State of Mind

hmmmph [sighs]. I haven't felt like this in a while. Sort of just lost, undefined and in a state of fog. "Wasapning"? I ask myself yet the answer's anything but straight. Last night after a few hours of dance, ethanol and mingling with flesh, I grabbed my notebook, went up to the studio and did a bit of work or so as I could barely concentrate. Next, I was in my room crying out to God for rescue. I just couldn't place a purpose, meaning or direction to my pursuits. Yeah, a brother feels lost sometimes! This calling's a two edged sword. Shared my honest impressions with my colleagues and coaches yesterday. In summary, the whole atmosphere seems to be driving me crazy, eating at me and spurring pricking questions. This time last year, the GH was in play and we'd finally begun to make up for our investments. Myself and Joe would sit through hours attending to clients, munching on hot 'masara' and talking in between sharing gossips and laughing. How I miss the times. True, I yearned for a new experience even then given my adventurous nature but then, I enjoyed the times. Things are different now. No dime's been raked in months after months making 2011 a sharp contrast to the last 2 years. Plus, I can't seem to get a good grasp of any major personal project that could have me hitting the street to make a dime from. It's all just so static. Yet, I'm here staring at the fastest internet connection I've come across after the British Council hub (Hello Melaye). Plus, I have all this resources in books, humans and a comfy environment to cap it all yet nothing. I reckon I need a feel of the outside world. Abuja marked a difference from the insanity I'd grown to appreciate in Lagos and I was able to tap into its ambience for my entrepreneurial endeavours. This woulda come closer but in retrospect, it seems a bit too vague, fake and paints a picture of delusion. A delusion which in itself fosters paranoia with the outside world at its root. Yeah, the outside world. It's my reality check and I shouldn't have strayed this far from it, perhaps. I need a touch of the real world. A touch of the war out there with unemployment, insecurity, and poverty rife in the air. I need it to crank up this brains to get working on the next BIG THING. That which in itself is not without a struggle to reap success. Time's key here baby. I love this journey but even the journey scares me in times like this. The adventurer hardly shares tales of his struggles with coping with reality. A reality that presents a picture of being lost in a state of misdirection as to where, when and what becomes of his destination. Brave as it sounds to go this route, it's no fun coping with the fears when they come hard on you. My project's in limbo partly cos' I'm in a fix as to how to go about defining its path. In the end, only me can muster the strength to keep at my game. Only me can and will proffer solution to my "X" in this equation of life.

Signs:: Reality Check 101

Mehn! Blog's seen some quiet times lately online and offline. There's little smiling going on here, believe me. Struggling to kindle this flame and boys be bidding down the clock as it gains speed. Crunch time's what time it is. And I ain't referring to this make-believe ecosystem. Nah! The real world comes to mind. Yeah, can't live consistently oblivious to the callings of the outside world: reality check 101! So, what's your boy been up to? Same ol' I guess. Tying up the strings of network, upping skills and working towards the next 'one'. Promises and expectations of a game changing experience fast fading with the months. If any, yet another block towards the peak of the pyramid. Some things never change though: still no room for dramas in the name of anything (emotions or whatever). Energy's all but waned down and the outside calling dictates a swap in which game best represents an insurance. Yet, this is what I've lived for since donning that gown and scroll back in 2008. Memories of the street hit me in the shower and in my sleep.

Can these bones still go as far as they've gone? Sure with more calcium and its equivalent to the soul. Yeah, I gotta musta all the strength and energy to keep me motivated for the cold cold street.

Flinching? Never me.

9 to 5s? I simply laugh. Made my choice a long time ago!

Ma? C'mon, I know your concerns about the lifelines. I'm as concerned as you are.

Dad? A man's gotta be a man. Gran's spirit lives within me.

Creditors; I'll redeem all that I owe before my time winds down. My contact details remain same. Hola with the tantrums! :-)

Debtors; I could do with what's mine :-)

S.H.E; please bear with the times. For better for worse comes even before the long walk down the narrow aisle.

The story of my life has since gained traction online and offline. Who knows? It's probably where the goldmine lies. I love this game! It remains a twist though caught in the mix of life's X. Solving them one step before the other. Sometimes, wish I had guarantees but besides taking the thrill and excitement away, it just doesn't hold in this life. Sorry loved ones.

Gotta move on. I'm walking back into that door come November. From one to the other. The journey never stops. Countryside slangin' with the fam just to cool off. Stay only as long as the next call comes and I'm off. Down the same route, bad roads, shark infested streets, flee infested motels, cunning business men and dirty notes. All in a bid to express myself in the ways I best know how to. The struggles to keep my body and mind protected. In the end, love in the arms of my one true bloods. One down and then the next call. I'm out...Victory is certain!

Bored!!!Bored!!!

Oops, boy, am I bored! Sitting through this is like sitting through biology class back in senior secondary. Yeah, I'm bored to the point of falling asleep. And just in case, I did try drifting off only to awake again. Lately, I've found me questioning the very purpose of this journey. The curve's kind of slipped for me. The initial fire that had me going at the start has really lost its hold on me. Bounced this off a few fellows just to get a feel of what others are feeling and unsurprisingly, I'm not alone.
Confusion seems to rein. My perception maybe but guess what, the hommie beside me just admitted to feeling the same way. In a sense, classic example of Abillene paradox. What more given the times? Not a few appear caught up in a foggy state yet getting bombared.

Reactions

How different things can be even within the spate of a short time difference. Just weeks back, I'd had my first real taste of real life experience with prospective investors and it's been hell! In simple words, I'd gone from wishing for the ground to open so I could be swallowed up to one of clueless about who I was, what I was trying to sell and question marks about my efforts. As with anything in life, it left a positive mark on me so much that it led to a redefinition of my very passion cum strengths which further translated to a purposeful re-connection even as far as my team formation. As I speak, I say with all sense of purpose and confidence that 4 months into this incubator program, I'm clear about the direction I'm taking with regards to how my passion, skills and ideas connect. What that translates to is that I'm good going forward.

Today's was much refreshing and without any iota of bitterness. It was both a relaxing and learning process going by the humor and issues raised. What could be more? I'm in zone that's best defined as "comfortable" given the synergy that exists with my partners for obvious reasons. Clarity which to me spells simplicity characterizes the ideas and vision that we have going forward. Others are the lack of redundancy, experience and expertise all in a well defined format so much that they are measurable. No offense to anyone but for me, I'm in state of reality in contrast to the 'cloud' I seemed to find myself a while back. True, my scope of sight may be limited. True, it may be that I'm not a big picture person. True, true, true but my interpretation of the foregoing perceptions is one of a guy who rather prefers to play in areas well defined in practical terms for me to key in my inputs vis-a-vis get my hands dirty. A number of times I;ve found me in states where I'd rather just be 'doing' as opposed to conceiving and talking. Yeah, I love learning things and breathing life to ideas that have been conceived along the areas of my interest and I need mention, shear reality. Why? Because I have a problem without seemingly white elephant or fancy ideas that have n practical connection to what I can offer in terms of possessive skills even if on a small scale.

Back to the session with the Engineer, it's for me an issue of researching more into our product offering plus building on what we have lined up already. Nothing to do with switching ideas or searching for new ones. Nah! Rather, I make bold to say that the moment one has a clarity of what he's engaged in to the point of connecting his passion, interest, skills and knowledge [to it] then not only can any form of external opinion not sway him but one also remains convinced of the potentials of it. The foregoing best explains my state.

Date with the Master Storyteller

Okay, I hope I can serve this while it's still hot and fresh. Anyways, besides being a snap one for the obvious reason that I'm in the middle of another phase of the very project the meeting sought to serve, I do still have the luxury of coming back to edit this.

And, so, a simple phone call to a dear friend (once a prey I never took serious: stale news) to wish her a happy birthday results in Elder Jimi Solanke, the one and only, unrivaled storyteller in a little over 24 hours. That was over the weekend. Fast forward to today, the first lady of the Genii factory did her thing captivating the attention of the genius himself and setting up an appointment that can only be termed divine given its timing and location. 

An hour later, we sat in a hidden bar somewhere in Sagamu, cosy, cool and African.

If any thought baba had lost it due to age then I say boldly that you're mistaken as even at age 69, He still has his aura about him. It was so much fun laughing and giggling at his jokes and performances.

He stole my heart when He mentioned his wife describing his fondness for her and placing a call to her right there. You could feel the love in the air as he laughed over their conversation before passing it on to the first lady. ...k, nuff for now, I'll run dis to the end later. Plus, I have an image to attach.

*blank*

How do you tell what your interests are? Put it in another form, "how do you tell what you're passionate about"? Some (if at all any since I have no follower as of this write-up :-) may wonder why I'm asking this. Well, it turns out that I can tell without mincing words that I love writing. That I'll make a living from writing remains unclear to me now though I would cherish the ride. Anyways, I think it's become obvious to me how much I love the act given its appealing attraction. While my writings are not without typos and grammatical blunders (English remains my second language), it still comes easy to me. The words simply flow from my brain, mind through my hands onto the keyboard or pen. I don't have to have any societal topic or academic one to write about. In fact, I'd say they're rather boring and some of my best write-ups are ones that simply echo from happenings around me. The words just stream out and I put down as much as I can. But then, it takes a lot in time and effort to restructure these pieces until they're fit for publication. It's no wonder I prefer flash write-ups. By that, I mean ones without any real theme, no care for spelling checks or grammatical structure to them; you just write as it comes. I could say 'write-ups without borders'. 

Just so you know, there is a motivation for this blog. I'm up early for my morning ritual (now rediscovered owing to the times - crunch) and just two chapters into it, I feel the attraction to write. I know it sounds rather awkward considering the attraction to write is not driven by the need to churn out a bestseller neither is it for lecture paper or newspaper article. All I know is I felt a need to write down my thoughts. So, this here are my thoughts. If they turn out rather boring to the reader (who?)...well, think of it this way, "The contents of a clean mind". Sure, we all have our demons and I'm inexcusable. Know what too, I have this song playing over in my head since God knows when. It's like it was place on auto-repeat as it keeps looping its lines up in my head. It's in its last days though as I've resumes my sanction on all forms of audio songs. In fact, besides the audio books in my music library, I only have a few (under a dozen) which only serve my sound needs in Flash (Adobe). I realize that to change my life (I haven't been impressed by my utterances), I'd have to change my thoughts and these are directly related to the things I take in visually and aurally.

That said, it's time to resume my classes. 5:31 am...about 90 minutes to go. I'll proofread for typos later but first, a title for this...arrgh, blogs!!

Minutes before take-off...[yawn]

[yawn]...k, finally, a positive angle to blogging. So, I get into my room a few minutes ago (it's 3:28 am now), sleepy and couldn't get me to pull my Dell studio out of my bag for a quick write-up. Then it hit me, "I didn't have to"! I had this good ol' Veda laptop open in front of me doing a 25 to 35 kbs download. So, all I did was run my url and bingo, I'm churning these out, yawning and peering at the plane (excuse me, bed). What's to talk about that I had to do this? Turns out for a person like me there's so much to talk about. I'd even considered naming my blog "apere" (basket) at some point but decided against it. The GETTO component just had to have its way in whatever speaks of me.

Anyways, it's the weekend already and I have to myself a much cherished solitary confinement save for a few exceptions (breakfast, lunch and dinner times). Plus, the first-lady of the ecosystem could call on me for an impromptu meet to which I'm obliged to heed :-). I'm aiite, trust me, I don't flinch over my responsibilities; how much more the things that concern me. I could write a dozen page epistle about my first week with the Genii especially considering the first-lady's onboard. In simple terms, challenging in an interesting, exciting and enthusiastic way is the best way to describe my week old experience :-). Never expected less from a smart , confident and matured lady. But, I still have to deal with lady stuffs. You know...mix of gists (gossip's not a good word considering readers would stilll find it hard to buy any argument that I simply try to listen) even if I just want to talk about work :-). Failure to bend translates to being too rigid, boring and unexciting so I try. Besides, who says she'll listen to me if she's tuned off to a gisty channel (mood). Again though, where would the world be without ladies? Appreciate all the women folk.

This keyboard keys are cruel. Nothing like my 15" baby. My flight itself seems to be taking much longer than I'd imagined. Yet, I wonder why cos' I was indeed spent over the course of last night into this morning. From the 30 minute meeting than spanned hours, "thanks to miss Genii :-)" to the funny, unserious talks over in the lounge (playful me!!!) and then, work, work and work (with even much more to go).

[yawn]...Glory to you Lord...quick prayer then it's bingo.

Eureka!

To blog or not to blog? Hmm, it's a dicey one given the characteristic insecurities of the virtual world. So, I just stumbled across this idea and can't wait to bring it to life but right now, sharing with y'all out here in the virtual world is a bit of a concern. For one, I simply could get me to lie to anything besides paper (virtual and physical) so much that if anything in my life can be considered a secret, it only goes as far as a peek into my journals would reveal. Let's just say I knew what temptations I'd be exposing my harmless self to when I signed up to this blog just under 24 hours ago. I'd resisted the urge to get on board for this specific reasons. Now that it's done, I only hope my 4 year old blog sitting on my hard disk doesn't pay the price but I reckon that'll be dealt with by my irregular access to the internet. But then, google's so smart that it ensures I still stay connected from the confines of my third screen. Then there's the temptation to blog about just anything and everything. Well, I'll try to keep the characters of some people protected. Not to worry, I don't kiss and tell - I'm a Believer and Ephesians 5:3-4 means a lot to me.

Anyways, you've probably heard about how much excitement can have one spilling things rather unconsciously only to realize the effect when the damage's all been done.

No idea's original I know. But I also know that there are zillions of brilliant folks out there in the virtual world waiting to prey on ideas for the holy grail, "money, fame and respect".

Anyways, I'm sticking by the old rules that simply says, "Shhh".

Flashing thoughts 10:45 AM

Okay, so, i figure a blog is kinda like a notepad where you just pour out what's running through your mind whenever, however. Unlike my typical scribbling in loose sheets, MS Word..., I have to entitle each one here which can be a little daunting but anyways, I'll go with whatever comes to mind. Right now, I'm 30 minutes into my Adobe Illustrator lessons and my sight's a little hazy hence, this time out. I can feel the strain within as I brace through this ill feeling that started off as a chronic cough. Plus, think I'm done with the medication so I'll just see out the rest by taking a nap. If only I could have a truly smooth nap devoid of these pictures playing out on my mind. It's like a dream that just won't go away, the thoughts and scenes of my prototype. So, I have an almost perfect clarity as to what I want to create. The hard part's putting it all together in skills. Simply put, I have to delve into acquiring the skills needed to bring my idea to life. A brief peek into Adobe Flex and Air revealed just how much I have to study to realize the whole. Do I like the challenge? Sure I do but there's no denying the obvious mix of boredom and strain that could pop up along the way. Coding, scripting or whatever they are suck but its results are enough to make one go through the pain hence, my interest.

On the other hand, one has to wonder why I'm still studying the use of Adobe Illustrator with what lies ahead in  bringing my prototype to life. Funny me but I owe me an obligation to follow after my plans. "Know thyself", the one statement that's been repeated in this ecosystem. See, I've had this tendency to switch from one thing to the other out of interest and midway through the former. Illustrator lessons came to the fore cos' I needed to have my blogs and write-ups go with descriptive graphics. And now, I'm equipped enough to put up simple vector graphics, you'd wonder why I'm still keeping with it. Well, I have a responsibility to myself to  ensure I wrap up the reference text. Besides, it's just an hour long lesson so shouldn't hurt other lessons on my schedule.

Hello World

I didn't have to think thrice about the title given it's been the characteristic opener for every programming lesson. Anyways, I'm live in the virtual serving out my epistle in fiction, non-fiction and what have you. No secrets, no censoring...just my thoughts at the times of writing. Well, this should do for a maiden post before I go on to ram in the backlogs sitting on my hard disk.
Oh...lest I forget, the inspiration for this came from Wil Shipley ( http://blog.wilshipley.com/search/label/code ). I couldn't resist the appeal of his blog so it's goodbye WordPress.