You Are Always Who You Are

THEY ARE TO PROCLAIM, YOU ARE TO LIVE.

In the business of literature, I have talked about a few things. Some for which I got a smile, yet many others I got a few silenced accolades. When I write, I’m not always sure that I’m actually writing what I said I would write. I see myself becoming what I’m writing about. The literary abstractions become real and what seemed fiction turns into a true life experience.

I’ve come to understand that this happens only when there is a deep connection that allows my writings to permeate into my thoughts. I no longer write about what happened to that phenomenon, what might happen to that phenomenon or what is happening to the phenomenon. Rather, I see myself writing about what is actually happening to me; because my writing has become me and I have become my writing.

This is exactly what happens with our lives. We spend the most of our lives   explaining ourselves to others. The authentic individual lives a life of proclamation. He earns, owns, leads, moves, and builds. He doesn’t speak of himself. People talk about him. He does not lecture people rather he becomes the subject of lecture. The bangs on his door keep talking about how passionately attractive his lifestyle possesses the interest of any at every singular encounter. So instead of being the voice he becomes the word that is spoken about. What he would call leisure expresses itself in a fiesta instead of a siesta.

That is why today, in this Age of youthful consumerism, a finger constantly points to you for a change in ideology and philosophy. A change in self perception and assumption. A change from being a talkative to being monosyllabic. A change from being a sycophant to being  an adversary. Adversity towards the quest for self authenticity. Because the authenticity of the self precipitates self realization.

Walk in through that red carpet, not as a market woman but as a business woman. Not as a foreign investor but as an investor, not as a roadside mechanic but as a first aid mechanic, not as a Nigerian medical doctor but as a medical doctor. Never let those racially induced adjectives shape your identity. One good thing about not explaining yourself is that it opens up vast horizons of self prove.

Concepts and adjectives should not be what define you. Concepts like family, state, culture, religion, tribe etcetera,  shouldn’t say who you are. Concepts should only tell how much you are what you are. Do not succeed because there is a prefix to your name. You shouldn’t excel as a leader because there is an Ibo, a Yoruba, an Hausa, an Ijaw, a Christian, a Muslim, a Black, a White, a Red, a Freeborn or a Slave attached to your identity. Succeed because you are good at what you do. Because you are what you do and you are who you are. You are not a good musician because you are Yoruba. No, you can’t be; because Yoruba is not all that you are.

These things do not define who we are but only give insights on how much we are what we are. So do not depend on customs and religions, cultures and societal identifications before you can prove your ground. You don’t need to identify with a particular colour or race to be something or somebody. Rather become somebody and you will see culture and people running after you, to identify with you, to expand their names and recognitions, and to proclaim how good you are at what you do and who you are. Remember, efficiency can become deficiency if it wholly depends on conventional constancy.

Theopet.