A HEART FULL OF WORRIES
It was the 18th day of July of a year that has come with so much epiphany, so much reality and so much recklessness. The time is barely 6am, and I am on my twitter run as I noticed that the wee hours of the morning are the calmest on the noisy street of twitter. I jumped on a thread with 50+ questions and as I swiped through the questions, the 22nd question pricked me more than normal. It was a strange feeling but in my usual lazy self, I moved past it but like a sinful Saul, I knew there was something about the question that I could not connect to; something infinitely disturbing, so I went back to it. The question was simple, monotonous but there was a difficulty to giving answer to it. I did not know if I would be truthful or to once again, bear my masculinity and move on — something I had been doing lately especially when I didn’t want to stretch my mental capabilities beyond my mind’s perception. Life’s questions come off in simple terms but the answers to them are often from a philosophical perspective which I may say does not come easy. I mean, the answer to questions as simple as “Who is God?” “What is love?” are hardly ever as simple as they appear and hardly ever correct, at least not in absolute terms. In an attempt to provide answers from the heart, we often realize that certain fundamental ideas are basically at large: a feeling that leaves us unresolved, wishing to do more yet failing to do much.
I was about 9 years of age when my Uncle who at the time had just been made a Professor at the Arizona State University in the U.S visited my father. My father and my Uncle agreed on going into the trade of Nigerian art in the U.S. My Uncle seemed to fancy art so much and mentioned that it was a common addiction for most persons in the U.S. The idea was lofty to my Dad, who although had no interest in art, was fascinated by how much these artworks could be sold for in dollars, and its equivalent in Naira further amplified his elation. I imagined my Dad already saw himself as a millionaire, or say, a potential millionaire. Either way, the man liked the idea.
I remember that they had invited an artist to the house; the bane of which was to employ him to design artworks suitable for the venture. The details of their conversation may be blurry but I remember my Professor Uncle ask the artist to define the word “beautiful”. In that moment, I saw an artist gifted with the ability to appreciate what was beautiful, become so awkwardly clueless and silenced to his own trade. Amidst an uncomfortable silence from the artist, my Uncle replied him by saying, “you can’t define beautiful because it is an abstraction. You feel it, you know it, you see it but it is not easily defined.” For strange reasons, this reply stuck to me and I conceptualized it. I was only 9.
My allusion to this is memorable because I have come to understand that life is an abstraction and the universe is wired in a way that men should never understand how it operates. The air of unpredictability, the beauty of pleasant surprises, the agony of inevitable pain, the unquenchable thirst for vanity and the unending satisfaction of profanities — all of these are the ligaments to life and we are helpless before them. The universe wills the affairs of men and as much as it is true that we are in the universe, it is even more sacred to say that the universe is in us.
Nel deGrasse Tyson, an American astrophysicist, affirms this when he said “The universe is under no obligation to make sense to us” perhaps in an attempt to defeat this truth man is perpetually on a voyage to discover universal truths but how have we fared in that? The more we know, the more questions we have and the more we know we don’t know. Something I call the infinity of truths — one truth birthing another and so on in an endless chain of epiphany.
In my moment of soul-searching, I realized that the life of men is like a painting canvas and the universe is the artist. The beauty of the art is dependent on the artist and not the canvas and so I have come to understand that it is hardly in our place to tell how the pictures of our lives will be framed nor can we exactly tell which colour it will take to make it more beautiful. I understand we can try but I also know that trying is the most we can do and even that is no guarantee if life’s odds are against you. People succeed for doing so little yet people fail despite doing so much. Life is meant to be a ravelling mystery of twisted events. Principles that have been tested in peculiar circumstances have failed to meet the other sides of similar situations, therefore leaving science and religion at a point where it can be logically alluded that principles are as satisfying as they are confusing– maybe to the universe, this is how it makes sense.
At an age that comes with the scary obligation of being an adult and the strong desire to be exuberant, I have come to realize that I have responsibilities — to family, to friends and ultimately to my goals but on nights as this, I admit my fear in all of these. I admit that I have not yet figured it all out; not with career, not with being an adult, not with friendship, not with faith, not with life in general terms and definitely not with love. I admit that these fears are as real as human flesh and sometimes, maybe most times, they consume me.
The 22nd question in that twitter thread was “What are you scared of?” If you are courageous enough to answer this question, do so in the comment section. I can also understand if the question creates a war within you such that you might begin to question your competence to answer the most basic questions that confront you. It doesn’t make you weak or dull. Just allow it sink in. Sometimes, you don’t need answers to some questions as they are deeply rooted enough to make a point. In the end, we are humans and are bound to be scared. This is where the universe wins.
