Intuitions

HEY, I’M HUMAN!

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

They say I make enemies on all sides. Sycophancy and hypocrisy seem to be the price of friendship and group play in a civilized, polished world gone corporate. Living analog authenticity has been replaced by plastic digital superficial smoothness. Personality is dead; long live the System.

But I refuse to be the servant of a System that serves only itself and not the human in me. Being myself is not suicide; surrendering to the System is the real suicide. Being myself is birth, is life.

Don’t kill yourself. Resist. Be it education, be it politics, be it diplomacy, be it the corporate world, be it religion, be it organised Sport – they all demand one thing: the compromise and capitulation of the true human being. The human Spirit. Thwart their plan. Resist!

In every aspect of life, deep in the fabric of our group existence, we have to change the System. And it starts when the individual human being comes back to life. Until you know yourself, you won’t know your real friends. They may be many more than you think, but you don’t know and they don’t know – because you are all afraid to be the first to drop the mask and say:

“Hey, I’m human! Are you?”

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

HAPPY PEOPLE

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

If you’re mad, and you know you’re mad, are you mad?
If you’re in heaven, and you’re not happy, are you in heaven?
If you have everything, and you’re empty, do you have anything?
If you have nothing, and you’re full, do you have nothing?

What’s the point in being able to explain the Laws of God to everybody, if you lack the courage to live the paths that will reveal yourself to you.

Some people have the courage to show you God, but they don’t have the courage to show you themselves. It is not God that is shrouded in strange mystery, it is the human being.

Don’t tell me about God – you can’t. Tell me about yourself. Show me who you really are. That’s difficult enough. But that’s the knowledge we reciprocally need, between and amongst ourselves, in order to be able to live happily with one another.

And happy coexistence, as ourselves, with ourselves: that is our Paradise.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

RESPONSIBILITY

~ Che

Sometimes when people disappoint you, it is because they are following, or seeking, the experiences that will mature them. Were they to suppress the urge, or to ignore the chance, to follow those experiences – just in order not to disappoint you – yes, you would have your loyal beholden person in your life, but they would have thereby killed themselves inside. Is that what you want?

If you love something, give it the freedom of choice of experiencing. Let it grow. Whether this means that it stays with you or leaves you, let it search by itself for the paths towards becoming its best self. For the urge to do so rests within each one of us, as an unremovable part of being a human Spirit. – The urge to embark on the journey of becoming oneself. Not every decision will be right, but Mistakes are sometimes the best teachers; and every experience can help you a step further towards becoming your real self, if you always make the effort to understand the lesson in them.

And, paradoxically, you can only become yourself by being yourself. The more you take responsibility for yourself, the more you grow towards yourself. Every seeker will always disappoint somebody – and sometimes the person they disappoint will be the person with whom they share the strongest bond of love. It is the price we all pay for taking full responsibility for our own ship of fate.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

BELIEF

~ Che

Sometimes when you kill a person, he keeps on living because he does not know that you have killed him. He keeps on living because he believes in you and it is this belief that keeps him alive. Until the day he learns that you already killed him, long ago. Then he dies.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

AN EARLY RECOGNITION ON RESISTANCE

~ Che

When I was a little boy – 6 or 7 – I watched a film on the Holocaust, in the sitting room with my parents. One question nagged at me then: why did they follow so quietly and obediently to their own deaths? Why did they not resist?

That question has since then detached itself from that film and that story and has followed me everywhere in life to this day, in many forms and contexts. In truth it was not a question – it was a Resolution.

Always resist.

Never give up, unjustly, what belongs to you, and is valuable to you, without a fight. It’s either you win, or you lose with pride.

All that’s left is for you to decide what your valuable possessions are.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

DISHARMONY

~ Che

There came a time in my life when I prayed to die. Not because I had no food to eat, but because I had no gratitude with which to eat the food. Not because I had no bed on which to rest, but because I had no rest to place upon the bed. Not because I had no one to talk to, but because I had no friendliness to offer. Not because I loved death, but because I hated life.

Then I met a journeyman inside my soul, full of humility, laughter and ordinariness. And of the boisterous acceptance of the reality of things.

I am still trying to fathom this journeyman, to understand who he is; to come to grips with the simple realities of everyday life, like everyone else also does, none of whom is less weary of the toil than I am.

To become a man, Nigerians say, is not the job of one day. It requires time. Think I not that only I long for Home – every other Wanderer does so as well. Every.

Mayhaps if we made the Earth a better place, the journey would not be so unbearable afterall. Or what sayest thou?

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

PAIN LIKE A STREAM

~ Che

Like a stream runs this ancient heart of mine. I write truest and best when I am in pain and all alone; this is when I write down tomorrow’s pieces. Not when I am happy and relaxed; lazy, immature me.

When I have comfort, I forget, I become complacent. When there is peace, I laugh, which is good, but I also fall asleep, which is dangerous and wrong.

Maybe two thousand years from now I will be mature enough to be happy and be inwardly mobile simultaneously –

Pending this day, however, pain will be the helper of the Poet and of the wanderer. Pain and love and longing. To Keep me awake, to drive me onwards…

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

VOICES NEAR

~ Che

Has Music jarred you through and through before? I don’t mean the base, coarse Music of now. I’m talking about the High Trumpets of the Immortal Realms. Have you heard them before?

Have you heard your heart beat before? I mean not the muscle. I’m talking about the leap of the flame in you when Heaven gave you a Name. What’s your Name?

Show me your friends, man, and I’ll tell you who you are – your real friends. Show me your Palms and I’ll teach you your destiny.

Have you ever before been blinded by dazzling Sunlight? Not the sun in the sky, but the Sun Above All Skies. – Show me your face, sister, and I’ll read a Million things thereupon.

Yesterday gave birth to today. Today yields tomorrow, the known unknown.

When I am alone, alone, sometimes, I remember my brother faraway… Not he who died recently, but he who has never once died. The Immortal Spirit whom I knew – before we were born as brothers on earth – in a blue Kingdom far so far away. A Kingdom whose Name, if I ever knew it, I have long forgotten.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

LET IT BE LOVE

~ Che

When a flower is touched by the rays of the morning sun, it opens up, touched by love; and one says that the opening was done in love because it was opened in the daytime, by the light.

But when a flower opens up in the night, it too might have been opened up by the light, the soft moonlight or the warm embrace of a gentle night wherein lives quietly love too. For some flowers love the day and some flowers bloom at night.

But a brutal Hand, a treacherous laugh, a cruel hungry storm, will not wait for day or night; it will prise open its stolen prize, and pride will pay a heavy Price, for it will be broken. So, let it be love, dear. Because nature wants to take her course, not give her curse.

At the right time
In the right way
In all simplicity and naturalness
Gentleness and in trust

My dear Child, let it be Love.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

THE WAY OF THE DRAGON

~ Che

What was strange to others, was ordinary to us. When other kids went for children’s parties, we went for training and competition in martial arts and swimming. That was our father’s way – and it was the only way we knew; and looking back now, God bless that man. He was just unapologetically himself. He gave us a different world in which to live because it was the only world he was convinced of. A world of discipline, simplicity, hardwork, scholarship, modesty, frugality, brotherhood and fraternity. This is the root of our bond today – my siblings and I.

The most horrible thing that can happen to any person, to any family, to any society, is to think that there is something wrong in being different. For, then, there will neither be change nor progress. Just be yourself, even if it is different – nay, especially if it is different. Earth thrives on diversity. And diversity is only guaranteed when each person has the courage to be himself/herself. Thus, courage is the protector of our future as a human species. People, BE BRAVE.

Our father wanted to strengthen bravery in us, so he threw us into the martial arts, where you are alone in the ring and only your own fearlessness will see you through – and, win or lose, will cement your character and your legend. Just fight fearlessly. That was his message: Let fearlessness be your blood; that is all I ask of you. Win or lose, please my child just fight to the end.

When we turned it against him, though, it caught him unawares. Maybe he unconsciously hoped everybody was burning to be a public servant, or a socialist, and things like that, like himself. But I just wanted to be myself, to answer the call of life in another context – and he had taught me the courage to do so. But myself, at least in that period, was everything different from what he wanted for and from me. The irony and riddle of doing what is expected of you and thereby going against what is expected of you. The split was unpreventable, unavoidable and – for many decades it seemed – unhealable.

But Time, that great Mender, was Merciful. And Love pushed its stubborn head through and I will forever be grateful for the three beautiful years we had until he died.

Well, what on earth is this life all about? Who really knows? Is it politics? – Not everyone can be a politician. Is it the professions? – Not everyone can pursue one. Is it family? – Not everyone will make one. Is it ideology? – Not everyone will feel inclined to one. So what on earth is this earthlife all about?

In the end, it is simply whatever is in you that has to come out of you. And all you need to do, to make that happen, is simply to BE BRAVE. Brave enough to follow your innermost voice, no matter what!

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.