Nature's mirror.

What are mirrors made of? My teacher asked.
Anyone? He pressed on.
I could tell by his facial expression that he was beginning to get angry.
How did a bad-tempered man become a teacher? I thought to myself.
My gaze travelled wearily from his face to the tormentor in his hand.
Slim. Smooth. Slender.
Browny chocolate…
It wooed the air with every twist and looked tender in my teacher’s fist.
Its beauty was poetical.
It was ironical… the saying:
‘The greatest beauties cause the most pain’
I remembered Pa’s words that said: ‘the cane does not cause pain…
It is the heart from whence it came.’
What are mirrors made of? I heard the question again.
This time, my teacher left what I called his stage, walking in his usual authoritative style down the aisle…
Through rows of wooden seats and frightened eyes.
I knew Kari might know the answer.
I could tell from the smirk on his face.
He always waited until one of us was thrashed before he spilled the beans.
The next thing I heard was ‘You! Tell us…’
With the tormentor pointing in my face.
I stood up and looked out the window.
Searching the clouds and bright blue sky for answers.
Finally it hit me like a wave. (Literally)
Mirrors are made of rivers, seas and oceans, I answered.
How could I not have remembered?
Being that I came from a lineage of fishermen.
I looked at my teacher’s face… happy that I had for once broken the tradition,
Only to hear the word: ‘Idiot!’
Before my face had a chance to change expression, his tormentor was unleashed,
Like a herdsman would on a stubborn goat tugging at its leash.
Twaash! Twaash!
On my bony ***sh.
Who else?
With blurry eyes, I saw Kari lift his hand and eager eyes.
Glass… Sir…
I could still see the smirk on his face.
Clap for him!
(kpai! kpai!… kpa kpa kpai!… kpai!)
Now sing the song for this coconut head!

(Whole class sings)

At first I felt like crying, but then I smiled…
I recalled that I had seen my reflection in the river just as I had in the mirror.
As I walked home that day (kicking pebbles),
I wondered who really the coconut head was.

My Dear Selma

My name is Faruk and I live in the Selma valley. Our valley is safe… as far as I know.
My grandfather said the three giant mountains that lie on the outskirt of our valley were made for us by our warrior ancestors.
He said on the great battle of bones, as the war got intense, our warriors that guarded the North, east and west side of the valley never flinched or moved an inch.
They were like ants before a great sea of invaders who wanted our dear valley, Selma, for its black gold.
He said that day each warrior bled where he stood and the bodies of the dead were piled into heaps which is now the three mountains we see.
On certain nights, you can still hear the echoes of the voices of their loved ones, crying… wailing…
Our valley, Selma was spared that day but the blood of the slain flowed into the river by the south and its waters never were the same again.
As nature tried to heal itself and the waters evaporated by the sun’s heat, the bright red of the rivers turned the Golden sunset to crimson red.
My people are a small and secluded lot and the valley gives us everything we need for our survival. Fertile land to grow crops and a river by the south to fish.
The birds carry whispers that somewhere just across the mountains, other men have created a bird so big that it can hold a hundred men in its belly.
The fireflies say these men created a form of magic that traps the power of the sun and a thousand stars in their homes.
Unlike my people, I have the spirit of an adventurer. They say my spirit animal is a bird and this is why I can hear the whispers of birds and fireflies.
I must leave my Dear Selma and embrace this whole new world across the mountains. Maybe they would be kind enough to teach me their magic.
At the brink of dawn, I packed my few belongings and bade farewell to Ma. I looked back at the only home I have ever known. The valley shed tears of mist at my departure and I consoled it saying: I do this for you, my dear Selma... I do this for you.

HiaS:1 (How it all started) - WhatsApp, Brian Acton, Jan Koum

Most of us are familiar with Whatsapp.
To techies (and Wikipedia), it is a freeware and cross-platform messaging and voice over IP (VoIP) service owned by Facebook, but to us average beings, it’s just a fun platform where we send texts, make voice and video calls, share files and other media with friends (and family).
Now a few of us might not know it was written in ‘Erlang’ and founded Feb. 24, 2009 (about 9 years ago) by Jan Koum and Brian Acton, but what we do know is that we can’t seem to do without it.
Our friends are putting up great and funny stories, you’re probably hurriedly going back to read replies or even put up what you think is interesting or funny.
For entrepreneurs interested in start-ups and SMEs, we often tend to wonder how a simple app evolves into an app or service that millions cannot do without.
We often also wonder what it’s like being in the shoes of the founders or co-founders before the big break.
Well these thoughts led me to putting up a series on my blog:
How it all Started (HiaS) which would feature different startups, brands, founders/ co-founders, CEOs, etc. looking at their lives from past till present.

HiaS.1: Whatsapp, Jan Koum, Brian Acton.
Whatsapp was founded by Jan Koum and Brian Acton as mentioned earlier and the current CEO is Chris Daniels. It is also owned by Facebook which acquired it for about US $19.5 BILLION.
As at February this year, Whatsapp has a user base of over one and a half billion, which makes it the most popular messaging app at the time.
Now, let us look deeply at the biography of the founders.

Brian Acton
He is American and is a computer programmer and internet entrepreneur.
He was born on Feb. 17, 1972 (46 years) in Michigan but he grew up in Central Florida.
He graduated from Lake Howell high school after which he received a scholarship to study engineering at the University of Pennsylvania but left after a year to study at Stanford University with a degree in Computer science.
When he was 20 years old, he became a systems administrator for Rockwell intl. before becoming a product tester at Apple inc. and Adobe systems.
In 1996, (four years later), and two years after his graduation from Stanford, he became the 44th employee hired by Yahoo Inc.
In 1998, Jan Koum was hired by Yahoo as an infrastructure engineer shortly after he met Acton while working at Ernst & Young as a security tester.
For the next nine (9) years, they worked at Yahoo during which he invested in the dotcom boom of 2000 and lost millions.
In Sept. 2007, he left Yahoo and spent a year travelling around South America.
They both applied, and failed to work at Facebook.
In Jan. 2009, Koum bought an iPhone and discovered that the seven month-old app store had a whole lot of new industry apps.
He visited his friend, Alex Fishman and talked about developing an app.
Koum almost immediately chose the name Whatsapp because it sounded like ‘What’s up’, and a week later on his birthday, Feb. 24, 2009, he incorporated Whatsapp Inc. in Caliornia.
In 2014, Koum and Acton agreed to sell Whatsapp to Facebook for approximately $19 billion USD in cash and stock.
It is worth noting that, at the time, Acton held over 20% stake in the company, making him worth about $3.8 billion.
In Sept. 2017, Acton left Whatsapp over a dispute with Facebook regarding monetization of Whatsapp and now he has a foundation called Signal foundation, co-founded with Moxie Marlinspike in 2018, and is currently worth $6.0 billion USD.
He is married to Tegan Acton.

Jan Koum
Jan Koum is a Ukrainian American entrepreneur and computer programmer.
He was born on Feb. 24, 1976 (42 years) [Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union] but currently resides in Santa Clara, California, United States.
He is currently worth US $9.2 billion and in 2014, he entered the Forbes list of the 4000 richest Americans at position 62, with an estimated worth of more than $7.5 billion.
He was born in Kyiv, Soviet Union and is of Jewish origin, but grew up in Fastiv, outside Kyiv.
He moved with his mother and grandmother to Mountain view, California in 1992 (when he was 16 years old), where a social support program helped the family secure a small two-bedroom apartment.
His father intended to join the family later, but never left Ukraine and died in 1997.
Koum and his mother stayed in touch with his father until his death.
At first, Koum’s mother worked as a babysitter, while he himself worked as a cleaner at a grocery store.
His mother died in 2000 after a long battle with cancer.
At age 18, Koum became interested in programming.
*(It is no doubt that environment influences a person’s mind-set and interests).
He enrolled at San Jose State University and simultaneously worked at Ernst & Young as a security tester.
He also joined a group of hackers that began in 1996 called w00w00, where he met the future founders of Napster, Shawn Fanning and Jordan Ritter.
In 1997, Koum met Brian Acton while working at Ernst & Young as a security tester.
He was also hired by Yahoo later in 1997 after which he left in 2007 travelling around South America and playing ultimate Frisbee.
Whatsapp was initially unpopular, but its fortunes began to rise after Apple added push notification ability to apps in June 2009.
Koum changed Whatsapp to “ping” users when they received a message and soon afterwards he and Fishman’s Russian friends in the area began to use Whatsapp as a messaging tool in place of SMS.
The app gained a large userbase and Koum convinced Acton, who was then still unemployed to join the company. Koum granted Acton co-founder status after Acton managed to bring in $250,000 in seed funding.
0n Feb. 9, 2014, Zuckerberg asked Koum to have dinner at his home, and formally proposed Koum a deal to join the Facebook board.
10 days later, Facebook announced that it was acquiring Whatsapp for US $19 billion.
Over the first half of 2016, Koum sold more than $2.4 million worth of Facebook stock, which was about half of his total holdings.
On April 30, 2018, Koum announced that he was leaving Whatsapp and stepping down from Facebook’s board of directors due to disputes with Facebook.
It was originally thought that by leaving Facebook, he was forfeiting his unvested stock, worth almost $1 billion. However, several months later it was discovered that he was still formally employed by Facebook, earning a reported $450 million in stocks from the company through a method called “rest and vest”.
Koum has always made it clear that he is not driven by money but the desire to build useful products.
*I guess he achieved both.

Source: Wikipedia (List of Internet entrepreneurs).
as edited by Wisdom Okubo.
(P.s) - paragraphs with asterisk (*) stand for author's comments.

25 notes on becoming - Boluwatife Afolabi.

‘I confess, like a true poet, that I am only broken by the sources of things’ – Peter Akinlabi
 
I
I write to tell you that the walls of my bones are made of contention and I am always situated between desires that threaten to break or mould me.
 
II
I write to tell you that I am not the cartographer of memory and that sometimes,
I forget my way home and stumble into women who offer to teach me the ways of water:
How to be soft, how healing comes in waves, how to open my body into the sea and drown all the things that hurt.
 
III
I write to tell you that my love is a nomad and while wandering here in Ibadan it fell into the hands of a woman wearing your face.
 
IV
I write to tell you that the second name for movement is uncertainty.
 
V
I write to tell you about hope.
How it is a dream where children grow into the belly of a barren woman,
how she wakes in the morning smelling of loss and longing.
 
VI
I write to tell you that scars are a lot like borders.
How my body is a map filled with dirt and death
and there is a sea in my eyes that takes and takes and on moonless nights
how I ache and ache beneath my hills and valleys
and call all the names of god painted on my tongue for the touch of mother and fullness,
how my prayers come back to me dressed in a void.
 
VII
I write to tell you that while writing this, language betrayed me and my mind assumed the form of a tabula rasa.
 
VIII
I write to tell you that silence is the name for protest and prison.
 
IX
I write to tell you that a river once came to life in the road between my palms
(some people say it is also a form of worship) so I closed my eyes, named all my fears and gifted them to the deep.
They came flowing back singing my name.
 
X
I write to tell you that I carry all your names in my mouth now
and my tongue don’t fit into this small space anymore
and mother said new songs don’t float out of mouths heavy with names
and children here don’t dance to night songs because all the birds have drowned in silence
and the night is longer here in Ojoo and I still melt into fear when your name escapes from the gap between my teeth and dissolves into the wind.
 
XI
I write to tell you that old words don’t have to die for new words to live.
 
XII
I write to tell you that all the children are going
or have gone and our dreams have now run out of colour.
 
XIII
I write to tell you about unknown languages.
How they fold themselves under tongues that have grown weary of seeking god,
how grown men trapped in a well of glossolalia,
are screaming
and dancing
and singing
and drowning under the weight of heavy tongues.
 
XIV
I write to tell you that I am a poem in exile,
hiding my grief in metaphors breaking the weight of my loss into syllables and rhymes,
because a man must not cry this is how I have learnt to hide my body from water,
cover my wounds with Cauliflower to stop my softness from spilling into mud,
because a man must not cry.
 
XV
I write to tell you that I wrote a song for all the boys we used to dance with that didn’t come back home, they say songs are voices that didn’t die.
I tried to sing lost boys back home, but I lost my voice singing.
 
XVI
I write to tell you that I wrote another love song for all my old lovers and poured it into the beak of a bird
but the bird died of grief.
 
XVII
I write to tell you that I have built many rooms in people that won’t stay
and called them home.
 
XVIII
I write to tell you about the way bodies open up to love
vulnerable
unguarded
like flower petals waiting for sunlight or water,
the way I left my body open for god waiting,
waiting
waiting.
 
XIX
I write to tell you about my sin how it is cheap.
How I sometimes wear it like a hat for everyone to see
or paint it black and call it guilt,
tuck it safely under my shiny clothes watch it stick to my black skin and dissolve into my bones
till,
till my body becomes too heavy for ablution.
 
XX
I write to tell you that in Ondo, a boy embraced the softness of another boy
and men, carrying the name of god on their lips rushed to kiss him with kisses of fire.
They said his body looked like sin, they said fire puries everything.
 
XXI
I write to tell you to battle forgetfulness this way:
Trap a shred of memory in a fist swallow it whole and call it a requiem
or a dirge
or an elegy
tell them it’s for the children we forgot to name in Baga and Damboa and Kummabza and Garkin Fulani because our tongues grew weary of naming names,
tell them how we bought dolls for the girls and asked them to paint where it hurt the most,
tell them our girls painted everywhere.
 
XXII
I write to tell you, lover
that my body is an endless sea of desire
and by god, when you laugh my body caves into itself
and my heart seems to melt into water.
 
XXIII
I write to tell you that I have wandered and wondered
and called salvation many names—
Eros
Ninkasi
Yeshua.
 
XXIV
I write to tell you about bodies that have forgotten the way home because
home is a bird in the mouth of a coffin
or a child in the face of a gun
or a boat in the embrace of a storm or an empty room smelling of stale prayers and dying songs
because home is another name for loss
and to remember is to betray a body
and gift it to grief again.
 
XXV
Finally,
I write to tell you about how I roused my body to life after it fell into Nadir. How I sat it under dripping honey and called it sweet names,
beautiful, bonny, beloved
gathered my reflection with affection everywhere I found it,
sang slow songs into the teeth
of all the tired boys inside my bones and told them:
you are enough
you are enough
you were always enough.
 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Boluwatife Afolabi is the author of ‘The Cartographer of Memory’
an electronic poetry chapbook published by the Sankofa Initiative. His works have appeared in Saraba Magazine, Arts and Africa, Expound magazine, African Writers etc.
He is also the poetry editor at agbowo.org.
He lives and writes from Ibadan, Nigeria.
Twitter: @oluafolabi

Journey of Impulses: part one (Hunger)

Prologue
My name is Malaika and I have been through it all. I come from southern Nigeria. A state with many rivers called ‘Rivers State’.
My hometown is one you might not know about. The grass is green; the
earthen soil is rich black; the trees split the skyline with their elegance;
the birds embrace the cold winds and you can tell my hometown from
any other just by the smell of the mangrove swamps.
The children love to swim close to shore and hunt for crabs. The
grownups love to fish in carved canoes come nighttime. 
Somewhere in a mother’s kitchen, the young ones are picking
periwinkles out of shells or you hear the steady rhythm of the mortar and
pestle.
You may see smoke rising from the low burning cinders of the firewood; you may see a child on her knees slightly blowing at the flames and then you may hear a call from an elder pointing to the cut zinc sheet which would aid in fanning the flames.
Somewhere in the compound, you may see a three-year old on a sand
heap holding a strange object in his hand.
You can tell his bare body has
had a more than fair share of sunlight but you can barely tell the color of his pant.
He speaks to himself in a language only he understands and replies with a smile. He bathes the object in sand and rubs it on his protruded belly.
Somewhere in the farm beside the house, you may see the elder children pick out weeds with a frown. The intense heat of the sun has crested their foreheads with ripples of sweat.
It suddenly starts to rain and they
race each other to the nearest mango tree to find shade.
They all laugh because the last to arrive slipped and fell in the moistened mud. He also laughs and opens his palms out to the rains to wash them free of mud.
That rich black earthen soil.
You may hear calls that breakfast is ready and the you may see the
children race themselves to answer their mother’s call.
You may see the plates of food arranged on the floor and the second born arguing with the first that he or she arrived first and already picked the largest portion.
You may hear an insult and see a fight on some days; you may hear a
word of caution on other days.
My hometown like any other has customs and traditions. They still tell moonlight tales in some parts and in others, the family sits in front of a television set. I could go on and on but this is not a story about my dear hometown.
My name is Malaika and I have been through it all.
I come from a family of Five. My father, mother, two elder sisters and I.
My father died when I was very young. I saw really old pictures of him but that is all I can remember.
A face.
It is a good thing though as it
gives me the chance to paint him as the perfect father, but was he?
The eldest of my sisters is also late. She died during childbirth giving
birth to a boy who also did not survive. 
My family of five is now a family of three: My mother, elder sister and I. 
How did it come to this?
A southerner roaming the streets of a busy city.
I miss my hometown but I believe it is lost to me forever.   

Part One: Hunger
I really did not know what it felt like to be hungry… like really hungry.
For the past week, I could not boast of a proper meal and sincerely I was
at my breaking point.
It was a Saturday night or rather a Sunday morning.
12: 25 a.m. read the time from my phone’s display.
The pangs of hunger somehow sharpened all my senses. I felt numbness in my toes and fingers like the blood in my body was slowly flowing towards my centre.
I heard every single creak and clang. Those damn rats!
I hated them but couldn’t really hate them now. I sympathized with them. At this point in time, we weren’t too different.
I had become a hunter. An animal driven by pure instinct. Only difference was that I laid on my bed consciously aware of every single worm in my intestines and the rats were on the hunt.
A sacred search for food.
I could hear them (or it) nibbling on something that sounded like a bean.
And then I could hear even farther in the stillness of the night or morning.
The sounds were strangely familiar but I never really knew the creatures
that made them.
The sounds pierced the vagueness of the night and I could recall my hometown.
I listened intensely and wondered if they were edible. These creatures. I
imagined myself creeping and hunting them down.
It sounded like croaking but I was perfectly sure they were not frogs.
I wondered if hunger could lead to insanity.
If it would be my body’s last survival mechanism to ensure I could eat anything that my pride, morality or consciousness would not let me eat. 
If I was mad, I could steal I thought, or eat in the garbage and not even
know it.
And then a thought crossed my mind.
Could a person become so hungry that they fed on themselves? So gross was the thought that I let it slip away as quickly as it came. That was the last thing I wanted to imagine right now.
I was drifted back to reality by the clang of my empty metal pot. Good
luck to that, I thought to the rat in my kitchen.
Some days ago, lying with my stomach to the bed relieved the hunger a little but right now, nothing was working.
I was restless like a person straight out of an appendix operation.
My mother always said ‘Hunger makes you wiser’… ‘more aware; more conscious’.
I now truly understood her.
Just some days ago, I broke the record on my game of tetris. Something I had not been able to do since my friend and neighbor put up a high score.
My hunger alienated her. She was partially the cause of my predicament.
Or was she?
I blamed myself more. I never really blamed anyone else for anything. It
was how I was wired. 100% responsibility. 100% independence. 100% blame acceptance, even unto death.
This was the reason I had not yet boarded a taxi to my hometown.
To a welcoming mother. Oh how I missed her.
So many things are crossing my mind at the same time. Time seems very slow.
The next time I pressed a button on my phone, I expected it to be past two but it was only 1:25 a.m.
I now wondered if I would make it
through the night.
I imagined my neighbors waking up Sunday morning and finding my
corpse. Lost to a primary need.
I then remembered that I bolted the door before I slept. Finding my
corpse would take a lot longer being that the door was a heavy metal one
and I was not a really social being.
I somehow now understood all the things that I was missing.
I really wasn’t living life the way I ought to but then life wasn’t helping either.
Sometimes I opened my eyes wide and looked around just to make sure I was still alive.
My eyes were watery but were now clouded and heavy. I couldn’t control the yawning either.
I guess when hungry, your sight is dulled and other senses heightened. It took a great deal of effort to see objects clearly.
My joints felt weaker and my bones were tired of being together.
I now noticed that just like the boss of a big company who didn’t notice
his low level staff, I was alike and alive, not noticing the little work
being done in my body… in holding my joints together; in pushing my
blood around.
Blood because all my nerves, veins and arteries were now visible on my thin body.
My only assurance was that the bones in a body does not shrink… or
does it?
It was the only thing that kept me from disappearing into thin air.
I wondered what would happen when all my flesh was gone and I
was thin to the bone.
Would my bone marrow dry up?
At times I almost gave in to the hunger.
To the insanity.
What kept me together was a book I just read. ‘The little prince’ by an author who I could not earlier recall his name but could now perfectly recall
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery).
Wow… I wish I could tap into this but it was not a pleasant place to be
in.
I loved my mind now.
The way it worked.
The way it brought back archived memories and facts that I didn’t know existed in the vaults of my memory.
I wish I could retrieve more memories. Memories about my father. But I was way too tired for that.
The mosquitoes were now buzzing in my ears.
Oh lord! they were deafening.
Before I slept, I was restless. I played
songs till my battery was low and then I listened to the radio.

I can now feel my wrist ache. Every alphabet or letter I write now is
exhausting. My wrist feels weightless. Like my very essence or juices were being sucked out of them.
I think I had exhausted all my glucose reserves. The last good thing I ate was boiled yam and a drop of red oil.
Literally a drop of palm oil.
No eggs boiled or fried or anything like that.
No supplements.
Not even salt.
Just plain boiled yam which tasted
gloriously. 
It was my widow’s meal.
The last thing I would taste if I dropped down dead this very second.
I could now hear my neighbors snoring loudly and they were gentle snorers.
If I was in the other room, my snoring would have sounded way worse. It was one of my genetic flaws.
This reminded me of Okonkwo in ‘Things fall apart’ by Chinua Achebe.
He was a powerful man whose power resonated in his snoring.
Why would I remember this now?
I read that book ages ago.
I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my shoulders.
I finally decided to tap into this by leaving a memoir behind in case I died.
I wondered if it would be my last gift to the world… a parting gift.
I hoped with this, the well doing parts of the world would have a faint
idea what it felt like to be hungry.

My shoulders feel slightly burning. It must have been from the writing.
My entire leg is now numb. I feel paralyzed and my toes are trembling.
I decided to lie down and write with a pillow beneath my stomach to
ease the pain a little.
It was finally past two.
2:11 a.m. to be precise.
How time flies now sounded ironical.

The gentle raindrops now creeped into my consciousness. I felt like I could hear every drop.
It sounded like notes on an ancient piano... It was beautiful. 
As I slowly brushed my limits, thoughts from a different book creeped into my mind.
‘Do you have the soul of a slave or the soul of a free man?’
I was an avid reader and it was a book called ‘The richest man in
Babylon’.
I wondered who was hungrier. Him or I.
In the book, he was in a desert
area. His lips were cracked and bleeding. A runaway slave running
through a desert with fierce winds and sand storms.
I wondered how anyone could survive that and then I remembered my city... my hometown... was just a little piece in a world without bounds.
I knew somewhere close to the north pole; people were dying because
they could not afford heat.
I also knew somewhere in northern Africa or India; people were dying of dehydration. 
It is a cruel world, but it is our
world still. 
The human will is really unbreakable… or is it?
My will to survive was slowly deteriorating. If I made it till morning, I wondered what I would
do.
I remembered the story of the prodigal son and I knew I wouldn’t be
able to make it home if I tried.
It was thirty minutes’ drive. I rather die here where my corpse would be easily found than in a cab on the road to my village.
What would stop the driver from throwing my corpse into the bush or
worse, a river? To be feasted on by crabs and fish.
At this point, my handwriting is less visible as I just scribble words and
my eyes get dimmer. The light from the rechargeable lamp seems to be
fading.
My immune system was weakened as a result of my hunger. I now had
terrible catarrh and blowing my nose was like many needles piercing my
chest and lungs.
The rat still searches onwards and relentlessly for food in my kitchen. I
didn’t have the energy to pounce on it.
I was like the overfed lion in my
grandma’s stories who watched the stubborn goat dance around it.
Ironically, I was truly the over-hungry lion who didn’t have the energy
to partake in one last hunt.
I was like the lion who felt even though it caught the prey miraculously,
it still wouldn’t have the strength to feed. To tear through the skin and
bones of the prey.
[2:25 a.m.]
A few hours to daylight. Time is an enemy of man. It is quick to the
joyous moments of life but annoyingly slow at the most painful
moments.
Moments like bleeding out from injuries sustained in a car
accident or bleeding out at childbirth gone wrong. 
Moments like this.
Maybe the world wants us to be more aware.
Maybe this feeling is our factory reset and we can only download and install nuggets of happiness
along the way.
Maybe the world wants us to settle at becoming animals driven by pure
instinct.
Thank God for civilization.
I wondered if life was better now or then but then each age has its
advantages and disadvantages. All the sounds in my ear had reduced. 
I closed my eyes shut because I could see nothing temporarily and my head spun.
I focused on the writing which was successfully distracting.
Then the previous sounds were back again. Something-crackers they
were called, I thought. Night crackers? I just couldn’t recall and I hated it because the more I tried, the farther I drifted away from remembering.
But their calls ruled the sounds I heard. Seconded by my neighbors
snoring of course.
Even the rat was silent. I wondered if it had eaten to its fill or it was
dead from hunger. My kitchen was empty to a human stomach but
maybe to a rat, there was something to savor. I had taken my trash out
the previous night so good luck to that.
I now wrote with one eye closed or rather one eye open. My left eye had
given up. One more worker quitting, I thought to myself.
I begged it come back and stay open; that I would appreciate it even
more and to my surprise it did.
As this part comes to a close, I guess this was one of the purest of
feelings I ever had.
‘Hunger’
I close the pages of my book and turn on the bed hoping to catch some sleep.
Hoping to dream of my hometown and my favorite meal: ‘Onunu’ and
native fish sauce.
Knowing it is a lost course.
[2:48 a.m.]
...

The 7 Habits of highly effective people

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Independence. Moving from dependence to independence (i.e. self-
mastery):
1. Be Proactive – Talks about the concept of circle of influence
and circle of concern. Work from the centre of your influence
and constantly work to expand it. Don’t sit and wait in a reactive
mode, waiting for problems to happen (circle of concern) before
taking action.

2. Begin with the end in mind – Envision what you want in the
future so you can work and plan towards it.
Understand how people make decisions in their life. To be effective you need to act based on principles and constantly review your mission
statement.
Are you – right now – who you want to be? What do I have to say about myself?
How do you want to be remembered?
Change your life to act and be proactive according to Habit 1.
You are the programmer! Grow and stay humble.

3. Put First things First – Talks about difference between
leadership and management. Leadership in the outside world
begins with personal leadership. Talks about what is important
and what is urgent.
Priority should be given in the following order:
Important and urgent;
Important and not urgent;
Not important and urgent;
Not important and not urgent.
Habit 2 says ‘you’re the programmer!’
Habit 3 says ‘Write the program.
Become a leader!’ keep personal integrity: what you say vs.
what you do.
Interdependence (e.g. working with others).

4. Think Win-Win – Genuine feelings for mutually beneficial
solutions or agreements in your relationships.
Value and respect people by understanding a ‘win’ for all is ultimately a better
long-term resolution than if only one person in the situation had gotten his way. Think win-win isn’t about being nice, nor is it a quick fix technique. It is a character-based code for human interaction and collaboration.

5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood – Use
empathic listening to genuinely understand a person, which
compels them to reciprocate the listening and take an open mind
to being influenced by you. This creates an atmosphere of caring, and positive problem solving. The Habit 5 is greatly embraced in the Greek philosophy represented by 3 words:
Ethos- your personal credibility. It’s the trust that you inspire,
your emotional bank account; Pathos – is the empathic side –
it’s the alignment with the emotional trust of another person
communication.
Logos – is the logic – the reasoning part of the presentation. The
order is important: ethos, pathos, logos – your character, and
your relationships, and then the logic of your presentation.

6. Synergize – Combine the strengths of people through positive
teamwork, so as to achieve goals that no one could have done
alone. Make it a habit of continuous improvement in both the
personal and interpersonal spheres of influence.

7. Sharpen the Saw – Balance and renew your resources, energy
and health to create a sustainable, long-term, effective lifestyle.
It primarily emphasizes exercise for physical renewal, good
prayer (meditation, yoga, etc.) and good reading for mental
renewal.
It also mentions service to society for spiritual renewal.
Covey explains the ‘Upward Spiral’ model in the sharpening the
saw section.
Through our conscience, along with meaningful and consistent progress, the spiral will result in growth, change, and constant improvement.
In essence, one is always attempting to integrate and master the
principles outlined in the 7 habits at progressively higher levels
at each iteration.
Subsequent development on any habit will render a different experience and you will learn the principles with a deeper understanding.
The Upward Spiral model consists of 3 parts: learn, commit, do.
According to covey, one must be increasingly educating the
conscience to grow and develop on the upward spiral.
The idea of renewal by education will propel one along the path of
personal freedom, security, wisdom and power.

The 8th Habit
8. Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.

The man on the carton mat: Living off compassion p1.

My name is Belema. I am neither rich nor poor. I say this because I do not have all I want but I have all I need.
I do not eat with cutlery and cannot boast to have tried Chinese or Thai food but I eat just well enough. Enough to know when there is too much salt, maggi or pepper.
I do not wear fancy or designer clothes and my wrist has never been embraced by a Rolex but my clothes are neat and do not have holes in exposed places.
It is true that I come from an under-developed country. A country where kids still roam the streets hawking and dangerously pursuing buses on a highway rather than being in classes and laboratories researching the cure for cancer or working on the next revolutionary app.
It is true I come from a country where, somewhere in the north, a girl child is given away to marriage before she turns 15.
A country with militants in the creeks of the south and herdsmen in the middle-belt and the north. A country known for corruption and political injustice. A country with so many defects that its citizens have lost hope in the prospects of its betterment.
It is true that I want to travel the world; to take a vacation from my country’s imperfections but it is my dear country nonetheless and no matter how far I go, there would always be a longing to come back home.
My country still has its moments of serenity, where you can even enjoy watching a sunset or a football game.
I say this because I know there are countries where children not only roam the streets but are forcefully enlisted into local militias, exposed to a world of violence at such a tender age.
I hear of a country where little adolescent and teenage girls are not just forced into marriage but are victims of human trafficking and constant physical abuse.
I hear of a country where political injustice is not a matter for discussion because it is run under monocracy and democracy has not seen the light of day.
All these headlines I see online make me want to count my blessings.
On one of those days when everything seemed great… perfect even… I took a walk down a street leading to a main road. I think my happiness on that particular day made me take notice of the little things I often took for granted.
I saw a man sitting on a carton mat with his arms reaching out, beckoning to strangers for aid (money that is).
On this very day, I decided to cross the gutter and stand behind an old fence where I could really observe the whole scenario. While observing this disabled man, many questions ran across my mind.
How did he get here every morning? How did he leave every night?
Where did he live?
Did he live nearby?
It was a hot afternoon so I couldn’t wait long enough to have any of my questions answered. I decided to put off the questions for a moment and just observe.
I saw that most of the people who walked past him had very funny and different ways of reacting.
Some looked at him with pity and walked past; some looked like they were in a hurry and so whenever he beckoned to them, they frowned at him.
I tried to guess what was going on in their minds. They probably thought to themselves that they had problems of their own. Some who saw him from afar made their countenance expressionless and looked the other way or straight ahead.
Of course, there were those who managed to reach into their pockets and pick out a twenty naira or fifty naira note and the man on the mat would beam at them and pour praises and blessings on them.
I also tried to guess what each thought after that act and they all showed a common trait of either smiling or suppressing a smile, with a sudden air of confidence and satisfaction from knowing they had shown kindness.
Now this is not a story of the Good Samaritan but let me tell you a story all the same.
I’ll tell you a story of a man who said he knew a man similar to the man on the carton mat where he came from. He said this other man would take money from people under the guise of being disabled but he had a mansion in his village. He said this man had built a mansion but still came out every morning to seek aids on a mat.
I’ll tell you another story of a similar man who said he knew a man whose mat looked just like that of the man on the street that leads to the main road.
He said the man would seek aid and use the money collected to bewitch the donors. He said the man would rob them of their destinies so that any money they would have made in future would go to him.

Stories… Stories… more stories such as these I have told.
My country people cannot afford to lose their superstition. It is engraved in their hearts and minds and deep rooted in our most-cherished culture.
One face remains all the same.
Somewhere around, there is a man on a carton mat who reaches out his arms calling for aid.
Maybe your man on the mat is a woman with kids in the sun, some crying and some tugging at the hems of your shirt.
Maybe your man on the mat is an exotic looking child with long black hair or short curly hair walking up to you saying they need food.
Maybe yours is a neighbour who needs a cup of garri to appease the angry gods in his stomach.
Whoever your man on the mat may be, remember that there are those who live off compassion.
*Extra: After watching for a while, the heat of the sun began to affect me and I was woken from my daydreaming by the honk of a car. The stranger probably needed directions to the main road.

Six(6) principles of influence - Robert Cialdini (summary)

Hello you!
Have you ever wondered what makes you do the things you do or why you make certain choices and decisions?
Maybe you wonder how certain individuals have been able to grow a certain level of influence - whether as a celebrity, an entrepreneur, a politician, a pastor, or even a salesperson trying to win over a potential client - and you hope to do the same.
On my entrepreneurial journey, I started out by asking questions such as these:

Why do people buy stuff?

Why are they loyal to specific brands?

How do marketers or salespersons convince people to buy a new and unfamiliar product? and so on.

And then after some research and rigorous hours of surfing the internet, I stumbled on different books, articles and perspectives on the matter.

In my opinion, the book 'Influence by Robert Cialdini' clearly defines the principles which are more like universal laws which have universal applications.

To get the best out of this summary, as you read through each principle, try to think of a personal experience that proves it right and how you can master them to grow your influence.

Explore!

Six(6) principles of influence.

1. Reciprocation
Reciprocation recognizes that people feel indebted to those who do something for them or give them a gift.

For marketers, the implication is you have to go first. Give something, give free samples, give a positive experience to people and they will want to give you something in return.

2. Social Proof
When people are uncertain about a course of action, they tend to look to those around them to guide their decisions and actions. They especially want to know what everyone else is doing - especially their peers.

For marketers, testimonials from satisfied customers show your target audience that people who are similar to them have enjoyed your products or service.
They'll be more likely to become customers themselves.

3. Commitment and Consistency
People do not like to back out of deals. We're more likely to do something after we've agreed to it verbally or in writing.
People strive for consistency in their commitment.
They also like to follow pre-existing attitudes, values and actions.

4. Liking
People prefer to say 'yes' to those they know and like. People are also more likely to favor those who are physically attractive, similar to themselves, or those who give them compliments.
Even something as random as having the same name as your prospects can increase your chances of making a sale.

One of the things that marketers can do is to honestly report on the extent to which the product or service, or the people who are providing the product or service - are similar to the audience and know the audience's challenges, preferences and so on.
E.g. sales people could improve their prospects of making a sale by becoming more knowledgeable of their prospects' existing preferences.

5. Authority
People respect authority. They want to follow the lead of real experts.
Business titles, impressive clothing and even driving an expensive car are proven factors in lending credibility to any individual.
Giving the appearance of authority actually increases the likelihood that others will comply with requests - even if their authority is illegitimate.

6. Scarcity
In fundamental economic theory, scarcity relates to demand and supply. Basically, the less there is of something, the more valuable it is.
The more rare and uncommon a thing, the more people want it.

For marketers, the tendency to be more sensitive to positive losses than to positive gains is one of the best supported findings in social science.
Therefore, it may be worthwhile to switch your advertising campaign's message from your product's benefits to emphasizing the potential for a wasted opportunity.

E.g.
- Don't miss that chance...
- Here's what you'll miss out on...

In any case, if your product or service is genuinely unique, be sure to emphasize it's unique qualities to increase the perception of it's scarcity.

Laws of business success - Brian Tracy (summary)

The Law of Cause and Effect: Everything happens for a reason; for every effect there is a specific cause.
This law says that achievement, wealth, happiness, prosperity and business success are all the direct and indirect effects or results of specific causes or actions.

“Thoughts are causes and conditions are effects.”

“Thought is creative.”

“Every great organization is merely the lengthened shadow of a single man.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Law of Belief: Whatever you truly believe, with feeling, becomes your reality.

The Law of Expectations: Whatever you expect, with confidence, becomes your own self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Law of Attraction: You are a living magnet; you invariably attract into your life the people, situations and circumstances that are in harmony with your dominant thoughts.

The Law of Correspondence: Your outer world is a reflection of your inner world; it corresponds with your dominant patterns of thinking.

The Law of Control: You feel good about yourself to the degree to which you feel that you are in control of your own life.

“Change is inevitable.”

“Controlled change leads inevitably to greater achievement than uncontrolled change.”

“To take control of your life, you must begin by taking control of your mind.”

The Law of Accident: Life is a series of random occurrences and things just happen by accident.

“By failing to plan, you are planning to fail.”

People who live by the Law of Accident tend to be negative, pessimistic, and helpless and feel as though they have little control over their lives.
The wonderful thing about goals is that the very act of setting goals frees you from living under the Law of Accident and puts you squarely under the Law of Control and the Law of Cause and Effect.

The Law of Responsibility: You are completely responsible for everything you are and for everything you become and achieve.

“You are always free to choose what you think and what you do.”

“Responsibility begins with your taking full and complete control over the content of your conscious mind.”

“No one is coming to the rescue.”

The Law of Direction: Successful people have a clear sense of purpose and direction in every area of their lives.

The Law of Compensation: You are always fully compensated for whatever you do, positive or negative.

“You can have anything you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want.”

“The longer you put in without getting out, the greater will be your return when it finally comes.”

The Law of Service: Your rewards in life will be in direct proportion to the value of your service to others.
Our primary job as members of society is to find the best way to incorporate ourselves into the fabric of society by serving as many others as well as we possibly can.

“All fortunes begin with the sale of personal services.”

“If you wish to increase the quantity of your rewards, you must first increase the quality and quantity of your service.”

“Everyone works on commission.”

The Law of Applied Effort: All worthwhile achievements are amenable to hard work.

“All great success is preceded by a long period of hard, hard work in a single direction toward a clearly defined purpose.”

You must continually ask yourself, “What am I trying to do?” and “How am I trying to do it?”  It’s not enough just to work hard, or to work long hours. You must be working on high value tasks and activities toward the accomplishment of meaningful and important goals.

“The harder you work, the luckier you get.”

“To achieve more than the average person, you must work longer and harder than the average person.”

The Law of Overcompensation: If you always do more than you are paid for, you will always be paid more than you are getting now.

The Law of Preparation: Effective performance is preceded by painstaking preparation.
There is a quote from Abraham Lincoln that shaped my life and my attitude as I was growing up.

He said, as a young man in Springfield, Illinois, “I shall study and prepare myself and someday my chance will come.”

“Do your homework; it is the details that trip you up every single time.”

“Action without thinking is the cause of every failure.”

The Law of Forced Efficiency: The more things you have to do in a limited period of time, the more you will be forced to work on your most important tasks.

“There will never be enough time to do everything that you have to do.”

“Only by stretching yourself can you discover how much you are truly capable of.”

“You only perform at your highest potential when you are working on the most valuable use of your time.”

This is the key to personal and business success. It is the central issue in personal efficiency and time management. You must always be asking yourself, “What is the most valuable use of my time right now?”

The Law of Decision: Every great leap forward in life is preceded by a clear decision and a commitment to action.
High achievers are not necessarily those who make the right decisions, but they are those people who make their decisions right.
They accept feedback and self-correct.  They take in new information and they change if necessary.  But they are always decisive, always moving forward, never wishy-washy or vacillating in their attitudes and their approaches to life.

“Act boldly and unseen forces will come to your aid.”

“Act as if it were impossible to fail, and it shall be.”

“Just do it!”

“Take arms against a sea of troubles, and in so doing, end them.”

The Law of Creativity: Every advance in human life begins with an idea in the mind of a single person.

Ideas are the keys to the future.

It is not possible for you to achieve anything of value except to the degree to which you think creatively and do something new and different from what has been done before.
All it takes is a small innovation to lay the foundation for a fortune and launch you toward great success.

“Your ability to generate constructive ideas is, to all intents and purposes, unlimited. Therefore, your potential is unlimited as well.”

“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

Your mind is designed in such a way that you cannot have an idea on the one hand without also having the ability to bring that idea into reality on the other.
The very existence of an idea in your conscious mind means that you have within you and around you the capacity to turn it into reality. 
The only question you have to answer is, “How badly do you want it?”

“Imagination rules the world.”

Everything you see around you is the result of what was originally an idea in the mind of a single person.  Our entire man-made world is the result of thought brought into reality.

“Imagination is more important than facts.”

The Law of Flexibility: Success is best achieved when you are clear about the goal but flexible about the process of getting there.

“The continued experience of resistance and frustration is often an indication that you are doing the wrong thing.”

“You are only as free in life as the number of well-developed options you have available to you.”

“Crisis is change trying to take place.”

“Errant assumptions lie at the root of every failure.”

The Law of Persistence: Your ability to persist in the face of setbacks and disappointments is your measure of your belief in yourself and your ability to succeed.

“Persistence is self-discipline in action.”

“Never give up; never, never, give up.”

The Law of Purpose: The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer.

“Profits are a measure of how well the company is fulfilling its purpose.”

Knowledge is cumulative.
The driving force behind the explosion of knowledge and the expansion of technology is competition.

“Business is war.”

Military warfare is aimed at the conquest of people and territory. Business warfare is aimed at winning customers and markets.

The Law of Organization: A business organization is a group of people brought together for the common purpose of creating and keeping customers.

The Law of Customer Satisfaction: Rule1 - The customer is always right.
“If ever the customer seems to be wrong, refer back to rule number one.”

“All customer satisfaction comes from people dealing with other people.”

“The best companies invariably have the best people.”

“The key role of management is to achieve the maximum return on investment in human resources towards satisfying customers.”

You have two choices with any job. You can either do the job yourself or you can get someone else to do it.  As a manager, your job is to get things done through others rather than doing it yourself.

The 4 Levels of Customer satisfaction
Meeting customer expectations.

Exceed customer expectations.

Delight your customers.

Amaze your customers.
(This is where you are so good at going beyond anything they would expect that they not only buy from you again and again, but they tell their friends to buy from you as well.)

The Law of the Customer: The customer always acts to satisfy his or her interests by seeking the very most and best at the lowest possible price.
It is very important, in business, that you separate facts from problems and that you don’t become upset or anxious over something about which you can do nothing.

“Customers are both demanding and ruthless; they reward highly those companies that serve them best and allow those companies that serve them poorly to fail.”

Sam Walton once said, “We all have the same boss, the customer, and he can fire us any time he wants by deciding to buy somewhere else.”

“Customers always behave rationally in pursuing the path of least resistance to get the things they want.”

“Proper business planning always begins with the customer as the central focus of attention and discussion.”

If - An original (For my mother)

This poem is dedicated to the Global goals and all it's unsung heroes.

If I was the Wind, I would flow through the Trees,
Caressing every leaf, lifting the debris.

If I were the Trees, I would soak in the Sun,
Dance to the wind, push my toes through the earth.

If I was the Sun, I would smile in the day,
Sleep in the night and cover a veil when I visit the earth.

If I were the earth, I would drink the Oceans,
Feed the flora, embrace all life when it fleets.

If I were the Oceans, I would impregnate clouds,
And house Treasures untold.

If I were clouds, I would birth the rains,
Teach my child to hamper the Sun’s rage.

If I were rainfall, I would be solace to the Spirits,
Obey my mother’s words and make rainbows whenever I can.

If I was a Spirit, I would watch in silence every soul,
And be good even when am left alone.

If I was a Soul, I would fill a Man,
And be with him till he grows old.

If I were a man, I would be a better Man.

The Old Man - An original (Dedicated to the men on whose shoulders I saw beyond)

An Old man passes my hut every day.
I can tell he’s walked a long way.
His spine is crooked with age.
His walking stick knows the whole village.
He flashes a smile beneath his wrinkles.
In his youth he must have had some dimples.
He sees his yesterday in me.
I see my tomorrow in him.

The Old man is wise.
He masks his pain in disguise.
I offer him a keg of wine.
He says he’s had his time.
I offer water for wine.
Now he asks ‘Who am I?’.
I take my time and reply.
You’re an old man who’s past his prime.

An Old man passes my hut every day.
I can tell he’s come a long way.

Moon and I; Daylight and Night - An original

I see a face in the moon
I know it sees me too.
Sometimes it looks away
Just as I do too.
I see a brightness in the darkness
And like a face drenched in the light
It sees a darkness in the brightness.
The moon is my light,
And dark is the sky that mirrors the night.
I am moon to my light
And bright is the sky that sketches my outline.
The moon and I…
Daylight and Night.

I see a silver web… I see silk
I see a spider that doesn’t blink
I see balance despite the breeze
I see all this but cannot feel.

I saw a shooting star moments ago
In a sparse starred night, it felt alone.
I saw it choose between heaven and earth
And in the end its choice was death.

I see a veil that is the sky
I see the answers all behind
I see a lie that we call time
And all timely lies fail after time.

Scholãris - An original

Scholãris
The scholar takes all that is given.
He is narcissistic and egotistical.
He considers himself of superior intellect.
But he has lost all ingenuity.
Geezer hood opens his eyes
And he sees that indeed the child is the true scholar.
The child questions everything.
The child questions questioning.
The scholar was once a child.
The scholar’s pedagogue was once a child,
And his teacher before him.
But somewhere along the way, they all turned scholars.
A scholar is otiose in thinking.
He has lost all creativity.
He memorizes letters, symbols and reproduced concepts.
He is interested in birthed knowledge,
But not in the antecedent intercourse.
Let all scholars become children once again
And we’ll all wait preveniently for development.
Noesis is the way of children.
Sapience and empiricism is the way of children.
A child alone is dangerous.
A scholar alone is futile.
There should be a child in every scholar.
There should be a scholar in every child.

For my country - An original

We are trinkets, we are souvenirs
We are saucers with rich veneer
Thickets, treescape, fallowed land that we hold dear.
Liquid gold in earthen holes
Industrialization we watch unfold
Moonlit moments of young and old
Sacred stories our fathers told.
Nigeria… Nigeria…
Green-agriculture, white-purity
Wazobia… wazobia…
Beauty in our unity
Giant of Africa
Cultural diversity
Lassa or Ebola
We’ll rise above adversity.

Gold rags, paper napkins - An original (Dedicated to the UN SDGs)

Gold rags; paper napkins…
Bread crumbs, worn-out tea.
Marble floors stuck to my skin
Mud-muck-mire, leech on my heel

Gold rags; paper napkins…
Sugarloaf, honeyed tea.
Marble floors, Cinderella heel
Wool-cotton-silk, fostering sleep

Gold rags; paper napkins…
Raindrops, fever and chill.
Homeless, neo-refugee
Terminal… obituary

Gold rags; paper napkins…
Raindrops, glass sheet, counting sheep.
Mansionette, choicely retreat
Terminal… obituary

Dream - An original

On one imaginary day,
I had a conversation with my older self.

I stared in surprise as I asked
Why do you have my eyes?

I stared even deeper and saw sadness in those eyes.

I asked why are you sad future me?

He said I watched time pass and could not be…
All I ever wanted, all that I could dream.

He said listen closely, younger self…
Or age to face a deep regret.

He said you are young, but I have death
Creeping up my trousers to my belt.

I asked: what do I do?
Am confused
How do I avoid this grin and groom?

He took a deep breath, once not twice
And I could bet I saw his hopes rise.

He said listen younger me
These are words that you should hear.

Embrace them
Like a baby would a teddy bear.

He said dream… for they are yours
And that is where you’ll first know fear.

He said all that you see while you dream
Is what you can be if you believe.

He said dream of the sun in brightest light;
He said dream of the stars, they rule the night.

He said dreams of a day when man would fly
Are now airplanes that split the sky.

He said dreams of a carriage without a horse
Are now cars that carry us.

He said be not afraid to dream
And upon your days you’ll not be me.

Compos Mentis (of sound mind) - An original

Who is a madman?
One who sees everyone else as mad?
If so, maybe I am loco.
Who is a madman?
The only sane man among madmen?
If so I am compos mentis.
No sane man ventures into the mind of a madman.
No madman peeps into a sane man’s head.
The madman’s head is a labyrinth.
The sun the only source of light.
Like someone trapped in a cave,
He follows the only source of light
To a journey of no destination.
He scampers about like a cockeyed bacchanalian.
He sees all, and understands nothing.
He speaks all, but means nothing.
He is infested with juju.
Jinxed by the juju of the bottle.
Or the juju of the Cannabis Sativa.
With all conscientiousness, he basks in the sun 
Like a lizard.
Or searches for precious jewels in a garbage dump.
He is fully clothed with skin and hair
And so wears tatters like accessories.
His dementia cannot be cured.
His derangement cannot be ameliorated.
He manifests peculiarities of his pre-dementia state.
Some become fey from insalubrious Scholarism.
Some from familial origins.
The poet is a madman.
The politician is a madman.
The professor is a madman.
The poet writes out of himself.
The politician promises out of himself.
The professor reads out of himself.
The language of a poet is the language of a madman.
The language of a politician is the language of a madman.
The language of a professor is the language of a madman.
Only the balmy relate to the poet.
Only the kooky believe a politician.
Only the loony understands a professor.
For this reason, who is really a madman?
For this reason, who is not?
Isolated, we are madmen.
Together, we are compos mentis.

About this amazing writer

Hello You! Just before you skim through my numerous posts, it's only proper that you get to know a little about the author.

I am Wisdom Kari Tygers Okubo... Entrepreneur, UN SDG advocate, Petroleum technologist and writer.
I am an indigene of Degema l.g.a., Rivers State, Nigeria.
I have a passion for a lot of things and one thing I've discovered about most content seekers is that nobody wants to read about someone else's biography.
That is unless your net worth looks impressive or you're another Dangote or Bill Gates.
So WELCOME to Wisdom Kari Tygers' blog on everything that matters and I do hope your life gets better with each post.
Nobody's perfect so you may encounter typos or grammatical inconsistencies but remember that the message is what matters and I'll do my best to avoid the aforementioned just for you.
Feel free to explore!