#13 Some animals cannot be domesticated

We domesticated livestock, dogs and in some ways cats. We decided which animals were too wild and drew a line. But we never stopped to wonder; what if perhaps, we are one such animal?

Some times, I get hit by how primitive Human beings truly are. It's rare enough for me to be taking aback, but often enough to be reinforced in my cynicism of Humankind

The key aspect of this glaring primitive behaviour, I find, is prejudice. 

I sat in a taxi on my way up the Hill at Berekuso. Almost at the top, the driver saw three students; two guys and a fair, attractive girl (Note her complexion) walking at the side of the road. One guy walked hand in hand with the girl. 

The driver's immediate comment, in Twi, and more to himself than to me was "You wont study anything, you are there playing lovebirds". 

My responses was immediate and loud enough for the group to turn and look into the taxi as we drove by.

"How the hell do you know they aren't studying just fine at the same time, and why the hell is it any of your business?"

He turned and smiled foolishly. He never had any logical reason for his comment, so he had no reasonable reply to my response. Because to have one would be to examine his prejudices and insecurities. 

I was seeing comments on Facebook about that radio personality who it now appears faked her getting kidnapped and raped; the video of the latter going viral as is to be expected of such videos. Many comments from men dismissed it as having been staged well before it was known, and many others rose to remind others of their humanity, only to be made fools of when the facts came out that it was indeed staged.

But how do we do that; Men? arbitrarily belittle a grave and harrowing an ordeal as rape; and what does that say of our own view of the other sex of our species? How do we so callously turn the victim into the criminal, and shrug off the male perpetrators as just being... what? A force of nature? Boys being boys? 

Remember what happened to MzBel on stage some years back and how even more of the conversation was centered on the length of her skirt than on her being sexually molested right there on stage.

This prejudice makes the Takoradi case particularly tragic, as it simply goes to reinforce a terrible prejudice female victims continue to face, and why many have no clue about how many women really get raped in our society. 

In the past, I'd look at all these things and express my disgust at how backward conservative Ghanaians can be, but it's not just Ghanaians, conservatives, men or Africans is it? 

We don't suspect minorities are more dangerous than they are or condone summary execution by police here in Ghana, do we? We do however lynch homosexuals. 

So I have to conclude, despite the thin veneer of a modern world, technology and our universal celebration of historic civil right victories, that the human being, and not society, is the problem.

We still remain a very primitive mind tagging violently against the leash of a lofty Social contract that holds doggedly to the ridiculous notion that we will adjust to ever improving laws and rights, instead of accepting the hard fact that, human beings have never really been and may never truly be civilized.

#12 honest folk, liars and bloody liars

I know, the expression has gone out of fashion, If it was even in fashion at all. 

Perhaps it's a deliberately simplistic expession cooked up exclusively in Spagetti Westerns.

However, dare I tempt fate to say, there are three kinds of people in the world, 

Honest folk, liars and bloody liars.

Don't get me wrong, it's not as black and white as it sounds. But you might find that this classification is quite accurate. 

Not everything a liar says is a lie any more than everything an honest person says is the truth, and the impact of either's lie is neither here nor there, since one doesn't always know the impact of their deception - and a lack of propensity to lie doesn't presuppose a person isn't a high functioning psychopath. The real difference isn't in how often they lie but WHY. 

Here is one of three scenarios I'll use to illustrate this.

Earlier this morning, I stopped by a hardware store to buy an adapter for the American pin my laptop charger uses. I specifically wanted that very portable adapter that takes only one 3-pin. The lady selling told me she didn't have it and proceeded to look around for an alternative. She then handed me one of those unnecessarily large adapters that take just a 2-pin and 3-pin (and the two never together). And this adapter was GHS8. Seeing that I needed a portable adapter, I was loathe to shell out that kind of money for something so ungainly. I made sure she understood what I was looking for. She gave the impression of looking around some more then handed me the turkey she had initially offered. I handed her a 10 and while waiting for her to make change, I angled around to put the ugly thing in my bag, and lo and behold, there hanging on the wall was exactly the adapter I was looking for, right at the entrance - And there were dozens of them. 

No way a small time trader will forget such a large stock. But see, the woman wasn't trying to be helpful. She was trying to make a profit. 

That is a bloody liar. 

Some weeks back, while walking through Madina, I decided to satisfy a craving for coconut juice from one of those guys selling them off the back of 'trucks'. As per my taste, I asked the guy for a sweet one, which doesn't means anything unless you clarify that you want one which isn't 'akp3 na tor' (Copra, basically. The hard, old ones sold as accompaniment to corn). I told him this of course. You have to, or the sellers unload their oldest coconuts on you.

The guy, as standard copra-test, knocked on the side of the nut in his hand before cutting it for me. 

Immediately after he did, I noticed the tell-tale vapor rising off the top. Copra! I gave him a knowing smile and drank what he handed me, paid him and calmly told him he was a bloody liar. He grinned foolishly and said nothing.

My business partner, who was with me at the time, asked what that was all about, to which I answered. He proposed that perhaps the guy simply made a mistake to which I said,

"I used to go farming with my dad, and part of that involved climbing and plucking coconuts from trees, and it took me, then a newbie, under a day to tell the difference between an old coconut (with the husk dried and with the juice competing for air within the shell) and a perfectly ripe coconut, still full of water and with a husk heavy with moisture. 

Anyone who cuts and sells coconuts all day for a living and claims not to know the difference is a liar.

But let's bring this home. You ever sit in a taxi, tell the driver exactly where you want to go, have him agree to a price, get there, and tell you "This one dieer, you should consider him"? 

Translation: having provided the service, he is ambushing you with a renegotiation -- upwards. 

This is a liar.

Or less subjective, ever sat in a taxi after telling the cabbie exactly where you want to go, have him agree, set a price, then halfway there, he tells you he has NO idea where you destination is located (precisely because he's come fresh from Kumasi and has no idea where anywhere in Accea is)

This is a bloody liar. 

How do I classify them? Telling the difference between a liar and a bloody liar is subjective. Telling the difference between an honest folk and any kind of liar though, like I said, is less about how many lies one tells but more why they lie, their propensity to do so, and hence how easily they will lie for even the most trivial of benefits. I think it has something to do with weak personality, lack of moral backbone, or to use an old-fashioned but fitting term, lack of moral fibre. Basically, a failire to convince oneself of the inherent advantage of the simplest of truths when a flat out lie will almost always suffice. They don't need to lie more. They just need to lie more readily. 

Why is this important, you ask? honest folk, liars, bloody liars? 

Because contrary to the misanthropist creed, we live, work and survive on the existence of others. Won't you like to look into the eyes of someone you fall asleep next to, trust with your secrets or count on professionally, and know right off the bat whether that person would try to sell you the air you're already breathing if they can get away with it? 

#11 crash landing like a boss

Today, I'm going to unload on you another controversial concept, but before I do, let's ponder for a few minutes, the concept of Gliders.

Yes, gliders.

The early to mid 20th century was filled with fascinating technologies in the field of war that begun with such promise but essentially went nowhere. One of these (that figuratively and literally went nowhere), was the glider.

Think of this concept; an engineless airplane towed in convoy into battle by a single engined plane like the carriages of a train and let loose, to be essentially crash-landed by its pilot. You may control the roll, pitch and yaw, but without an engine, that plane is on a one-way trip earth-ward. 

For people like me, the idea of glider-borne infantry conjures up images of commando raids, stealth missions, and daring dos. 

Today, you may imagine a glider sailing down as metaphor for a term that has become apt to describe everything from human exploitation of the planet to the economy of certain countries; 'Glide slope'; That shallow yet unstoppable dive, from the sky to the unforgiving ground. 

And here, I unleash my silly theory.

You recall that bubbly girl from college with the pretty face, ample bossom and perky... everythin else? Or that cute guy with the toned body, washboard Abs and timbre in his voice?

Then you caught up with them again after college, after a few years in corporate life. 

Should I be the first to admit the disappointment in how these exquisite creatures now seemed... well, less exquisite? 

Everything was still there. The bubbliness, the ampleness, the perky... everything else. But some how, they seemed to have peaked. The changes were subtle, but things were less perky, the washboard now seemed to have a rolled wet cloth folded over it and the ample was now better described as just 'big'. 

Basically, the spring had gotten a bit loose, less taut.

Why? Because I believe, the average age of a human being as dictated more by evolution, biology and peak form is actually about 24yrs of age. 

Sure, modern medicine and healthcare means we now live well past 70, but the human body can evolve only so quickly, and we still peak at about 24. After this time, we're on a glide slope towards our inevitable death. 

Put differently, until our mid twenties, our bodies and minds are still being formed. Then we become these perfectly crafted designs around mid twenties. Thereafter, those perfectly formed tissues so well wound, begin to unravel. Slowly at first, then increasingly fast. As described in my earlier post about 'brain damage', our minds start to move from their keen capability, sharp wit and abundant abstraction to a noisy, sputtering, smoking engine, grinding itself to its own eventually destruction (unless whatever fault line existing right at manufacture decides to kill us first) 

When you get closer to 30, you start looking at 21, 22 and 23yr olds and suddenly notice something you failed to appreciate when you were that age.

Let me not romanticize my recent youth. They aren't all attractive or even youthful, but by a large, the system is as freshly minted as it will ever be for that person. Then comes scratches, and the smell of 'new' is lost forever. 

Not to give validation to an 'okay' move, but like was said in 'Troy(2003)', 'We will never be as beautiful as we are now. We will never be here again' 

But before this appears like the rants of some early mid-life crisis, the point of this piece isn't to bemoan the loss of youth, but to celebrate life, even past that so-called well-oiled stage, especially since, sadly, culture, social-conditioning and tiresome patronizing by our academic system renders most of us at this most-productive age little more than mouths to feed , rather than the keen-minded, able-bodied übermensch we ought to be. 

As the 2nd half of the original title for '(Everyone is free to wear) Sunscreen' goes, 'Advice, like youth, often wasted on the youth'. 

The point of this piece therefore, is to acknowledge the phenomenon of an earlier peak than most may want to accept, and as per my initial illustration of the humble glider, to celebrate the 'glide slope' 

Yes, while your body and mind may have begun suffering from entropy, we should learn a thing or two from the skilled glider pilots, who managed to accomplish their mission and land their crafts precisely where it needed to go, when they entirely lacked an engine to do much more than guide their vehicle successfully in its inevitable crash landing. They didn't give up immediately they got into their cockpit because they were on a one-way trip, or get nostalgic about those moments when they were in tow, and could feel the engine of their escort aircraft. They accepted the inevitability of their destination, and flew in like bosses; or as bosslike as they could muster and some, such as those who landed on Pegasus bridge on the morning of June 6th 1944, got to carve their names and exploits into the annals of history.

After all, isn't that the point of life, even after our prime? Turning our inevitable mortality into a legacy for the ages, while deftly guiding these mortal vessels towards a smooth, gentle and inevitable landing. 

#10 WARNING: Natural gas deposits. Stay focused.

In your travels across this moonscape we call Life, you may wander into seemingly benign gas pockets that litter the landscape. These pockets are called 'Nostalgia', and they are in fact, a miasma. 

While you linger there, you will find yourself hallucinating about a past that never quite existed, abondoning a present staring you between the eyes and eventually forgetting entirly a future you owe yourself.

Eventually, you will get lathargic, lie down and go into a coma;  with what's left of your consciousness; a shrinking kernel in a dying husk, dreaming forever about 'the good old days'.

#9 Thank you most kindly

Tip from Hypothermia. When you're cold, do your darnedest to get warm. Don't create snow angels. 

I'm in Ghana. Which means I have to deal with the all-transcending crap from the moment I wake up, basting in my own sweat, deciding if to wait for the power to come back so I might work from home or travel to some friend's office to perch, knocking on wood that the taps will flow so I can have a half-decent bath, and don't get krokro from what does flow out at me; Then sitting in impact position while my bus driver (Having probably bought his license) hurtles like a comet across the next major intersection without working traffic lights, or crawls at a meter a minute through the round-about where for some mysterious reason, a squad of Police officers have decided to set up camp. 

Put differently, I live the wahala, breath the wahala, hear the wahala every waking moment. So pardon my pickiness in not wanting to have to read about it every day on some Social media rant also.

I find the trick to dealing with the uncertainty of this glide slope we're on; if you've not figured out some master plan to fix it, is really to whine LESS about it and get on with the business of surviving it, and perhaps surmounting it. Do that, and you might even find the calm in your mind to crack the code on how to fix it when you least expect it. I'm still stuck at tying certain Public figures to barrels blindfolded and when they expect the BANG BANG, bayoneting them instead, but I'm sure you may think of something more constructive if you let your mind wander.

By all means, get in on the discussion (I do). Find some creative outlet to express it. Frustration is often a better creative motivator than calm. Just quit whining in every post about it. It's tiresome to keep seeing that, even passively. 

No, you're not keeping it 'real'. Quite the opposite in fact. 

No, an open letter to Mahama on Facebook won't get read by the BNI and taking under advisement. 

If you haven't decided whether our dear President is a genius or moron by this time, you probably never will. So now won't be the best time to begin forming a thought in our presence. 

Yes, the shock of another surprise ECG cut ceased to be a shock (or a surprise) the 10th time around. So we really don't need to know how flummoxed you are about this one.

If you're not at step 9 of 10 in your coup de tat, please write your daily to-do list, find a calming playlist and hum it while putting one foot in front of the other. It's what most people do. 

I find the Patriots, if there is such a thing, aren't those ranting on Social media, pulling Facts, posts and Quotes out of the ass, trying to make situations, but those with the glazed 200 meter stare and stiff upper lip, who are acutely aware of how let down they have been by those supposed to govern them, but rather than assume the faetal position and bawl about it, wake up each day and calmly get on with the business of moving forward. 

#8 Brain damage

'Ever seen Mad Men? I love that series, and I never could place a finger on why until recently.

Something to do with struggling with the expectations of Society, specifically in gender roles, maturity and 'appropriate behavior'. 

The Main character embodies the ideal male as was expected in 1950s and early '60s America, with his career in advertising acting as a loudspeaker for these subtle themes - the idea of 'ideal male' is being brought back in the 2000s, as per Society's tendency to romanticize everything in about 30yr gaps. From fashion, to music to Societal norms. 

I was specifically fascinated with Mad Men because I believed I could never stay in character, being the mature alfa male that is smooth and just knows how to act in various situations.

Probably the same reason I find classic actor, Cary Grant so interesting. 

But this leads me to examine what exactly constitutes being mature. At what age do we stop being silly guys and girls and transition into Men and women? And what defines that? Is there a list? Or just a societal feeling about who is and who isn't mature? 

One notable aspect I accept tends to be a confidence and seeming lack of self awareness my 30yr old self has compared to early 20 year old Yaw, who would have been ever conscious of (or imagined) the entire world staring at him every waking moment. I remember getting up in church or in some packed auditorium and making my way down the isles, past what felt like a million eyes boring holes into the side of my face, right outside my peripheral vision? Well, that was mostly all in my mind, but could I honestly convince myself of this? Did it make me any less conscious of every crease in my clothes, twitch in my face or bead of sweat on my brow? Nope. I was still a relatively new mass of nerve endings and every inch of me was alight with feedback, real or imagined. 

I used to wonder about that? Why I suddently stopped being this self conscious puddle of insecurities and realized (more than decided) by some point that I couldn't give two shits about what people thought about my mannerisms, my interests or much else. 

Don't get me wrong. I still care - a lot. But it feels like a large chunk of my brain went numb at some point, and I simply decided to operate with less focus on the constant reference to societal expectations. Something I'm guessing many people start doing from their late teens, right after their hormones start leveling off. 

Again, late bloomer here. 

More interesting to me however, is the many things I wasn't expecting. Why I became more of a creature of habit than was the case in the past, for instance. I used to struggle with daily routine. Just the fact that Tuesday looked anything like Monday was depressing. Now, I find comfort in it. 

I've notice my mates have  swung from being either undeclared in Faith, having a 'personal relationship' with their maker (Which usually means 'None of anyone elses goddamn business') or being Charismatic Christians to becoming either clear agnostics, Non-denominational Christians or atheists in less than a decade, and chances they will remain what they are for a good while, if not for life. What's interesting about this is how unpredictable some of these swings are. Like the number of them who were once so mischievous in primary or high school hits 26, 27 and are now thanking God for everything on Facebook, Twitter and in person. Simple Choice and Free will? Hypocrisy? Or a simplification of their otherwise unpredictable path.

I'm inclined to think the latter. 

I was told once that it had to do with realizing that such things don't matter, and experience teaching us to focus on what's important.

I'm not sure about all that; 'Experience'. Sounds like self-importance and ageism frankly. And it doesn't properly explain why older people tend to be more stuck in their ways and have difficulty changing their habits.

So here's my theory. 

It's one that came to me because I like to draw parallels between human beings and computers.

Imagine the processor was a brain, and certain advanced computer processors (Core i7 for instance) have a failsafe where, when a few transistors on them are burned or damaged, they switch into a more efficient mode that allows them to operate with fewer parts working. They focus on key processes. They slow down. They adapt to become more efficient as a means of surviving what is in actuality a handicap. 

Perhaps the same is true for human beings. What we consider 'experience' and 'maturity' is in actuality, our biological processor merely becoming more efficient as we wear out our mental faculties. 

It's not that we consciously WANT to be mature, or care less about things, but we simply get numb, more focused, more likely to consider when, how and if we need to expend brain energy before doing so.

Which is why at 30, I am less likely to come up with brand new theories about everything and stick to theories I already developed or that already exist. It's not because I have become wiser and so I've begun going with what works, but because my mind simply can't churn out abstact concepts at my say so. 

Our brain is already begining to forget the pigment of one in about a million hairs being sprouted on our heads. Is it unreasonable to assume that a complex self-preserving system with 200 million years of evolved history simply adapts to what in essence is gradual brain damge? And that, perhaps we tried to explain this phenomenon, conveniently, in favor of the 'wise old men' making sense of everything.

#7 How about NOT being so polite this morning.

I was going to write about the subtle difference between self-consciousness as a teen or early Twenty something year old and the lack of this as a 30 something year old. But I'll leave that for a later day. 

Then I was going to write about learning to keep my emotions in check while appearing as though I'm not keeping my emotions in check,  But I'm not sure there's enough to make a decent lengh post for that. 

Instead I'd simply illustrate a result of both with a situation that occured earlier today.

And while I'm doing that, I'd find a not-so depressing way of sneaking ECG (the so-called, Electricity company of Ghana) into at least one post of mine. Or people might think I don't live in Ghana. 

The silver lining in having an ECG that screws up as bad as it does, is the fact that we now have a point of reference when you need to explain to a service provider with 'technical diffficulties' the difference between an 'Act of God' and an 'Unpardonable fug-up' 

Take today for instance.

I get into the bank to cash a cheque. Now, saying I DETEST banks in Ghana would as much an understatement as saying the Rwandan genocide was 'a bit of bad business' 

So we get in there, and my partner on the project had to be at some version of an STC station by 10 (This station closes at 12 or something). The cheque needed a screenshot of my invoice (Auditing), and I needed to give them a name to call at their Labone branch  in case things went south with that. So much for the internet and the so-called centralized banking shtick. 

That got done, and I was told to take a seat -- which I did... for an HOUR. Within this time, I joined the line several times to find out what the hold up was. 

Now, in my personal opinion, unless you're processing payroll for a small country or doing bank clearing after a particular busy day, I can't see why any banking process (void of human diddling) should take close to that long. 

The standard answer I kept getting was, "Please be patient. It's in the system", what ever the fug that means.

Finally, I decided to try a well-tested system I have but rarely use; Making a scene. 

The thing is, Ghanaians, being Ghanaians (i.e. pusillanimous in nature, by balance of probability) don't like scenes. Especially the oh-so-cultured Ghanaian staff of banking halls. 

So much so, they may be tempted to sort you out real quick if you ever did such a thing.

My partner was antsy. He might miss his next appointment. There were serious cost implications. And the cause of his problems was sitting on her chubby behind laughing at some joke her fellow teller was making. 

That can't be right. 

I could go with the standard process of explaining the problem REALLY loud, but this is a subtle art. A wrong turn could have the security usher you out. And I'm kinda rusty at the subtlety thing. 

So I went straight for the jugular. 

It begun with, "You know you're starting to operate like ECG, right?".

I said this at the rather boorish distance of 15m, ensuring the teller could hear me; as could every customer between where I stood and where she sat. And since I'm no expert with throwing my voice, so could her boss a few feet behind her. 

He cut a dashing figure in his tailor-made gray suit. I hadn't taken a bath yet (Don't judge), and my shirt had creases and a grease stain from the last time I wore it (Ok, that you can judge, but don't milk it)

Seated, I estimated his height at about 6 ft, and he was quite solidly built. With that, and the good 7inches he had over me, things could go differently, if he chose to use it. But would he? This was after all, the variable in my strategy. 

He did a spasmodic half-turn and back again as he heard my comment, deciding (in typical pusillanimous fashion) to act like he hadn't heard, in case things went really raw. Instead, he focused intently on his screen, as though he were keeping his computer from flying off his desk through telekinesis. 

It took me about a second to decide that there would be no cavalry coming. So emboldened, I took a step forward, drawing for the prey a vivid comparison between my waiting for an indefinite amount of time for service with waiting for ECG after 12 (Or is that 24 hours?) in darkness. 

Ah, she got that, immediately. Of course she did! More importantly, so did everyone else is ear shot, which was pretty much everyone in the banking hall. 

Suffice to say my cheque was cashed in 30 seconds flat (Well, one hour and 30seconds, and who is counting?).  The money handed over with envelope, my ID and a courtesy glare of unspeakable death, that I hear is supposed to causes cancer or something. 

My partner will make the 12 middy deadline, and I have a new, albeit crude tool added to my repertoire. 

Now I'm not a picky person, but it begs the question; Is this REALLY what needs to be done to get decent service in Accra?

#6 Fake it until you make it.

When I was young, I was made to come to terms with the difference between whatever wealth my parents had (or didn't have) and that which I had myself (Which until college, was exactly zero cedis). In deed, my lifestyle somewhat bellied what my parents could have given me if they had been trying to keep up with Joneses, as many were doing. 

Among the many benefits of this education was my acute appreciation for the difference between being rich, and being well-to-do.

But let me get some concerns out of the way. A; Rich is an easier classification and well-to-do is a mouthful (I should know. It's a pain just to keep typing) and B; what defines 'well-to-do'?

The answer? Nothing. Which is precisely why I prefer this term.
Forbes has a clear definition for Rich. 'Well-to-do' however is vague, as it should be. Because honestly, how many self-respecting folks can actually classify themselves as anything if they aren't clearly rich or poor without being subjective?

For years, I kept hearing mates of mine talking about how 'rich' their parents were... Or rather how 'rich' they; the children, were (By sheer proximity, I'd imagine).

Interestingly, I run into these mates years later, and I'm still yet to find one that ended up living as rich as they apparently were as kids... Hard times, I suppose?

Oddly enough, an aspect that I never connected until fairly recently was this...

You may get the guy with the expensive car looking sharp when he's out and about. But balance of probability would have him find his way to his ma and pa's garage at the end of each day; as opposed to the mansion that his lifestyle implies ought to exist some place.

For the rest, it's a good ol' Home used sedan (if that), a rented flat, chosen more for utility than preference, and a job he needs to keep attending if he expects to remain in the black at the end of each month.

It's sort of the opportunity cost of investing in products versus investing in marketing. It's really not as cut and dry as hippies would have you think, when or whether you'd be better off putting your money in look or putting your money in substance.

But because of this illusion, it took me a while to distinguish the difference between 'Swag' and 'actual worth' of people -- Like a good while. So long in fact that I was under the impression most people my age were doing 'so well for themselves' that I was a complete failure by comparison.

To be fair, I've recently come to understand that in the business world, it's better  to be descrete about any sense of your personal worth, as this may go a long way to affect how much clients and consumers are willing to pay for your products or services. A good friend aptly put it this way, "Fake it until you make it". 
And boy, aren't we all some fake mother****ers? 

Late a realization as it may have been for me, appreciating the (often massive) chasm between everyone elses' swag and their actual worth offered for me, an interesting alternative to convincing myself that I was immune to Society's simplistic notions of success. 

Specifically because the former contains considerably less bullshit than the latter. 

#5 A visit from my former selves.

I hear a clanging sound coming from the kitchen, and I wake up with a start. There is someone in the house!

Before I reached the mosquito door of my bedroom, I run through my mind. Did I lock the Pasico with the key. Did I lock the hall door? OMG! Someone broke in?

I freeze just as I reach the living room. The lights are on. And across the room, are 6 people. 

A 15 year old kid. He is in love; or so he thinks. He is scribbling in a black 1999 diary, pictures and words, romanticizing the world he wishes to be, at the expense of the reality trudging on around him. 

To his side is an 18 or 19yr old, no taller than the 15yr older, but more solidly built. He is sitting legs akimbo with a Drawing board on his upturned lap, and he is drawing with pen in a Teacher's notebook. His forehead furrowed from deep concentration. His world is in Fiction, stories of superheroes and heroines, coming of age stories and video games he just knows he will some day create. 

Then a voice cuts through the silence, and a guy; a sophomore in his early 20s walks into view, talking a mile a minute. His accent is clipped, his pacing deliberate. He pauses for effect, sits on the couch head-rest next to the kid, still talking. But of course he does. His opinions are confident, arrogant even -- full of analogy and theories -- Too many theories.

Then the door on the other side opens, leading from the kitchen. I flinch as the light shines through the mosquito door. And in the doorway stands a guy in his mid 20s with a low crop. He is in National service or his first job. In his hand is a saucepan with food in it; Rice and gravy. 

I breathe in but cannot smell anything past the tomatoes. I stifle a cough as the pungent burnt smell whisks through the door. 

Dammit! That was my favorite pan! 

He pulls off his tie and unbuttons his dress shirt at the neck, kicks off his shoes and sets the pan down on the glass center table. He says nothing, but walks up to the other end of the couch and collapses into it, pops a pair of earphones in his ear, closes his eyes and fades away into his music -- Evanescence on loop. 

A low voice comes from the couch out of my view. He speaks slowly -- too slowly, and almost inaudibly. He sits up and I can see him from the back. His hair is in twists and his T-shirt seems to have been worn for 2 days straight. He is wearing only boxer shorts below that. His tone is subdued, betraying his sense of defeat. This is a depressed and broken man.

He finishes his speech, indifferent to whether or not anyone was listening. 

Then a voice comes from close to the computer. I arch my neck to see the 6th and final person. This one is a maybe a few years younger than myself. He wears an olive green dress shirt, rolled up at the sleeves and a pair of black jeans. His hair style is similar to the fast-talking early twenty-something year old, except more unkempt. He talks fast, but not as manic as the others. He paces as he talks confidently; fewer theories, no quotes. These are his own words; his experience. He shows them sometng on his Nexis tablet, and jabs a finger at the screen as he speaks. He flails his arms and skips a bit as he speaks, without actually leaving the ground. But there's lack in his words... I pause trying to see what is staring me squarely in the face that I am missing. 

Then I smile to myself. Now I get it. They are me. All of them. At various troughs and waves of my my past life. 

I feel for my phone in the dark bedroom and blink at the little white digits. 6:15am. I suppress a yawn, and walk past them. They stop talking and watch me. I wave to them without turning and head to the kitchen to make coffee. 

There is a lot these chaps have to learn about their precious opinions, but I am in no position to teach them. I'm still busy figuring out me. And I'm not entirely sure how their stories fit into mine just yet. 

I cross the living room once again, holding my mug in both hands, sipping. Somehow, I know that once I am done drinking, I will return to an empty room, and another new day of plans, schedules and deadlines. 

#4 But before all of that, wiggle your big toe

I recall bringing my Course-list to my dad when I was 15 in JSS 3 and having him nod after barely looking at it, hand it back to me and say,
"Ok Yaw. Tick what courses you want to do in secondary school and then I will sign"

I was flabbergasted; which is incidentally the only word I can use to accurately describe what emotion I felt at the time. Was I really being asked to make a real decision that would affect my life?

It felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I had been standing there, minding my own business and someone had come up behind and shoves me really hard. That jolt that snaps your head back from the inertia as you're thrown forward, and out of that all-so comfortable position of entropy.

Now I joke about this often, and it's true, I feel I was 22 until one fine day, I woke up and discovered, to my horror that I was in fact, almost 30.

It may have been the day I decided, after months of not exercising, to go for a 20 minute jog, and found out at literally the 20m mark, to my chagrin, that I could feel my heartbeat through my face, and I had the sneaking suspicion that if I were to run another meter, wheezing for air as I did, my heart would give one pained cry of indignation, keel over and die. Whatever happened to the rest of me after that was none of its business. 

It may have been the weeks following my 28th birthday, when I met my 2yr old nephew for the 1st time and realized with disturbing clarity, there was this entire generation of human people younger than myself; living breathing and making word-like sounds.

I like to ask people this trite question on their birthdays, "How do you feel?", for which most invariably, the answer is something like "The same as I did yesterday?"  

Well, I felt 'the same as I did yesterday' for 8 years, until I didn't.

It's like we're growing not in days, months or even years, but in leaps and bounds, interspersed between long periods where absolutely nothing happens. I coined a word for that; Homodysis. the human-equivalent of Ecydsis, the molting and growth spurts and final slow-down cycles cockroaches experience. And why I still remember that nugget from secondary school Biology, I will never know.

You are 22 because your thoughts and memories of events and people remained focused on the topic of College friends, fond memories and misadventures in secondary school (Which always feels like it was 'just yesterday'). Then, at some point, you snap to the present and the years have gone by. Everything between then and now, a blur.
What is interesting about finally getting your head sufficiently out of your own ass to realize where you are and what time it is, is dealing with the inertia of being asked to do 'grown up stuff'... whatever that means. 

It's all well and good scoring highly on a paper or holding a class enthralled by your unique insight into Plato's philosophy of Human society, or your opinion why the best form of government in African countries isn't Democracy, but when you are being paid to deliver on REAL things, no serious company cares about your highfalutin theory. They want to see results and they expect you to roll up your sleeves and manage the process to completion. And you might experience that jolt, as you're once again shoved out of yet another aspect of  comfortably passiveness. And again, and again, each time you face a new 'life challenge'.

Now that I am trying to go into business for myself, reminded every now and again by the fact that I am riding this bicycle without those training wheels I so wish were there, but I am acutely aware I couldn't possibly still have on, a small part of my consciousness is spectating from a few feet behind me, musing, 'Wow! Yaw are we seriously doing this?'

I'm guessing that part of me is some remnant of my 22 yr old self, the guy still living somewhere between 2002 and 2009. The one before the wind got knocked out by life giving him a sudden push when he least expected it. His continued existence is the thing that makes me all too aware every day I wake up and face this life, that there is no such thing as standing still, dear boy. You are either moving or your limbs are atrophying, and dying.

#3 When a whole lot of Zeroes start to make sense

It seems sort of like a no-brainer, but when I first started working, some 7 years ago, I could not get my head around figures larger than GHS 1000. 

Oh, I knew how many Tens were in it, and I knew what multiple or factor of several numbers it was, 

but I couldn't comprehend its worth. 

Maybe this is easy for everyone else, but unless I can relate a value to some object you can get for it, it's really just a string of numbers followed by zeroes. 

Now, I struggled with the new Ghana cedi like most did after 2007, but no, that wasn't the cause of my cluelessness. 

Take 4,000 cedis and 40, 000 cedis for instance. After I finished secondary school in 2002, by the the old denomination, not adjusted for inflation, that would have been 40 million and 400 million cedis respectively. 

In my mind, That was 'a lot of money' and 'even more money', but what did 'a lot of money' buy you? 

I had no concept of the cost of land, cost of a car, a house or regular salary. The largest cost I knew of, was that of my College fees and that was an arbitrary number. 'A lot of money' basically. 

My personal costs were not even in the 100s of ghana cedis. A box of indomie, a dress shirt, a tube of DVDs or a plate of check-check. Multiples of ones and meer tens of cedis. 

It took me starting to think more and more about the cost of a start-up house, salary for a year, cost of a used car etc, before these strange numbers begun to stop rolling around in meaningless strings of commas, zeroes in my mind, and slightly larger numbers became more real -- At least as real as was the case for a National service person with zero previous work experience, earning GHS 250 a month. 

But then, how was I supposed to feel about the magnitude of such figures?

Like, what is the difference between GHS 4,000 and 40,000? 

I mean, '4,000 ghana'. That's big, right? 

CEOs and managers would talk about a company of interest making profits well over GHS 200,000 and I'd only gotten used to quickly calculating that that was 4 billion old Ghana cedis. Billion? These were simply fantastic figures to me.

I mean, 'Who MAKES 4 billion?', I thought. What does 4 billion even look like? 

How long could you live off that? Could you buy both the house and car, or only the car? 

To me, anything over 1,000 was so out of what I could save up to in a couple of months, it simply faded back into 'commas, number and several zeroes'

But this is what happens as you get older and start thinking more and more about not just those needs, but what to do to get those needs met. How fast can you make GHS 5,000? How fast could you double that? And how much did you need to increase your revenue to save 50,000?

These weren't thoughts I had previously considered. And frankly, it felt like I had been thrown out of my comfortable life of academic workout and ephemeral social adventures straight into one where my mind was constantly crunching numbers about everything -- Especially since failing to do so could mean the difference between a salary that survived till the next salary day and one that depleted on 23rd of the month. 

Yes, that's another thing that happens when you fly the coop; or even if you don't, when you start being the breadwinner or as much of a contributor to house bills as your everyone else. Everything past breathing the free air COSTS money. 

Your salary 'drops', the counter is reset for a split second to that value, then it begins counting down to 0 again - and nothing can stop it. You can slow it down, or speed it up, but from the moment you're paid, you're spending. 

Now, I catch myself syncing my data bundle with my bank account balance, to inform me on how fast each will diminish based on my current rate of expenditure and data use, without even refering to my budget in MS excel. 

And yes, I found myself voluntarily using that too. Who would have figured I'd whip out my laptop just to fire up that most-annoying of applications. A thin that once upon a time was only of interest to me when I wanted to print names by rows and columns, or accidentally clicked it instead of MS Word. 

Because when you're paying rent, working to keep having food to eat, thinking of what's reasonable to bill a client, accounting for cost of your transportation, upkeep etc, GHS 4,000 and GHS 40,000 are no longer just  'a large amount of money' and 'an even larger amount of money'. They aren't even numbers any more or meer nouns. They transform into adjectives; describing words with a value that is all too real to you.

#2 Why the act of beating kids should have seen its last sunset

Now, I'm African, so this piece may seem... Well, way too Hipster.

But I'm sprawled on my couch trying to double dutch a John Greeen novel and a Chimamande.

It's one of those days where I can't pick what type of melancholy I'd rather swim in tonight. 

My playlist is of the classic kind -- Violin mostly. And boy, how I miss having a glass of wine to perfect the mood, especially tonight, when all I want to do is zone out. 

I share a wall with a very religious family; a very thin wall in fact. I call them The Portnoys, from that fat character Jack Black plays in Tropic Thunder -- becauase they are all rather rotund. You can hear them singing hymns early in the morning - and in early I'm talking, four, five AM early. Or sometimes it's speaking in gutteral tongues. Today however, I'm listening to a very different chatter; the very uncomfortable altercation between... I think its the dad and what sounds like a girl with an Alto or guy with a Tenor -- I'm not sure which. He, or she sounds about 12, maybe a bit younger. 

The discussion, from what I am privvy to, when they speak loudly enough, has to do with a percieved disrespect by the child and from the dad's raised voice, and a few yelps I heard not too long ago, he's deciding a fitting punishment, while biding his time with 'physical lessons'. 

At first, I thought it was some kind of domestic violence, and I was ready to get over there and stop them before I gleaned some context from snatches of conversation carried through the hollow dividing wall. 

I have no choice in the matter. These apartments were made on a miserly budget. 

Now the last time the notion of lifting a hand to a child came up, I decided it was really dependent on the culture. I'm not entirely sure 'time out' or 'being grounded' works, but I'm not convinced resulting to slaps sends the right message all the time either.

Coming from a family where I was physically disciplined as a child, I'm very much of two minds on the subject. On one hand, there is no denying my character was enhanced by the discipline I gained, on the other, I'm not entirely sure the slaps were it. 

Now listenining in, it is clear from the child's screaming, 'I am sorry' in an equal measure of defiance and regret (Or at least, dread), that the lesson won't be receieved this day. Now, I don't know how trucculent this particular person is, but I've known some mates of mine who had a mind of their own, and who got the Lion's share of the caning for it. And talking to them years later, it is clear it didn't take. 

On the flip side, there were meek children who simply found themselves on the wrong side of the teacher and got a caning here and there. I should know. I was one. And if anything, it made me more scared of the cane than bringing to mind the error of ways.

Now listening in again, it is quite clear that the punishment being issued by the 'dad' is as much borne out of a need to put the child in his place as it is to regain some ego after the child's disrespect. 

Education and character building are only implied. 

Put simply, I'm not sure it comes from the right mindset, and so I can't imagine it sending the right signal to the recepient of this 'education'. 

It's not as simple as saying, 'don't beat kids'

Like with any form of leadership, you shouldn't reveal all of your hand. 

If like Batman, everyone knows you won't kill, then the offenders will be running circles around you, won't they?

But I doubt it is keeping a child in fear that some day you just might beat them, either. If all I've written means anything, it's that, although historically true for our species, amongst ourselvels, fear of punishment may not be the best way to get a lesson across. 

Frankly, if there are reasons I have no intention whatsoever of bringing human life into this world, It is from this very dillema. 

Everyone acts like they know exactly what they are going to do as parents. 

'As for me, I'm going to beat my kids', they say with the conviction of a data-anylist.

Almost no one has a clue. There is no scientific book that exists that is based on anything more than a school of thought. And I'm not sure I can play cha cha with another human's life when 

The very reason for willing them into existence in the first place is entirely about self-gratification, 

Especially because the jury's out on which set of parents are able to accurately read their child's temperaments and personality -- and which completely suck at it. The implications of which may determine that child's entire life.

At least we ought to start pruning the edges of this thing called 'parenting'.

If not for their sake, for the future of the human race. 

#1 - Love and its countless alternatives

You know what I figured out, and it's not exactly a novel concept so bear with me, but it may be more true than you may think,

Most people are looking first for someone 'going somewhere' than they are for someone who is funny, interesting and 'treats them right'.
Funny and interesting help, sure. But that's cellotape. What keeps the interest is a tad more lucrative than 'personality'

This is true more for girls than guys.. Its just cultural conditioning and not hard-wiring. We are all trying to survive the gender-biased system we were born into.

Ryan Gosling, in Blue Valentine said that he found men more romantic than women. He had his reasons. In this case, it may appear true too.
For the most part, a man's first impressions regarding a woman is about her appearance and personality.
So then, being more 'romantic' doesn't imply depth, since looks and the 1st instance of personality are nothing more than an imprint of our own ideals on an existing human being and not entirely our innate sapiosexuality.
'Is she the one?' is more about what she has than who she is.

Women, I'm gathering, not as attracted to the superficial, tend to be colder, less emotional in their assessment - Yes, really.
When I look at my own romantic failures in the distant and recent past, I see this clearly.

Some people are actually less subtle about it. Take one recent instance of mine for example.
Even before showing any interest in her that could be construed as exclusively romantic, I could tell she was already judging me by if I appeared to be a success-in-the-making or just a 30 yr old former youth trying to figure it out like everyone else (And trying to figuratively 'get into her pants'). And by this blinders-on assessment, she didn't even bother picking calls or replying messages; focused more on climbing the social ladder by association. Because honestly, who has time for you if you're not obviously going to be the next Bill Gates or at least, appear to be.

And I suppose it's as much my lack of personal branding as it is social conditioning and a harsh reality of human priorities. 

In the end, it may be her folly, because who knows the future for sure.
But it may simply be just good risk-assessment. As I said, who knows the future, after all?

It seems tragic of course that people aren't more interested in your depth as a personality as you think they ought to be.
Or rather, it takes mucho skill in trying to make that the key focus. Sort of like a magician keeping an engaged audience by stage craft.

Risk-assessment and the who's-who of it all, it seems, is much more natural to human choice than the 'dancing game'.  
And you may even think, bitterly I might add, that women deserve to be treated as trophies by the successful men they get who have no clue about human decency; that the woman deserves her bad choice, but this assessment is neither here nor there, because as I did mention, you are bitter, and not being objective about what is essentially a hard fact of human limitation across board.

To put it differently, the movies doth lie to you, dear Romeo.
Juliet is not sleeping, nor will she take her life for you - Like, EVER! She is else where; balancing opportunity cost and life-insurance.

Still, it's a good yardstick to use to measure yourself rather than measuring 'types of women' by.
In this regard, there are no 'types of women' -- or men. There are just people.

Love doesn't conquer all -- At least not in the beginning.