Monday, September 14, 2009

EUREKA

Just going down memory lane and decided to stay at my secondary school ‘avenue’, precisely at physics class ‘bus stop’ and the word Eureka from Archimedes principle just jumped at me. As I ruminated on this some burning issues unveiled themselves beckoning on my consideration. For those who do not have a background in the sciences let me give you a brief history of this word so we can flow together.
It is most famously attributed to the ancient Greek scholar Archimedes; he reportedly proclaimed "Eureka!" when he stepped into a bath and noticed that the water level rose — he suddenly understood that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. This meant that the volume of irregular objects could be calculated with precision, a previously intractable problem. He is said to have been so eager to share his realization that he leapt out of his bathtub and ran through the streets of Syracuse naked.
Just a simple experiment will validate this principle: fill a glass to its brim with water and push a table tennis ball into the glass, the water runs over the side. The volume or amount of water that overflows the glass is the volume that has been displaced.
If you weigh the water that overflows and the table tennis ball, you find that the water weighs more than the ball. If an object displaces an amount of water weighting more than it does, it floats. If an object displaces an amount of water weighing less than it does, it sinks. If an object displaces an amount of water weighing the same as it does, it hovers.
Archimedes' insight led to the solution of a problem posed by Hiero of Syracuse, on how to assess the purity of an irregular golden crown. Equipment for weighing objects already existed, and now that Archimedes could also measure volume, their ratio would give the object's density, an important indicator of purity; it also explains why a steel ship will float on water.
Now enough of physics, let’s focus on central message of this discourse.
Borrowing a dose of wisdom from the words of Helen Keller who once opined that the “greatest tragedy in life is people who have sight but no vision”, I hope that you’ll accede to my tweaking this a little to make my submission that it is a tragedy to have sight without insight. How that several times we approach issues from a dysfunctional stance simply because someone said it cannot be done, we throw in the towel and give up. We look but we refuse to see. History is replete with men who defied stereotypes, who dared to ask ‘why not’ and achieved feats that were once considered impossible . The story of Archimedes once again reminded me of the fact that tenacity is the rule of the game for anyone who wants to inscribe his name on the sands of history as having made a tremendous contribution to the course of making the world a better place. Permit me to at this juncture underscore some life’s principles I was able to glean from Archimedes principle:
 Sight – the issue of having a vision has been flogged (if not over flogged) at several fora and in different circumstances to the point that loads of people has come to accept it as the panacea to the myriads of challenges they face. As much as there is no one-size-fits-all principle to getting ahead in life I will like to submit that as good as vision is it is not enough. The holy writ says “where there is no vision the people perish”, where there are no people, what happens to the vision? Hence as good as vision is, it needs human instruments to bring it to the realm of reality and by ‘instruments’ I’m talking of that specie of humans with a ‘can do’ attitude towards life.
 Foresight – this has to do with planning for the morrow, it is analyzing where one is, setting achievable goals and charting the course of action(s) that will transport one to where one desires to be. How we need men with fore sight in our days, those with an uncommon drive who can draw a clear map of the journey  that will ultimately land us in our land of abundance.
 Hindsight – experience they say is the best teacher, there is no gainsaying the fact that we learn invaluable lessons from the things that have happened to us in the past. The danger however lies in not knowing where to draw the line between learning and letting go. Several folks are so tied to their past that they cannot be released into their future. As good as hindsight is extract the requisite lessons from it and throw them to where they belong – behind (that’s why it is called hindsight). It’s no use flogging a dead horse, look back, learn and look forward.
 Insight – this is a sight whose source is not external but internal. It is the ‘thermometer’ of the soul – the instrument for measuring our true sense of sight. The euphemism for insight is revelation and trust me it births revolution.
Turn the searchlight inwards activate your inner eyes and engage the forces of nature on a higher realm by unlocking the solution to your situation through the instrumentality of insight and as you unlock the streams of possibilities from within like Archimedes you will shout EUREKA.

Friday, September 11, 2009

ReBuilding Nigeria!

Hello friend,
Today being the 8th anniversary of the 9/11 attack on the US, i decided to have a moment of sober reflection peradventure i can receive a unique revelation to lend my voice to the war against terrrorism precipitated by this historic event. To my greatest chagrin, my antenae was tuned to the happenings in my fatherland and in trying to find a correlation between 9/11 and the present state of our nation i came to discover that we have a 'terrorist' invasion that we seem to be oblivious of and in trying to give words to my thoughts i came across Adeolu Akinyemi's blog and i couldn't just get away from the thought provoking posts. I am reproducing (verbatim) a particualr article from this blog here for your reading pleasure... opps is pleasure the right word? cos i doubt if the situation is pleasurable.
What I want to write today is an article I will love you to pirate. I’ll like you to dub it, and put it on your blog post. Modify it if you like, give me credit if you want, or give me none at all. They say we’ll achieve a lot more if we don’t care who gets the credit.
I have refrained deliberately for a long time to make any comments about our National Rebranding exercise. I hope I will be able to say what boils in my throat and wrists tonight, without making too much reference to it. For all it’s worth though, I think the fundamental error I can see, is that Nigerians have not been made to own it, and hence rather than having people championing it, and helping others buy in, what we have is criticism and condemnation by the same people who would have been it’s champions.
Having said that however, I have a proposition of an exercise that we can own as Nigerians. It’s a simple idea and it came as a fallout of a discussion that ensued in my office yesterday. It’s an answer of what we can do to focus our leaders on the problems that we have as citizens and to assist them in giving it the attention it deserves. We no longer need any assitance from any source to know that our most crucial problem in Nigeria is Leadership! If we are all on the same page in this realization, then our efforts towards a better Nigeria must be channeled to support, focus and direct our leaders.
I remember shortly before the elections last year I wrote an article I titled, “Power is all we need!” I pleaded with our would be leaders not to promise us roads or education, but to promise us just one thing – Power! That if in any leaders 4yrs we can celebrate 1yr of uniterupted power supply, then we should imortalize that president. Haven been to Egypt now to watch tombs, I say we must do the same, but before they die however.
First for the nation, then the states, then our local governments. Once we have a new president for example, we should as a nation analyze our most significant problem that we want solved in his or her tenure. After we have agreed on this problem, we should then go ahead and give that problem the same name with our president. We should substitute the name of our leader with this problem in our conversations, in our articles in newspapers, in our slang’s, in our music and drama. We should do this per state and per local government as well.
Let’s say for example that we have discovered that our biggest problem in Nigeria is Electricity, and for example that our president’s name for the tenure was Yaradua. Then everytime light goes, every time we are in darkeness, everytime we have any issues, our conversations should be like this.
When it is bad as it is – “Chai, Yaradua has gone again”, “Ah, we have not had Yaradua for the last 2 days”, “This Yaradua is so unstable”, “Ah what did we do today oh, we have half Yaradua today”,” What’s wrong with you, you are complaining that you haven’t seen Yaradua for 3 days, what about people that haven’t seen Yaradua for one year! or ever!”, “I wasn’t able to do it overnight, because Yaradua kept fainting”, “We have been using Yaradua as backup to our Generator”, “Iron your shirts, Yaradua may soon go oh”, ”
When this start becoming good – ” Up Yaradua!”, “Yaradua is really trying oh, we are not where we want to be, but we are far from where we were”, “Yaradua has been consistent for the past 24hrs”, “Ah, we need to celebrate 1yr of uninterrupted Yaradua”, “Yaradua is so much better these days”, “With Yaradua so constant, Nigeria is really becoming the most desirable nation to live in on earth”. “Yaradua is constant in all the states of Nigeria and the structures are in place to get Yaradua into all the local governments.”
Can you for your own new ones?
If we keep speaking this way, our leaders will know that we mean business with our desire for solutions. The next president will also know that one critical unsolved problem will bear his name until it’s solved. I recommend, that whichever president fixes electric power be given the opportunity to forever bear the same name with electricity in Nigeria and be forever immortalized in the lips and minds of Nigerians. The same for every future identified problem. A similar approach should be taken to the state levels. Whatever problem we align and identify must be instantly changed to the name of the Governor. If the issue in Lagos for example was Transportation and assuming the Governor was Fashola, then by now, people should be saying “Fashola is getting better in Lagos now”, or ” I entered one wrong fashola and they collected my phone and laptop.” or “Big Fashola (BRT) is actually making life easy for Lagosians”. We can identify the states one by one and identify the problems that need to be solved and replaced with their name.
My people say that whatever hurts one, must be primary in one’s conversation – “Oun to ba duni lo n po loro eni”
If you use this on your blog, just put a litte comment here saying you are using it so I can follow on to your site and register my solidarity. I think this is something that we the people can own and gradually take things to the way things should be. We deserve more than what we are getting, and UNTIL we the people are clear about what we want and about our commitment to make sure it happen, then nothing happens. Let’s make this happen!
Now I really need to sleep before Yarauda’ goes!

Thursday, September 3, 2009

STANDING TALL IN A BENT WORLD

I have always nursed the ambition of making a difference in my time; I have always resisted the idea of being just a statistic or a figure, I have a desire to be the answer to people’s questions, the solution to people’s problems, I constantly feel pained when someone approaches me for a favour and I lacked the wherewithal to provide or grant their request, how I crave to always put a smile (or at least a dimple) on peoples face – bottom line, I have a strong desire to be an agent of change. I know that in the crevices of our heart a part of us yearns to be the change our world has been waiting for. But how do we make a difference? Take it from me; to be outstanding you need to stand out, Q.E.D.
No doubt you’ve severally found yourself in compromising positions (I do too) and one way or the other you are bombarded with loads of choices most of which are unpalatable and there were times when figuratively you find yourself standing between the devil and the deep blue sea with all routes of escape completely blocked. What do you do in such situations? Do you make a deal with the devil (which obviously will require you to make sacrifices some of which might be grave) or do you just plunge yourself into the sea hoping and praying that by a whim of divine intervention an escape route will appear. No doubt your choice naturally will tilt towards a less risky and viable of the two which most often than not will be to rationalise your position and make a deal with the devil after all, he who fights to run lives to fight another day. Contrariwise, I am of the opinion that ‘he does not make a difference who dares not to be different’. You know the popular saying if you cannot beat them you join them is so untrue for one who wants to make a difference because making a difference has to do with ‘beating them’ – yeah you need to beat them pal. I have been a student in the school of leadership for some time now (and when I say leadership, I hope your mind is not drifting towards position because that ain’t leadership – leadership for me is setting the pace) and have come to cherish a law I came across some years ago which says “if you think you are leading and no one is following you then you are only taking a walk”. One can safely conclude from the aforementioned therefore that making a difference is influencing them (or beating them) hence you have no business being with them if you cannot beat them. For a leader, joining them is not an option beating them is. Let the leader in you emerge, stand tall and set the standard.
We live in a time when people will always have justifications for their actions (and inactions), when there is no longer an exception to the rule, the exception has become the rule (if you know what I mean), things are no longer seen as black or white, several shades of grey have appeared and are the norm, even our vocabulary have undergone what I call ‘creative metamorphosis’, stealing has got a new nomenclature – misappropriation (what a tongue twisting word), and to worsen the situation some people who over the years were of impeccable character are beginning to dance to a different melody the lyrics of which we don’t understand. Pressures are mounting from every side but my friend stand your ground and refuse to bend – it is a proof of your character strength. I strongly believe that in the face of intimidations and decadence we still can stand tall even if everyone around us is bending and changing exclamation mark (!) to question mark (?). After all even in Israel of old when everybody deviated from the path of life to embrace foreign gods (values, ideals, ways E.t.c) there were still some seven thousand young men who refused to bow. I charge you friend: Dare to be different, stand tall in this bent world.