Love, Bananas and Self-Inception

“one banana,

two banana

one for me and one for you banana

count three or four or even more banana

cause banana cannot live alone…”

Those of you that had a worthwhile childhood might recognize the song above from the TV program 'sesame street'. I first heard it when I was a child and for some reason unknown to me, its been stuck in my brain ever since. Although the song was meant for children I believe that there is a very deep message behind it, the magnitude of which I have only recently be made aware of and will share with you shortly. But first…

I have been studying the human mind for some time now and as a result of my detailed and thorough research I can confidently say with scientific certainty and accuracy that we are all screwed up. (Yes, that is my professional opinion) In fact, the human race as a whole can be considered as one big idiot made up of a myriad of many splendored variations of foolishness just as many different bits of DNA make up a person. But don’t worry, I’m not judging the human race for our UnGodly portion of Olodo-ism, on the contrary, I doubt we would have made it this far in our history without certain stupidities.

(Please note that I refer to STUPIDITIES and not RETARDATION. Retards are a subset of the human race that look, act and talk like the rest of us, but who are actually sub-human wild animals that should be locked away in a zoo. They lack basic reasoning skills and typically frequent such IQ desolate places like Facebook and in extreme cases- Hi5. They can usually be identified by their names. e.g Hollabourdey Horhluurhwarhthorkhunbor “SexyBoiBlackBerryKingNeedleFlyBarbie" "KingoftheZangaIeatbangaAnd MakeMoniesWhileIdoit” Hoodutorhlar. It is important to know that such retards are NOT human and destroying them with fire or by decapitation is legal and in fact considered doing the work of God.)

But I digress… where was I? Yes, stupidities. stupidities are very important in to the human race and in my opinion, without them love would not exist. Believe it or not there is actually a point to this tirade of mine. Just bear with me a little.

So, Let me ask you this…what makes us human? The fact that we walk on all fours, that God loves us more than the other animals, our enlarged brains…depending of which side of the science or faith debate you swing, I’m sure you have a different answer to that question. The more sentimental ones amongst us will say it is our capacity to love and be loved, to do special things for those we love, to make huge sacrifices in the name of love…at which point I will call bullshit! (Once I finish vomiting)

What is love? Love is gentle, Love is kind...well so is the old lady that lives down my street and I dont think she is Love. What do any of us REALLY know about love? Would you lay down your life for the one you love? Catch a literal version of the poetic grenade which Bruno Mars sings so passionately about? Would you? If you wouldn’t then please STFU because you have not yet found true love and even if you would it doesn’t mean much because police officers, firemen, soldiers and many other members of noble professions routinely put their lives on the line to save friends, colleagues and even ordinary citizens. Is that love? Will you say firemen love everybody they risk their lives to save? Maybe, Maybe not…but that’s exactly my point. Love is such an intangible thing it can only be described as the ultimate Self –Inception.

For those of you that haven’t seen the movie yet, ‘inception’ is the movie about the process of ‘inception’ which in turn is the process of planting an idea in a person’s mind without them knowing where it came from. Apparently it can only be performed by Leonardo di Caprio and his team of badass homeboys while his wife (from his subconscious) just likes to hang around and screw shit up…by the way, why have you not seen the movie yet? What rock were you under for the last half of 2010? My friend, you are a Class A slacker! You are so stale that you’re starting to ferment and give off a repugnant odor… shift! Self-inception as applies to human stupidities is the act of planting an idea in your own head and then forgetting that it was your idea in the first place and that you CHOSE to embark on this path.

Anyway, this Self-Inception as regards love starts with you WANTING to ‘love’ someone so much that you convince yourself that you ARE in love and then begin to wonder why you are acting like a lovestruck puppy. The truth is…you know exactly why: Because you want to. And you can only love as much as you decided to when you first started your self-inception. Once the idea of ‘love’ has been planted in your head, you conveniently forget that it was your idea in the first place and carry on with your ‘mugu-licious’ behavior, going deeper into the layers of your own created love world until you decide to wake up (this may never occur if you get so lost in the world that you have created and thus forget that it is of your own making).

Personally, I have no issue with engaging in the stupidity of self-inception in order to find love.In fact I do it to myself all the time just like the rest of you. I just wonder why as humans we feel this burning need to find someone to be with. So much so that we routinely deceive ourselves into it. But maybe the words of the banana song are all the answer I need…because humans like the banana of the song…cannot live alone. We need to find someone simply because we cannot live alone. To do this we ‘incept’ ourselves, make mistakes, get taken advantage of…whatever we feel we need to do, we do in the name of love.

This is of particular importance to me because it plagues me regularly. I want someone to be with, talk to, to cuddle, to make love to; someone that understands my weirdnesses and strangeness, and has some of her own. I cannot explain why but I want just want her. Recently, I thought I found someone I could be with but she wasn’t interested. After being rejected, I thought I had snapped out of my self-inception. But not long after I found myself on the path to self inception again. And again, and again…It irks me and pisses me off because I know that I’m doing it. I can feel my mind tricking itself into believing what it wants to believe but I can’t stop it. Maybe I am just a hopeless romantic (aka professional Mugu) or maybe, just maybe like the banana of the song, and like most of us…I just cannot live alone.

*sigh*

[Coming up next... Love, Hate, Sex, Pain]

THE FINE ART OF VOLUNTARY STUPIDITY (A SATIRE, or something like it. V.2.0)

Back home, before I embarked on the self-torture called an MSc program, I used to wake up everyday and immediately put on the TV to try to find out what was going on in the world around me. This foolish action inevitably led me to turn to CNN, BBCNews or when the weather was really bad or things were very hard, – NTA. And then it would usually begin. Bad news in industrial quantities: The financial crisis, bomb blasts, a plane crash, stories of both government and private corruption, chronicles of fools: some poor fool who has just been blown up in the name of Allah, another fool who is trying to spread freedom and democracy around the world and some more fools who are spouting varying grades of propaganda; ranging from Innocent white lies to premium brand, Class A Bullshit. Generally I would endure 60 minutes of this sensory assault on my intelligence before giving up and turning toward MTV or one of the Series/Movie channels for some mind-numbing, meaningless drivel to help me try to forget the mental torture I’ve just been subjected to.

Unfortunately, this usually didn't help much since all the music and shows are laced with hidden intentions telling me what to think and how to think it. Young girls wearing next to nothing shake their bodies in ways that would be of concern to medical professionals with the message 'sex is good' while 50cents latest song is telling me ‘to get rich or die trying’. Beyonce is subconsciously trying to make my girlfriend leave me with her ‘Put a ring on it’ nonsense, Bruno mars is looking for trouble by singing about catching grenades (Who the hell would do that anyway? Pls refer to @CapoeiraPandas blog for more details on this...) and some bloody Nigerian is asking me to ‘Dapada’ and/or ‘farabale’; 'groove utunu' and or 4kasibe'. The TV shows are not much better, every episode presents some half-baked, hashed out ideology which it tries to sell to me as a life philosophy. Examples: all problems can be solved in an 30 minutes or an hour, Bad guys always get caught, follow your dreams, Obey your parents, Sex sells, Ok, don’t always obey your parents, humour is good, gays are not so bad, Always consult your pastor for advice, Blah, Blah, Blah... Usually, there would be only so much my brain could take before I call my friend –Mr. Remote control and finally help the environment by switching off the appliances I’m not using.

Unfortunately, with all outside influence gone, my mind would inward and begin to think (a process which I’ve been told is quite high risk, and should be attempted only by trained professinals) . But it is the result of this thinking which led me to write this note to my victi...er..erm...i mean friends and followers; lamenting the state of this world we live in and the nation we call home. Why is everything so confusing? Why is the world so disorderly? Why would some fools blow up innocent people for no good reason? Why would Jim Iyke try to rap? These are genereally the kind of thought i would think at these times. Luckily, while writing this post I came upon a revelation, it was like a vision (well more like a hallucination caused by excessive exposure to differential calculus... but whatever....) but it made clear what must be done to navigate this morally twisted world without overheating your brain engine. It is called VOLUNTARY STUPIDITY.

You see, I read once in a book (okay, fine, it wasn’t a real book, it was a comic but who wants to split hairs right now?) that comedians are the saddest people in the world. They see what’s wrong with the world but when they stand-up and try to tell the rest of us we just laugh at them. This is an example of the universal law: “It’s not smart to be too smart” as Illustrated by the lives of Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci. You see, i think stupidity is good for you, as long as you don’t exceed the prescribed dosage. And if you are asking yourself right now: “Pray tell, o wise one, how do I obtain a prescription for the stupidity I so desperately need”, then don’t worry, I have the answer, just read on….

Voluntary stupidity is the fine art of ignoring things that are real but make you feel unhappy or depressed. It is my analogy of the old concept that is referred to by the esteemed Buddhist monks as the ‘if-we-ignore-it-then-it-will-go-away’ philosophy. Just as faith is defined as the "belief in things not seen", voluntary stupidity is the "disbelief of things seen, heard, experienced and even known." If practiced well, it can increase your level of happiness exponentially within a few seconds. I have been accused of the horrendous and evil crime of 'being too smart' more than once in my life and having repented from this crime i can attest to the efficacy of this method.

On a serious note however, we do this every day. We overlook things like our friends' bad habits, the religion of others which we don't believe, the fact that we are not as rich or happy as we want to be, the parts of the bible and the constitution that we don't like, etc. It is a self defense mechanism to protect our fragile psyches from the trauma of unfulfilled dreams, failures, limitations and things we cannot understand or do anything about.

So the next time some smug, self-righteous, smarty-pants starts talking about the war in Iraq, Who is sponsoring the bombing in the Nigeria, the environment and global warming, traffic situations, the plight of democracy, ASUU strikes or the appalling Suckiness of the new Black Eyed Peas album, just remember, he will die a sad, depressed old fart while you relish in your self-built, sky-castle of blissful ignorance, surrounded the lovely aura of VOLUNTARY STUPIDITY.

Thank me later #NoDrake