₦airaland Forum

1) I've learnt to value the things that money can buy, not the money itself.
I ask my rich friends for their clothes they ni longer fancy and are in good condition. It saves me working jobs to get money to buy it myself
https://www.nairaland.com/8626659/want-things-money-buy-not

2) The opposite of riches isn't poverty. Heat is not less cold; sun is not less moon, man is not less woman

3) dot dot dot. Lol

Interesting.

forgiveness:
I think the best way to solve poverty and people moving out of the country is to implement work per hour pay.

This will make people more dedicated and self reliance than placing someone on Monthly wages.

With this, you can earn as much as you can work. You can even work in 2 hospitals in a day and earn more.

I think we can peg 5k - 6k per hour for a minimum wages. With this one can earn between 1,500,000 to 1,800,000 naira per month for 10hrs labour per day.

Minimum working hour should be 6 for professionals.

Implement this and see the rate of development in the country.

All those people that japa will definitely come.

Note: 5k - 6k is proposal for just Minimum wages. It can go upward based on experience and job task.

How is it your business?

Are you here to celebrate destruction?
Or you're the accurate timekeeper, counting scores of 2 entities that know not about you?
What do you seek to benefit from this destructive act exactly?

Ever lost something dear to you?

mfm04622:
This was retaliation! Ukraine also sank Russian ship! Also sank Iranian ship that had nothing to do with Ukraine! Did you complain then?

Food supplies that could feed hundreds, if not thousands were just wasted
All because of what exactly?

It's the need to feel superior to their fellow human
We call it Arrogance

https://www.nairaland.com/8703930/ego-phases-ego-simplified

You'll have to read this scenario to understand the context of this insight and also to flesh out the title of this post.

Mr. X's mother was rushed to the hospital. Apparently, she fell while attempting to come out of the bathroom—with its majestic-looking but dangerously slippery tiles.

Mr. X is a factory worker, married, and with kids. He has managed to settle the hospital bill. His mother is worried on her hospital bed after finding that out. She knows her son cannot easily afford that amount of money, especially on such short notice. She expresses her worry to him—he tells her, "Don't worry, Mummy. All that matters is you're safe. I actually did a job for a rich client of mine. He settled me well. I was waiting for the right time to break the news to you."
Now the mother is suddenly at peace. Prior, she felt like a financial burden to her son, especially in her condition—rejected by her family over a child whose father had rejected and absconded from her too...but after hearing how her son could afford her hospital bill without financially jeopardizing himself or his immediate family, her heart feels more relaxed now. Her heartbeat is finally normal now. She suddenly remembers she hasn't eaten—all because of her extremely worried state. Her son excuses himself to go get her some food.

He feels happy his mother is at rest now. He knows that in her old age, she's likely prone to a heart attack, especially if she hears the news that he used the money meant for the school fees of his two children to offset her hospital bills!

***************†***

What actually is a lie?
And what actually is the truth?

Should it be called a lie when we tell it to protect our loved ones?
Should it be called a lie when, if the roles were reversed and we were the ones being told, we would still prefer it to the bitter, heart-wrenching truth?
Should we call it a lie when you know full well that it doesn't hurt *anyone*?

But Reverse Engineer, you once wrote here on Nairaland that the importance of truth is that it inspires choice—to do or not to do—then how come you're pro-lying?

Again I ask, what's a lie and what's the truth? Sit with that for a while. The characteristic of water is clean. When you pour sand in that water, you'd call it dirty water, but is that still 'water' itself? What is dirty soap? If soap cleans dirt, and the dirt is later transferred to the soap, does it make it a 'dirty' 'soap'? How can it be 'dirty' and still be a 'soap' whose job it is to clean?

Truth is necessary especially when not saying it could lead to the spread and propagation of a lie. Truth is necessary especially when not saying it could lead to ripples of both imagined and unimaginable disasters. But imagine if the truth was the disaster itself!

Hence, truth isn't the strongest foundation on which successful relationships are built. They are also built on the lies we tell our loved ones—the merciful lies—the decency with which we tell our loved ones merciful lies. And these merciful lies, no matter how exciting they might be to your hearing, do not provide an excuse to blatantly lie outrightly. It acts as a soft landing when you know that being brutally honest with someone could terribly hurt them, especially knowing they're not equipped emotionally or physically to handle the brutality of the truth. You spare the other person pain and preserve a functional connection where total honesty could cause unnecessary destruction.

Telling a guy you're occupied with school activities and you need time to sort them out—which is actually true, but not as serious as you make it out to be—is way better than telling that said guy that the reason why you wouldn't want to go out with him is because you don't go out with short guys and you feel an outing with him could be a complete waste of your precious time.

Until you learn to include politeness and beauty in your words while subtracting arrogance, merciful lies could act as a soft landing so you don't hurt someone emotionally and drive them off the cliff of depression or agony. Remember, stagnation leads to suffering, so you wouldn't want to dwell there for long.
Also, you tell it to someone else for your justifiable reasons, and another will tell it to you too, for their many justifiable reasons.

Evolve.

Credit: Niklaus Mikaelson, The Originals

Which would you choose? I'm curious to know.
Remember, you're at gunpoint and you've been given a choice—if you don't breathe, the trigger won't be pulled, but if you do breathe, you'll be shot.

What kind of choice is this, you might be wondering. Is this even a choice at all?

But while you're wondering about the ridiculousness of this choice—a choiceless choice which even a madman should instinctively know the answer to—you should also not forget that those who firmly and heartily chose that choice have in one way or the other been extremely mocked by you—even at those moments you thought you were "catching cruise."

Now we'd look at historical figures and the circumstances of their death to draw insights from.

Martin Luther King Jr., a Black American freedom fighter, who had a belief system that went again the organised system he met.
He surely wasn't just killed off the bat. No. Because that's not how opposition is handled. That's not how the men of the underground work.
If all your opposition/haters are killed, very soon you'd become a suspect, and you wouldn't want your seat and position of power in the shadows to be revealed.

What you'd do is seek to convert your opposition and build your base, because for all reasons, a tamed wolf fighting on your side is way better than a dead one.
On this note, it's safe to assume that those who have been silenced through death by the opposition, have always been presented a choice, subtly, to be converted—to join the 'winning team'—but they seem to have refused, because they somehow ended up becoming the dead wolf.

Why?!
Why make a ridiculous-seeming choice when they could easily choose to be converted—to become the tamed wolf, in order to preserve their life?

Shouldn't life be so precious that we do just anything to preserve it? Don't these so-called 'messengers' value their life at all, that they'd choose strong-headedness to pass a message over a seemingly long life? Maybe these people had suicidal tendencies all along. They've been seeking death but were just so afraid and couldn't muster the courage to take their life themselves, so they put up all this charade to make them the center of attraction to the 'opposition.'

What was it? Just exactly what was it, huh?!

It's simple. Their reason was simple—
a gun was pointed to their head, and a choice was given to them—don’t breathe or die. They chose to breathe, because they know that if they do not breathe, they'll end up dead regardless.

If they choose not to stand for what they believe in, especially in the face of death, then they're already dead to themselves. They'd just be appear living to everyone else.

They had so much conviction in their message that it became who they were. They lived, ate, drank, danced, and breathed their message! It became like white on rice or blue in the sky!!
They became their message itself—so much that telling them not to radiate their message was telling them to wither away!!!
The only way left to stop the message was to stop the messenger who had already become the message itself.
This is why the revolution will not be televised. Why it'll have no party or flags or membership card—it won't require one. The messengers will become the message. You can easily delete a message in your phone inbox, or shred the printed copy in your office shredder. How then do you handle a human messenger who has become the message? You could handle 10 easily. How do you handle multitudes?

Charlie Kirk was one messenger who ended this way. JFK was assassinated for his message. Gandhi met his end this way too and there's also one messenger whom I leave out. One so great that he was so brutally murdered for his message of self-introspection and accountability—away from third parties and fancy buildings—that his murder misguidedly started a religion itself, after texts were edited to "if he didn't come to die for our sins, he would have defended himself from getting killed."
Surely Gandhi came to die for Indians or Martin Luther King Jr. for Black Americans.

Let's further draw insights from the Bible. King Solomon was presented a case. A mother had unknowingly killed her child and swapped her dead child for the living child of another mother.
King Solomon, judging the case, decided to cut the child in half and share it to both mothers, but the real mother decided to relinquish the claim over her child and hand it over, just so that child would live with the other mother.

Now the question I ask, would you call that woman a bad mother?
A gun was pointed to her head too, and a choiceless choice was presented to her—don't breathe or die?
She chose to breathe, but by so doing, she would lose her child. This was a hearty decision for her as a mother because she knows that a living child with another woman is better than a dead child divided in half with her.

Another realistic example: A young athletic man who so much cherishes the value of life, but was forced to enlist in the army or be killed, decides not to fire a single shot at his 'opponent' during intense gunfire exchange and was later shot on the battlefield.
What would you call this decision, my dear reader?
Foolishness?
Shouldn't the law of the jungle be "kill or get killed"?
By killing someone, he has killed a part of him—that part who cherished life so much. He has killed himself! He valued himself so he decided not to kill anyone. He, like all messengers, knows that his energy should be directed towards attacking the 'invisible' system, and not attacking the people. Until we make the unconscious become conscious, it'll rule our lives and we'd call it fate—Carl Jung

Same applies to that young lady who decides not to commit abortion, despite the burden of what she stands to lose if she doesn't. When your values are clear, decisions become easy to you. Indecisiveness leaves.

That gun has been pointed to your head too many times in different scenarios. Don't breathe or die. What was your choice? Did you breathe—or did you not?

Hi. I understand your points and I do see clearly now.

Charity begins at home and technology—even at the stage of usage Nigeria is at now— should be used to solve our immediate problems first, not wholesomely discarded

d3inma:
There’s a lot of truth in what you’re saying hunger, unstable electricity, and weak infrastructure make it hard for people to focus on anything beyond survival. Those issues are real, and they absolutely shape what people can or cannot adopt.

But the part that often gets missed in these conversations is that AI isn’t a luxury technology anymore. It’s becoming a practical tool that helps people do more with less especially in places where resources are limited.

Most Nigerians who use AI today aren’t trying to “rub shoulders” with Silicon Valley. They’re using it to:

- automate small business tasks
- reduce development costs
- build apps faster
- run marketing campaigns
- manage customer support
- create content without hiring a team

And the reason MCP‑based agent systems are gaining traction is because they let people automate real work, not just chat with a model. With MCP, an agent can:

- update files
- manage data
- run workflows
- integrate APIs
- generate modules
- handle repetitive tasks

All from a single interface.

For people dealing with limited time, limited money, and limited infrastructure, that’s not a distraction — it’s a multiplier.

The real question isn’t “Should Nigeria focus on AI?”
It’s “How can AI help Nigerians solve the problems they already have?”

That’s where agentic systems matter.
They reduce the cost of building apps, running businesses, and managing operations especially for people who don’t have a full engineering team.

Platforms like ForceDream add another layer: verifiable execution. Every agent action is signed and provable, which means you can trust automated workflows even when humans are overwhelmed or resources are stretched thin.

AI won’t fix electricity or hunger.
But it can help people build, earn, automate, and create even in tough environments.

That’s the part worth paying attention to....

//d3inma

Where did the governor get the money from?
Although it seems right, is it really?

If it's his personal money, cool
If it's from taxpayers money, is there a budget for such?

They're arrogantly disturbing the peace of other people in other religion.

“...and fight so that others don’t do unto you as you wouldn’t do to them”

The human laws as formulated, were supposed to guide us to the path of justice and equal living, but as time went on and man drifted further from beauty, it became edited by the numerous willing slaves of Lucifer — who sadly enough aren’t fully conscious of the role they’re playing as slaves. Now what we have are watered down left-overs of religious texts and books—especially translated copies which are subject to the limitations of the translator in words and thinking. Yet still in our arrogance, we think one religious book is better than the other. I put it to you—no popular religious book was spared the mercy of not being tampered with, and you can find the evidence to support this fact with the numerous inconsistencies, using the Bible as a case study: the fallacy of the story of Adam and Eve, Virgin Mary and the arrogant lies of immaculate conception by Christians, the lies of the war in Sodom and Gomorrah to hide the calcification of lot’s wife by advanced weaponry when she “re-turned” to the battle site— not when she “looked back”. Weapons which supposedly shouldn’t be found in the “olden days” of sticks and stones — and the fruits of other religions who claim their way is right

The law isn’t the only path to justice, same way the bible isn’t the only the path to truth. This is because Jesus wasn’t the only messenger sent by God to earth. Mohammed, Gandhi, Krishnamurti, Buddha etc are also messengers too.

As I’ve discovered while being in religion, the reason why people cling unto the lie that the messenger of their religion is the ‘be all, end all’ sent from God, stems from the arrogance to not feel equal to their fellow humans but superior. It’s the dissatisfaction we get from feeling average and not special that compelled us to create pathetic competitions “Ghana jollof vs Nigeria jollof, iPhone vs Android, Igbo vs Hausa Vs Yoruba, What has your governor done vs what has my governor done, tribalism, racism, best church/pastors and so on.

The Bible teaches that “do to others what you would have them do to you” as an attack, but what was left out was “and fight so others don’t do to you what you wouldn’t do to them” as its commentary defence strategy.
The drive you get to defend yourself when something that you don’t like is about to be done to you is rooted in your conviction that you’d never do to others what is about to be done to you. Imbibing this understanding un your life removes you from the position of a spiritual doormat who ignorantly ‘turns the other cheek,” mistaking forgiveness for justice

And surprisingly enough, I got exposed to this insight when I read a book which wasn’t the Bible—The Spiritual Laws by Vincent Guillem—a free PDF purposely made so by the author.

This goes on to show that the Bible isn’t the be all end all for Truth. Lucifer fell long before Christianity or any other man-made religion started, and all these while, you think he was just folding his hands to allow the propagation of the light? lol

In certain extreme situations, the law (Human justice system, bible, Quran etc) is inadequate. In order to shame the inadequacy of the law, it’s necessary to act outside of it to pursue natural justice.

One love. Thank you for reading.

Complementary posts

1) The Moral Of Continued Hardwork Is The Morality Of Slaves
https://www.nairaland.com/8603403/moral-continued-hardwork-morality-slaves

2) The Abnormality Of Competition And The Scam Of Hustle Culture
https://www.nairaland.com/8701026/abnormality-competition-scam-hustle-culture

To my dear readers, I want you to understand that the idea in this post has a lot of moving parts—like a machine—and it’s a lot to pack into one piece. I’ll write complementary posts later on. Alright, let’s begin.

First, we have to define what necessary and unnecessary jobs actually are.

A necessary job is integral to the basic mechanics of human survival and community living. An unnecessary job is one that could completely disappear tomorrow, and society wouldn’t miss it. Simply put: if a job only exists to fix a problem that someone intentionally created, that job is unnecessary.

Moving forward, clear examples of necessary jobs are:

Hairdressing (people will always have hair that needs styling)

Musicians and Artists (there will always be a need for songs and words that capture human reality)

Builders and Engineers (we will always need housing, farm tools, and real technology)

Agriculturalists and Food Producers

Healthcare Workers and Therapists

Authors and News Reporters

Examples of unnecessary jobs, on the other hand, include massive defense bureaucracies, career politicians, bottled water companies, and endless layers of administrative enforcement—NSYC officials (No need for many employees if NYSC is made optional. I've written about this topic), pastors etc

To see how unnecessary jobs are born, you have to look at how modern systems thrive on sabotage and manufactured problems.

Phase 1: Corporate Sabotage and the Fake Economy
Look at how tech giants like Apple operate. Is it true success when a company intentionally sabotages its own older devices through software updates, or builds phones with bizarre, proprietary screws just so regular technicians can’t open them?

Because of that intentional design flaw, a completely new industry had to be created: companies that manufacture specialized screwdrivers just to open one brand of phone. Suddenly, phone repair costs skyrocket because the job has been made artificially “sophisticated.” The same goes for fragile glass screens that cost a fortune to replace. Factories build these screens, employing thousands of people, and economic analysts celebrate it as “job creation.” But in reality, it’s just employment birthed from corporate sabotage.

The global military industry works the exact same way. Governments spend trillions of taxpayers’ dollars on fighter jets and war machinery that can be destroyed in minutes. Defense ministries know that if world peace becomes the goal, their budget disappears. So what happens? Conflicts are manufactured. The problem is created by the very same entity selling the solution.

Phase 2: Local Government and the Illusion of Progress
When a government doesn't know how to build a functioning society, it resort to creating problems that it can solve to justify its existence. ""Without the government, the country would go into chaos" lol. How surprised you'd be to find out that it's the same government you think is necessary that's causing most of the chaos.

Take the NYSC scheme in Nigeria. The country forces young citizens into a mandatory year of service under the threat of denying them standard employment. To manage this forced program, thousands of administrative jobs, security roles, and official positions are created. Millions of Naira are spent. But are any of these jobs actually necessary if NYSC were simply made optional?

If you want a concrete, everyday example of this madness, look at the streets of Lagos—places like Ogba or Iju-ishaga.

There are pedestrian walkways designed for people to walk safely. But local authorities start selling "tickets" and permits to roadside hawkers to set up shops on those very walkways. Naturally, pedestrians are pushed off the walkway and forced to walk on the main road. This causes massive human and vehicular traffic.

Instead of banning the ticket sales and clearing the walkways, what does the government do? They build a traffic light or post traffic wardens to "manage" the chaos! They talk about road expansion. Lol. They created a problem, sold a permit, caused a traffic disaster, and then spent money hiring people to fix the traffic they caused. And if you point this out, people call you an enemy of progress because you're "trying to stop people—the road side traders from making a living."

We see this same pattern in massive religious and administrative bodies like the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). Instead of promoting true spiritual peace, these bureaucracies often exist to defend institutional territory—like fighting for the "right" to blast loud speakers in a quiet street or preach on public buses, totally disregarding the freewill and peace of the passengers around them, even if these passengers practice another religion. These organizations employ security, drivers, and administrative staff, but having a payroll doesn't make an institution moral or necessary.

Phase 3: The Economic Fallacy
This brings us to the biggest illusion of all: Capitalism and Productivity.

What is the point of a government boasting about raising the national minimum wage when it refuses to fix electricity, security, or basic food production? Increasing the wage is just a lazy band-aid so citizens can afford artificially inflated goods. If you targeted the root cause of inflation—if you fixed the infrastructure—the price of living would drop, and nobody would be begging for a wage increase. Shouldn't we care more about what money can buy than the paper money itself?

Capitalism was originally useful for scaling up the production of necessary things by putting tools into the hands of citizens. But capitalism was meant to be a phase. Once basic societal needs are met, the endless drive for "growth" becomes toxic. Yet, shifting to socialism doesn't fix it either if the people running the government are just as vain and self-serving. No economic system works when the culture is built on arrogance and an absence of love

We have been conditioned to attach our entire human worth to "productivity." We treat an unemployed person like a broken piece of machinery because they aren't generating money. But your value as a human being comes from your presence and your humanity, not your output in a factory or an office.

The Personal Reality: Destiny Displacement
Think about your own day-to-day life.

The clothes I’m wearing right now while writing this were given to me as a gift by a close friend. On the open market, they’re worth maybe ₦12,000. I could have spent a grueling week doing hard factory labor just to earn that ₦12,000 to buy them. But because I was humble enough to express a need to someone who cared, I received them directly. I saved a whole week of my life by going directly to what I needed, rather than chasing the money that can get me clothes.

When you step back and look at the modern workforce, you have to ask yourself: If this job I do every day was only created because of a flaw in the system, what is it doing to my life?

I call these "destiny-displacing jobs."

They are artificial routines created because society doesn't know what to do with human beings when they are quiet. We were never taught the philosophy or power of simply being at peace with ourselves. We built an entire global economy on the fear of being idle, creating millions of fake problems just to keep billions of people too tired to ask who they really are.

A government that boasts about "creating jobs" without asking if those jobs are actually necessary is not succeeding. It is simply creating a problem that it has prepared an even problematic solution for, to further justify the necessity of its office in the mind of its citizens

Thank you for reading.

This is why I said that some jobs aren't necessary. The telltale sign of a failed government is the creation of unnecessary jobs

In a sane society, unemployment should be a good thing.
https://www.nairaland.com/8603403/moral-continued-hardwork-morality-slaves

You know you don't have to talk down on me to express your opinion
You might feel temporarily superior doing so, but that feeling only exists in your mind, and not in reality.

"That which is hard for you to do is where your salvation lie"

dgitrader:
Small talk

OP, do you know how powerful love is? I am talking true love!

The absence of it makes everything you are upholding a fallacy. Love is not chewing gum, love is power , possibilities and progress. When a man has no love for his wife, all this material things mentioned are like a house built on sharp sand! Forget story

You can learn to love her usefulness, which isn't who she is/her identity is, while also remembering that "to he whom much is given, much is expected'
If you pray for rain, always be with your umbrella while outside

If we only love people based on how useful they are, beggars orphans, widows SHOULD NEVER receive help, because, what's their use to humanity?

We love humans because it's a natural flowing energy and we see ourselves in one another.
If we love based on productivity or output of a person, love will be commodified, and it'll cause great friction in society, making society have stunted growth collectively

You love your gadgets because of its usefulness. If you were the only human on earth, picture how your day to day life would be? That's how important we are to one another

Build expertise that solves real problems.
I strongly agree. Because some problems in the world aren't really primary problems. They're secondary, layered on top one another to give the appearance of primary or importance

mjblinks:
Your background may explain where you started, but it does not have to determine where you finish.

If you grew up in a family that struggled financially, don't spend your life chasing money. Chase the knowledge, skills, and opportunities that create money.

Learn a valuable skill. Master a craft. Build expertise that solves real problems.

Money comes and goes, but knowledge stays with you. The right knowledge can open doors no one can shut and create opportunities no one can take away.

Your greatest investment is not in things—it's in yourself.

Learn relentlessly. Grow consistently. Stay valuable.

Your future will thank you for it.

The snake will eat its tail

"And the old will be lost in the new
4 will not wait for 3, for 3 never waited for 2"

Lol
I received a mail from them too
This thread is really nice.

If Jesus came to die for your sins, he would have committed suicide, not wait to be murdered. Know that and know peace

https://www.nairaland.com/8288098/god-not-commit-suicide

https://www.nairaland.com/8542807/error-conventional-envangelism

Freedom of religion?
That gives you the right to out out speakers to disturb my sleep on Sundays and other weekdays services

Associations such as these are the problems of the world, hindering the perfect society that we see when we watch those sci-fi movies

You know the right thing to do, but because you've associated with a body that you think is your identity, you then fight against the right thing to do

EVANGELISM IS BEING DONE WRONG!

In envangelism, people come to you. You go to them after they've come to you. You don't disturb them with threats and lies

The Error of Conventional Envangelism
https://www.nairaland.com/8542807/error-conventional-envangelism#137175894

Nothing happens randomly in life, because the creator is not random

When a murderer is murdered, you all celebrate, forgetting that a new murderer has been born from that act.
Even if El rufai is wrong, he should face the law, not what is being displaying here in the news.

But once again, nothing in life happens by chance. Justice is one thing, forgiveness is another thing

Capitalism with vain people such as Nigerians is a curse, rather than a blessing

Many people rushing into a business should ideally crash the price, but that's not what happen when someone rebrands a basic need to a luxury item and skyrocket the price—all to be called a CEO.
Look at pure water and bottle water. If tap water was clean enough, companies like Eva and cway wouldn't exist. It's in the best interest of these entrepreneurship that 'dirty water' thrives.

Also look at the patent secrecy act that have baned 100s of Inventions because they threatened the sale of crude oil. Capitalism cannot thrive when people don't love themselves or others to coexist.

PHCN was sabotaged so that solar and Gen can be sold. This selling and manipulating of solar panels and generators have created jobs, but I call those kind of work "bullshit jobs" or "destiny displacing jobs" because such an industry thrives off a lie. It's not an important sector.

Health industry have been sabotaged because healthy patients keeps doctors out of jobs

Even AI is being attacked because copywriters and graphic designers are scared that it'll take away their jobs

This is why I strongly believe that hustle culture is a scam—not just with Nigerians.
https://www.nairaland.com/8701026/abnormality-competition-scam-hustle-culture


Once again I repeat, suffering is not hardwork. Hardwork should lead to smart work and not continued hardwork. The morality of continued hardwork is the morality of slaves!
https://www.nairaland.com/8603403/moral-continued-hardwork-morality-slaves

Alright. The human brain is wonderful, regardless of how failable it is.
But because something is affordable doesn't mean that I can afford it. If I keep buying everything that catches my fancy, my house will be filled with junks.

The best way to be focused is to first know WHAT NOT to be focused on—this gives room to focus on the activities we love and want to focus on

Interesting conversation I had with you. It gave me an opportunity to better explain myself

GodHimself:
I get your point.

School gets us to memorise things that are disconnected from reality. Things that are useless and that most can't benefit from in the game of life.

And the majority are not equipped to memorise properly in a way they can then turn around and use that same skill to memorise things they really want. I get you.

What I am saying is that memorisation, separated from the thing you are memorising, is an important skill. Once sufficiently developed, even "rubbish" can be memorised easily without much effort.

I'm not saying people should memorise rubbish. I'm only saying that, at a sufficiently advanced level, randomness can be memorised with very little effort. The effort part is what you're kicking against. What I'm saying is that if you know the proper training for memorising, the effort largely disappears.

Irrespective of what you're memorising, irrespective of its usefulness to the memorising mind, the properly trained human memory has no known practical limit to what it can memorise.

No known practical limit.

That's the point I don't want you to lose sight of.

GodHimself:
I have a feeling we are both on the same side, just with slightly different perspectives. I haven't read through all the links yet. I'll find time and do that.

You did say no to rote memorisation of things you're not interested in. I agree with that. Memorise what you enjoy learning and you might not even consider it stressful.

On languages... children learn languages by absorption. The vocabulary and fluency levels they achieve reflect the environment they absorb the language from.

To build up a vocabulary beyond what is obtainable in that environment requires either exposure to an environment with higher vocabulary levels, or deliberate study AND memorisation.

Memorisation can be pleasurable once you get the hang of it.

I understand that for many it is unpleasant, but once it is mastered, it becomes pleasurable in and of itself.

That's why so many people do it for fun. Techniques like the memory palace make memorisation pleasurable. That's how people can memorise 30,000 cards after seeing them just once and never forget them.

Think about that. A skill, like driving, that gives you superhuman memory. I hope you also know that mental exercises like these help reduce Alzheimer's and other memory diseases. Use it or lose it.

On clear thinking: memorising doesn't mean keeping crap in your head. It means you systematically move information from short-term memory to long-term memory. It doesn't stay on your mind 24/7 if properly done. Instead, it becomes instantly retrievable.

On clear thinking, I think we're saying different things. A quiet mind comes from not being trapped by mental chatter. Meditation helps with that. I don't see memorisation as an obstacle.

See, sometimes you see something within and you don't fully understand it because you don't yet have the concepts for it.

Most times those ideas are not new. Someone else, somewhere, has already expressed them on paper. Reading them, understanding them and memorising them helps you put words and concepts to what you already saw.

I'm glad I could express myself in a way that you could understand.

To me, memorisation can be mental chatter. If one decides to learn the contents of 30,000 cards, that information should better be worth it to such a person. Investing that amount of time and brain power all for what? To become Chief Crammer of the Federation?

Look around you. Economics teachers are heavily in debts. Agriculture teachers are starving. People with political science degrees aren't becoming exemplary leaders. But they sure have nice paper degrees that they've spend a whole lot of time to get. Some even have first class degrees. But what did they achieve that they can actually apply in their life to grow them from point A to B

Chemistry graduates can't formulate liquid soap or perfume oil. What's the point of memorising all those IUPAC yada yada yada??

There's nothing like dirty water. Water is called water because it characteristically appears clean. If water is 'stained', it's no longer water, because the constituents of that stain like sand is SiO2. Combine that with H2O, and other background atmospheric conditions or reactions that science don't have the machine to measure yet, and you cannot still have H20 (water).
What do you call water then? Wati or Wato. Remember the name has to change to suit its compositional change
Have you seen a 'dirty antiseptic soap' before

Same way memorisation isn't called memorisation when it's strongly in line with your passion. You'll seek to know it by heart instead of by your logical brain

I hope you do find the time to go through the complementary links. It'll offer great insights that supports the idea of this post

Your username is quite Interesting

I've addressed your concerns in the post and my comments here—probably that's why it has those many branches

"Now, someone who has memorised more words is able to think more precisely and reach for more complex ideas than someone with a smaller vocabulary"

"Memorisation" doesn't feel like the right word to use. I recommend you go through my post again and the corresponding links I dropped. Writing a sensitive topic like this must have many 'wordy' branches, all necessary to add flesh to the bone of contention. There's no two ways about it

Regarding what I quoted from your comment, the surprising fact is that it's when your head is clear that insights flow. You can't pour into a filled cup. 'Memorisation' doesn't give that much room for innovation because you're most times learning as it is—as you were taught to see it to be.

Truth doesn't come from books alone. Some, if not alI insights, are divine.
You see a child already speaking its native language like Yoruba, and you begin to wonder— that child didn't go to a Yoruba class or nothing. And I know you might say "the parents brought up the child in Yoruba language"
But if that was the case, why aren't all children brought up in their various native languages speaking it, even at basic level. Something's up.

What about igbo girls that speak Yoruba fluently that are in Lagos?
Memories when it's in line with a field you have a passion for isn't memorisation anymore. Now you know it by heart, not by memory or logic. (I'm limited by words now)

There are some things you don't just learn in books- empathy, patience and so on. Memorising the meaning of these words won't help.
Who invented English as a language and structure it so well that people, even non-natives are able to learn and speak it?
Where did the 'original thought' to create English, even before the fact, come from?
You think it's by cramming or memorising the alphabets alone? Hey, how did the alphabets even come to be inn the first place? How do you know A is pronounced as A and not as B? You're soo sure we're pronouncing it correctly, right? Look at how you're violently defending that right now in your mind
You studied English in school, correct?

It's a lot to type out at once and I don't know how to put into words the thoughts in my head at the moment

GodHimself:
Your post is long and has many branches, many of which I won't touch.

I'll touch on memory however.

It's a human faculty that has to be developed. If you don't use it, it weakens.

Aside that, memorisation is simply the storing and retrieval of important symbols.

For example, the very words you're using to convey your message were all memorised.

Now, someone who has memorised more words is able to think more precisely and reach for more complex ideas than someone with a smaller vocabulary.

Likewise, mathematics and the sciences are, at their root, systems of symbols used to represent ideas. The more of these symbols a person internalises, the more complex thoughts they can hold in their mind at once, making it possible to create and invent better things.

So without memorisation up to a certain level, the very technology you're asking people to rely on would never have come to be.

Now that technology is here, the focus shouldn't be on abandoning memorisation. It should be on internalising and memorising higher symbols and ideas that enable us to reach the next level of human development.

Thank you. The title alone was hard to put together and I managed to merge some suggestions of Gemini. I'm glad it attracted you

I seem to understand the concerns in your comments. Memorisation is necessary, yes, but only when it happens naturally. Memorisation falls under effortless effort or Wu Wei
https://www.nairaland.com/8656859/pain-feel-lives-effortless-effort

It's goes deeper than the surface that i write several posts here about it trying to explain as best as I can

See it this way: If I have the passion for hairdressing—working on people's hair, barbing, managing hair infections and understanding their causes and so on — I'd experience GREAT DIFFICULTY in learning when I'm enrolled in a medicine and surgery class, instead of a hair dressing class. Whatever I'm being taught there WILL NOT STICK in my head! It's like fitting a round peg in a square hole!

Everyone will likely call me olodo when I fail consistently, but no one will know that the reason I'm studying medicine and surgery was because i come from a family of doctors and nurses and my daddy have threatened to disown me if I don't study the course he chose for me—not the one i choosed for myself.
https://www.nairaland.com/8591634/what-wanted-ask-it-shall#137991453

A lawyer has no business learning rocket science. If he/she tries to cram/ memorise a rocket science formula, they'll fail greatly because the conviction or the passion to learn that formula isn't in them naturally. They like medicine and health and whatever goes on there

I managed to include supporting/complementary links just after the initial post

I also included a personal example of how I'm not good with navigating the roads in Lagos, even after spending 20 years+ here.
I don't have a passion for cars or vehicles whatsoever, I rarely go out and when I do, look the location off an internet map or I ask someone how to navigate the journey.
I don't see myself working in the logistic sector because of that, neither do I see myself working in any geographic agency because I'll only be incompetent there. I don't even apply for graduate trainee in any logistics company, where I'd have to be a logistic agent, even as I'm jobless, because I know I'll be useless there. I know my strengths and my weaknesses and I work with them. True freedom comes with limitations

It's not a failure on my part. I just have no interest there. Same with football. Gun to my head and you ask me to make 5 Chelsea football players,that trigger will go off.
When I was 10-12, I tried to cram the names of Chelsea footballers—drogba, lampard, essien and co, but I had no interest in sitting and watching people i don't know kick ball to score. I watch my friend's friendly football match because I know them and I can mock them later when they're dribbled. Ask me the score of the match later and I don't remember. I really did not pay attention. I was just there for the vibes and company

Knowing that rust is taking over my brain now—because Alzheimer's and Parkinson's doesn't happen at old age, as science claims. It happens early on and stretches in to adulthood— why would I want to struggle to build retentive memory that would only be taken from me. Lol. That's even if I live till old age
Some things are not necessary in this life. Identifying with things that would be taken from me leaves the inner me broke.

SixSeven:
You caught me with the title alone. Cramming is what is called rote learning. It is a problem with us because we don't like to be challenged, but there are some benefits to memorization 👇


https://www.tiktok.com/video/7603121085768273182

My model is that we need both. When we say we want you to think outside the box, we mean we want to see you apply that knowledge to the current situation, our current reality. Unfortunately, some teachers are also part of the problem. They don't want you to update the curriculum, they just want you to give it back to them because that was their right of honor. This is why creative students are often misunderstood. The movie three idiots tried to capture this

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https://www.nairaland.com/8603403/moral-continued-hardwork-morality-slaves

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The goal of being a human is not to be intelligent, brain-wise. If it were, our brain and memory functions would remain perfectly effective even into old age. But that’s not what happens, is it?

In our old age, brain diseases like Alzheimer's or dementia kick in. And let us not forget good old-fashioned memory loss—that classic scenario where you walk into a room to do something, only to forget exactly what it was the moment you're in that room.

How deep does this worship of memory go?

Society now celebrates a culture where someone who can cram strings of information is viewed as "intelligent," while someone who can't is labeled "dull."

We’ve also come to celebrate suffering. We think a person who suffers is hardworking, while a person who doesn't is lazy. My grandfather chopped wood to make a fire—surely that axe swinging and the bodily sweat it generated made him appear hardworking. Now, I use a gas cylinder to cook my food. I surely must be lazy because I'm not in the forest with a locally sharpened machete hunting for dry firewood.

If the goal of humanity isn't intelligence—especially given the cognitive decline that begins childhood and matures fully in old age—then why are your children/students in school, particularly in advanced classes, still forced to cram the first 20 elements of the periodic table in chemistry?

If that suffer-head kind of learning is necessary, why then do you use autocorrect while typing? Aren't you afraid that you'll eventually forget how to spell with continued use?

Why do you use Google Search? By that logic, you should conveniently walk into a library to look for the information you seek, or ask a friend of a friend via word of mouth or a letter.

Knowledge isn't truth, because knowledge can be lies, carefully hidden between two truths. The best place to hide a tree is in a forest. This is why I believe it will take a whole lot of unlearning to get rid of the false teachings we were brought up on. Lies have been normalized as truth.

Why cram my to-do or shopping list when I can just walk around with a piece of paper containing the information? Who or what am I trying to prove my "gigachad" brain to?
Oh, you think walking with a shopping list makes you appear less of a man or a woman? You think this simple act of helping yourself robs you of your humanity? Even thieves, kidnappers, and rapists are still human regardless of their terrible acts—let alone you, whose only crime is walking around the market with a shopping list.

Have you seen people perfecting the art of memorizing phone numbers on the spot just to look like the perfect pickup artist?
But I ask: to what end?
Is it necessary to stress your brain that much?
Don't they realize there's a fine line between exercising the brain and stressing it to the point of fatigue?

Using your brain means remembering to reach for your phone or a writing instrument to collect a phone number. Stressing your brain means cramming an 11-digit string of numbers just to convince yourself that you're intelligent.

Sadly enough, you might not be. Intelligence is broadly defined as the mental capacity to learn, understand, reason, solve problems, and adapt to new situations.

Intelligence is logic plus creativity. If you're only logical without being creative, you're not fully intelligent. Is that the end of the world for you? No.
Should the tag of being referred to as "intelligent" be that important? No, because you're still human without it, and you're still human with lots of it.

This is why most of the truly intelligent people I've met are the "lazy" ones. They are the people who understand the irrelevance of manually doing tasks that can be automated, and the needlessness of proving how retentive their unreliable brains are to anyone—including themselves.

Why take the time to learn how to prepare sophisticated meals—a task I have no passion for—when I can find a partner who takes pleasure in cooking, or ask a trustworthy friend who already loves it?

Why own a car when I know I'm not good at navigating roads? "Go left and make a bend to cut into the parallel street by the northwest corner!" That's Chinese to me. I would rather employ a driver or migrate to a country with an efficient and safe public transport system. There is no pride in telling myself that I know my street very well. Who that one epp? Unless I have a passion for logistics and travel, I won't force it. If I don't, there's no need for unnecessary suffering. At this point in my life, after spending over two decades in Lagos, I can boldly tell you that you can easily get me lost in Lagos. But will I expose myself enough for that to happen? No.

Suffering is only necessary because it sensitizes us not to want to suffer again. Those who lose money to gambling or bad deals are sensitized by the pain to avoid losing money next time (if that bad deal counted as a terrible loss to them enough to cause them pain).

While foundational memory-building exercises should be taught to growing children, they shouldn't be dwelt on by aging adults who mistake the ability to cram irrelevancies for actual intelligence. You crammed the shopping list, and now you've bought the items—what’s next? Your next shopping list is likely to be different. So you'll take your precious time to cram that again, and again, and again. Until you're told by a medical practitioner that you're depressed, only to be sold drugs to.

While the logical aspects of our lives should drive us to create innovations that reduce our dependence on manual logic, they should also serve to grow our "illogical" aspects—like empathy, understanding, and compassion. We shouldn't live our beautiful lives as calculators hinged only on cold logic. Employers celebrate the growth of their companies by punching numbers into programmed growth-tracking algorithms, but they neglect to include the actual living conditions of the workers who strongly contributed to that success as a metric of their company growth.

We build a bridge to cross to the other side, not to sleep on it or get so addicted to building bridges that we forget to cross.

Give your brain the minimal tasks it can handle, and confidently rely on technology or external tools for the tasks that will only stress you out.

Why you laughing naw
I can take a guess

Read the post again. I've made some corrections

PapaNnamdi:
Lol,
17 more characters needed