There
is fatalistic disappointment that comes with seeing life as a race to the
finish line, only to be beaten to the lesson again and again that there is
never truly a finish line. There are times when we are at a fix and we think
that this is the end of it, or when we are in the wraps of a certain excitement
and we think that this is the end of all our troubles.
I
had one of these moments recently- I always have these moments when life comes
tumbling and it seems like I should raise the white flag of surrender, and I also
have those moments when I get my way with life and I feel like years of inner
darkness are over. There is this friend I haven’t seen for years and recently
we got talking online, chatting from Instagram where we first hooked up again after
almost ten years down to Whatsapp where we made the first voice call. It was as
if there was a lot to catch up on and we will never stop talking. S. said she
would be flying into Nigeria and would like us to hang out. Then the chatting
continued ceaselessly with taunts and teasing over past events that now seem
very awkward to remember. Like when S. misread my affections for her friend and
thought she was the one I was hitting on each time I tried to impress the
group, until I blurted it out and it almost caused a storm between them.
S.
came to Lagos; and after two or three times of meeting up, small talks started
becoming conversationally delicate, and because we frequented many bars in the
course of the bonding, the chatting started feeling like a flat beer that won’t
go down any further because either of us was already full.
My
time with S. reminds me of many things I have rushed into in life, especially
the many conclusions of pure bliss or eternal disaster. It also reminds me of
Barack Obama. In 2008 when the Obama fever was high, when the possibility of a
first black American president reached its highest crescendo of reality, many
people thought this would be the end of all the racism in America. The references
to Martin Luther King Jr prophetic speeches were intoxicating. Obamania was what
it was called and people lined up to elect him and wish that it would vanish
years of racial tension. But did it?
Surprisingly,
America baked in the heat of racial tensions during his administration that
many question if truly this was the messiah or they should wait for
another. Trayvon Martin happened under
him and many more like him and he failed to mention race as a factor in these killings
until towards the end of his second term. This man turned Libya upside down.
Another
scenario is the Trump ascendancy. Because of his vulgarity and his indecency,
many painted his walk to the White House as both political and economic doom
for the nation. A particular case in
point is Paul Krugman, a political economist who wrote tirelessly about the
negative economic effects of a Trump presidency. I read almost everything he
wrote on Trump, admired the clarity of his arguments and how he could explain
complicated economic terms to an outsider like me. While the jury is not yet
out on the political doom, Americans have seen more jobs created in the Trump
era that CNN and the New York Times are finding it hard to report.
But
it’s not the ambiguities that bestride the American politics that is of particular
concern to me as much as how this applies to humans personally. We often see
life in terms of finish lines; let me graduate and I will rest. But the rest
never comes, and soon it is the time for job-hunting and when the great job
comes, the rest is also put on hold as the stress of the job sets in.
Most
times, a personal upheaval that threatens to milk our joy away sets in and we
trouble ourselves to death that this is the end, this is the period when the
river stops flowing or the sun stops shining because of this
embarrassment. It could be another
rejection, job loss, bad investment, the most unexpected betrayal or even the
loss of a loved one to sickness or death. The truth is that just like the happy
and sad feelings that came with Obama and Trump or even Buhari, or more
personally, with S., there is truly no finish line. The river will flow the
next morning in the same gait it has flowed for years; the sun will rise and
fall when it is time; the clouds will chase after each other at night while the
stars watch in sparkling silence. Do not lose a minute’s sleep. There is always
a morning after.
