Reflecting in the sky above the clouds (II)

(Continued from last Sunday)

At another time, I was described as a tool of the Tribune. Once you write for a Paper some assume that you are in their employment. Once you are in employment, you have to be a fiddle? I must confess that Nigeria is incredibly free from what I know of many nations. More than that, the Nigerian Tribune has left me to my creative whims. Quite contrary to fears expressed by some individuals; when I first started writing. I take responsibility for the nonsense I put out there sometimes. I write to share my dreams, hopes, frustrations and perspectives.

Sometimes I am wrong, at other times I am obscure. In all, I try to strike a balance—dispensing my truth respectfully, in a lighthearted manner, that is memorable and effective. Sometimes, I am absolutely rational and intellectual. At other times, I go spiritual. It is all about liberty to write freely within the limits of law and decency. I am in an airline to Atlanta as I am writing this piece. I am forced by circumstances to audit and edit myself. As I passed an almost empty Business class, I wished someone would ask me to sit. I was bumped up once to first class. I travelled at another time in Business class to Tel Aviv. I did not know I had some privileges. I did not use the lounge and did not seek to be pampered. I was so comfortable that I slept all the way.

The first time ever I have had a good sleep flying. Could you believe that I was not even worried about crashing? Curiously, when I took my sit in the class, the hostess singled me out for scrutiny.

She probably knew me from somewhere as a poor type, or my suit did not hang well over my shoulder. I seldom wear one. That certainly was not my worst experience. I have slept at Airports at home and abroad. I have been stranded a couple of times far away from home and had to spend a day or two hanging around airports. It use to be easy between Gatwick and Heathrow with speed link in those days. I have been detained in an Airport and have been refused entry at another. I was humiliated in yet another. It is incredible that in all these, I harbor no bitterness. I believe that every experience in life is an opportunity, suffering is enrichment. Life is an open school in which we must consciously enroll. As I got going on this trip, I had little foreign exchange on me.

I had used up a lot of money making necessary arrangement, obtaining travel documents and paying a fine for rescheduling. I have learnt not to worry. Got change for coffee from a friend and a bunch from another. I wonder if I will ever be rich. Is it important in fact that I be rich? One thing I am certain of is that I will be rich with experience. If there is an advantage we should strive for, it should be to make tremendous impact on other lives. This is where it gets me all troubled when a leader of a nation is the one who plunders its resources, when those who should show example are the very thief we should hide from. Haliburton and Nigeria resonates.

I don’t like travelling, but it turns out that I always have the best opportunity to reflect and cogitate away from home, far from my realities. There is so much more to life than making money; so much more to success than making a name for oneself. This flight is 12 hours, 20 minutes. You can see my predicament. As I drift in this lofty height, I see a puzzle in my life which I must solve. I have this dream that I am searching for a piece of land that belongs to me. It is a kind of restlessness which I think is pointing me to an ultimate purpose. What is life without purpose? I have my head in academics, my heart in service, and my mind in people. In one of my odysseys, I was in a village called Odeseye and in another; I met an African named Chukwuma, head of Oyibo Soldiers.

We all have our portions in land, and people who will affect us fundamentally for good or ill meet us on the way, in our odyssey. We are the ones who will search for and discover our land; people will surely meet us along the way. I have been in dreams, of a universe that is overexploited and empty like a vacuum box, left only to strange crafts passing through.

Could this be the history of our planet? I have been in a ship riding on a turbulent current heading for a precipice. Could this be my country? Life is about vision. Each one has opportunities and great moments when he or she can make a mark in history and alter the course of human destiny, in a small or big way. It does not matter the value we place on the opportunity, it only matters what choices we make, to make or mar.

Here God has given us, each one the equality which we all fight for, the equity which we yearn after. Whether a farmer or a President, we are measured not by the size of our opportunity but by what we do with it. Your destiny may be to shape the one man who will affect the millions; another’s may be to prepare the mule on which he will ride. The reward is the same even if the world may recognize only the one who rides the mule or changes the world. We are judged not by our failure but by our effort. Life is all about dreams and visions.

There are no realities, but dreams and visions. What we become is a matter of faith. The only true thing in life is faith. It is the unknown quantity, the x factor in human capacity. It is not science that will lead man to an assured future, it is faith. Yes science will uncover a lot that is already created, and use them to different ends; but it is faith that will create what has not been contemplated. I have to get up to stretch my legs. I can now only seat on Aisle seats.

(Concluded)