Thoughts

FULFILMENT, AND THE MEASURES OF SUCCESS

~ Che

Everybody cannot be rich and everybody cannot be the boss, and yet everybody can be happy. Everybody cannot be the acclaimed best in their chosen fields of activity, yet everybody can be happy and can know that sense of fulfilment that only joy can bring.

So the question is: What is it, deeper than wealth, health, status, acclaim, power, that can make a human being happy and, through the bequething of joy, give them fulfilment? How does one approach life so as to attain to the highest prize – joy and fulfilment – irrespective of the outcome of one’s most ardent striving and efforts?

Where does ‘Pride’ factor into all this? Must one subdue and swallow one’s pride, or even become uncompetitive, in order to be happy with every outcome? Or can one channel one’s pride to a higher cause, a nobler idea, a deeper clarity?

At what point do all human beings become one, working together towards the same goal, despite all forms of competition? Can this be generic, i.e. applicable in all things? What happens then to the ‘Joy of Victory’?

As the world and the individuals hurtle on at blindening speed towards the pinnacles of Anger, I-am-better-than-you-ism and Hatred, driven each person and each group by the urge to be FIRST, it is important to consider if there is not another measure of success more fulfilling and, most importantly, more sustainable than this winner-takes-it-all competiton model of domination-desire.

Because through the continual establishment of a level playing field in the scientific education sector from generation to generation, a point in time will arrive in the future where too many people and peoples will have the knowledge and the ability to wreak wide-spread havoc on the earth. And then the I-First and I-Only mentality will unleash a terrible War within and upon Mankind, on all levels, that will bring our species to the brink of destruction, if not take us over it.

The meaures of Success and Fulfilment have to be redefined. Success, the chalice of deep inner personal joy, is the development of one’s inherent abilities and virtues to full bloom. Fulfilmemt then follows  in the united pooling of abilities towards an ennoblement of humanity. Victory in this undertaking alone will bring us eternal Joy. In this endeavour one can and should be inspired by others, yes. Also through the healthy ethical competition between people an impetus to innovate and grow is intensified. But a proper context of a shared common human goal will alone make us grasp this: that victory of virtue is victory for all.

Because, as child-like and laughable such concepts as Altruism, Humility, Egalitarianism, Cooperation and Impartiality sound to the entitlement-poisoned modern mind, the truth is that only these concepts and their kind will spare mankind certain self-destruction in the future. And in self-destruction, none shall remain to savour any joy of victory.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

IN OUR DESERT

~ Che ~ Leave a comment

amazon cover copy there is always something more 2015
BIGOTRY CONTINUES to exist upon the face of the earth, but not within its heart. And just as skin-characteristics are skin-deep, so is bigotry only surface-deep. I’m talking about the face of the earth.

But anyone who nurtures bigotry within the heart will continue to nourish it for a long time yet to come. It will not die easily. Is there hope for the flower?

Should I revert to the tales of the heart? Should I revert to the inner sequence? Should I revert to yesterday’s tenderness? The first woman? The last kiss?

Or should I continue into the desert? Should I seek a new oasis and wander after the unknown treasures of the sand? But who can open up the secrets of the sand? A flower?

The first strike was a miss. The first step was the first fall. The first sight was blinded by a pitch-fork. But there will be a second. The second is the other side of the coin.

I want to write a poem. I want to penetrate deep into the heart of the broken home, there where the spirit in us resides. We are all to one another strangers. Bridges we build, communal words we use, eyes we touch when we will, hands we give, yet remain unto one another strangers. The shared blood was poisoned aye ere we were born. The shared earth was divided already long ago and divided we stand and stare at one another across the border, the boundaries of our little egos and remain each alone. But each is but alone. Little egos. Little worlds. Little by little, if watered, like flowers, perhaps, we grow.

The secrets of the sand, approaching, covering up our footsteps. Hey, I wrote this poem before, when I was young. But if I was young then, what am I now, older or younger? For the first poem was the greater and the latter flow gropes for reconnection with the source that thundered out of the young heart of the finalised decision. Seen once. Pondered once. Grasped once. Perceived once. Decided once. At the start of the journey. And everything else is just the hanging on, the wondering, the new search. We have found but have not yet reached the Goal. We are still on the path. Believing in the flower.

This is what I would like to give to you, a flower in the desert. Do not perhaps think that the Desert is more powerful than the flower. Nay. There you would err. But treasure and protect the flower. Water it anywhere you see it. For the flower alone, of all the forces in the universe, can subdue the Desert.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

Taken from my collection of thoughts and stories: “There Is Always Something More.”