FIGHTING THE DEMONS INSIDE

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. ‘Oscar Wilde’

As I ponder on my next assignment while I was still in a counseling class yesterday afternoon, I realised that I have a lot still in front of me to achieve and I was excited on one hand yet scared on the other.

These were lifelong dreams I have had and it now looks like I am on the verge of achieving them. But I had an issue; a militating tendencies bore out of fear; fear of failing; my inner demons.

 As a child growing up in an environment where one is constantly being harassed into submission, scolded for the little’st’ of sins (even the ones acceptably committed by children) and harangued about how much a failure you just might turn out to be if you persisted with what makes you happy; this leaves a mark in some subconscious mind and you keep checking up  on yourself every now and then to see if really you are on the right tracks to success.

As a dreamer, I once dreamed of finding a huge amount of money on the floor and that I would be rich for the rest of my life, LOL. Trust me, I have quickly grown out of that and channeled my dream towards my passion which is music and writing, talking and reading. The funny part of life is that even as an adult, you still get people, if not more who just wants to see you fail. I remember an incident that happened to me in the local church that I used to attend. I planned a musical concert and as I ran up and down to achieve it, the then assistant pastor and church administrator (who happened to be someone I was close to at the time) made it physically impossible for me. They held meetings with the pastor in charge and insisted that I should not be allowed to carry on with the concert in the church. What was the grudge? I carried on with careless abandon and was acting as if I was the owner of the church. Can't remember when I did that. Or it must have been how I carried myself though; with PRIDE. Or was I supposed to cringe because I asked for a favour from you? 

So when the pastor was diplomatic about the matter and didn’t allow their wishes to be actualised, the church administrator (I wondered why we had that kind of position in the church anyways) simply came to me and said I have to pay a sum of #20, 000.00 (twenty thousand naira) before the concert can be held. I was perplexed. This was the church I have served for 4 years and I am asked to pay a sum of money just because I wanted to do a free concert where I have already spent my life savings. Anyways, the concert was so successful that even my detractors were surprised of it’s sheer success. I just smiled and as I write this morning remebering last years incident, I still SMILE!

Now this is where I am going to with all these stuffs I just wrote. And this was what baffled me most. After about a month after the concert and while I still reveled in my anger of how I was treated, the church administrator told me point blank that ‘if I had informed her before I started planning my concert, she had the “POWERS” to get sponsors to help me out but since I made it all look like I was capable, she decided not to help and at the same time try and stop it too’. Remember I said we used to be close?

I didn't plan to write this story today but while I thought about dreams and how hard it is for dreamers to achieve in this harsh world, the story only typifies the fact that what I am saying is not a hypothesis, it has actually happened to me. Creative people are easily misunderstood and thought out to be proud and arrogant. But that is the hubris that characterize their greatness; the very catalyst that drives them into glory. I have since left the church, not out of hatred but out of love for the vision that I have for myself and future. I will not allow pain and hatred to bite deep into the foundation of the empire I intend to build. I would rather channel that into the passion something positive and growth oriented.

So growing up was hell; from those who thought they were doing me a favour by disciplining you into submission, not knowing that they were sowing the seed of inferiority complex and the ‘can’t-do-anything-right-by-yourself-syndrome’. I have had to read a lot and persist in my mind with a thought process of ‘Yes-I-can’ even when the odds and tides were against me. And just like I had successes with my concert and other endeavour despite strong opposition from the top, the trend had been that the greater the persecution, the bigger the reward.

But the demon inside still reminds you, nje’ o le jamo nkan nkan bi? Yes I can!

Remember, Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us. Oscar Wilde.

N>B:

You can view the concert here