Friendly Fires

Times change… People change... We change… What happens when your old friends are no longer the type of people you care to associate with?

Now I’m not saying that your former friends have pulled a heel turn, started smoking crack and kidnapping people for ransom. No, it’s the little things; the lifestyle choices they’ve made that don’t mesh with yours: The crowds they choose to hang with. Their manner of speech. The way they text (I mean, if u hd a frnd txtin u lyk dis mst of d tym, I dnt thnk ud wnt dem 2 b txtn u oftn). It’s not their fault. They just chose to live life a little differently. But diversity brings discrimination, whether we want to admit it or not. They’re different from you and you’re different from them. In fact, they may find you just as incompatible/unappealing as you find them. Some of them probably can’t wait to be rid of you. Now it’s not a question of who can’t stand who, and who the bad guy here is. The fact remains that from your perspective, you guys just don’t mix anymore. And, from a purely economical point of view, it makes no sense for you to keep associating with these fellows.

It takes away your time, and it takes away your energy; the effort you expend in an attempt to be social is no mean feat. You send the occasional “what’s good?” message of facebook, and if you ever see them at a social ensemble, you try to hold a conversation with them for more than a minute. But they don’t say anything of worth, at least not to you anyway. To someone else, their words may be glistening, golden baubles of immeasurable wisdom and rapturous enlightenment. To you, however, its crap; Pure, unadulterated cow dung. And it isn’t even the good kind of shit. If you spread that dung on a field you wouldn’t grow nuthin. Seeing them for more than just a minute is just, for lack of a better phrase, a waste of life.

So, what do we do with these “friends”. Some folk say “just ditch em.” A crude but effective solution. Just bail out of the friendship wagon. Downgrade dem fools from ‘friend’ to ‘associate’. Pretty much ignore their existences, perhaps exchanging a few pleasantries when you walk past each other. Just perhaps. Its not much different from what you already do. Heck, you hardly see them as it is, right?

Now I’m not saying you become their enemies (whenever I say that word, the Nigerian intonation of it always comes to mind. Naija folks know what I mean. There’s enemies, and then there’s ENEMIES. But I digress). Your social interactions with these people, or what semblance of them you have, remain almost completely the same. The only thing that changes is your mentality. These people no longer hold a significant portion of your mind-space. A trifling thing, you might think, but mind-space is nigh invaluable. It’s the base for conformity, groupthink and coalescence. It’s how movements get started; how revolutions begin: by allowing someone to take a share of your mind. It’s all about Cathexis; the investment of emotions into an object. When you attribute significance to something or someone, you feel more strongly towards them, and both positive and negative emotions projected towards the object are heightened.

If you attribute “friendship” to a party, you are more likely to agree with them, empathize with them and see things from their point of view. So if you look at things from the perspective of a guy who spits nothing but bullshit, what do you think you’re gonna see? That’s right; bullshit. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not one for having bullshit on my mental windscreen. It obstructs my view; and when cruising down the road of life, I prefer to be able to see my goals. If I have to step out of my cognitive conveyor to clean bullshit off the glass every two seconds, my goals will be a long time coming. It’s probably best to have those shit-spinners take a flying leap. Good riddance to bad rubbish and all that stuff.

But, on the flip side, closing off your mind to these people also means you forego seeing a lot of things, though it’s probably going to be mostly (yes, you guessed it) bullshit. There’s a saying that goes “even in a pile of pebbles, one can find a pearl.” It might only be a minute chance, but as long as that chance isn’t zero percent, you just may be able to pick out something valuable from the lives of these people. Maybe all that cow dung isn’t impotent after all. Besides, you never know when you’ll need them for one thing or another, so while it’s tempting to burn bridges, you may want to keep these guys around. Just in case. The downside is that you never know if you’ll ever actually need these people, or if you’ll ever find that valuable pearl. You may just end up having dung flung in your face for the rest of your life.

At the end of the day, I remain at a quandary when it comes to these folks. As I said before, I’m not perfect, and these feelings of social disconnect may be mutual. Perhaps some people may have been trying to get rid of me for the past couple of years but my insistence on social interaction must have been dampening their efforts. If that’s so, then I apologize to those people from the bottom of my heart, for I have been a bullshit slinger; a relentless cow dung flinger. But for those who have been throwing the crap in my face, I could go down the Usher route and let it burn, or I could go with Journey and don’t stop believing. Neither solution has proven itself absolute; after all, each case is unique, and no two friends are alike. So I guess it’s impossible to generalize, and till I examine each case individually, I’ll do a Johnny Cash, and walk the line.

Tezuka Zone (手塚ゾーン)

The first thing on your mind must be “wtf is a tezuka zone?’ Heck, what on earth is a Tezuka anyway? Well, Manga enthusiasts like myself would probably be familiar with the prince of tennis series; A series in which they play, well, Tennis. The captain of the protagonist’s squad is a guy named Tezuka. He’s a really good player. He’s got everything you could ask for; the service, the backhand, the smash. Pretty much your run of the mill great player (oxymoron anyone?). But the young lad also has the ungodly ability to spin the ball in such a way that, after a few exchanges, any return from the opponent flies right back to his racquet. Kind of like a vacuum/magnet. And from then on, the kid doesn’t have to move an inch; all the opponent’s returns go right back into his strike zone. And that’s the Tezuka zone. Awesome, right?

Yeah, I know it’s pretty much impossible in real life, (hey, that’s why it’s a manga!) But I digress.

Now you may be wondering what I’m ranting about. Well, you see, I really like that move. Apart from the fact that it’s Totally Awesome, I see it as analogous for the perfect life. The raison d’etre of lives everywhere. It’s the life all lives should aspire to be. (Right now you’re probably thinking “what the hell? I bust my ass for a bachelors degree/masters and this mo’fo is telling me to go play tennis?”). I implore you to be patient and allow me to expanciate (is that even a real word?)*

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim. Most Nigerians should know who that is. (Those who are still in the UK/USA, I wouldn’t bet on sha). Anyway, for those who don’t know, Mr. Ibrahim is a prolific entrepreneur, and just recently bought Virgin Nigeria, amongst other things. Now, one thing really amazed me about this encounter. It was not hearing of his exploits, nor was it hearing about the staggering rate at which he acquired business ventures. It was seeing the speed at which all these opportunities came to him. While I was in the meeting with Mr. Ibrahim, he literally had people lined up at his doorstep, waiting for an audience. Several he told to just come back another day. Some fortunate few were allowed the privilege of waiting in his compound whilst he wrapped up his other meetings. One thing in common with all these folks? They all wanted to do business. Some wanted to assist with a takeover; some wanted to be taken over. Others were potential pilots or managers of his most recent takeover (Virgin). There were all sorts, and Mr. Ibrahim had his pick of the litter. If he thought your proposal could fly, he’d buy into it. If not, he wouldn’t move a financial muscle. If he thought your venture had immense potential, you could walk away with millions in the space of an evening, though Mr. Ibrahim would likely make a few more million than you would at the end of the day. Such was his control over things.

Mr. Ibrahim is at that stage of life in which he no longer has a need to hustle; to go out and look for viable areas of growth. They all come to him. All that’s left for him to do is analyze the situation and pick what he thinks to be the most profitable ones. Everything is at his beck and call. The bullets are already loaded. All he has to do is pull the trigger, for he is the top gun. He is at the zenith, the epitome; at the centre of things; He is in his Tezuka Zone**. And I believe, to a greater or lesser extent, that this is where we should all aspire to be; at the center of things. To be the ‘be all and end all’ of whatever we do. We don’t have to make boatloads of money a la Mr. Ibrahim (though that would be nice too), but if we do what we love and strive to do it better than anyone else, money will naturally follow. And moreover, we will be at the dead center of our industries. Nothing will be able to pass from one end of the circle to the other without passing through us first. And because of this, we’ll be able to take a bite out of it if it looks tempting, a la a great white shark.

But it is important to understand that nothing comes without hard work. Even Tezuka has to trade shots with the adversary and analyze him before he can appropriately match his own strikes. In the same way, we have to play the game, and build up our zones with every stroke of the ball, taking everything in stride; Keeping our eyes open, waiting for opportunities, and taking advantage of any openings we see. We can’t expect to have everything in place from the get-go. We must be ready to work extra hard: For we are facing the toughest opponent; life.

So we should give it our all, and aim for the top, creating our zones as we go along. Who knows, we may have a future Jimoh Ibrahim amongst us. But, more importantly, if we play our cards right in the game of life, almost everything*** will come to us, and we won’t need to sweat the small stuff anymore. We can all just sit comfortably in our Tezuka Zones, waiting for an opportunity to land that killer drop shot****.

- Fin

* No, seriously guys, is that even a real word?

**(I guess technically he’s in a Jimoh Ibrahim zone, but that’s beside the point).

***yes, “almost” everything. Tezuka zone isn’t perfect, you know

**** Zero-Shiki dropshot, anyone?

Praying for Clear skies, as Galactus Approaches

Quite the ambiguous phrase, isn’t it? Let me enlighten you; Ive decided on a temporary name for the novel-esque piece of literature I’m attempting to construct; Clear skies. It just sounds so…fitting. Like everything in the world, however, The title is subject to change, so we’ll see how that works out. I also happen to write at the blazing pace of a snail on sedatives, so don’t expect anything anytime soon. Maybe I’ll post teaser excerpts to keep me motivated. Watch this space (then again, don’t)
As for Galactus, c’est moi. Yes, I am galactus. Need I explain? Well, I’m planning a return trip to the States (branching in the UK), and I intend to have an earth shattering good time in both countries, a la Galactus. So yes, I am Galactus; the doom-bringer, the destroyer of planets. I know it’s a lame, nerdy allusion, but I like it. Besides, Galactus is Awesome. And HUGE! So I’ll be visa applying, interviewing, and ticket scheduling, and hopefully, everything will work out. The orientation week of grad school messed around with my travel schedule a bit, but it’s cool. I’ll survive. And nothing would be more apt to finish this entry than a 1960’s comic book caption-esque rhyming one-liner: Citizens of the world, cower in fear, The Advent of Galactus is near! Muahahaha! (still working on my evil laugh).

Carcharodon State of Mind

I have a dream: not one of those enlightening, nigh rapturous dreams a la martin Luther king, chock full and brimming with pearls of wisdom; promising futures filled with harmonious coexistence and opulence. No: I dream of sharks. In my childhood, I oft dreamt of being chased by these beasts; of being captured; of being eaten alive. Thankfully I’d always woken up before the fiends began to feast on my entrails.

I’ve had several of these dreams. And in them, I‘ve been chased by all sorts: huge, mechanichal sharks; robotic monstrosities with rows and rows of revolving teeth, kinda like something out of james and the giant peach. I’ve been chased by red sharks, green sharks, rainbow colored sharks, you name it. Heck, I’ve been hunted by a shark wearing a superman cape.

But why sharks? Why couldn’t I dream of monsters and aliens like any normal kid?
Why those aquatic atrocities? Sigmund Freud would probably diagnose me as having a subconscious infatuation with sharks; Shark envy, perhaps. And, coming to think about it, he might just be right.
What’s not to envy about your stereotypical great white shark (scientifically classified as Carcharodon carcharias)? The blue hued tyrant of the seas just skittles around wherever he likes, and takes whatever he wants, whenever he wants. His line of thinking probably goes something like this:
“I’m swimming… I’m swimming… I’m swimming… still swimming… ooh, I see a fish… and I Eat it! Omnomnomnom!”

Isn’t that the life?

Now lets talk physically: A great white is one of the faster things in the water, and it is one powerful SOB. Those jaws can tear you limb from limb before you can say “bob’s your uncle”. Perhaps more fascinating about the great white is that its one of the species that constantly have to keep moving. They’re in the group of sharks known as “obligate ram ventilators” and need to constantly swim forward in order to ‘ram’ oxygen-containing water through their mouths and over their gills. Simply put, if they stop moving, they die. Kinda crappy, you might think, but it means that those things don’t sleep. Ever. How much energy must they have to be able to do that? On the run from the day they’re born till the day they die. I can’t even imagine human society if we didn’t need to sleep. Things could get very good, or very bad.
And that brings me to my point. Human harks. No, not the strange man-shark genetic hybrids you see on the weird sci-fi shows. I’m talking about humans with that Shark ideology; That Carcharodon state of mind. They’ve gotta be on top. They’ve gotta be king. They’ve gotta take down every adversary. They’ve gotta keep moving or they die. Those be my kind of people.

In this Canis Canis* world, we’re all sharks: each person a different species. But to be on top, you’ve gotta be a great white. As a great white, you can’t slow down for nobody. You can’t afford to be meek; weak. If you so much as give life a chance, it’ll tear you to pieces. You’ve got to be the most ruthless Shark. You’ve got to be the predator. You’ve got to be the hunter. You need to stalk your prey. You need to corner them. You need to sink your rows of teeth into the soft, fleshy hindquarters of your prey and relish the taste of blood on your tongue. Clamp down those reinforced jaws and spin that tubular body; Shake what yo mama gave ya. baby! Rip off chunks of meat and gobble em up. You are Daniel day Lewis. You take their milkshake and drink it. “Gimme some of dat dere life meat. Omnomnomnom.”
You have got to bite. If you don’t bite then you get bitten. You’ve got to tear into the prey that is life. You are the great white. King of the sea. You are champion.

But let’s not get too cocky just yet. Don’t forget about that fin of yours; It’s valuable. It’s your rudder, your cochlea. It keeps you balanced, keeps you swimming; Keeps you alive. And by god isn’t it the tastiest part? Everyone wants a piece of it; they want to taste you: Shark fin soup ain’t a delicacy for no reason. You’ve got enemies, and they all have a penchant for some of dat dere fin soup. Oh yes! They’re out there; those who would rather see you falter, to have you stumble and fall; waiting to use your head as a stepping stone. They’re sharks too. Hungry, cannibal sharks who just cant wait to tuck into your juicy innards. Some may hide in the cracks and caves, others might look like your friends, acquaintances. But don’t be fooled; they only want you for your shark fin soup.
So be careful who you socialize with. Beware the leeches, the moochers, the haters and the loathers. Scorn the yellow bellied backstabbers, and shun them frumious bandersnatches. Those who plan and plot in groups; They only want you for your shark fin soup. They want to take from you all that you have, leaving you with nothing. You give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile and three quarters. So turn the tables on them if you can; eat them alive and Paint the sea red with their repugnant spew. As the good king Leonidas would say, give them nothing, and take from them everything.

But not all battles can be won; pick yours wisely; know when to run. There’s always bigger fish in the sea, but your time will come eventually. So Dart and dodge; swim loop de loops; they only want you for your shark fin soup.

It’s a sharky world out there, and only the greatest of the whites end up on top. You either keep moving or drown. You either fight tooth and nail for what’s yours, or go belly up and die. it’s the world we live in, and it is one cruel mother lover. So to he who dreams, dream of peace, of revolution, of tranquility. Dream of these things for me, for I am unable to. Because when I sleep, I dream of sharks.





* Canis Canis is the scientific name for dogs. My obscure way of saying it’s a dog eat dog (or shark eat shark) world.



N.B: hey, you wanted posts, you got posts (I ain’t exactly sure who “you” is, since no one reads this stuff, but whatever! Let the madness continue!)

Oh my days! Its been a while since I last put something up here. Its funny, because I have quite a few writeups, but they never make it online for some reason. Well, I'm gonna have ta rectify that. Not like anyone actually reads this thing, but it'll be fun to have my wilder thoughts up here. Maybe its better no one actually reads them. =s Haha. Neways, more bloggage promised, be it crazy, random ramblings. That is the point of blogs, n'est pas?