OUR LIFE IS LIKE A STREAM which journeys to sea, meeting pebbles, debris of sands, leaves and twigs along the way. Rolling through and flowing over obstacles. Our life could be likened to living in multifaceted matrix. We exist in different worlds at the same time. Words are not enough to describe the complexity of our mini-major lives of multiplicities. For some of us, life is like being in multiple worlds of jobs, books, music, films, games, parties, clubs, school, classroom, laboratory, academic courses. Juggling two or more things together and working more than one job at the same time. For others the world of business is like bussing and transferring through transit buses and stations. To another it’s the world of dating, loving more than one person at the same time. While to some, it’s loving and caring for more than one child at the same time. Parenting kids attend through home, to daycare, as they ask for help with homework, as they left the house untidy and pile clothes up as chores for fun.
Clarity of life tells more. Realities show the essence of work and how it brings joy. As a vital part of our life; it brings us in proximity with others who are often different from us. We sit, eat, walk and work together with strangers as friends and foes in the same duty point. In the process, we build; firstly, team, and then cliques, and then unions, and then fractions or parties that later translates into buddies. We live out our lives again unconsciously at work as if a world at home. We are never dissociated wherever we find ourselves. We seek to connect. We exist as individuals but a whole entity of workers who sometimes lose our individuality in the process of working with others. We are in the same corporate matrix but in different groups. This you will agree with me is another world on its own. Work may pay our bills but there’s something much more that our heart requests from our work. This is joy and fulfillment. That drove us into crating hobbies, soul projects, unions, bonds of friendship with people of the same values and principles. Bonding easily with people who see life through our binoculars; we cherish and share with those who have faced or still facing similar experiences like us.
Today in our society, just because work brings some sense of fulfillment and achievement; we often describe ourselves by what we do. I once read sometimes ago about the origin of American names, that there was once a time when people call their neighbors by their career and profession. Such that a father could tell his child to take something to the goldsmith down the street. And as time goes on he seems to simply call him by Mr Smith when sending his son there. Such were the origin of those names like: Carpenter, Smith, Fisher, cobbler, et.al. This culture still holds today, when you meet someone for the first time; you hear him introduce himself as: “I’m Babawale, a writer and speaker.” Then he may proceed to ask you “what is your name? and/or “what do you do?” You may hear: “where are you from?” And/or “where do you live?”.These are indices that we use to identify one another. We hardly ask people: “what is your plan? Where are you going in life? Don’t tell me where you are coming from but “what do you see yourself becoming? What is your life vision?” Don’t tell me your job but what are you planning and working on? Where’s your heart? What do you want to do with yourself? What are you bringing into this encounter you are calling meeting? how do you intend to bring jobs to many?”
Ops! That would be weird? Oh! I’m sorry. I’m an outlier. I seem to think in a unique way. The strategy of conformity is to group and re-group people. It is so limiting that you are grouped into a community, a class, a genre or clique just to make you stay there. In order to make you settle down. Making you look like mere object or thing rather than a mighty force you were meant to be. “It’s easier for us to understand you when you are identifiably understood in a group. Allow us to box you and possibly limit you.” One of the rare beauties of life is hidden in the art of living in the unknown, believing in the possibilities and potentials of human spirit. Not allowing your spirit to die in the face of majority and popular opinions; rejecting limitations, intimidation and more. As we live in terms of geography, our lives transcend places.
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