to learn from the northerners and there is a superiority in putting on a Jalabiya.
 
They limit my walk and pace my step on purpose. You feel weightless as your body literally swirls inside it, Unlike a short and a shirt you don’t feel any tightening on your waist. With two side pockets and a breast pocket, you can hang hands, hide phones, feel lazy pinch your breast a little, or carry some of the of the down flow and catwalk just because. It is a shrug, it s a cover, a calm, a resting and a tease, it is royalty.  With your rings, a watch and sunglasses you are easily something to behold.
Cost effective in that the money you would spend on an individual shirt and trouser, could be spent on a Jalabiya. If you have to spend 3 thousand on a shirt, a thousand naira on a belt and and another 3 thousand on a trouser or short, a Jalabiya undercuts all of that with a good one for just 3 thousand naira, believe me when I say you only need only have 4 of that to be practically set for life, plus they are laundry effective.
 
 
FOOD VS EXPERIENCE

Basically, the poor man eats a lot and experience very little, the rich man eats  little and tries to experience as more as he can. Wealth in this context isn’t just transfixed on money but also in the generality of  life. The joy of life is in the expansive and the sum of their experience instantly sets them and their goals apart. While the one is alimentary, bogus and bloated the other is quite transcendental and light in this outlook.
I believe life is all about orientation and exposure; there afe many things that we don’t know and should strive to learn. Peaces of mind that are quite cheap but continue to elude us, a kitten and an indoor plant goes for 3 thousand naira at the most but some people spend the equivalent on a fez cap looking also for a cushion for their mind.
I love to watch old movies, Ozu movies and see how people were able to enjoy the cheapest peace of mind and try my best ton replicate it in today’s Neo Feudalism. For every form of paradise thee is an affordable replica and if you seek for the cheap replica to every goodness you might end seeing a pile somewhere of unspent money that people might point to and say Ah he’s rich now!.
But it all started with eating little, or buying little or the little and experiencing more, the light bill could be undercut with indoor plants, cloths could be minimal, and the hospital might find you scarce if you eat once a day. Guess what happens to that money saved up: Your own house!!
 
I found out that the difference between the rich and poor, white and most black people is just the ratio of food to experience, some smoke more, eat little and travel places, others gorge, fall sick and remain bloated.
 
Some homes have bags of clothes filled to the brim and still buying more while others carry on with a  very minimalist wardrobe spending on gaining experiences. I say to every mind I find: You can only b reak every chain of enslavement that have been imprinted on your mind through experiences.
Experiences like : traveling, Opening and investing in a business no matter  how small, going abroad even if it’s the neighbouring country, seeing movies, employ labour, going on a flight, driving a car, getting high, having sex (obviously which kain life be dat one),  Build your own house, drinking, Reading books, riding a bike, Taking and framing pictures, ride a camel, take peyote, Draw a tattoo, build a park, give free novels or radios to students, learn a language, learn an instrument, ciggarettes, dreads, piercings, swimming, meditating, go bungee jumping, sky diving, Kayaking, just write them all down and watch life go to work.
 
 
A LIFE OF SERVICE 

Eventually you get tired of the food, you start to feel the routine of existence, and relative peace feels rather boring the beautiful thing is that you will find spark in service. Living for others and doing the best you canto make the world better. You find meaning in a life of service, which coincidentally becomes the fight against evil, How? still baffles me. Find joy and fulfillment in making another person’s life a little better even if it’s with your old shoes.
There are a thousand things that need our attention,  If only we are brave enough to embark on it, or care enough to not be dismayed by alienating forces, for they shall come and in numbers.
 
Giving is the emptying  freeing and beautiful feeling of sweetness, that smile goes to our heart and the weight of our sacrifice anchors us, Don’t fret about giving too much for there is gauge to goodness and your heart knows it. But you can give more than you can imagine if you open your mind to it. And it liberates, I tell you giving liberates you, plus your house looks more beautiful when it is sparse. When your things are in their house, you can call another yours for you will see pieces of yourself whenever you go and remember what you used to have that. You both can then share in calling it yours, and you theirs.
You come to possess them by loving them, in a life of service your tree of experiences and memories spread it’s branches to as many as you can offer even the smallest things, and when the wind sways that branches, their image flashes to your mind and you can feel the reverberation of another mind and say oh he thinks of me, and be truly glad for that. He/she is now you.

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