BETWEEN ICE AND COAL
Man oh man! How best can I describe? Forgive me for am an embodiment of that which I dare describe. A being that I am and to which I've been affiliated and still is should enjoy a description worthy of nothing less than bias.
However, I beg to differ and to dismay the feeling of prejudice anyone may hold towards my judgment of man thus, I've decided to discuss man as he unleashes both his abilities and their flip sides like am some sort of time's camera; a screen through which we shall be getting to see ourselves or our kind.
Man is an embodiment of all things beautiful as this is manifest in the feeling you get when you are privileged to visit places like Paris; imagine that beauty and serenity juxtaposed and controlled by man. In fact it was correct to say "see Paris and die." Yeah! What else could have been more beautiful than the ornamental extravaganza with which man beautified his terrain? Well, some may say the scriptural description of Heaven stands the only picture that beats this. But it doesn't end here my dear, for this is just a tip of beauty for man's ingenuity gave birth to yet another awing miracle of nature in turning what has been to that which was never envisaged. A desert characterized by a level of dryness that made life precarious to live had been transformed to something only fit to be called paradise. From dunes to high rise buildings and skyscrapers along sides all manner of sophisticated inventions all geared towards making life a gift to die for. A place once almost forgotten in the pages of history had through the manifestation of man's ingenuity and proclivity to all things beautiful become a land flourishing with life as all races race to draw breath here at least once in a life time.
Dubai it is that has been made to seem the height of beauty in all affable and cozy manner possible. An imperceptibly small area located in a waste land where dunes hitherto occupied has been transformed to the 'center of the world' or so they now call it. This is what man is capable of; beauty. What about Singapore and how prime minister Lee Kuan Yew transformed a land that had almost nothing to that which now has almost everything? What about London, Switzerland, Canada, China, the U.S? Oh! I've gone too far from home for here we have Calabar, some very beautiful places in Lagos and Abuja. Still thinking to far_ what about the fastest cosmopolitan town growing into a city in Nigeria? Though she is the land of my birth, Auchi has through man's need to make life worth living developed slowly but consistently into a beauty in contrast to decades before my birth.
However, there lies another half of man. That part that has proven not easy to subdue or relegate.
It will not just suffice to say that there lies a part in him which directly contradicts his irking for beauty and peace. The dark side it is. This knows no good. In fact it feigns a blind eye to anything positive and with the resistance of an uprising, this part refutes and rebukes anything that has affiliation(s) with peace. This part is that which turns ice into a combustible element. That which has brought kins into battles unending. Forcing even siamese twins apart at the detriment of togetherness. This part has continued to enjoy the not so enviable privileged position of laying claims to all sorts of dastardly acts that have inflicted untold hardship and loss of valuables and indeed lives from God knows when to God knows when.
This part has dismayed me in more ways than a dove turning into a despicable alfa dragon; Spitting fire on fellow beings for reasons more mystifying than life's mystery. This part it is that has laid to waste all that has been built from love's sweet salty sweats. It is indeed that which has forged nature's gifts into arsenals of wanton destruction_ causing kings to fall off throwns as knights metamorphose into foes of utmost fiendish repute. Even the skies in parts where man's flip side thrives have turn red as if the blood from butchered fleshes have all ascended into the clouds like evapotranspiration and hovering about in sheer depressive desperation. Here the sun appears to have been bathed in magma for its photosynthetic role on plants seem to cease. Paving ways for the emergence of whining weary women and lost kids, dead soldiers and torn skins. Even trees that had no role in the matter are not spared.
This is the part that has brought chaos upon the world like the ones shown by the media or better still, the ones we've witnessed. I dare say it is that which toppled Gaddafi and brought untold misery on the people of Libya. That which has devastated Afghanistan, Syria and the much talked about Gaza. This is the part that brought down generations untold to mere pebbles and dusts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Too far I've ventured again I presume. What about Africa and how self acclaimed white angels slaughtered perceived black demons in the South during the Apartheid? Quintessential is the scripted scene that played out in Rwanda where people of same roots trampled on each other's corpses. Still too far_ what about back home in my beloved but not so loved country of fleeing citizens, hunger and a host of plagues of vices cum decay? It will suffice to say and I dare say that man's dark side laid to waste numerous Easterners during the Biafra war, the unending Jos communal clashes, the Niger-Delta Militancy and the more dreaded Boko-haram plagued North-East of that which once stood as 'Giant of Africa'.
Am I out of place to discern my assertive opinion on the summary that this part is nothing far from desperate despicable destruction? That man is in himself a weapon of and for his own annihilation is one thing that has got me pensively thinking.
The 'where' and 'how' have been mentioned herein but am afraid the answers to 'why' are far beyond the scope of this piece for whenever the question hits me; why the hate, fights, destructions, killings, wars? I instinctively fail to muster any courage to claim that I know.
How come man whose love for life and the more beautiful things on earth and beyond has a tendency for causing chaos, wanton destruction at the detriment of the same life he so clings unto? How come he works tirelessly to make life living worthy yet with so much zest, sends the works of his hands to nothing but dust with same inventions of his ingenuity? How come man's extremes stretch beyond being as cool as ice cubes to being combusting coals that make steels bleed?
Pardon me for I may have gone emotional whilst unfolding the aforementioned. Pardon me if some of the info therein may have seem more hyperbolic. Truth they say (and rightfully so) is like fire. You can't hide it under your bed in a pitch black night and even if your dare, you may have succeeded in feeding what seemed to be a mere candle light with more materials to escalate with.
__Prince Jeremiah Kadiri
However, I beg to differ and to dismay the feeling of prejudice anyone may hold towards my judgment of man thus, I've decided to discuss man as he unleashes both his abilities and their flip sides like am some sort of time's camera; a screen through which we shall be getting to see ourselves or our kind.
Man is an embodiment of all things beautiful as this is manifest in the feeling you get when you are privileged to visit places like Paris; imagine that beauty and serenity juxtaposed and controlled by man. In fact it was correct to say "see Paris and die." Yeah! What else could have been more beautiful than the ornamental extravaganza with which man beautified his terrain? Well, some may say the scriptural description of Heaven stands the only picture that beats this. But it doesn't end here my dear, for this is just a tip of beauty for man's ingenuity gave birth to yet another awing miracle of nature in turning what has been to that which was never envisaged. A desert characterized by a level of dryness that made life precarious to live had been transformed to something only fit to be called paradise. From dunes to high rise buildings and skyscrapers along sides all manner of sophisticated inventions all geared towards making life a gift to die for. A place once almost forgotten in the pages of history had through the manifestation of man's ingenuity and proclivity to all things beautiful become a land flourishing with life as all races race to draw breath here at least once in a life time.
Dubai it is that has been made to seem the height of beauty in all affable and cozy manner possible. An imperceptibly small area located in a waste land where dunes hitherto occupied has been transformed to the 'center of the world' or so they now call it. This is what man is capable of; beauty. What about Singapore and how prime minister Lee Kuan Yew transformed a land that had almost nothing to that which now has almost everything? What about London, Switzerland, Canada, China, the U.S? Oh! I've gone too far from home for here we have Calabar, some very beautiful places in Lagos and Abuja. Still thinking to far_ what about the fastest cosmopolitan town growing into a city in Nigeria? Though she is the land of my birth, Auchi has through man's need to make life worth living developed slowly but consistently into a beauty in contrast to decades before my birth.
However, there lies another half of man. That part that has proven not easy to subdue or relegate.
It will not just suffice to say that there lies a part in him which directly contradicts his irking for beauty and peace. The dark side it is. This knows no good. In fact it feigns a blind eye to anything positive and with the resistance of an uprising, this part refutes and rebukes anything that has affiliation(s) with peace. This part is that which turns ice into a combustible element. That which has brought kins into battles unending. Forcing even siamese twins apart at the detriment of togetherness. This part has continued to enjoy the not so enviable privileged position of laying claims to all sorts of dastardly acts that have inflicted untold hardship and loss of valuables and indeed lives from God knows when to God knows when.
This part has dismayed me in more ways than a dove turning into a despicable alfa dragon; Spitting fire on fellow beings for reasons more mystifying than life's mystery. This part it is that has laid to waste all that has been built from love's sweet salty sweats. It is indeed that which has forged nature's gifts into arsenals of wanton destruction_ causing kings to fall off throwns as knights metamorphose into foes of utmost fiendish repute. Even the skies in parts where man's flip side thrives have turn red as if the blood from butchered fleshes have all ascended into the clouds like evapotranspiration and hovering about in sheer depressive desperation. Here the sun appears to have been bathed in magma for its photosynthetic role on plants seem to cease. Paving ways for the emergence of whining weary women and lost kids, dead soldiers and torn skins. Even trees that had no role in the matter are not spared.
This is the part that has brought chaos upon the world like the ones shown by the media or better still, the ones we've witnessed. I dare say it is that which toppled Gaddafi and brought untold misery on the people of Libya. That which has devastated Afghanistan, Syria and the much talked about Gaza. This is the part that brought down generations untold to mere pebbles and dusts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Too far I've ventured again I presume. What about Africa and how self acclaimed white angels slaughtered perceived black demons in the South during the Apartheid? Quintessential is the scripted scene that played out in Rwanda where people of same roots trampled on each other's corpses. Still too far_ what about back home in my beloved but not so loved country of fleeing citizens, hunger and a host of plagues of vices cum decay? It will suffice to say and I dare say that man's dark side laid to waste numerous Easterners during the Biafra war, the unending Jos communal clashes, the Niger-Delta Militancy and the more dreaded Boko-haram plagued North-East of that which once stood as 'Giant of Africa'.
Am I out of place to discern my assertive opinion on the summary that this part is nothing far from desperate despicable destruction? That man is in himself a weapon of and for his own annihilation is one thing that has got me pensively thinking.
The 'where' and 'how' have been mentioned herein but am afraid the answers to 'why' are far beyond the scope of this piece for whenever the question hits me; why the hate, fights, destructions, killings, wars? I instinctively fail to muster any courage to claim that I know.
How come man whose love for life and the more beautiful things on earth and beyond has a tendency for causing chaos, wanton destruction at the detriment of the same life he so clings unto? How come he works tirelessly to make life living worthy yet with so much zest, sends the works of his hands to nothing but dust with same inventions of his ingenuity? How come man's extremes stretch beyond being as cool as ice cubes to being combusting coals that make steels bleed?
Pardon me for I may have gone emotional whilst unfolding the aforementioned. Pardon me if some of the info therein may have seem more hyperbolic. Truth they say (and rightfully so) is like fire. You can't hide it under your bed in a pitch black night and even if your dare, you may have succeeded in feeding what seemed to be a mere candle light with more materials to escalate with.
__Prince Jeremiah Kadiri
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