I will start this weekend's
admonition by a tale told by an
unknown author. It is originally
called the pebble and the ripples.
A man was sitting by a lake. He
was throwing small pebbles into
it from time to time. A young boy
happened to cross by. He was
intrigued to see that after every
few minutes or so, the man
would toss a pebble into the lake.
The boy went up to the man and
said, "Good pastime, this stone
throwing, he?" "Hmmm, said the
man. He seemed to be deep in
thought and obviously did not
wish to be disturbed.
Sometime later, the man said
softly, "Look at the water, it is
absolutely still." The boy said,
"Yeah, it is."
The man tossed a pebble into the
water and continued, only till I
toss a pebble into it now do you
see the ripples?"
Yeah, said the boy, "they spread
further and further."
"And soon, the water is still
again, offered" the man.
The boy said. "Sure, it becomes
quiet, after a while."
The man continued, "What if we
want to stop the ripples? The
root cause of the ripples is the
stone. Let’s take the stone out. Go
ahead and look for it." The boy
put his hand into the water and
tried to take the stone out.
But he only succeeded in making
more ripples. He was able to take
the stone out, but the number of
ripples that were made in the
process were a lot more than
before.
The wise man said, "It is not
possible to stop the movement of
the water once a pebble has
been thrown into it. But if we
can stop ourselves from
throwing the pebble in the first
place, the ripples can be avoided
altogether! So too, it is with our
minds. If a thought enters into it,
it creates ripples. The only way to
save the mind from getting
disturbed is to block and ban the
entry of every superfluous
thought that could be a potential
cause for disturbance. If a
disturbance has entered into the
mind, it will take its own time to
die down. Too many conflicting
thoughts just cause more and
more disturbances. Once the
disturbance has been caused it
takes time to ebb out. Even trying
to forcibly remove the thought
may further increase the turmoil
in the mind.
Before you allow a thought or a
piece of information to enter
your mind, put it through the
triple filter test of authenticity,
goodness and value.
Only few years back, to go
through the University, it cost a
few hundreds, gradually it was
just a few thousand and one got
a qualitative education from w
world class universities that they
once were. But what happened,
we threw pebbles into that
water.
Libraries have given way to
Google, sadly in the ivory towers,
students become graduates
without visiting a library except
for the flimsy excuse of bind a
pirated and plagiarized copy of
their terminal paper called
project.
This same nation that is battling
unemployment without even a
proper statistical data of how
many that were unemployed,
whether half-baked, unbaked or
over-baked was once the same
that offered holiday jobs for
University students, same nation
that left you with a choice of job
after your first leaving school
certificate.
In those days before you and I
threw pebbles into the water,
after Primary 6 then, you picked
from the old Nigerian Railway,
P&T, ECN and such.
There was corruption, but how
much of it, the slide may have
begun, because we were
throwing pebbles already, but
we stole less, there were few
Fraouks and Otedolas and the
theft were in few thousands, but
today we steal in billions and in a
nation with all the poor, a few
Nigerians can afford a Bugatti
Vyeron, world's most expensive
and fastest car at N400milion in
Nigeria... a car that has only 300
units in the world.
Honesty was still a virtue, shares
were not over-subscribed and
banks did not just collapse, few
banks and , bankers, both
chartered and tattered, but
depositors monies did not just
disappear like these days of ATMs
and mega profits and sacking of
same bankers who supposedly
make the profits by selling their
bodies.
Many of us reading this, spent,
one naira, fifty kobo, ten kobo, I
have left out those that even
spent the shillings. Today after
throwing pebbles into the
Nigerian waters of progress,
economically, politically, and
otherwise, I know for a fact that
our children will see these
denominations in the few
museums that are still
functionally, they will never
spend it, even as we seek to
introduce more worthless higher
currencies.
We are almost done mourning
the Dana plane crash but have
quickly forgotten how our
pebbles at old reliable Nigerian
airways turned it into death
airways before it was liquidated.
It was a lovely nation with good
memories, we wrote essays of
"how we spent our last holidays",
were taught how to write in
formal and informal ways, and all
that mathematics some of us
found hard to understand but
was fun, today the ripples of our
pebbles is one that has seen us
embrace technology without
caution and progress. Okay
became kk or just k, love, became
luv, or lv, we know lol...laugh out
loud at our collective amnesia.
There was this friend of ours,
served in Sokoto, he married an
Hausa girl from Sokoto during
the NYSC program, he was not
only given a cow but the
wedding was sponsored by the
State government. Then, you
were posted to 'angeligidi, in
munafirchi state and you went,
taught in an Local Education
Authority Primary School, and left
with life experiences, but now
our pebbles only show how no
one really wants to serve in those
places we know, and how some
serve in their father's house.
Our pebbles birthed Boko Haram,
the political ones in GEJ's
government, the criminal ones,
the terrorists that have redefined
our lives and collective brotherly
way of living...Now we are like
Afghanistan like 'Nigerianstan', in
some parts and like Somali like
'kidnapli or is it Nigeriali'.
Fact is that, we need ask, is there
a Nigerian project, and with not
just the pebbles but stones we
are hauling at the project, what
becomes of it, only time will tell.
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