Tribute - To The Departed

I do not intend to belabor the sad incident since everyone who matters is distraught and disoriented but someone’s feeling can never be mine so I just deem it appropriate to state the way I see and feel about the sudden and untimely loss of a dear friend.

Even though we all know death is inevitable and could come calling any moment from now but somewhere in our thoughts, we find ourselves indestructible, invisible and immuned to ominous death until it pips one of us. I must say I was frozen in my seat after a hard days hustle when I heard the sad news of the passing away of Nana Turkson aka Bertrand King. I felt a lot of indescribable things at the same time but the highlight of it all was my inactivity until I finally managed to heave a long sigh. 

I have not met the young man in flesh before but I can conveniently say we are friends because we have interacted on so many occasions here on social media for the past 8years. It all began after being Facebook friends when I slid into his inbox one afternoon. I needed help and found it convenient to contact him because of his strategic standing in the entertainment space. I was struggling with one of the many things I wanted to do with my life, music. I wanted to be a musician and seeing his in-depth know-how in the game and his web of network, I did not hesitate to contact him just so he can listen to my demos and take it from there.

We found out we gelled on other things than music and have been chatting since. Even though he was mostly in the eye of the public, he comes as a shy person. He was respectful, affable, patient and thoughtful. He was helpful, humorous and dependable. He would come to my inbox from time to time to ask me how I was doing with my music or when I publish a note he found thoughtful. The last time he asked of my music endeavor was on the 15^th of July which happens to be my birthday, when I told him about how that ship had wrecked long time ago and I have since counted my loss. Did he like it, no? But I was quick to tell him that I was young and naïve then and we both laughed and bade each other good bye until whence. 

I considered him as a big brother because of how he comes checking up on me and how I was faring. It meant a lot to me and thankfully I made it known to him while he could still feel it. I told him about his amazing persona while he was still prowling this dog-eat-dog world. I must say I have learnt a lot from him and to give myself some closure for his inability to bade a goodbye, it is only right that I dedicate this lines of mine to him.

Why death antagonizes life, I don’t know 

Why must death always have the last say?

No matter what time in life, it makes us pay

Deep within its recesses, life is shallow

Always living behind sorrow

Yesterday you were here, today it’s all memories

The ef sound in death deflated your bubbly life

Dimmed your light when it wasn’t even twilight

Though speechless, may the yonder treat you kindly

And keep your gentle soul until we meet again

We will miss you Nana Turkson aka Bertrand King

Rest in Peace.

Nante Yie!

                                                                                                                                                                 

Writer tweets @vilejah

Sexing with the Christian

when is it right to have sex, especially for the married couples who are making so much or too little sex break their marriages? 

Should you give in to your spouse’s demands for sex just because the bible has decreed that the body you wield is not yours, but that of your significant other?

How can we salvage the perversion and its related pornography making rounds in the house of the Lord?

Society has undergone an acute change depending on your knowledge or lack of it. People are being encouraged to be vocal and to possibly lay bare every thought that passes through their minds all in the name of expressing one's fundamental human rights - irrespective of whether it makes sense or not. Just say it by all means...

It has even become a serious situation in our modern dispensation where women engage in more lucrative and sophisticated ventures than their male counterparts who have become emotional - a feat they have achieved above their forebears who did all the menial work and nothing much. Either these forebears did not really use their creative faculties that much or were not allowed by the men to use them or both. There could even be more contributive factors but that will be treated under a different subject matter at a different time.

Even though these changes can be grouped into the positives and negatives, they are ghastly weighing down the law and order and even the trends of old. This change irrespective of what one believes in has influenced society and by extension, our lives.

Be it a Christian, an atheist, a Buddhist and the other millions of religions that abound, human beings are endowed with varying degrees of energy and physique which directly bears on how much we can put in and even take out. For instance, when emotions blind two different people at the extreme ends of the gender parameter to come together as a man and a woman, coupled with desires to match, then your guess would be as good as mine.

 

As much as there is no gainsaying why a man and a woman would want to relate intimately, it is also imperative to note that two different people cannot always be ready for sex at the same time, which makes it difficult for couples to sustain a relationship in many cases. And it is rightfully so because the degrees of the difference in timing and its related tardiness becomes a surety that erodes the very foundation of the union. Simply, it breeds mistrust issues.

It is however interesting to know that, aside energy, desire, experiences, age, culture, expectations, availability, reciprocity and accessibility which influences how much we are willing to have sex, work issues have also waded in to confound the already labouring situation. This means, there is the probability that one of the couple is always almost tired or disinterested in sex which breeds apathy out of the constant rejection or inability to give or be ready, even when it matters most.

You would then realize that the Inability of one of them to respond "how deep?" when asked to dig, becomes the Achilles heels of the union. 

As a matter of fact, The Bible has failed to prescribe how sex should be practiced and all the other nuances regarding it, but has explicitly stated that sex is for procreation and shall remain the preserve of the married but it appears the unmarried Christians are having it too. There is even the likelihood that they are having it more than the married couples because of their zest, energy and mostly their purpose, which is the pleasure they derive from engaging in it.

For a Christian, it must be very difficult being caught between your penchants and God's directives even though they have from time immemorial proven how well versed they are in selective pragmatism - doing only what pleases them and relegating the ones they can’t do to the back. 

Why is Christendom looking on for their very foundation (future leaders) to crumble? Have they given up on the fight to ensure that every chosen one upholds the tenets of the Christian faith? Has Christendom being swallowed up by the world out there or they don’t even believe the gospel anymore? Something tells me, they are putting God to test to ascertain if he is really the true forgiving God he claims to be.

Thanks to the power of technology, sex is now commonplace like a flicker of fire in a mud hut razing down nations of which the Christendom is a minute part, so how are they going to survive this inferno when the opposite is what they are expected to do? 

Sometimes, it appears the Christian is the most ignoramus and most confused person to ever walk the face of the earth but that would be under-estimating their presence and what can become of them.

To be continued…

The Writer tweets @vilejah

Are we really co-equals?

“Tweeeeea, are we co-equals?” is a phrase almost every Ghanaian can identify with.  Its popularity even soared when one obscured government official burst out the phrase amidst other vituperations in response to a taunt from the audience while honoring his call to duty at a public function – an act that eventually got him trending for days to come and every observer of our Country knows this by now. The mudslinging comments and its parallel self-righteous postures were enough to hang the man on a pillory.

Since when did public officials started carrying themselves above their subjects – the people they were chosen to serve? While practically begging for our support, they also vow to serve us even through rough times. Public officials must comport themselves even in the face of all indignation and must be modest about their business at all times. Such uncouth behavior is unbecoming of public officials who cannot take a joke, they must learn to suffer fools and work on their sense of humour. Infact! They have to move out of the Kitchen if they find it hot enough!

Then you take a long walk the next day and start asking yourself some obvious but hidden rhetoric such as “are we really co-equals?” and granted that we are co-equals, shouldn’t respect be reciprocal? Does ascendance to public office immune people from public ridicule? Is the high tide of democracy also sweeping away our morals which were hitherto the pillars of our culture or we have just given in to the global movement?

 What happened to our class society or we are just a bunch of lying hypocrites who will practice politics of convenience instead of principles? Methinks, anybody who holds on to the fallacious notion that we are all equals must have their heads examined and all illusory thoughts gotten rid of. We may be one but are not and cannot be equals!

God in his own infinite wisdom created us with varying differences to distinguish each of us from one another; same God who created the low and the high born, angels and archangels, the graceful and the ugly, the weak and the strong, the giant and the dwarf and what have you, so why the tenacious stance that we are all equals?

consequently, If ever the phrase “we own the people who own the town” rings a bell, then be reminded that, your favorite bakery is owned by someone who sometimes buys goods on credit from his/her suppliers and if that is far-fetched then be reminded that your pay cheque is signed by someone who is sanctioned by another man in that order.

If indeed God made us equal simply because we all have attributes of humans, then it will be a perversion against the divine plan to have all these Caucasians, Blacks, Dwarves, Giants and Gays fighting on continuous basis to entrench their varied differences. In same vein, it would be wrong for you to look at that unkempt guy across the street and say he is not your type, likewise would it be wrong for a guy to say, someone does not belong to his class. It actually behooves us to do unto others what we expect them to do unto us.

Thus far anybody who thinks we are co-equals is a Populist and should be dismissed summarily. They just like to create trouble where there should be none and also like to over-estimate their self-importance but one friendly advice to them is, they should find their rank and file and feel at home for some people are way elevated beyond our class and level.

 The writer tweets @vilejah

Ghanaian Stars are too dim to bright

In Ghana, it is very easy to resent and develop apathy for Stars and possibly be labeled a hater or whatever name that fits, but is that really the case?

Social media has made it very possible to have all our Stars congregating at one place e.g., Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to basically interact with their fans and just anybody, but it appears they are far-removed from our society. Sometimes, you can't help but to inbox a Star just to express your unadulterated admiration to them and in extreme cases, to interact and ask them for some experiential guidelines only to be ignored forever. They don't even acknowledge your presence on their pages let alone the Mentions.

If you are already a Star or almost on the verge of becoming one, you have to take people seriously, especially giving them timely feedback on their enquiries and any meaningful interaction they initiate as though it is an obligation so that, they can in turn take you serious.

Growing up in the 90's, we used to write to Celebrities like, Van Damme, Oliver Khan, Commando and what have you and they replied us with lovely pictures and sometimes souvenirs, and I'm sure their devotion to making everyone count helped in surging their fan base. I want to believe that trying to draw the fine line between stardom and one's private life is not an easy task but again, it is a calling you have responded to, so if you don't have time for all of those PR stunts, it's prudent to hire a Publicist.

You don't need a professional to handle some of these social media activities such as liking or retweeting your mentions for you. These Publicists can even do more than that except sitting in interviews on your behalf. There are so many creative Writers or Public Relations Experts on everyone's timeline and these people can be asked to come on board for a pittance i.e. if you believe in the power of numbers. It may even help them improve their lots, given that their now interactive platforms will help them reach out to a larger section of the public while they, as brands or cash cows concentrate on whatever brought them to stardom.

Some of these Stars, be it Footballers, Track Athletes, Dancers, Celebrated Writers such as Novelists and Poets, Musicians and anyone who performs in the public domain appears versatile and can do most things on their own but the idea of writing their own songs, the composition, the recording, the publicizing, the marketing and all the other activities that characterizes the final work in the case of a Musician is certainly not the best since it doesn't leave space for specialization and quality output of their work and I would implore those who have a know-how or are well-to-do to revolutionize the art industry for exponential growth.

Most of the stars have complained and decried the attitude of Ghanaians on TV about their inability to hail or celebrate them when they site them on the streets but I’m sorry, nobody celebrates an ignoring narcissistic personality only because he plays football or sings and even in cases where you are hailed, your celebration is short-lived. Stars have to prove over time that, they are humane; they have to genuinely like their fans that practically famed and fanned them to the top. They have to acknowledge the presence of their fans and most of all brand themselves from their primal personalities, so that people would want to identify and associate with them in their Cars, Offices, Homes and that would be the beginning of widespread signing of autographs and endorsements in Ghana without ado.