eBeefs

By Lahai J Samboma 

Some journeys are worthwhile. They make us more well-rounded human subjects and objects, enriching us with experiences that inform the multilayered, multifaceted beings we are becoming every second and every minute of each passing day.

The decision to embark on them may or may not have been ours in the first place - and their impact on our lives could be devastating and not amenable to the good ol' trick of getting-up-and-dusting-ourselves. But it could nevertheless be argued that such journeys are worthwhile.

It could equally be said that these journeys as defined, do not constitute necessary conditions to becoming a well-rounded human being. Many people go through life on a smooth ride and/or in the fast lane. They would be the first to say that they and those who had suffered life’s hard knocks are not mutually exclusive categories as far as being well-rounded people is concerned.

A junkie who has become homeless through addiction to “controlled” substances; the abused child who leaves home, the good worker who loses job and abode, the adventurous spouse kicked out for playing away - all feel the blight of homelessness.

Blood, sweat and tears

Indeed, some experiences are just not worth the blood, sweat and the tears expended in acquiring them. They hold you back, traumatise, deflate, break you; they may make you lose faith in the sisterhood of man, in the brotherhood of family. Take a pass on them. But, what if the choice of whether or not to embark on them is not yours!  

As the wise man once said, it matters not whether you jumped in or were pushed in, just keep treading water like hell. I would add that you should not only try to keep afloat, you should be also heading back to shore. Once there, start off from where you left off, and set off on the trek of your own choosing. Don’t let the experience hold you back; though designed to stop you in your tracks and diminish you, it should only slow you down, not hobble you for life.

It is usually said that what does not kill you makes you stronger. I would say that we should always strive to turn the negatives in our lives into positives, transform the poisons in the bloodstream into anti-bodies to ward off future infection. That should be one of the major manifestations of the enrichment that springs from the hardball that is life. But such enrichment only becomes an asset if it empowers us to rise above, weather or overcome the bad experiences and their consequences.

A dialectical process

Learning from our experiences should be a dialectical process with the human as both subject and object, acting upon and being acted upon by material reality. The lessons learnt inform our future actions, the results of which become a veritable toolbox of knowledge, opinions, sentiments, experiences and responses we dip into as situations demand.

This dialectic is dismembered when pent-up emotions remain just that - pent-up; when we refuse to acknowledge and release emotional tensions and attain a working equilibrium with all that has gone past. We have effectively given up, period. We become mere objects being buffeted by the vagaries of social and psychological realities, allowing something we call “destiny” or “fate” to take its so-called course. No longer actors capable of acting upon material and social reality to manufacture our “destinies”, we become incapacitated by self-pity, self-doubt, self-loathing, hate, envy, extreme religiosity, allowing ourselves to become willing pawns in the games of others.

As both social beings and political animals we fulfil our purpose in society when we don't allow personal, difficult circumstances to alienate us from our essence as thinking and acting beings capable of changing reality. This is where the personal becomes political. Can a group of drugged-up, self-loathing kleptomaniacs achieve social and political emancipation?

The purpose of life

Giving up on the noble task of fashioning our particular destinies from the concrete realities of life should not be an option. Adverse circumstances should spur us into action, not only to overcome obstacles, but to also do good and laudable deeds in the process, however small and insignificant they may seem to us. The latter is the litmus test of whether our negative experiences have disfigured and alienated us from our true essence as social beings.

That I believe is the purpose of human life: to strive for personal enlightenment and development in such a way that the sum total of your brief sojourn this side of eternity is one that leaves humanity enriched. So, on this reckoning, what has been the net impact of people like Bush and Blair on humanity? Simply put, it has been disastrous, the same as Saddam Hussein‘s, their fellow mass-murderer. But, life being a bitch, the latter became worm-food, while the other two conniving, oil-pillaging so-and-so’s are still with us today.

The gentle reader may be wondering if I have taken them on a journey into psycho/political-babbledom that could result in their losing the conscious will to even live. I am pleased to say, however, that is not, nor was it ever, our intention. I just called to say I am back, from a journey that even the most creative writer of fiction would have been hard pressed to think up. I will write about it at some point. Has my journey made me a more well-rounded person? Maybe. Maybe not. What I can say without doubt is that I would not have been able to write this two years ago, ie before my trip.