Rules of Love

Photo Credit: Spencer Charles

You follow all the rules of LOVE hoping they work, hoping one sticks, makes a difference:

1. Love him/her;

2. Love him/her unconditionally;

3. Show him/her you love him/her that this here is real love not affection disguised as love;

4. Make him/her your King/Queen;

5. Be submissive to him/her;

6. Say Yes even when you mean to say No (this is the hard one for me);

7. Give him/her everything he/she asks when they ask without argument;

8. Make him/her the King/Queen to your King/Queen (repetitive I know but so is this advice when rendered);

9. Support him/her;

10. Support him/her always (at this point you're wondering isn't that what the King/Queen was trying to get at. OK);

11. Make him/her feel as if he is the King/Queen of your life...still working on that Royalty theme I see, (Stay with me);

12. Don't get angry when he/she offends you (really?);

13. Even if he/she does...still profess that he/she is the (what?) King/Queen; and

14. By all means, never ever nag.

You follow all these rules...you relentlessly follow all these rules...so much you even write them down so you can refer to them when confused by his/her action, you follow the rules, some more ridiculous than others...you follow the rules...yet, love...oh this love, still so evasive.

What rules do you follow? What rules do you know work?

We Owe What We Owe

When people say: I don't owe you anything. No one owes anyone anything. 

I beg to differ. We all do. We all owe the universe an obligation, a sacrifice, a selfless act. We owe humanity that promise, a simple promise to pay it forward - to do, be, to someone else. Someone paid it forward enough to afford you the opportunity to live this privileged life, to exist in this universe, so your duty, your very simple task is to keep that positive energy going by paying it forward.

Read something today. It said: We manifest the world we want to exist in. 

So what type of universe is a selfish person trying to manifest. One where it's all about them and they're not affected by the events or people that exist around them? Guess what, that same universe sends you exactly what you deserve, and if you've been selfish and lived it reluctantly, you'd surely get what's going to be coming to you. 

In order not to tamper with the fabric of our being, and our co-existence and reliance one to another, let's stop living selfishly but selflessly in order to pay back humanity for the freedoms that we now enjoy.

Flashback to Brooklyn Bohemia

July 26, 2010:

Sometime in 2010, I wrote the piece below. Fascinating to discover that almost 10 years later, I still feel the same and my mindset still strays towards the bohemian lifestyle.  This piece occurred to me because just the other day, a former classmate of mine lamented that he was slowly fading into his "comfort zone." I remarked that it was not good, scary even. He inquired as to why, and my response was simply thus: "The Comfort Zone represents a state of complacency, which slowly turns into mediocrity." But when we work the 9 - 5 jobs and slowly edge towards retirement, what else is there than to creep into the inevitable 'comfort zone."

Photo Courtesy of NY Times

I read, or rather browsed through this slide show in the NY Times Real Estate Section of a group of 20 something artists who live and share a house in Brooklyn. 

The Bohemian aspect of it intrigued me greatly. You know I am drawn to all things "hippie-esque", anti-authority and bohemian. I particularly like the liberty that it brings to be free from all the constraints that society expects from us. 

Society expects you to have a 9-5, a car, all this stuff that you just might need someday, own your own home, have a mortgage that you can barely afford, etc, it expects that normalcy from you and some people just don't fit into that normalcy, a small group of people don't and this group seems to be getting smaller and smaller by the minute. But yes, some of us do exist that would rather choose to live the bohemian lifestyle; where we bike everywhere, sleep around all day and work in the evening, and spend all day reading and discussing Nietzsche, have visible tattoos that have some existential meaning that only we are aware of, get to go to all the cool art shows and discuss it like it's the meaning of life, and generally just have fun with our lives, just being. I don't know. I may not be making much sense. I just thought it would be really cool to live like that. As I scrolled through those pictures for a split second I wanted to be one of them, chasing my dream, living simply, among friends and like-minded people. For a brief second, I wanted to be one of them. I still do. However, today I had to wake up early to get to my 9-5. And you wonder what's wrong with me. 

EDIT: 2017 - This article no longer exists on the NY Times Real Estate page. Tried to reach out to NY Times for an update or at least for the source pics, but they have not responded. Hmmm...too bad. 

Work and Other Things (Series 4)

Lately, folks seeing through my despair have inquired about my job situation. 

They start off by asking, "Any news?" As in, "Is the coast clear?"  Or they ask, "What happened?" That caused you to be out of a job so soon. 

All this just sounds like B.S. disguised as concern to me. 

When a friend is going through a career lull, these hardly seem like the appropriate questions. 

You should ask: How can I help? 

I've never understood Nigerians and their aversion to this job thing. They treat it like a plague, an affliction (stone man disease, of some sort) everyone runs from you the second you show signs of symptoms. 

Don't understand it. I somewhat do. They're afraid to ask how they can be of help, in case the help steers towards financial aid. However, even if you cannot aid financially, you can offer help through other means, even if it means just listening. 

And I particularly hate to tolerate it. Everyone tolerates these inactions. Nigerians have become accustomed to this selfish act. That's why once they find the jobs they stick to it like glue until retirement. Kiss ass until the roosters have completed college in some British school. Their employer tells them to lick the floor with their tongue they politely agree and just lap those floors up without nary a question as to how this fits into their job description or fair treatment of workers. But I'm not built that way...my employer disrespects me I call them out on it and if nothing is done about it then I leave, life is too transient to live and work in a dictatorship environment. Human rights should not exist in a vacuum. They should be practiced everywhere, especially in the work place. 

This last place was riddled with misogyny, you could detect it seeping from every sentence. Never felt more out of place in my life. I knew I couldn't continue to work there any longer. It just pains me that the longer I sit on the shelf it seems as if they got away with it, with treating women as if they were hired for their looks, to pursue someone else's financial agenda, and they get away with treating anyone who's not a Muslim, as if they are fodder for their Randolph and Mortimer (a la Trading Places) treatment. 

The whole thing makes my skin crawl whenever people suggest the possibility of me remaining in their employ and enduring that treatment as opposed to what is now seeming like an endless search. IT SHOULD NOT BE THAT WAY. Your job treats you badly, disrespects you, you reserve the right to leave for your self-respect, human dignity, sense of self. I just did not envision that society will ostracize me for making such a rash decision for my self respect and of course, that my God will leave me out to dry for society's bemusement. I suppose these are not options that are open to the Nigerian employee. In Nigeria, if your employer treats you badly, you grin and bear it and look for another job. In the event that you cannot in time, you just keep taking your employer's ish - that is the way of the Worker in the modern Nigerian society. My dear, that is a sad way to live, if I may so, along with so many other things that are sad in Nigeria. 

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace...Jimi Hendrix