WHEN THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD - by Oluseyi Vandy

Be warned, before you begin to read this because its not a feel good piece. On the contrary, it will most likely cause sadness at least or anger because these two emotions are what is needed to THINK and ACT. I can't really say how or when it started, but you can feel it, how docile, hopeless we are as a nation. This post was inspired after a Chude Jideonwo interview with Outside The Box I saw on social media. You can get a sense of how much the country has ruined dreams and lives, but it's discussed mostly on some faraway or abstract concept that due to now worsening conditions is becoming personal to many; people are hungry, people are suffering, but it goes so much deeper than that. How can it? When your focus is on survival, a lot of things are sacrificed on the altar of struggle. You do not have time to experience the little joys that should be normal in life: •The joy of curiosity: a hungry (wo)man doesn't care why things are the way they are. As far as it doesn't feed them now, it is useless and even an irritation. This is sad because curiosity means your mind is free to not just solve problems but actually make impact if channelled well. •The joy of truly getting to know people: I mean for who they are and why they are the way they are, their story, their minds. We tend to measure people only by their usefulness to our goals, ambitions.  Think about that, we weigh people within the first minutes of interaction, quickly looking for where to group or class them. Just polishing it up with jokes and some surface level conversations. Do you know how many children would have had a different parent if survival did not influence this one decision? How many people would've not been left alone during their lowest times, because they had REAL friends? To some who are lucky to find and be with the one they truly love, just the strain of thinking of how to provide saps the bulk of your creativity that you could have channelled to acts that could make your loved one smile the type of smile that they couldn't control, that type that activates when they think of you because of all you've done. This is why we live in an era of send your AZA as the greatest flex of affection. •Hobbies: This is more than just some frivolous word, this is a de-stresser. This is something that rewards your brain and helps it relax because it's something you're good at, or just enjoy. To those in the creative sphere, this is a tool to unlock more creativity and find the connections between concepts and thoughts, or nuances. Sadly, with hunger comes either abandoning this or turning it to a means of earning. You may go, but earning is not bad. That's the warped mindset talking. I loved hearing people with great voices sing and wondered how they are not chasing a career in the field, but reality is some people don't even care for that life, they just love to sing. Which is also okay.  •Surviving not living: We find that people can't even enjoy their paychecks and salaries without an "if I perish I perish" mindset because EVERYTHING is essential for your survival. The 30 days rant challenge were filled with many doing 3-4 hustles AND STILL JUST GETTING BY. It seems like to the average man, hard work doesn't pay any more. Wealth in any form is questioned. People, genuinely have lost hope that anyone can make it legitimately.  This list goes on and on, too many to count, why? Because few people have looked at the whole with something that has long gone passed SEE FINISH, I believe at this point it is like looking at slaves or animals, because how can you have a heart or conscience and with as much wealth you have been able to gather, you still decide and think to yourself, these people don't deserve basic human decency. People that should be aspiring for more, challenging themselves are reduced to begging for bread. Survival has made us numb, we have isolated ourselves because we have been made to think of ourselves first, which only gives the creators of this suffering more power because it can be used as a leverage to get us to turn on ourselves and give away more dignity for as low as a loaf of bread. Videos went round the Internet where people were told to vote with the promise of payment after, AND THEY STILL DID. Families, and destinies are changed because of the conscious waste of all our resources, yet we celebrate when they give us stipend of what is by right yours. Just imagine this, someone breaks into your house and tells you "from now on I own it. You will sleep on the floor, your children cannot eat the food you bought without my say so." Yet, they use your name to go out and collect money, telling those people that you have potential and can work and will double the money. This is in plain terms what has been going on for the longest. Now I do not write this for people to just get depressed or angry, because those actions alone does nothing. Neither is it for you to feel overwhelmed, this also can lead to inaction.  Sitting down to think, ask questions, observe, and focus are a few simple ways to begin to correct the madness that has consumed the nation. I will begin a series of posts on what I believe are the problems of the nation, but also solutions. Because in finding a problem, can we find the path to the cure. In all this do not forget, the Nation is You and I, because it is our actions and not the land that has brought us to where we currently are.

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