For privileged people, life is good. They have the Midas touch. Everything they tap turns gold. When they take to soccer, they are dazzling. At the soapbox, they are amazing speakers with wide followership as vote sweepers any day. In music and theatre, they are matchless in talents. In the classroom as scholars, or the laboratory as researchers, in exam or writing, they are the best as first class brains. In anything and on any field, they are always the best hands available.
High in society, we call them the elites club or the privileged class, men and women of taste and grandeur. Their call cards open gates anywhere. We praise them, sing their glory and fame, praying to be like them when we call on God. They are the mighty, the honoured, the rich or the game changer anywhere they reach or any scene they appear. Their names we use when we seek favours from others because they are the best in the eyes of the world.
The amazing thing, but this is very unfortunate, is that in spite of their eminence, many in this favoured league are lacking in peace of the soul or purity of heart, robbed of intellect and discernment, or excellence of character. Their homes often are theatres of the absurd while tales flying about them, sizzling and salacious are anything but inspiring; usually, woeful tales of indiscretions. Therefore, when many of them die, it is in infamy, shrouded in controversies. So, they say the rich also cry. The rich also cry?
How can these favoured, blessed and gifted or talented nurture wounds at heart to end life in sadness and not joy? How could they have made so much fame in life and lack name or honour in the end? Why should people curse or hiss when such mighty people die and their loss not mourned? In my reflections until fair, I found majority of them lived lives of perfidy while alive. They were slaves of their gifts, talents, grace, office, power and position without acknowledging the source, which is God. This is where the misfortune of many of the favoured one lies. Ingrates they are mostly as they saw themselves as demigods, arrogating to themselves infallibility. They are blind. Yet, among this privileged class are called the Men of Letters, the intelligentsia, who should be the sage of their world wielding tremendous influence in the society.
To this class I addressed my concern some five years ago about the guidance they provide and the evils they spread when I wrote concerning this Best Men’s Club in my Mirror of the Moment column in the National Mirror then:
First, from where do they operate? They are in the classroom as teachers, lecturers and professors teaching the younger generation. They are in the media as writers, journalists, producers, presenters and anchors setting public agenda. They stand on the pulpit and the mimbars as imams, sheikhs, bishops, pastors and general overseers preaching godliness with scriptural exhortations. They are part of the larger civil society campaigning for freedoms and the defence of human rights.
They are in government, as occupants of executive offices and as the representatives of the electorate in the city councils or sitting in the hallowed chambers of the legislative assemblies. They hold high cabinet offices or function as influential technocrats in the public service. They are members of the Bar and the Bench as interpreters of the law or dispensers of justice in the courts of law. They are the ideologues, philosophers and the intellectuals of our age who are held in very high esteem and whose words and views are held sacrosanct.
From this lot, we expect our world to be well-ordered because they are the rulers of the society and rulers of the minds of the rulers. Through them, we expect life to be enhanced for the less privileged. But somehow, our world gets more chaotic and problematic in spite of them. Today, many of them are vanguards of perversion and apostles of apostasy. They no longer provide guidance but would rather corrupt wisdom. They are failing and disappointing in their discharge of public and godly trust, often justifying godlessness and compromising the spirituality of man.
When I reflected on the unfortunate end of many of the highly cerebral and creative minds whose works in writings, arts, music, theatre, inventions or innovation are evergreen or masterpieces, this reality that I personally found humbling was expressed in a poem titled Helplessness of the Gifted – Elegy for Wasted Stars in my unpublished poetry collection:
How many stars has the world seen
soar in splendour to sink a-sorrow? Souls searching for peace,
factories of masterpieces, shredded to pieces Chest of ideas and wide followers lacking in our Lord’s fellowship
In many homes and million’s heartalive
Their words and works, as scriptures evergreen
In troubled minds, enduring
mending broken hearts,
piecing shattered homes
With sweet sensation and flowery singspiration
yet orphans without helpers in their own desperation
Millions they give inspiration
but powerless over own fame, affluence and ambition
Falcons are they so graceful
soaring so colourful
though deaf to the falconer’s Whistle
Driven by passion for laurels and blitz,
feeding on glitz, glamour and paparazzi soon are downed by pride and power to die straitened pauper
In search of celebration, Embark on perdition,
Indulging in immolation
in cocktails of coke and cannabis
In fullness of adoration
are empty of inspiration
Fail at rehabilitation
As things fell apart,
In giddiness of their godlessness Betraying senselessness and recklessness
end In loneliness and helplessness
Finding no peace or succour in the open arms of our creator
In vain are mourners’ lamentations
For these divas and dazzlers drugged to desperation n depression
diamonds dragged to destruction
Weep not for this class of the gifted
The favoured ever so ungrateful In their life journey yet so blissful
The antidote to the misfortune of the gifted is an attitude of gratitude and humility when one is at his height. For the struggling to save themselves from the desperation and depression or the misfortune of the gifted is to acquire strength in faith, hope, patience and contentment in the Most High God, Knower of the Unseen, even gratitude and penitence towards Him when life seems challenging. There lies our Peace and Richness, our tranquillity and satisfaction.
- Abdulwarees Solanke is a Fellow, Chartered Institute of Public Diplomacy & Management Assistant Director/Head, Strategic Planning & Corporate Development Department, Voice of Nigeria (Lagos Operations), Ikoyi, Lagos, korewarith@yahoo.com, 08090585723
