YOUR LIFE, IS YOUR LAST STAND, STAND FOR SOMETHING

The year is 480BC the Greeks are under an attack and greatly outnumbered by the Persians, which was a superpower at the time. The Greek Army had approximately 7000 men, led by King Leonidas of Sparta, and the Persian Empire had over 200,000 men led by Xerxes I. Having the numbers, they knew they would intimidate the Greeks to surrender and in any event, war broke they would have an upper hand and defeat the Greeks. 

The Persian empire sent an emissary to Greek to give them terms of peace which would be to offer them freedom and they would be considered “Friends of the Persian People” and in addition they would be given more land; King Leonidas refused and maybe as Sophocles would say that “whoever makes his way into a tyrants court becomes his slave, although he went there a free man.”  Later a messenger went to one of the Greeks general to boast and maybe frighten him by telling him how large the Persian Army is and if the archers would shot their arrows in the air, their arrows would “block the sun” the general replied, that if the sun is blocked then “they shall have the battle in the shade”. The Persian Empire told them, "lay down your weapons" and surrender and King Leonidas responded by giving the courageous defiant reply that they should "Come and take them". War became inevitable.

This led to the famous Battle of Thermopylae or battle at the Hot Gates. The Battle took three days. In the first two days the Greeks won and just when the Persians were on their way to surrender while Greeks stood strong in their small and cohesive unit the Greeks were betrayed and hence outflanked and defeated. King Leonidas was killed in battle; his body beheads and placed on a spear as warning to other people of Greece. Though Persians won, their victory came at a very high cost as the Greeks had inflicted serious damage on them.

Due to their three (3) day courageous last stand at the Hot Gates, cities in Greek were able to be evacuated and by the time the Persian Army got there, there was practically nothing. Secondly, due to the evacuation of the people in Greek cities, Ideas such as democracy which had just been developed were preserved and today we have democracy due to the courage of the men who fought at the Hot Gates. They acted as watchmen at the gates of democracy.

If you are to visit the ground today where the battle took place there is an Epitaph and engraved on it are the words “ Oh Stranger! Go tell Sparta, in obedience to their law, here we lie in death!” Sure their message was heard, their  actions of courage during overwhelming odds inspired other Battles and in the coming days the Persian Army was defeated

So, why did the Greeks fight knowing it would be a herculean task to defeat Persians? Some historians say it is because they wanted to protect their freedom and autonomy other say were just full of ego and they paid it with their life

Moral of the History:

1. Your actions of courage never go to waste. They echo in future generations in ways you will never know.

2. Know what you can stand for regardless of the circumstances. The Greek, The Spartans, had a Creed that went like this:

"This is my shield. I bear it before me into battle, but it is not mine alone. It protects my brother on my left. It protects my city. I will never let my brother out of its shadow, nor my city out of its shelter. I will die with my shield before me facing the enemy.”

This Creed gave them a meaning that they go to battle for the sake of their brothers and City. So, what are you willing to go to battle and fight for, not for personal gain, but for others.

3. Your actions have consequences. People will judge your results at some point. But do your thing anyway.

(for a drama of this Battle watch the Film:300 Spartans or Read Gates of Fire by Steve Pressfield & Picture from 300 Film)

WHEN THE CHURCH IS WRONG

In 1633 Galileo Galilei was convicted of Heresy for saying in his book-Dialogue of Galileo Galilei, that the earth goes round the sun. The judgment by the Catholic Church which was in reign at the time read in part that Galileo has "rendered himself vehemently suspected ... of having believed and held the doctrine (which is false and contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures) that the sun is the center of the world, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the earth does move, and is not the center of the world....We order that by a public edict the book of Dialogues of Galileo Galilei be prohibited, and We condemn thee to the prison". Then, More than 350 years later, after the Catholic Church condemned Galileo, Pope John Paul II rectified this judgment which is considered as "one of the Church's most infamous wrongs -the persecution of the Italian astronomer and physicist for proving the Earth moves around the Sun."

Now, you see for many years people believed in wrong facts and when someone said the truth he was condemned and only vindicated when he had long died. Maybe in this present age we hold some believe that we think to be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth but they are wrong. We get angry when the truth is given and even condemned the messenger and call them crazy, yet the craziness of today is the reality of tomorrow. Years from now people will look at this age and wonder how dare we held such wrong facts as truth. So, when you here something crazy, something contrary to what you believe, be patient and reflect this incident before you cast the first stone.
(Photo by history.com)

MAN: AN ARCHIVE OF HISTORY

Think of it this way: The planet earth is estimated to be about 4.6 billion years old. For us humans to be alive today, our very existence must have been there at the conception of this planet. Of course humans did not just suddenly appear unexpectedly from nowhere; something must have started or brought our life into existence. If you are a Christian or Muslim or Hindu or subscribe to whatever faith, you will attribute the genesis of life to be God or gods. The God or gods created the first humans from the dust of the earth or from materials obtained from the universe. The humans became fruitful and multiplied and filled the world and governed it.  If you believe in science or Darwin theory you will explain the origin of life to be a complex process called Abiogenesis. It entails the formation of the first single cell that evolved over the billions of years into the present Homo sapiens that ended up being at the apex of the intelligence chain and dominated all creatures.

However, regardless of what we think as the origin of human life all schools of thoughts agree that man has walked on the surface of planet earth for as long as the planet was formed . Therefore, for you to be alive at this moment it means, it is a result of a continuous chain of successful reproduction spanning over billions of years, to the very you right now. You can be confident that if you were to rewind time to 4.6 billion years ago you will meet your grandparent there. In fact, if you were to take a flight backwards to the very start of this earth using your ancestral family tree as your route and then start moving forward from there  you will begin by seeing how your first parent were made.

You will then witness how they survived through harsh conditions with no fire, weapons, tools, cloths, medicine and were greatly outnumbered by other species. More so, they survived without a government to guarantee their security and life, might was right and life was brutish, nasty and maybe short. Yet given this circumstances your original grandparents survived and gave birth to another set of parents.

You will then witness how your subsequent grandparents survived deadly plagues that had devastating effect on the existence of humanity and periodically  great populations were  entirely swept out of the planet. Yet your grandparents survived and gave birth to another set of grandparents. You will then witness how child birth was like a death sentence since there was no vaccines, no pre & post natal care and rarely did any expectant mother survive child birth and subsequently, the child would die due to lack of mother’s care. Yet given this conditions that claimed many humans your grandparents gave birth to another set of your grandparents. You will then witness your grandparents engage in violent acts, actually violence was the order of the day, bloods feuds were all over and murder was so usual and there was no recourse for it, terms like justice, freedom and rights had no space in this age. Yet your grandparents survived and gave birth to another set of your grandparents.

You will then witness linage after linage surviving famines, dangerous journeys, violent childhood and infancy. You will then witness humans trying to get organized forming groups, clans and then kingdoms. Still on your flight, you will see the Egyptians kingdom building their behemoth pyramids from the ground. Maybe you will witness the rise of the Persian Empire & the creation of Money, the rise of the Roman Empire & the development of democracy and how many other kingdoms and empires rose and collapsed. You will then witness the age of enlightenment where humans struggled to push ignorance away by applying science and mathematics to discover the hidden truth of life, maybe you will see Plato and Socrates having philosophical discussions on various wonders of the world at the school of Athens. You will see the Chinese empire beginning the construction of the Great Wall of China. As you continue flying forward you will then witness the birth of Jesus Christ and maybe see him being crucified at Golgotha, you will witness the Rise of the Islamic Golden Age and the prophet Mohamed crisscrossing the deserts to spread Islam. You will then see birth of religious wars that continue up to date.

Still on your flight moving forward, you will then see Martin Luther nailing his 95 thesis on the door of the All Saint’s church in Germany and leading the great Reformation that gave birth to the protestant churches. Then you will see the American Revolution followed by the French Revolution. You will witness Africans been forced into ships and sailed like goods to far lands as slaves. You will witness African Countries fighting for their independence against colonialism.  You will then witness the dark side of the civilized man through the World War I & II and the dropping of the deadly Atomic bomb by USA on japan.  You will then see the first man –Neil Armstrong- landing on the moon. You will then witness the construction and the fall of the Berlin wall and you will then understand how all these circumstances affected your grandparents at the time and therefore created ripples that have affected you to your present self.

Then you will begin seeing familiar faces maybe your great grandparents of this century, then your grandparents. Then you will see your parents and the very exceptional, unique and timely circumstances that led to them meeting and finally you will witness the rare chain of events that led to your parents making love on that day or night when this particular ova was just there ready to be fertilized and your father released this particular sperm that raced to the fallopian tube and fertilized the ova and your conception happened.

You will see yourself grow through the various stages of life up to now at this very moment, you reading this article. You will then realize that  the blood that flows in your veins has been passed from one linage to another over  the last 4.6 billion years. Isn’t that realization awesome? This may sound normal and not really awesome. But if you picture the harsh and cruel condition that your ancestors survived over the billions of years you will realize that your very existence is self-evidence that you’re the most perfect gene that has survived through unimaginable circumstances and among the many genes that perished along the way, the gene that flows in your blood has survived it all.  Or maybe you will realize that life is a very delicate experiment that would have gone wrong at any time and ended your very existence so many years ago and for you to be alive right now reading this article is just miraculous.

You may also end up agreeing with Carl Sagan who said, “We are made of star stuff.” Since the origin of the universe has the same source. You will also realize that all humans originate from one tree and that your family tree is actually a branch forming part of a tree that germinated from one seed of humanity. We should therefore develop a deeper sense of belonging in one another and we can all agree with Martin Luther King Jr.  when he said, “In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. Tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be… this is the inter-related structure of reality.” So when you see any being, treat it with kindness, that’s your brother or sister we have a common origin and destiny.

photo by Behance

PART II: WE, THE CROOK

The human evolution timeline begin with a single cell that mutates over billions of years to the specie hominini  Sahelanthropus Tchgadensis walking in a crooked posture, without any tools on the savanna grasslands of Africa more than seven million years ago to the present Homo sapiens walking in an upright posture, with sophisticated technology and instruments, on the dusty and rocky surface of the moon more than 384,400km from earth. This shows the progress that humans have made over the billions of years to ensure they are alive at this present age. However, these advancements are not simultaneously reflected in the Homo sapiens character which is still crooked and primitive.

The modern man still kills and steals from one another. Evidence seems to point to the fact that during the biological evolution of the human species something went wrong.  There may have been some subtle engineering mistake built into the native equipment of man that can account to the paranoia streaking through the human history, that man has been unable to learn the simple art of co-exist and love of one another, and man is in a continuous momentum to do evil. It seems every step human has mad forward, his character has made a subsequent step backwards. This is the age where the human has invented the most hazardous weapons ever invented in his timeline with capability to completely eliminate themselves from earth. Every day seems to be a countdown toward the explosion of this weapons and life is still arguably solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short just as it was when man lived in a state of nature. It seems human is inherently evil and it is in his very fabric of his character and in dire need of reengineering and repair.

It is not in dispute that humans are at the Apex on the chain of intelligent chain.Humans have invented sophisticated tools and machines such as the Voyager II that for the last 41 years to present day has continuously been directed and moved in our outer space at speeds of 15km/s….yes 15km/s yet we are unable to invent appropriate character that can guide men to move and direct them at least one step to infinite humanity.

But there is hope; the human species has always set its self apart from all animal species. We have always dominated and we seat at the top of the food chain. We have always adapted to all circumstances and nature has always selected us to the next phase of life. We have unmatched intelligence and the relentless desire to survive. This intelligence and desire that seems to be engraved on our DNA compels us to come together and move forward. Just as our evolution is an accumulation of continuous effort from one generation to another, the evolution of our character and moral uprightness shall be the accumulation of continuous effort of passing to the next generation better character and cultural heritage of us and the best thoughts and ideas of the world.

Individual character development like evolution is a slow and steady march to make each day slightly better than the last and it happens imperceptibly through persistent daily effort. Character unlike our technology is not innate or automatic; it is built with effort and artistry and perfected over lifetime of effort. And maybe that’s why technology does not move in tandem with our character development.

The effort will entail finding a deeper meaning of life and virtues. We need to elevate ourselves to great spiritual and moral heighted and tolerating each person’s idea. We can develop proper values that will be our light house at the harbor of the land of virtue and it will continuously guide us and inspire us to surf in these turbulent waters of imperfection as we strive heralding to this Promised Land.

Humanity with their different background may seems to be a Gordian Knot that no man can open with bear hands but we can inculcate areas of common agreement and open each other’s hearts and minds and reach the very depth of humanity where we can see ourselves in each other.

The evolution theory may just be that- a theory or maybe a fact- but it shows the journey of humans trying to be as upright as possible and pushing their limits by mutation and adaptation  and nature finding them worthy of selection to the next frontier of life.  The fittest have always survived and for sure men who will always improve their character will always be fittest to pass their legacy of good action to the next frontier. Maybe if we can continuously show each other the best angels of our selves the next frontier will witness humans flying high in a heavenly galaxy, armed with tools of angelic virtues. And for sure we will prove Immanuel Kant quote wrong and out of the crooked timber of humanity man became more upright.

(photo courtesy of truehomeprotection)

PART I: WE, THE CROOK, CLICK HERE

FOR DUTY & HONOUR

Hannibal Barca( 247 -181 BC) is considered as one of the greatest generals in history. At a time when Roman Republic was asserting its powers over other kingdoms he chose to plan battles accordingly and he lead the Carthaginian Army against the Romans.

He crossed the Alps mountain with elephants to go and wage war with the Romans. When his generals who had declared it impossible to cross the Alps with elephants he said "I shall either find a way or make a way". In deed he crossed the Alps mountain but quite a substantial number of the elephants had died. But at the same time when the Roman Army saw him march out of the mountains with the elephants they got the message he intended to convey that he was unstoppable and determined and even the heights and the Cold temperatures of the Alps mountains have not stopped him.

He ended up waging a successful tactical war that shook the Roman Republic to its very foundation causing them a lot of embarrassment. And he became a force to be reckoned. 

well, when asked why he was fighting with a super power knowing very well he will finally be defeated(which he was) he said "I am not carrying on a war of extermination against the Romans. I am contending for honour and empire. My ancestors yielded to Roman valour. I am endeavoring that others, in their turn, will be obliged to yield to my good fortune, and my valour."

MORAL OF THE HISTORY:Sometimes you just have to fight for your honour and to send a message to everyone including an enemy/competitor that you can fight regardless of what comes may.(You can watch Hannibal documentaries for full story of this great general

DEATH:THE ULTIMATE EQUALIZER

This is a 1635 German engraving, as part of the Danse Macabre(The Dance of Death) series. It features a standing, smiling skeleton aiming a crossbow, an hour glass, a broken arrow on the ground and another arrow in a quiver. It was placed in such a position that the arrow locked into the crossbow was directly pointed to the viewer. The inscription in French was a lyric that would translate in part as:

My arrow (I promise you) spares no one

You will all dance the ballet of which I sing

Emperor, your sword won't help you out

Sceptre and crowns are worthless here

I've taken you by the hand

For you must come to my dance

It meant that as you dance and act on the theater of the world know that death is always smiling at you and at any time the arrow will be launched to your direction.

The engraving was placed in various places to serve as a reminder of people’s mortality and of the fragility of their lives and how vain were the glories of earthly life. It was intended to cause some humility in people, to curb selfish and toxic ambitions, to inspire people to choose wisely between doing the wrong thing to get ahead and the quiet thing that is right in their hearts.

In most African culture, we do not talk about death. It is considered to bring bad omen. But the reality is; death has been the closest human companion. Since the humanity idea begun living on earth, Kingdoms and empires have risen and fallen, generations after generations have come and gone, species have existed and became extinct, cultures have been founded and ended, wealth and riches have been amasses and squandered, civilizations emerged and became obsolete; many things have come and gone regardless of their hype and might; but death has remain the constant factor all along. So, we cannot hide the truth under the shadow of our fears.

The arrow is always ready and waits for your time to be declared by the hourglass and it will never miss, you are a sure target. We can be so uncertain about many things in this world but our death is so certain. It never cares if you are young or old, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, wise or foolish, King or laborer, the pope or the villain your time is your time. Death is the ultimate equalizer no matter a person’s station in life. And sadly nothing will pause or stop for a second to witness your fall. Time will move on as if nothing happened, so will everything and everyone. And soon you will be forgotten regardless of how beautiful your tomb will be made, actually think of the giant pyramids of the Egyptian pharaohs who were maybe the most powerful people of their time , not everyone know who they were, we rely on historical speculations.

Our mortality is always looming and it’s a terrifying thought. No matter how strong we are, how famous we will become, how many acclamation we will receive, how good we feel, it turns out we’re just a pile of bones, flesh and fluids inevitable to physical decay.  That’s why this engraving from centuries ago is very relevant today because it carries with it the true message to all humanity.

So today as you walk around, what are you going to do about this terrifying fact? Are you going to be haunted by the engraving? Are you going to cower in fear and assume you are immortal? Or Will you smile back to this grinning skeleton and tell it that you are aware, you were born … to die. But in between you will make the most of it; that you will continuously and tirelessly perform your duty- your good works. The choice is yours. The archer is always ready and the hourglass counts the countdown.

(Photo Courtesy of British Museum)

PART I: WE, THE CROOK

A German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, has a famous line that says, “out of the crooked timber, no straight thing was ever made.” The line proves true, no one is perfect. All human life is a struggle to perfection. We all fall short of the glorious victory over this struggle. We are crooked in one way or another. 

In our daily business we encounter people who we may consider annoying, frustrating, upsetting, unreasonable and the list goes on but before we condemn them and cast the first stone there is need to realize that their crookedness serves as a mirror, reflecting who we are deep down in our soul since we are all from the same crooked timber. We can only hold our crookedness to be self-evidence that all men are created equal and endowed with certain short-comings due to our humanness.

Our perverse tendency of holding others at a higher standard than ourselves shifts our focus from the plank of wood in our eye to the peck of wood in other people’s eyes and hence fail to acknowledge that we are all humans carrying  the marks of imperfection that are deeply engraved in our DNA.

Of Course Iron sharpens iron, so man should never lay down tools of sanding people to finer people. But sanding others should be done with humility, meekness and sympathy being fully aware that we ourselves fall short and are crooked.

In our eternal struggles to make our ways straight we can only hope that by the end of our life we shall at least be perfect as our father in heaven is perfect and who is the author and perfecter  of our life.