In class yesterday I think I stunned a few when I attempted to argue that living is not that special–I pointed out that life has no sanctity. In the medical ethics class (on the topic on Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide), we where discussing the case of a man who killed his 12 years old daughter cerebral palsy who has developed extreme severity; ultimately ‘Latimer has consistently claimed that he killed his daughter, by placing her in his farm truck and connecting the exhaust pipe to the cabin, in order to relieve her suffering.’(please read the full story here) And the Professor asked we discuss the rightness or wrong of this; most in the class concluded life is too precious to be taken away.

I disagreed, with passion. There is nothing, I pointed that makes our life extremely different from those animals, bacteria or cancer cells we kill daily. You can expect that I will get more hate than I can imagine (some even thought I was going insane).

Since I couldn’t discuss the depth of the argument in this 50 minutes class, where I wish I recite this to them:

on the Sanctity of Life,
A bunch of Shit Talk.
Life is Sacred…says who?
God?
If you read history this God
is the leading cause of death
and has been for thousands of years–
Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Christians
all killing each other
‘the sword of God’, ‘the blood of the lamb’, ‘vengeance is mine’–
Millions dead.
The wrong answer to the God question:
‘You believe in God?’ ‘No’–dead!
‘You believe in God?’ ‘Yes’
‘You believe in my God?’ ‘No’–dead!
…for thousands of years
…all the best wars,
the brutal wars, the craziest wars all fueled on religious hatred.
Forget sanctity of life!
And if there is, not from God.
We, humans, made it up!
Why?
‘Cause we’re alive–self-interest
We, promoting the idea that somehow
our life is sacred.
Dead people don’t talk about this…
Why?
They don’t care, they are dead!
It all grows from our biased point of view
It is a self-serving man-made-crap
One of the things we tell ourselves
…to feel good
Life is sacred–making us feel noble.
Think of it:
if everything that ever lived is dead,
And everything that is alive will die,
Where is there sanctity?
We are hypocritical.
Think of it:
We kill mosquitoes, flies–’cause they are pest
Lions and tigers–’cause it’s fun
Chickens and pigs–’cause we’re hungry
Pheasants and Quails–’cause it’s fun and we’re hungry
People–’cause they’re pest and it’s fun
Cancer cells–where is their sanctity
Save the tumor!
Save the Viruses, Mildew, Bacteria, Crabs…
Aren’t they sacred?
Sanctity of Life is very selective,
We choose those forms of life we deem sacred
And…
We kill the rest
Why?
We made it all up.

There was Haiti and now Chile, guess whose fault it is…I’m guessing global warming, theologians, and academicians, I’m kidding about the academician part and the rest remains valid, global warming and theologians, faux alike.

Maybe I’ve lost my sympathy–but people are dying by the thousands everyday and the economist in me is saying: “maybe it’s a good thing.” Remember, we’re all going to die and actually that’s what makes us the lucky ones. Before I heard the news of the Chile Mag. 8.8 earthquake, I wanted to talk about the “littleness” of life, a lot like George Carlin would do. We humans are taking ourselves too seriously.

It perhaps comes to mind that I might be reacting differently if me or my acquaintance is involved in this disaster; I might, I might not. My heart goes out to those who might have been affected and for those who are not affected, I wrote this a long while ago and I’d repeat:

We are going to Die!
And that makes us,
the lucky ones.
Most people are never going to die,
because they are never going to be born.

The potential people who could have been here in my place
that would in fact not see light of day,
out number the sand grain of the Sahara.

Certainly,
those unborn greats exists.

Greater Poets than Keith,
greater scientist than Newton.
greater minds than Einstein.

We know this because the set of possible people
allowed by our DNA outnumbers the set of actual people.

In the teeth of this stupefied odds,

it is You and I in our ordinariness,
that are here.

We privileged few who won the lottery of birth against all odds

How dare we whine!
About our inevitable return
to that state which the vast majority never saw.

Through the two previous posts we attempted to first, deny love; and the next post took us through re-discovering love. You might be looking forward to Valentine’s day, and to this I’m asking, what does Valentine mean to you?

Approximately 259 A.D., Valentine was martyred for believing strongly in an unselfish love. The then emperor denounced marriage because we wanted more men in the military believing that if they weren’t married they would have no reason not to join the military. Valentine, being a priest cared less about this decree and continued conducting secret marriages. He was later found out and thrown in jail.

In jail, we was visited by many who also shared his beliefs. Those visited threw flowers into is cell, notes and more notably, on dying he left a note for a special girl who was his constant visitor (the daughter of his prison guard): “Love from your Valentine”.

Love is active. Love gives, unconditionally. Love shares, in kindness. Love is a verb, not a noun.

“I love you”, really? As you think of Valentine, forget thinking about that special ‘love’ of your life you could be spending Valentine with; there are always those who are waiting to receive from you unconditionally, who are waiting to be cared for, who are waiting to hear your voice, those who, can’t afford to give back…

Those who want to hear you say: “I love you” and you really mean it. Love is active.

I’ve been asking a question for my thought experiment: “why do many promising relationships fail?” Sister – Brother, Father – Son, Cousins, and more commonly, male to female [romantic] relationship. Actually, I’ve found that, more of us find ourselves being transformed by those romantic relationships less so than other relationship in our lives.

For this thought experiment [series], I will be focusing on romantic relationships, homosexual and heterosexual–after asking varying people series of questions about the relationships in their lives, I have found something in common: relationships are failing because we are being deluded.

Get ready. For the next few post [days], they will be based on and around this topic (maybe you can guess why, Feb. 14th?) and like have laid out some logical insight into the irrationality of religion, conventional knowledge, I want to see if I can like-wisely figure irrationality in relationships we claims to believe in.

From a song that got stuck on my mind and even more so how I feel of late:

If I could run away
I’d run away with you
Far Away
To a place, where there’ll be angels
Who would describe to you
The Way I feel
Feel for You!
Feel About You
You’re my heart and Soul’s Desire.

I’ve thought (written?) several about my thoughts on life and for the various facet life gives us, sometimes it feels like we are being tricked by life; sometimes it feels like we’re getting a treat. Maybe that’s what the “life’s not rosy” phrase means, I’m still not sure. This is poem written by four of my friends (Fola Kol, Tosin Gbogi, Saba Raja and Femi Osewa); as you read the poem, you’d probably notice how everyone’s take on life  feels as the poem “talks”.

trick or treating
a trick on living or dying this is life
hold on me
the trick itself is the treat we seek,
solving the puzzle of divided unity.
a trick or treat, can’t say or see
or know or care or discover
or hide or find
the trick in living is not dying

The trick in living is not dying
In itself, death is not satisfying
Being thankful: the trick to living
An illusion of wholeness it gives
Though this cup is yet to brim.

Brim brim the cup of death
Boom boom the tropes of health
Hopes, I died yet I live.
In itself, death exists,
Life exists, as it is,
Neither is complete, neither satisfying,
Dying live, as living are dying.
Even in my death, my spirit longed for here,
my body yearned to do things like i yet lived.

Behold i must keep the fight never to invoke the dead me.

Some of my recent Haiku on Haiti (except the last)…

O heart groan/
 like an axed tree
cut short in time

I sit
 I watch
I moan

heart throbing
 body hit
mind ever strong

let’s be honest
 and be a mind
high on Haiti

tick tick
 time passing
help, give, donate

Ineffable woe
 Infallible spirits rise
From rubble & loss  -@tWordBird

And there have been the Haiti crisis to which I reminded us, we are nothing but humans irrespective of how high we think of ourselves and more especially, we are monkeys.

This is a transcription from an old video which makes the thinking clearer, we as monkeys. Be prepared for a long session to laugh, think and cry:

There are billions of galaxies in the observable universe
And each of them contain hundreds of billions of stars.
In one of the galaxies.
Orbiting one of these stars.
Lies a little blue planet.
And this planet is run by a bunch of monkeys…

Now these monkeys don’t think of themselves as monkeys.
They don’t even think of themselves as animals.
In fact, they love to list all the things that
they think separate them from the animals…

Opposable thumbs, self awareness,
they use words like homo erectus and ostralopithicus.
You say tomato, i say tomatoe.
They’re animals alright; they’re monkeys.
Monkeys with high speed digital fiberoptic technology,
but monkeys never-the-less.

They’re clever. you’ve got to give them that.
The pyramids, skyscrapers, phantom jets,
the great wall of China. that’s all pretty impressive,
for a bunch of monkeys.
Monkeys whose brains have evolved to
such an unmanageable size that it’s pretty
much impossible for them to stay happy for any length of time.
In fact, they’re the only animals who think
they’re supposed to be happy.

All the other animals can just BE.

But it’s not that simple for the monkeys…

The monkeys are cursed with consciousness.
And so the monkeys are afraid.
So the monkeys worry.
the monkeys worry about everything,
but mostly about what all the other monkeys think.
Because the monkeys desperately want to fit in with the other monkeys.
Which is pretty hard to do, because a lot of the monkeys hate each other.
This is really what separates them from the other animals.

These monkeys hate.
They hate monkeys that are different.
Monkeys from different places.
Monkeys who are different color.
You see, the monkeys feel alone:

ALL 6 BILLION of them.

Some of the monkeys pay another monkey to listen to their problems.
The monkeys want answers.
And the monkeys know they are going to die.
So the monkeys make up gods.
And then they worship them.
Then the monkeys start to argue over whose made-up god is better.
And then the monkeys get really pissed off
and this is usually when the monkeys decide that
it’s a good time to start killing each other.
So the monkeys wage war.
The monkeys make hydrogen bombs.
The monkeys have got their entire planet
wired up to explode.
The monkeys just can’t help it.

Some of the monkeys play
to a sold out crowd of other monkeys.
The monkeys make trophies,
and then they give them to each other…
like it means something.

Some of the monkeys think they’ve
got it all figured out.
Some of the monkeys read Nietzsche or Bible.
The monkeys argue about them.
Without ever giving any consideration
to the fact that they where just from another monkey.

The monkeys make plans.
The monkeys fall in love.
The monkeys have sex.
And then they make more monkeys.

The Monkees make music.
And then the monkeys dance.

The monkeys make a hell of a lot of noise.
The monkeys have so much potential
if they would only apply themselves.
The monkeys shave the hair off their bodies
in blatant denial of their true monkey nature.
The monkeys build giant monkey hives, that they call cities.

The monkeys draw a lot of imaginary lines in the dirt.
The monkeys are running out of oil.
Which is what fuel their precarious civilization.
The monkeys are polluting and raping their planet
like there’s no tomorrow.
The monkeys like to pretend that everything is just fine.
Some of the monkeys actually believe that the entire universe
was created for their benefit.

As you can see these are some messed up monkeys.
These monkeys are at once the ugliest
and the most beautiful creatures on the planet.
And the monkeys don’t want to be monkeys,
they want to be something else…

but they’re not.

Millions are being donated to Haiti as more devastation is being resolved; I’m reminded of the role some of us who don’t have the financial resources or physical presence can still offer—talent.

I started a mini series of twittering micro-poetry to [hopefully] raise people’s consciousness to the situation, to help if they haven’t, and not only about helping but also to appreciate how much we have it, carefully learning to number our days.
And here are some of the recently posted poetry, in haiku formats:

earth crys
on earth-quakes
still staying strong
——————
knock knock
here calls heavens door
to my passed
——————-
broken
in dreamt hopes
heavily-hearted in Haiti
———————
for numbered days
in pursuit given
life atypical

Will be posting some more concurrently, keep Haiti on your mind, all my heart goes out.

My school (UMASS Boston) will be resuming soon and of course that invites my criticism of school and schooling, to which I always argues there is need for a change in paradigm of our we approach ‘learning’.

Learning in the sense of the ‘real’ world and the ‘academic’ world. I’m still surprised that even as a senior, many of my colleagues still don’t know that this two worlds don’t  translate. There is the academic world where we learn all those facts and soon forget, the world where there is only one right answer, the world where your goodness or badness is based on some letter grade, the world where there are clear failures and successes [predictably]; and, there is the real world.

A world where preparing impromptu-ly gets you burned, the real world where the path, or answer, is unclear, a real world, very unpredictable, one you cannot drop out from just because you don’t ‘like’ it.

Welcome to the real world newbies. Seniors of the academic world and super freshmen of the real world.