“What makes sense today may be madness tomorrow.” – Akan proverb
Modernity inspires a utopian vision that life must be lived pleasantly and fully without suffering.
It has employed the media to indoctrinate the general masses that the rational application of technology makes possible an environment in which inequality, sickness, poverty, and other afflictions can be wrapped up and erased.
It necessarily equates knowing to doing, visualising life and living in functional, mechanistic and deterministic terms that have to be declared and claimed. And so the surprising majority of us have become linear thinkers and hooked onto drama.
To top this up, living is being marketed as a sumptuous plate that everyone is entitled to. We are being ensnared by a utopian vision that everything good can be achieved in this lifetime. “It is a world of possibilities; you can have it all if you want,” it advertises; “the only requirement is that you should be alive.” In short, we deserve everything that life has to offer and more. This is true for some of us, and because everything is going along according to our dreams and so we dare to believe that nothing could make us fall. We forget our own nothingness and our utter weakness. We make the most delightful protestations that this is the best time to live.
What we do not realize is the other side of the coin, ‘it is your fault if life is not rosy for you.’ We are being told that we have a lot of knowledge to achieve utopia. It thus looks absurd if we are not sailing smooth. This inspirational hope of ‘possibility for all’ is not only false, but dangerous. For many of us we have conveniently forgotten that there has never been a moment when all humans were served the same dose of abilities and circumstances.
How can we have ‘possibility for all?’ At every point in time, some have more than others. Some of us draw long straws that give us certain advantages in life. To this group of individuals, ‘the possible is permissible’ headline suits them just fine.
Their environments adorn them with abilities that enable them to make the impossible, possible. But of those who draw the short straws, the ‘possibility for all’ is a message is diabolical and insulting for them. They find themselves short changed because of life ‘sense of fairness’ and then we add insult to injury by arguing that where they start from, does not matter.
Scrolling through the pages of history, and looking at the world around us, this utopia vision is the greatest illusionary vision any generation can buy into. The reality is life is full of astonishments that mystify us. There is no utopia, and consequently, no equality. We just have moments and movements. Sometimes there is purpose, justice, and logic present in these motions; and other times there is just nothing that our minds can wrap itself around. Sometimes, there is mess and other times, there is order. Life is a juggler; it moves to constantly keep us on our toes. It does not move according to the dictates of our dreams and aspirations.
It is true that there have been a handful of individuals who picked short straws and ended up in the highest places, sometimes in even higher positions that those with long straws could not attain. But the reality is that the greater numbers among them never rise beyond their height when they stand on their toes. Short straws are existential given. The interesting point here is that they always form the larger portion of the population. For a great many of them, they seek not to have the dreams of the ‘privileged’ members of society, they just want a system that allows them to eat and clothe themselves, with a roof over their heads. They do not desire to rub shoulders with the greats; they only want to be able to smile and to love.
For those of us who desire a utopia, well you have been misinformed. It is almost as impossible as resurrecting the dead. At best, it is a mirage that keeps us surging forward; zombie-like so that we do not give up. Let us be very frank, our most utmost utopian vision would still have flaws in them because we are not perfect. Instinctively we know that as long as we are not perfect, we cannot create a perfect system. This is not a call to resign ourselves to fate, but rather to prevent ourselves from unwittingly being forced to subscribe to the possibility of the permissible.
Our history shows that often our intellectual and technological prowess has failed us. Thus, what we need is an attitudinal change that inspires a duty to make the lives of those who drew shorter straws wonderful. It would take the beauty, the boldness and the brilliance inside you to create this wonderful environment. It would not be a utopia, but it would be a system that would energise them to smile and to shine. It would be one that would inspire hope, faith and love in them. And it would lift up souls, refreshing them with joy and peace to give purpose, justice and logic where it is most needed…
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Kodwo Brumpon is an executive coach at Polygon Oval, a forward-thinking Pan African management consultancy and social impact firm driven by data analytics, with a focus on understanding the extraordinary potential and needs of organisations and businesses to help them cultivate synergies, that catapults into their strategic growth, and certifies their sustainability.
Comments, suggestions, and requests for talks and training should be sent to him at [email protected]
