It’s been a long while since I did any blogging.
I know that. I’m not gonna try to make any excuses like I’ve been really busy and school has taken over my life and all of those kinds of excuses that (while very true) you really don’t want to read. Though, if we’re a bit reasonable, I’ve had some problems in this open prison of mine. For instance, for about a week and a half, there was no electricity in my hostel, something about the gen being bad or some jazz to that effect. And then I’ve been having tests littered here and there (as I’m writing right now, I have a test coming up on Tuesday which I’m not nearly ready for, but I’ll be fine.)
Truth is,My thoughts have been too jumbled to leak out in the form of ink from my pen (or keystrokes from my laptop as the case may be).
But then, I was talking to “her” today – no, I think she sent me a text – and it came up, that I haven’t put up a blog in a bit; so I decided to grab a hold of my mind, and talk about something. But, now that I think about it, there’s something that I said I was gonna write about a while ago, and I guess there’s no better time than the present.
I was talking to a friend of mine about two weeks ago, and he asked “Dude, do I have an attitude problem?”
Now I really didn’t know how to start answering his question, because to me, he doesn’t have one. But looking through the eyes of the Average Yakubu, he probably does. Now, this dude is different from most (all my friends are) He’s rather intelligent, mature for someone his age (he’s 20)... generally, he’s a cut above the pack (I’m surrounded by people like this). He’s someone that a “normal” person his age would never be able to relate with, or understand. The truth is, me and a lot of mine have often been referred to as people with attitude problems.
Humans in general, do not like what they can’t understand.
So, this dude who’s just doing his thing, who has no patience for deliberate idiocy, can come off as a jerk now and then. I thought about this, and about how no one understands anyone. It’s amazing how people can label you, just because they feel threatened by your difference. I’ve seen friends and acquaintances, labelled in the oddest ways, while they were just being themselves.
I’m just a soul, whose intentions are good,
O Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.
So I was thinking today about Laide “exschoolnerd” Olabode, and how much bull she probably has to put up with. I think that babe is a rather intelligent person. One of us kinds of people who I’ve termed “strange but beautiful” I met her once at the Bay, but we didn’t really talk. If she’s half as interesting, witty, creative and intelligent as her regular status updates and all her notes tell me she is, then she must be a friend worth having. In fact, Laide “exschoolnerd” Olabode gets the Capoeira Panda’s Paw Print of Approval for being quite a correct babe. Anyways, I was thinking how, even though she has people telling her how funny she is, and how cool she is, she seems to me, to be just like me and most of my friends and people I hang out with; totally unfathomable to the common mind.
The common man does not like that which he cannot fathom.
I can give a long list of people who are well above the pack, who are “strange but really cool”, who have probably received (and still receive) their fair share of beef for it. Remi Olutimayin, Mujib Waziri, Demola Sadiq, Amos Akpokabayen, Nnamdi Obanya, Godwin Tom, Bally Akogun, my sister Funmi, Laide “exschoolnerd” Olabode, my cousin Mary Jay, Tosyn Bucknor...people I like to term Creatives...this list goes on.
(Note: Some names mentioned above, are there ‘cos I feel some strange form of kinship with them, not ‘cos I actually know what’s going on in their lives.)
Knowing me, knowing you.
Knowing me, knowing you...
Abba must not have known what they were talking about.
But then, do white folk ever really know what they’re talking about?
And that’s what I’m talking about,
The difficulty involved in people understanding what the other person is really about.
Knowing me, knowing you...
We wander from pillar to post,
Trying to gather the most information we can about each other
We say we wanna get to know each other
But how come, at the end of the day,
No one ever understands the other???
Knowing me, knowing you...
Get wisdom, but in all your getting, get understanding.
But you don’t really understand me.
‘Cos if you did, you’d know that I’m just a black man standing,
Under the rain, in pain so intense that...
To a reasonable mind, wouldn’t ever make sense
& from whence this pain came, I’ve long since ceased to remember.
& it might not just be me... I think this is spread across the races and genders.
Knowing me, knowing you...
In the words of the great late Bernie Mac;
“You don’t understand”
& from where I’m standing, we never will.
So there ain’t ever gonna be peace in the Middle East,
A time where the wars will actually cease and desist
A time where people will live as one,
As sister and brother under God’s yellow sun...
Till a time where our weapons of mass destruction will have us all undone...
When we’ll look for sanctuary but yet find none...
Knowing me, knowing you...
So yeah; you don’t understand...
& neither does society,
So they take a look at us in sobriety
& call us social deviants...
‘Cos we refuse to live in what they’d call propriety???
So they call us crazy, insane...misfits.
Unfit for social consumption
& in everything we’d like to think, say or do publicly,
They’re right there with a polite, yet uncivil interruption.
They say our ideas promote conflict.
Tell me how this even begins to fit???
Knowing me, knowing you...
Man fears what they don’t understand
So I and those like me with preternatural minds understand
That even when everyone acts like they like our difference
They can’t really grasp it.
They go from calling us different, to weird, to plain old absurd.
And the true word is that we don’t really care.
Because you see, like it or not, I’m still here
And I’ll bear whatever you throw.
I’ll go if it’s necessary, but in everything you do,
Every mundane task, you’ll remember me.
I brought spice into your life, salt into your stew
And even though I needed you, just as you need me now,
The only true company I enjoy is not found amongst you.
Can’t we all just get along???
I guess not.
I don’t know you, you don’t know me.
Knowing me, knowing you.
