'Average'.

‘Average’.

 I was conveniently born at a time after my parents played (and won) The Hunger Games. We hadn’t ‘blown’, but we had enough that I got to attend a ‘good’ school. I excelled in primary school (not gonna count nursery school, cause how can you excel if someone else changes you?), I was a straight A pupil, represented the school in competitions, won my fair share of 4^th-placed medals in sports, but my big break came one day when we had a drama hosted at Obi Wali Cultural Center, Port-Harcourt.

 I don’t have much of a memory about it but I must have done very well because the next Monday, the school had representatives from an advertising company come calling and requesting for me to be involved in two adverts; one for MTN and one for Ribena. I don’t remember much of the Ribena advert, but if you saw an MTN advert in the early 2000’s where a young big-headed boy with large glistening eyes was on a phone call with his papa (Mr. Jimoh- a teacher of mine and our drama leader) in the village, it was yours truly.

 The two paragraphs above are to show how I was exceptional; both academically and extra-curricular wise. After then, I went to Secondary school and fell in love with literature (coincidentally, elder sister was in a theatre arts group in boarding house) but retained my love for drama. My academics however, took a dive; there were by no means poor, but instead of straight A’s, I became a 1^st-3^rd student.

 This post isn’t to talk about exceptionalism or greatness, but to talk about ‘averageness’:

Before Covid-19 shocked the world, a lot of us football enthusiasts were used to the images and sounds of racially provocative gestures targeted at black people and the news of Balotelli suffering racist chants went viral. A few weeks ago, I came across a video of Cuban doctors being flown into Italy to help them combat the pandemic and all over, they were being cheered and welcomed- these people, same color as Balotelli, but different receptions.

 On Twitter recently, there’s been a lot of brouhaha about how health sectors in developed countries need more hands and how undeveloped countries believe their best are being poached. A law maker in the US was calling for the number of green cards available for professionals, especially in the health sector be increased, even if it means reducing the numbers of other criteria.

 While I have no problems with the intent, I have qualms with the underlying subliminal message we are passing; is it only the professionals who deserve the green cards? Is it only the exceptional(s) who deserve to be cheered? Do I; a young, ordinary man, trying to make my way in this cold world, in pursuit of greener pastures and success, not deserve a green card? I don’t even want their adulation; I just want to be able to go about my business without being called King-Kong.

 I have a grouse with fake-posturing; 90% of the population cannot be great, the majority cannot be special, not everyone can be awesome at whatever they do. Until we as a people unite and admit to ourselves that being ‘average’ is good enough, we will continue living a lie. Children derided for not exceling, adults punished for not competing, businesses taken-over or closed for not being the best. If everyone is supposed to be the best at everything, then who are they supposed to be better than?

 These are the thoughts that keep me up at night. Stay safe people, stay home.

Need to go have a talk with my dad about that MTN and Ribena advert payment.

|| The original post ended above; the following is as a result of complete 8hrs sleep||

 “Average is good enough” ~ Okekayi Woko, 2020.

 One reason why I personally never rated The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as high as I rated 30 Rock or Parks and Recreation or The Office is because Fresh Prince had an almost ‘forced’ feel when it came to morals. Some episodes just seemed like the result of a brainstorming virtue-signaling production cast. The other shows never seemed like they had a moral story or they had lofty expectations to fill. They just told their stories, with some laughs, a little romance and tons of drama.

 We as people tend to prefer the greats and there’s nothing wrong with that, but expecting greatness from everyone is absurd.

“Average is good enough”.

 One more story and we say The Lord’s Prayer:                              

 When I was in SS1, all those years ago, my school took me for a math/science competition (for SS2 & SS3) where I came 7^th in Rivers State and 18^th in Nigeria. The results were announced before we left the venue, and I was downtrodden. A few seniors came in the top 10 and two people came in the top 5’s. We got back to school (and naturally the news had gotten there already). We were heralded and I personally felt so good. My mum called that evening and I could feel her beaming from across the phone. One of my best memories till date.

 “Average is good enough”.

 Our Father…….

The Ripple Effect.

‘The Ripple Effect’

Greetings Mortals;

My childhood is filled with a lot of holes- repressed memories and things I actually cannot remember. Maybe I was used for an experiment or maybe time indeed is a figment of our imagination.

Regardless, one of my most profound and brightest memory is; secondary school, 1-week midterm break. Aunty came to pick me up from the house, was gonna spend the weekend at hers then she’ll take me to school for resumption on Sunday. A few hundred meters from the house gate and I realized I forgot an assignment I completed, printed and spiral-bound. Wrestled with the prospect of making my aunt turn around or probably getting flogged and derided in school for having a whole week and not completing my assignment for a few more meters before I caved and told her.

 She turned back, we got the assignment, my eyes lit up at how I’ll be praised for my awesome assignment and *boom*. Accident. Right at Rumuomasi-linking Airforce, someone brushed my aunt’s car and sped off, acting like nothing happened. My aunt was bewildered, guilt welled up inside of me and before I knew it, we were on a high-speed chase.

 Aunt eventually caught up with him around Rumuola axis (her green Honda civic was always a beast), blocked him off and parked. Came out of the car, ignored the building traffic behind us, popped the trunk, grabbed a pair of shears and went H.A.M on his car. Weirdly enough, that’s where my memory ends.

The ripple effect of forgetting my assignment/not speaking up early.

Some months ago, I was reading a thread on twitter where a woman postulated that parents should endeavor to personally pick their kids more, instead of sending the driver or help. While I agreed with the intent, I scrolled past. Few days later, I saw a quoted tweet where a man was replying to the tweet saying he will cancel all his plans for the next day, just to make sure he picks his daughter up himself.

I couldn’t help but let my mind wander; during its vagabonding, I imagined a young man who, having secured the meeting, had leveraged all he had, prepared endlessly for the day, only for his chance to be shattered because someone read a thread on Twitter and deciding to put the theory to test.

The man later came to tweet (yes, I earnestly followed the thread) how his daughter was elated. I’m glad she was glad, but at what cost?

This is my problem with the ripple effect- the unknowns (I’ve always had a problem with unknowns, probability and uncertainties. For a basic carbon-based life-form, I have a lot of guts for someone who doesn’t even understand the universe he currently inhabits.) The thought that every action or inaction has an untold, unforeseen repercussion (The law of unintended consequences) is scary. It’s neither good nor bad, just there, unknown and we live our lives oblivious to it.

Everyone reading this has come across such moments; near-death experience, accident, injury, ‘na me fuck up’/ “had I known” moment etc. when if an action or inaction had taken a minute longer or been delayed a minute, when if someone had been quicker or slower, if the universe had aligned faster or mother nature had taken her time, something wouldn’t have happened or, wouldn’t have happened that way.

We have scars, marks, memories to back up those times, but that are for the ones we know. What about the ones we don’t? the ones we had no control over? Yesterday I witnessed a friend confess how in primary school she falsely-admitted to a boy ‘touching’ her because she was being beaten and force-fed ‘confession’. She admitted, so it’d all end and she got a beating for it. Who knows how it went for him?

The ripple-effect has far-reaching consequences, our favorite superheroes all have an origin story and most of the darkest of them are usually victims of actions or inactions they had no control over.

SPOILERRR!!!!! The story of Bruce Wayne (Batman) comes to mind. SPOILERRRRRR!!!!!!

One more (recent) memory and we share The Grace;

December 2018, I was supposed to have left school finally, with my MSc.

I finished the learning part of college in 2014, went on (compulsory, stressful and ultimately pointless) IT for 6 months, wrote my final exams and immediately after, went on Gulliver’s Travel-esque holiday. I visited different states, flew, swam, dove, dropped, climbed… I basically did it all. Fast-forward to 2015; went back to Kuala Lumpur, submitted passport for visa-renewal and was basically chopping life, touring uni’s, seeking for the one that suited my fancy and in close proximity to friends’.

Visa never got renewed. Never went to Uni. Never got that MSc.

Some Nigerians somewhere had used their student visa to engage in illicit activities, prompting the country’s hierarchy to decide to limit ‘certain’ peoples’ student visas. Unfortunately (for me), I was part of the select few.

They saw they had renewed my visa twice before, and started questioning what I needed a third visa for. My school put up a good fight, my dad went ballistic in Nigeria and wrote countlessly to the high commission, but alas, here I am, 5 years later, doing the writing equivalent of selling wigs.

This ought to be tagged as a cross between ‘Tomorrow’ and other fairy tales & The Ripple Effect.

Now, with this pandemic ravaging the earth, our actions and inactions are probably more nuanced. You could be the reason someone stays home, goes out, infects someone else, gets infected, dies.

Stay home, wash your hands, eat well, share this post and more importantly- think more before you act or do not. Even if there will be more far-reaching consequences than we can fathom.

Love and light.