Dying
is easy; it’s staying alive that brings gooseflesh to attention all over your
body—staying alive high on verve and on the other hand, geared up to die for what you
believe. The codes that enhance a man are those for which he is willing to stand
and/or take a tumble. Such a man’s quest might strip him of his very essence yet
his death only serves to boost his endeavor.
Of
all created things, man alone is accorded devolved responsibility—or so we like
to think—and what this means is that man can
decide how he cashes in his chips and
for what he does it.
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How: whether
he goes out as the K-I-N-G of his destiny or as slave of a nobler class.
What: whether
he buys the farm for a belief even rut and decay can’t hold a candle to or for
some porous popular convention that can’t hold water.
In
her essay, ‘Graduation’ clipped from
her autobiography, ‘I Know Why the Caged
Bird Sings’ there is a paragraph where Maya Angelou mentions “the woodshop boys making sets and stage scenery.” These sets and scenery were constructed as preparation
for the upcoming graduation of the senior students and Maya happened to be one
of the graduates. The boys Maya talks
about in that passage are actual schoolboys nevertheless, I want to assign them
figurative roles in my write up. Think of these woodshop boys as the natives of your subconscious who have their
backs to the grind as they sweat their butt to make ready for your grand entrée.
The boys who have their job function explicitly
stated, as night sheds its skin and becomes day, make sets and stage scenery.
What this boils down to, in point of fact, is only Time
can issue you a certificate. It is Time
who would expose “who did well, who
excelled, and what piteous ones had failed.” The secret lies in never living
for something you do not believe in; it is tricky to go meet your maker on
account of something you wouldn’t live for. And a man can only muster courage
with skill and swim an ocean if he believes that on the other side, on strange
shores, his destiny—which suggests a million and one arresting metaphors to a million and one minds—waits
for him, patiently.
Sure
as shooting, dying is easy, you will get no argument from me there. Holding out
a life fired up in the face of aggression now, that’s damn near impossible. Get
the woodshop boys switched on regarding your itinerary; keep ‘em clued-up
and then you can attend your business (in Maya’s words) “like travelers with exotic destinations on their minds.”
Keep
your pen bleeding.
Akpan
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