Chiben's Pen

𝗛𝗨𝗠𝗔𝗡 𝗧𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗜𝗘𝗦 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗦𝗖𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘

During my earlier years, I found it prerequisite that an individual must exhibit heightened consciousness regarding the tendencies of human nature.

Still, man must be aware that consciousness has its own price. For It is sickening for the mind to always be ready to ask "WHY"

The advantages are however very enormous. First a man is able to put himself in self-check and the chances of finding rationales are improved. This understanding becomes the perfect stimulant of sympathy, justice, mercy and retribution.

This understanding is also vital for the selection and maintenance of circles, the advantages are unending...

Transcendence is simply a state of living above our human tendencies which we acknowledge to be flawed. It is however positive that we feel a need to be free from flaws.

The struggle for transcendence should be the ultimate aim of humanity's affiliation with religion.

However flawed the human nature is. I can tell that there are highly conscious humans on the path to transcendence. In as much as we need divine help which is paramount, we also need to dig deep into mental awareness and consciousness.

L'illusion de la liberté

If a man be free,
Then he must seize to be
For a man who breathes is a prisoner of many cages,
Of concepts and beliefs without rational basis

His only wish is to be a free prisoner,
By this I mean, Chose wisely his cage.
But the absolute wish is for the daydreamer,
For some systems are strong and are of age

To put on the light
Freedom cannot be ideally defined
Yet bo***ge can always be identified
So a man must decide to beautify and find meaning in whatever cage he chooses or have built

So, if am man must be free
He must choose not to be
Or limit his definition of it
Make, and give his choice of cage a nice treat.

Memento mori

"Memento mori" a Latin phrase that translates as "Remember that you will die" is an ancient philosophical dictium going back to the days of Socrates. It flourished around the 3rd Centrury AD during the era of the stoics and early Christians. Marcus Aurelius in his meditations wrote “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”

It taught that for man to limit his ego and keep all good virtues and positive impact he must bear in mind that one day death will knock on his door.

“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. … The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” Seneca

At the peak of the Roman empire, after every triumph. At the triumphant entry was a slave standing behind the conqueror general. And while the whole city echoed his name the slave reminded the general of memento mori.

Even today a reminder of our mortality could be the alarm for us to live life to the fullest and well with good deeds.

Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius once said "waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one"

DEFEAT: A poem by Kahlil Gibran (1918)

Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness;
You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs,
And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory.

Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance,
Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot
And not to be trapped by withering laurels.
And in you I have found aloneness
And the joy of being shunned and scorned.

Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield,
In your eyes I have read
That to be enthroned is to be enslaved,
And to be understood is to be leveled down,
And to be grasped is but to reach one’s fullness
And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed.

Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion,
You shall hear my songs and my cries and my silences,
And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings,
And urging of seas,
And of mountains that burn in the night,
And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul.

Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage,
You and I shall laugh together with the storm,
And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us,
And we shall stand in the sun with a will,
And we shall be dangerous.

Faith that is stronger than outcomes

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐁𝐀𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄

Balance is a concept, a way of life, a goal to be attained and also a never ending trophy to be won. As a concept it has to be studied. Moreso as a concept that finds itself in every sphere of life, it has characteristics akin to the various forms in which it exists such as in our daily lives (love, finance, work and family). Hence a pattern can be observed and categorized.

⚖️𝐁𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐥𝐞
Think of how delicate it is to be loyal and not be stupid or be brave and not be callous, or be disciplinarian and not be an extremist, or be immersed in work and not rest. Our world as it is and as we have further complexed it is made up of constraints to distort stability.

⚖️ 𝐁𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐚 𝐰𝐞𝐛 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬
Alot of things hang in the balance at once. And all of them are interconnected. Take for instance, If we say the use of fossil fuels is injurious to nature, countries have built economies on petroleum products. Our cars run on petroleum, industrial machinery runs on petroleum products, Hence people survive via fossil fuels which in turn will lead to increaseing heat, excessive rainfall and flooding, loss of polar habits and geopardy of polar animals.

Life is a web and if we must maintain balance we must be aware of how delicate and interwoven things actually are.

Balance....

Source of a Poet's pen

A poet's pen is propelled by winds
blown towards by the breeze of the outside world
from the East, West, North and South,
sometimes it stems from the pool of doubt

A poet's pen is picked sometimes,
Drenched in the deep waters of marah
Water wiped off but still moist
so it cries out brave and poised

A poet's pen speaks against the times
To rewind the clock or make it still
It warns of seasons to come
and exposes the trickery of King Tom

A poet's pen could taste of berries and kisses
Of lilies grown in the heart,
Of roses diffusing scents of Love
Of the moments when around him the World
would revolve

A poet's pen spill out its content
not because it has been pierced
but because it is full and must be emptied
Less the Conscience be buried.

©Chiben

Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

(Book: Collected Poems and Translations https://amzn.to/3JjOPPQ)

(Art: Photograph of the Big Ben, in the clock tower at the Palace of Westminster, London)

Are they things you believe that you don't want to be questioned about?
Are they concepts you argue about even when you behold their loopholes?

Chances are we all have them. Hence, a lot of us have been indoctrinated.

What exactly is indoctrination?

Indoctrination is making a person believe in the superiority of the information with which he or she is fed. And when a person from childhood is subjected to a belief system, a set of doctrines he or she believes to be original and pure, there's no turning back. It becomes hard to see the world from a different perspective no matter how life tries hard.

Truth is, our society is filled with people who hold unto the superiority of their belief systems. Mine is supreme and yours is inferior. Yours must bow down to mine. And so we never get to a point of mundane unity. We create unnecessary factions and unhealthy dichotomies. indeed wooden barriers of separation should have been used to make tables of reason and ladders to human advancement.

Every society aims for longevity and so members of every belonging tend to teach their folks to believe what they believe and reject others. Today we face a massive conflict of beliefs making global unity an illusion. But can't we still teach our progeny our ways yet teach them to respect other teachings too? The scare is that with the intensity which indoctrination carries, we see people who can harm others to uphold the superiority of their beliefs.

The indoctrinated man is scared of doubt. Indoctrinators are afraid of inquisitiveness. But indeed Those who are prone to doubt are not faithless, the richest commitment come from men who know can see the loopholes for they alone can make things better.
Rollo May, writer of the book "the power to create" tells us

"The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt"

Peace........🥰

TICK-TOCK

A new dawn is upon us
Drawn from the toss
Of time and it's full stomach
Tomorrow is the today -- the so long awaited tick-tock.

To depend on ticks and tocks
Is to wish partly for uncertainty
Our limitation which really sucks
But time - is supreme in activity

What has arrived is a better dawn
And here I am -- poised to bask in it
Before it goes to nowhere from whence it was born

Man never siezes to hope
Again we shoot hope against time
For in hope we tie the future with a long rope
To make sure it pays every dime.

𝙏𝙤 𝙃𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙤𝙧 𝙏𝙤 𝘽𝙚? By Erich Fromm
𝐀 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐟 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰

Early this year I read the Ebook version of this work of Erich Fromm. And I began to have keen interest in the works of this great psychoanalyst.
To have or to be is a 20th Century classic that questions the pe*******on of the ownership mindset plaguing the minds of humans..

Published in 1976 yet more applicable for today's society.. The book highlights how much man wants to own than he wants to become. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭 which have penetrated every aspect of our lives even Religion is a menace..

Owning and the right to own which is the creed of capitalism in itself not a bad. Erich Fromm was careful to analyze that our intense concern to have pressed down Virtue. And virtue is what we become.

In today's World, having tends to be paramount. We place our confidence on what we have. Our clothes, Money, status. Do we even do good for good or to have a good name? Do we go to school to become useful resources or we see school solely as ladder to Wealth....

In our relationships today we can see. That we lose friends and gain friends based on standards of what we or they have. It is very sickening.. We have made ourselves tools of exchange, Ignoring the very essence of being..

The Cybernetic man or machine man as Erich Fromm puts it is one whose being is tied to what he has. Man is a slave to his acquisitions.. His technological gadgets, his buildings. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝘀. Take it away from him and he is gone.

Today every greatness must be followed by much havings.. The greatest churches have the biggest buildings. Anything great must have physical magnificence attached. Greatness for the modern man is in having not in becoming and today we rate the content of a human by how much he has therefore we have reduced ourselves to commodities.

Erich Fromm believes man could transcend this trap made for him by capitalism. Even the best of systems could emanate subtle dangers...

I HAVE SEEN

I have seen, though my days are yet few,
Lots of lies thought to be true,
Lots of teachings, hodgepodge of ingredients in stew

I have seen and I can tell,
Man is frail and needs divine help
For the most, he does well for the fear of hell.

I have seen and I can say,
Understanding is a vast gold mine
Artisans of life make a task of it everyday

I have seen from a ship where I sat still
We men place having above becoming,
Hence consciences are pierced by drills.

I have seen the abnormal that looks normal.
Love weeps in the cold and seldom finds a place of abode
Banished from its human home and made banal

I have seen and I can tell
Life is beautiful and can be made so.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐏𝐓 𝐁𝐀𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄

Despite the fact that we various personal ideas and philosophies, they have always been concepts that places our differing ideologies under an Umbrella. This is because most different ideologies could want the same purpose. One of such concepts is the concept of BALANCE. The word balance is synonymous to different other words across various fields of use such as equality, equilibrium in physical sciences, Moderation in Virtue. It has meaning in accounting where it means left over after all debits are summed and subtracted from the total credit. We hear of psychological balance, emotional balance, spiritual balance and most times when people argue they try to resolve their differences by finding a balance or put it otherwise, they try to resolve their differences by compromising their extremisms.

𝑾𝑯𝑬𝑹𝑬 𝑫𝑶𝑬𝑺 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑾𝑶𝑹𝑫 𝑩𝑨𝑳𝑨𝑵𝑪𝑬 𝑪𝑶𝑴𝑬 𝑭𝑹𝑶𝑴?
It hails from the latin word “Bilanx” a derivative of two Latin words “bis” meaning two and “lanx” meaning plates, dishes or scale. The word comes from the idea of comparing two masses on a scale either to evaluate the mass of one over another or to bring measurements to equality. Equality, stability, and harmony are other synonyms of balance.

𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑵𝑨𝑻𝑼𝑹𝑬 𝑶𝑭 𝑩𝑨𝑳𝑨𝑵𝑪𝑬
There is a safe spot most cherished by man,
He wishes to get there by all means he can,
Day and night he aims for this goal,
And of a truth, sometimes it wearies his soul.

Extreme to the right,
Extreme to the left,
A spot in the middle is the human dream,
The middle is the golden mean.

Constraints pushing to the left,
Constraints pushing to the right,
Constraints against the middle,
Life gives us endless puzzles.

Dearest balance!! So fragile,
Easily tossed and always motile,
Keeping us on our toes all the time,
Making sure we grime.

We can at this point say that balance is metaphysical, since metaphysics deals with the fundamental nature of all things that be. This I say because it is an all-encompassing need of nature. Balance is intrinsic to all spheres of life. And the loss of it is actually of all suffering. Every day we strive to maintain balance in one aspect of life or the other. We want everything to be alright that’s why we search for a panacea, utopia, alchemy etc. in our lives as humans we want everything to be placed in the right proportion. We want to have friends for instance, but our friends should not steal our joy or make us wayward thereby makin

NOSTALGIA ON THE HOT SEAT

Yesterday is always dressed in gold apparel
Made to sit on high, it's jewellery made of pearls
Ranked high in pantheon, embalmed like mummies
Today and tomorrow made to look like dummies

Today is called prodigal
And tomorrow is feared to be lethal
Why is this so?
Could this truth be untrue and yet we do not know?

Are they not armors of today
Which are unpolished armors of yesterday?
The frontline Calvary of today,
Where they not cadets of yesterday?

Nothing is new under the sun
Yesterday was the sword and today is the Gun
Both are tools that delete at the command of the wiper
Yet history smiles at Alexander and frowns at Hi**er.

It may be the cunning of the mind
That of today's good we are blind
Today fades, never to renew
So today becomes yesterday and nostalgia continues.

Patrick Cann

IT'S GONE

I knew a man once,
An acquaintance in the neighborhood,
Like a table of manna was friendship served
And love like a garden full of berries.
He ate of its fleshy fruits and was filled of its juices.
He took a stroll one day and saw gardens
With fruits more assorted.
Adventurous, he left his own unattended.
Little did he know, and little did he want to know,
Gold mines always will have competitors,
The heat of competition burnt him to stupor.
As he swallowed his wounds he wailed -
"Ooww i remember my love so sweet”,
But it was no more.
It's gone! It's gone! He wept from morn till dawn.