From Generation X, To Generations Y and Z

“To whom much is given
Much is expected”

It’s an old saying
The kind of wisdom nugget
That used to get handed down
From father to son
Mother to daughter
Headmaster to student
Master to apprentice

It would not surprise us
If you’d never heard it
It’s too simple to trend on Twitter
Too basic for Facebook conversations

And given your desire for independence
Coupled with society’s growing disdain
For things religious and non-rational
As well as traditional relationship structures
It’s unlikely you are an apprentice
Or a student in awe of their headmaster
And no
We won’t talk about your child-parent relationships!

Dear Ys and Zs
You have been given much
Much more than you seem to realise

For example
Universal suffrage, regardless of
Gender, race, land ownership
Keep in mind
Women couldn't vote in Liechtenstein
(One of the richest countries in the world)
Till as recently as 1984

You have the internet
And its multitude of social media channels
You live in an increasingly global world
That allows you to experience
Different cultures
And work in different countries
You have tools to influence your governments
From leaking stories on government excesses
To taking to the streets to ask for change
We your parents could only dream of these!

You have received much
And we have expected much from you
And in some cases, you have delivered
But there is so much left to do...

You tell your personal stories
On Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus
But you refuse to truly listen to others’
And think you know all about them
Even before they speak

You build barriers between yourselves
It seems any excuse would do
Class, race, economic background
It's the human way, you say
But somehow, we thought you would
You could, find ways around that

Because we know
And you know
That you know more, much more
About the sciences
Physical and social
Than we ever did

You are smarter than us
So be wiser than us
Don’t make the mistakes we made
Like starting wars and arms races
That whoever won
Would eventually end up losing
In other ways

Dear Ys and Zs
These are just some observations
On how you
And all your “friends” and “followers”
Can do much better
There are a myriad other ways
But you’re smarter than us
We’ll leave it to you to figure them out!

In memory of Fatai "Rolling Dollar" Olagunju

“About to lose my breath
There's no fighting left
I’m sinking to rise no more
Searching for that open door”

“I Look to You,” by Whitney Houston (From the album “I Look to You,” released August, 2009)

------------------------------------------------

I started being fascinated with the twin topics of death and dying sometime during my teen years. What must it be like? What does one experience? What are the most common regrets people have? Questions like these began to intrigue me at some point. As I look back, I can’t recall why I developed a fascination many – perhaps including you, the reader – may perceive as macabre, but I do know my initial curiosity has stuck with me ever since, evolving into strong interests in philosophy, psychology and faith over time.

My initial interest in the "two Ds" (death and dying) led me – primarily through self-study, and also via required reading at university – to several books on the topics. The first of these was Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ seminal work on the subject, “On Death and Dying.” I never got around to reading the book in full, but by reading summaries of it, as well as excerpts in other psychology books, I got a fairly good overview, as well as a deeper appreciation for the two topics. I still find it quite interesting that she was brave enough to write a whole book about both topics – subjects people typically shy away from discussing – as far back as 1969. I doff my heart to her!

Notable books that deal with the two Ds – directly or tangentially – and which I have read cover to cover include: Viktor Frankl’s masterpiece “Man's Search for Meaning”; John Izzo’s brilliant “The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die”; Mitch Albom’s delightful “Tuesdays with Morrie”; and M. Scott Peck’s thought-provoking “Further Along the Road Less Traveled.” These are all great books, classics in their own rights. However, none of them – to the best of my knowledge/recollection – gives an idea of what people typically experience at the point of death; they provide information about what happens leading up to death, and also about what happens after death, but they are largely silent on the few seconds in between.

An unlikely fellow gave a hint of the nature of the experience within those few seconds – Steve Jobs. In an article released shortly after his death, he was reported to have said something along the lines of “Wow. Wow. Wow” just before he “gave up the ghost” (even the metaphors we use to describe these events are interesting). A man that had spent a major part of his adult life “wowing” others had been “wowed,” and the experience had been so intense he could not help but verbalise it. What “wowed” him? What had he experienced?

Another unlikely person gave an idea of what Steve may have experienced, but I only saw it after she had also passed away. Some have speculated that Whitney Houston used one of her songs ("I Look to You") to tell the whole world, in plain English, that she was close to rock bottom. I do not know if that is true, but I do sense that only someone who had come to viscerally appreciate their own sense of mortality, could have chosen to sing these words, and sing them with such raw emotion:

“And every road that I've taken
Led to my regret
And I don't know if I'm going to make it
Nothing to do but lift my head”

The lines that describe the seconds leading up to death may be particularly striking for those with artistic leanings and/or a strong appreciation for metaphor:

“About to lose my breath
There's no fighting left
I’m sinking to rise no more
Searching for that open door”

Searching for an open door. Sinking. Giving up the fight. The imagery that comes to my mind is of someone falling upwards in water (if that makes any sense), and hoping to find a source of light when they eventually come up for air. Played over a simple piano tune, her words stand out. The picture she paints (in my mind) is beautiful in its realisation of mortality, as well as in its surrender.

As neither Steve nor Whitney is around today, we are unlikely to ever know what each experienced at their point of death. We can also only hazard a guess about what Fatai “Rolling Dollar” Olagunju, a popular Nigerian musician who died earlier today, experienced when he passed away. 

Part of me would really like to know, out of curiosity. But my curiosity is tempered by the belief that what one experiences over a lifetime is significantly more important that what one experiences in one's final seconds. And I need not speculate regarding what Rolling Dollar, Whitney, and Steve experienced and accomplished while they were around, flaws and imperfections notwithstanding. They touched our lives with the things they created. They stood up to be counted. 

May their souls rest in peace.

In memory of Fatai “Rolling Dollar” Olagunju (and Whitney Houston and Steve Jobs).

PS. For those that have not heard the song "I Look to You," find below the video (from YouTube):

Letter to a friend

Dear friend,

You took my questions too literally.

I was trying to hint to you that long-term results come from little steps, repeated over and over.

So you are as tall as you are for several reasons, some being that you have been breathing continuously all this time (which has kept you alive), you've been eating food and drinking water almost daily, and also getting rest (through sleep) most days.

Once you decide where you want to end up, the trick is to do things on a daily basis that will get you there. Make it such that these things become habits. Build your life around them. And surely, one day, you will find yourself where you sought to be.

I hope you understand.

When love becomes a crutch...

What do we really mean when we say "I love you"?

It occurred to me tonight that the almighty three-word-phrase, when said and meant, should really be a statement of two related parts:

1. I love me through you - that is, being with you makes me feel very good, because of certain things about you (things you do, things you say, how you look, etc);

2. I will do my best to help you love you through me - you also deserve to feel good by being with me, so I will do my best to make that happen by saying things you like to hear, doing things you like, looking good, etc.

When one looks at things this way, it seems business like, transactional, and very unromantic (full disclosure: I have never being accused of being the romantic type). But bear with me as I develop this train of thought.

I was recently thinking about a very young friend that I care a great deal about. As I thought about him, a smile came to my face. Then the logical side of me asked - "What causes this? Why do I always seem to experience these emotions when I think about this friend?" So I began pondering.

I'll spare you the details and go right to the conclusions I came to: I feel this way about this friend because being with him makes me feel good. Not exactly rocket science, but let me explain. The nature of our relationship is such that when we spend time together, we both end up feeling good about ourselves. We like how we feel, so we seek to repeat the experience. As we do this we build bonds and develop a shared history, which makes it easier to feel good when we spend time together. This goes on and on, until it doesn't (life happens, distances lead to communication gaps, etc).

Sounds obvious, doesn't it? What is less obvious is why so many of us (myself included) seem to believe we need intermediaries through which to love ourselves. Why do we find it so hard to love ourselves directly? Why do we set up the game so we need others to trigger the biochemical processes in us that make us feel that sense of being loved? After all, it is not like my young friend sticks his hand in my brain and triggers whatever mechanism gives me the "love feeling." All the work happens inside of me, but he acts as the trigger. Why can't I reduce my dependence on him (and others) and learn to generate this feeling by myself?

The way we've presently set this game up, love becomes a crutch for many of us. Is it really love if we are too scared to bear the thought of losing those we say we love? If we get jealous and possessive, if we stifle their freedom out of fear of getting hurt? What if what will make the friend or lover feel good, will make us feel bad? What do we do then?

So to avoid love becoming a crutch, I propose adding a caveat to the two elements we started with, and it goes thus:

The name of the game is self-love, independence, and inter-dependence. If each of us loves himself/herself directly, then what others bring to relationships are extras that we can enjoy, for as long as those relationships last. There's no need to grasp and fear loss. We grieve if/when relationships end, but we do not mourn because we have lost love, but only because we have lost a lens through which to experience it.

That is the ideal state, and many of us will never reach it. But in striving to develop self-love, we may at least manage to live with fewer self-imposed restrictions.

Love yourself, and share that love with others.

How to make "work" work.

I want to make good use of social media and blogging going forward, so my plan is to share ideas from interesting books I read via different channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, my blog, emails, etc), and get thoughts/feedback from others.

Here's the first one: I just read something very interesting in Ricardo Semler's "The Seven-Day Weekend". He argues that companies need to let employees follow their interests and meet their needs, within the framework of the traditional work arrangement. His view is that people want to work, and will do so if treated like adults (i.e. given responsibility for goals and means) and allowed to work in a way that does not make them give up interests and needs that matter to them.

I resisted the idea at first - I have had way too many colleagues that have shirked responsibility, and that didn't want to work, but wanted to earn salaries. But as I thought about it, it occurred to me that perhaps these colleagues behaved the way they did because their jobs did not align with their interests. I typically don't know most of my colleagues outside of work, but by chance I found out last week that a colleague has an e-library of hundreds of crime fiction books. You don't keep that many books if you don't like the genre. No one forced him to build up the library; he just followed his interest. Now this colleague is very industrious and works hard, but I wonder how much harder he would work if he was in the crime fiction publishing industry. Interests matter. Round one to Ricardo.

How about needs? Isn't work all about sacrificing our needs, to meet the needs of our employers or customers? At least this is what I'd always believed, until Ricardo forced me to challenge this view as well. I thought back to when I worked for a bank. The rule was that we all had to be at work by 8am. For most of us, early morning traffic meant we had to leave our homes before 6am, to be sure of getting to work by 8am. So some would leave their homes at 5:30am, get to work by 6am, and sleep in their cars till just before 8am (or go to the gym). What made matters worse was that to avoid traffic in the evening rush hour, most of us would stay in the office till 8pm. Our needs to spend time with loved ones and to recuperate sufficiently were definitely not being met.

But what if the bank had come up with work shifts, whereby it paid two people to do one job, and one came in early and left mid-day, and the other came in mid-day and left late? In one stroke I estimate employment would go up between 50% and 80% in the banking sector (not all jobs can be accommodated under this arrangement), employees would have more time for life, they would spend less time in traffic, and they would get more hours of sleep. Of course they would also earn less, but I know several people who would gladly earn less if they can get time to enjoy what they earn. It's now 2 to Ricardo, 0 to Mayowa.

So it seems Ricardo is right - work does not have to mean employees giving up interests and needs. But it requires effort from both sides: workers need to follow career paths aligned with their interests; and employers need to structure work so employees can meet their needs.

One caveat, though. There is an inherent assumption in Ricardo's thought process. He assumes that people have the skills and knowledge required for the jobs they are asked to do. He takes that as a given, and focuses on making it easier for people to apply their skills and knowledge (via aligning interests, and structuring work arrangements so people can meet their needs). Unfortunately, this is not always the case; I have met too many people who do not have basic skills like critical thinking, time management, business writing, etc, talk less of technical skills required for their roles. That's where the government should come in, by providing the right kind of education at primary and secondary school levels. And that's where universities and employers also come in, by helping graduates develop theoretical and practical expertise; it really does take a village to raise a (good) child.

That caveat aside, Ricardo's book has challenged my thinking about what to expect from work, and the kind of work environment that I can possibly provide as an employer of labour. Challenge accepted!

Poster for June 6 Port-talk

White and black apples in a cart

I was watching the news with two white friends last Friday, when a story came on about a woman who had been blinded by her boyfriend. The man and woman, both white, had been involved in fights before, but this time he "went too far," according to the woman. It was a really sad story. There was a particular moment that was really heart wrenching - when asked how she felt about what happened, the woman responded that she felt like a ghost, as she is totally blind and can't see anything (not her two children, and not even her hands). Tears began to flow from both eyes, and she said sorry to the interviewer as she dabbed them with a handkerchief. 

This is the kind of story that makes me want to do something (write an article, contribute to a cause, be on the lookout for signs of domestic violence, etc). I don't know how my friends felt, but I was sad and angry at the same time - sad for the woman, and very angry with the man. Nobody has the right to hurt, talk less of blind, another human being! I was so angry that if I had come across the man later that evening - which was very unlikely given that he had been arrested - I would have likely approached him and given him a piece of my mind. 

But as I reflected on my conflicting emotions, something occurred to me. My white friends spoke more about the sadness of the woman's condition, than the injustice of what her boyfriend did. It was almost as if they had accepted (rightly, I guess) that there are sick white people in the world, and that these things happen. I found myself wondering what their reactions might have been had the man been black. Would they have reacted the same way by focusing more on the victim than the assailant? I do not know. But I do know what I saw and heard during the London riots last year - white friends of mine mentioned to me that black kids often end up as gangsters that cause trouble, and that the police should come down hard on the rioters to deter other would be gangsters.

And that's when it occurred to me that when a white person commits a crime, most whites tend to see that person as the bad apple in the cart. The system deals with him or her, and the rest of the apple cart remains safe (at least till the next bad apple turns up). However when a black person (or a group of black persons) commits a crime, conservative whites tend to see that as justification of their suspicion that all the apples in the black cart are bad. And their response is almost always to ask that society deal with the individual apple(s), as well as all apples in the cart (the former through the formal justice system, and the latter through informal, institutionalised racist practices). 

My friends that I watched the news story with are not conservatives, but sitting and watching the story with them, I could not help but wonder how our discussion could have gone had the perpetrator been black. Because he was white, we spoke about the individuals involved. But I suspect had he been black we would have spoken about the races or "communities" involved, and I might have had to once again explain to white friends that black people are not all the same (like I found myself doing several times during the London riots). My white friends also know that white people are all different; it's obvious from years of interacting with other whites at home, school, work and play. They also know this from history and the media. Yet even some of my educated white friends are totally ignorant about the differences between black people. And the same problem applies in larger discussions in the media - note for example the common references to Africa, even when speaking about issues that are specific to certain countries (see an earlier post about this here). 

I believe this ignorance leads to the lumping of black people together when issues are being discussed, which in turn makes it easier for conservative white Brits and their minions (Nirpal Dhaliwal, for example) to do something as daft as trying to criminalise all black people in England for the actions of Mark Duggan and the 1,000 people (representing less than 0.07% of the black population in England) who showed up at his funeral (see Dhaliwal's article here, and see my response here). 

This kind of negative rhetoric does not help matters. For better or worse, blacks and other minorities are now part of multicultural England. And blacks (including African Americans, black Canadians, black people from the Caribbean, and black people from 55 African countries) have so much to contribute to The Big Society (with different types of music, cuisine, art, dance, literature, etc). But it is hard to make these contributions if the larger society keeps putting all black people into one cart, and labelling that cart as being likely full of bad apples. We are all in the same cart, and there are bad white apples, as well as black, amongst us all.