Our Daily Tags

Apparently, October 19th was International evaluate your life day. Not that I knew this before that day nor would I have, but this blackberry channel I subscribed to, ensured I was duly notified. My initial thoughts upon realizing the observance of that day was that of curiosity. Whose idea and to what end are these daily tags? There is even now a published calendar of daily observances.  Maybe I wouldn’t mind observing World Bandana day as it will conceal my growing baldness but some content of this Calendar are just down right ridiculous.

My other thought was the tendency of this generation to suggest what other people should do. I  guess this comes with living in the Information Age. Everyone is a genius in their own eyes and we apparently just want the world to benefit from our depth! Recently, while  searching online for the manual of the camera I had purchased (Canon is proudly environmental friendly and has always resisted bulk paper printing), I stumbled into a You Tube video describing the unpacking and assemblage of the camera. This sounds nice but the unpacking here involves removing the camera hardware from its paper package and assemblage involves inserting the battery into its socket (in my opinion, anyone smart enough to buy a Canon SX60 does not need a You Tube video for this). My  example may be inappropriate because it attests to the well known belief that men don't like reading hardware manuals (more genius).

Personally I find the turn of the year or on my birthdays as reflective moments to evaluate myself. Added to these are occasional life events and inspirations in a flash. Self evaluations are necessary self-checks that enable us appraise our current position in the pursuit of our goals. They also help us identify the factors affecting our present position and provide us an opportunity to re-affirm (or otherwise) our convictions.

I agree that it does not matter  if our self evaluations are self-driven (and  self-timed), provoked by prevailing circumstances or at the behest of someone else. The latter however,  has a way of taking a swipe at our individuality and can take the credit that we were never responsible for our own personal growth. Whether this matters to everyone, is not for me to answer.

Thank God it's not Friday

It’s past 23:00 hrs local time and I am suddenly pressed to  transform my thoughts to

written words. Thankfully, I am an hour ahead of the time zone embedded on this blog, one more allegiance to my home country. My haste is also in view of the need to complete an online module that I rested on at about 2:00AM earlier today.

What is  the dread for Mondays? The weekend is often a diversion from those routines that society has placed upon us, even without the hangover. It’s a slumber state so to speak, from which we wake up into Monday. The need to begin the day with a certain poise,  pursue goals,  concentrate our emotions (and with measure of uncertainty) makes Mondays hectic and  undesirable.

Today has been one of those days. It  started not at midnight as I have always considered the beginning of the day at waking up. The haste in my steps alluded to the knowledge that I had hoped to cover much ground: new clients at work assembled from the weekend, the traffic office, a much needed second opinion from not only one colleague, queuing at the office of the commissioner of oaths, on and on. I even skipped a much appreciated home-made lunch ( 3 winks to the wife)!

As I ticked off my “to do” list today, I remembered a conversation I once had with a relative on the virtue of being busy. My conclusion was that the busy life is a blessed life, as being busy infers that one is able to express an enablement. Busy in this context is a preoccupation with that which is positive and productive. When we are thus busy, we are maximized, negativity is ignored,  we naturally achieve  more and rest is meaningful. Busyness beget busyness and the cycle stretches us to the point when rest serves a purpose.

If every Monday is like the one I have had, then it ought to be desirable. The fear of Mondays is an anticipatory emotion. As we get lost into its demand, that emotion is relegated, swallowed up in the  glee of every feat achieved during the course of  the day.

Post note: Busy days ought not to be called "long days". When we are busy, we wait less on time, the day practically flies past and 24 hours seems a short time.

Our Sticker Phones

A world without mobile phones is a subject that our parents should tell to their grandchildren even if  the recital of such history could be perceived as a fable. Aside the ridicule, our parents theirselves may find it hard to grasp how they lived without mobile phones since many of them are now so  in tandem with technology. This post was inspired from an observation I made on a senior citizen. It was at a red traffic light. I looked sideways and saw a very elderly lady behind the wheels on my side pull out not a mirror but one of those smart phones with a size-able screen. She looked, then  tapped a few  things onto it until  just before the green. As I drove off to my own destination, I couldn't but think about the bond that exists between my phone and I, my dependence on it, how I deduce people’s character by their attitude to their phones and what potential danger in the use of  a phone. All of us have probably heard this “phone conversation” before. So, what I am writing here about mobile phones is largely the obvious but familiarity deserves our respect too, maybe even more! 

Foremost, we must credit our hand held devices for the role they play in our ability to interact, relate and escape loneliness. Communication is such a vital part of our existence and in our phones we have a very convenient tool. That such a device can now incorporate games, an organizer, music player, a camera, an alarm clock, cheap internet (and its extrapolation in the form of social media, news,  info reference on the go, etc) makes today’s phone  the real deal. So while I wait at the till queue, I could be doing anything from ticking off my to do list, shazam the music coming from over my head, play solitaire, read an emailed invoice of my last online purchase, download the photo of my friend’s new bundle of joy, shoot a video of my son rearranging my shopping basket or listen to a podcast from my phone… until a reminder buzz, from the same phone, interrupts me to call the chap at the office. What we can do with our phones is almost endless, ranging from the meaningful to the  outright bizarre. We want to be heard, we want to know what’s trending and the device through which these are  done reflect our up-to-dateness.

It seems that phone designers and app developers have connived to exploit our desire to know, share, become organized or entertained. Yes, our phones have become a preoccupation. Unfortunately, they are also relegating our etiquette, pose a threat to frank one-on-one interaction and prevent the formation of genuine human bridges. So instead of chatting up with the person(who might be the long lost part of our family tree that we desire to meet) sitting next to us on the train ride home, we are looking or tapping at our phone screens and giggling to ourselves. Even the present US president wanted to keep his blackberry when he became president! Once I went out with work colleagues. We wanted to truly enjoy the company of ourselves away from work and a foremost  agreement was  that all mobile phones would be in the custody of a single person, each person could only receive phone calls but could neither initiate a call nor use any of the other phone applications and these will have to be at the discretion of the temporal custodian of our devices. Also, the  portability of our mobile phones means that no place is spared from its affront on our time. The other day, the lady next to me in church kept typing repeatedly into her phone during the sermon- she was definitely not taking notes because she had a tablet she looked into when scripture references were made.

The preoccupation with our phones do not only alienate us sometimes, they can be very intrusive, especially if you are someone like I, who never switches off his phone ( not even in church since I might be reached from the children’s church if the need arises). I have often found my work interrupted by such things as a salesman’s  call! And going back to the traffic light, how many times have we had a driver behind us blare his car horn before we look away from our phones when the traffic light had turned from red to green or expressed our own disapproval to the driver whose car has been swerving in front of  us because he was on the phone? How long can we drive with our eyes closed? This is less than what we do when we tweet or read a text while behind the wheels because at least when we are blindfolded, all other senses are tuned up.I am not sure how miserable our lives would become if we resist the urge to use our devices when something else that borders on our safety need a full attention. Let's face it though, there is always a thrill of getting away with doing something we shouldn't do. Can we occasionally  take a “chill pill”, bother less about the world and just be native?

One  must not assume that this pre occupation with hand held devices is youthful peculiarity, ditto the elderly lady at the  traffic light. I got tutored on one of those online payments portal I admire  so much via a cell phone from an elderly lady too. A lady again, right? I am not sure if there is a study out there whose subject is gender predilection to phone activity. If so, such a study would infer that our mode of communication characterizes us, an identity “sticker” of our personalities. Or should I say a “sticker” to our persons?

Bad Service

It is amazing when people offering a paid service act like they are doing a favour to the customer. In a sense though, they are doing a favour by making available what is desired by the consumer, but one that is returned in payment. A reversible  favour of convenience one might say since payment is always favorable to business.

So when the lady at the reception today looked at me coming through her office entrance but instantly look her gaze off and continued her conversation with an unseen occupant on the other side of the her office, I heard the alarm bell ringing that another bad service was brewing. Although as  I was not directly at her desk yet, it would be impatient of me to assume that she wouldn't give me her undivided attention when I am stationed right in front of her. I walked up to her, said my greeting twice and her eyes drifted to me and away again. For a moment I felt I was invisible in broad day light…and the vain thoughts that come with such supernatural state ran through my head (  go rob bank for example!). After a few giggles with the unseen party, she finally turned to answer me and that, with no apologies.

It was my first time at that office, there was no one else in the waiting area and it was very obvious that I am a prospective client. With that much cold shoulder meted to me, the urge was to tell her how unpleasant she was and then walk away. However,a mixture of the fact that I was reliably referred there and that the business I sought to pursue had been elusive for more than six months, somehow hatched a cool within me. I just wanted to get my business done. The end does justified the means.

Perhaps another reason for holding up from expressing my displeasure today ,was that lately I have had a succession of tirades in matters similar. My energy level has frankly become temporarily low for such confrontations. I was having one of those moments when it is reasonable to hide under the guise that silence can be a strategy in an argument. Better still, that  one’s voice can be loudest when no sound is made!

Bad service has a away of making us us feel violated and can easily cast an unpleasant cloud over an otherwise merry demeanor – which may be carried by the recipient beyond the service point. It is  a disregard for courtesy and a reflection of attitude. Those  who dish  it out have a high rate of repetition. If (as it seems) those that pay bad service don't often see anything wrong with in their approach to life, contesting them isn't always the best the best solution. Unfortunately too, it is just inevitable to avoid people with a foul attitude. While online services come handy in that they cut off the middle man and its attendant frictions, genuine human interactions can be very rewarding – I just alluded to finding  an elusive service from a referral.

It worthy of note that what a client perceives a bad service is not always so. This may arise among others from a client’s lack understanding of the  modus operandi of  an organization, unrealistic (well, uninformed) expectations, bias or from a genuinely unintended miscommunication. Take these away and offer excellent services, some clients are still going to be fastidious and  critical.

Whatever the response to bad service is, be it vilifying the perpetrator or outrightly turning deaf ears, one must guard oneself from the negativity it can create, deal with it there, then and move on. My default position today was to make an excuse for the offender and get my business done. After all, are only truly in control over our own self.

Nigerian Blues

The other title I’d thought to label this post was “Nigerian Chills”, an attempt to convey that I was not writing about  a musical genre of Nigerian extract. However, I didn’t want the reader at first glance to presuppose that the climate in my country of origin is exactly chilly. The plain truth is that my indecisiveness is borne out of the shyness in putting my thoughts to writing.

Part of the reason why I had a reservation to write out my present thoughts on Nigeria is that I am unsure of the reception it will be accorded by you the reader. I know from my conversation among those of us in “the diaspora” (with a smirk on my face) that there is often a tone of ambivalence or outright disinterest when the homeland is the subject. I also did not not want to brandish an article before my non-Nigerian reader who will be emotionally distant from my thoughts or who would be belaboured again to the loud rants of “these Nigerians”! In addition, I felt my experience is inadequate to sum up a country so vast and heterogenous.

However, I was home recently and I’d like to write some thing about the “land that ever draws us homeward”. The fact that Nigeria co-topped the page-view audience in the last month for Heymeyville is also a boost to write about my country. Besides, as this space originated from the need to express my thoughts, overwhelming or fleeting, it’s only justice to the write this post. I have also decided not to be deterred by the fact my thoughts on Nigeria can not be summed up in one piece of writing.

Upon my return from the visit, folks around me wanted to hear what’s the “gists” at home. The language in which these quizzes were made is often the contraption of the national lingua franca, pidgin as we call it. I remember being reprimanded by a dear friend who visited from Nigeria last year that I spoke too much “broken” English these days. That rebuke stirred my thoughts. Maybe not for the love of every thing imported, but the educated Nigerian in Nigeria prefers syntax that is grammatically correct. But let’s face it, grammar is taught only to Secondary School level and even the undergraduate who majors in English Language isn’t going be tutored on the right sequence of arranging nouns, verbs, plural connotations  or figures of speech. So why the fuss? If every one with a high school education is supposed to be able to speak good English, never mind the tribal ascent, then good syntax is not exactly a status symbol!

The flip side of the foregoing is that parents are generally apprehensive that when their wards are exposed to an “informal” version of English language, they may become deficient in the use of the official medium of learning and communication. This is definitely a valid point. However, Pidgin is different and is not necessarily poor grammar. I was amazed when for the first time I found out other English speaking nationals in my present niche could not follow a conversation in pidgin. For those of us “out” here it is a native code,  a colloquial identity and proudly ours.

It is that swag in our conversation that is sometimes judged as arrogance. Okay, the non-Nigerian does not comprehend the basis upon which we blow our trumpet and so it is considered loud. By default, people tend to mind their business in public and so there is a jolt when Nigerians don't observe the rules. Back at home, it is considered improper when a passer-by does not say a greeting for example. In fact, neighbours would come around the house sometimes just to greet our parents. I guess we are a community. Our culture is deep and our individual families have deeper secrets. That said, cultures are varied.  In as much as the expression of one’s identity need not threaten the existence of another, one should identify the prevailing lifestyle of the environment their abode and live accordingly -  in a positive way.

On my trip, I was also reminded of the vigor with which we express our beliefs. One is tempted to think that Karl Marx had just visited modern Nigeria when he said “religion is the opium of the people”. I wonder if Marx was referring to opium in terms being hallucinogenic. From wall posters to hear-says, religion has become a major determinant of our culture. We have outdone the original missionaries, a fact alluded too by the joke about two people in an elevator. One asked “ are you going up or down?” The other replied “I can only go up in Jesus’ name”! Now that I have been to other climes, I can agree with my sister when those years ago she found me listening an American gospel singer and she said they don't do church like us in America.

The religiosity perhaps is an indication of the hunger within, which by the way is not exclusive to Nigerians. We do have that yearning for a utopia, whether we realize it has more meaning or not. There is always that hope for something better, even when there is no particular basis for it. Maybe, that is why we travel, why we speak loud (so as to be heard), why we want to live large or why we exert so much energy on everything else. Whether it's happiness, wealth, deeper fulfillment, health or just to prove a point, we always find a way to get to where we want to (a classmate calls it the “anyhowness” of Nigerians). What motivates us is both what we are running away from and what we are running towards, I guess. I am Nigerian.