Forgotten Dairies
Lockdown Muse for Urgent Use -By Saliu Momodu
The vicissitudes of life come in as many shades, textures and sizes as the plurality in our humanity.
All fingers, as they say, are not equal. Some will come along as tall but others short. Some as glittering geniuses yet others as a dumb bell. Some with much to offer being philanthropists yet many more with outstretched arms and a constant mumble for alms with which to survive the uncertainties of another passing day. Yet it isn’t our judgment to make about the destiny of men only that we must never fail to uplift and pull-through with those we meet as we get along with our own slice of life: a compulsory responsibility that comes in the package of our shared humanity.
But an appreciation of our shared humanity with which we reach out for one another, or even a simple realization of same, is unfortunately a philosophical height that is neither meant for every layman to ponder nor grasp. Besides, you don’t teach wisdom to a hungry man, especially not to a battered soul on a bad day of hopelessness and rage. Hence a most cogent reason why we have leadership, to foresee and forestall such a devastating eventuality through a framework that affords mental and material opportunities for all. That is why we have governments- that the preeminent good in men, coupled with the wisdom of a privileged few could be harnessed together with our commonwealth for common good, growth and well-being.
Individuals can only do so much in this regard as the bulk stops at the door of leadership i.e. government.
Lastly and very importantly too, society ultimately reaps the very way it chooses to sow or fail to sow. The wellbeing of everybody is in the best interest of everybody and should therefore be a point of duty for everyone. What we sow in one another by our gestures of love, compassion, solidarity, charity and goodwill, we end up reaping together for as they say, what goes around comes around. But when we take to being judgmental, cruel, conceited and covertous as we concern ourselves only about wealth and how to acquire more of it for self, we unleash a certain wrath into the cosmos which will surely find it’s way back to us.
Many hungry men may die of hunger but not all will choose to so expire. And for the few who managed to survive through the crucible, what else do you think they will have to offer to the rest of us except something from the belly of the furnace, fire.
Hence it’s wiser we intervene timely with kindness and goodness for our overall best interest. The best way being through personal and collective charity in attitude and offerings for every good course; foremost of all being the moral and vocational education for our up and coming.
This will build for us a new society where men for friendship and leadership shall be valued and chosen based on the content of their character and not on the depth of their pockets nor the violence of their wrath as we currently witness to our collective peril.
