Recently, I took a deeper look at the concept of Self-Reliance being one of the concepts all writers must adopt to be the best they can. No good writer writes outside himself, rather, he writes from within so he must confide in the innocent wisdom within himself. But not only writers need to be Self-Reliant, everyone does.
Conforming, which I perceive is the opposite of self-reliance, in this context, dissolve your force as an individual. It makes you loose your precious time and blurs your true character. If because you must conform, you continue to go to a church that sucks you empty, continue to be part of a dead union or society, you continue to vote for a dead party, you continue to dress as everyone does….. I will find it difficult to know the precise person you are.
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I will only know that your original force is being withdrawn from you as a man. But do that which your soul tells you to do, I shall accord you respect, do your thing the way you ought to do it, you shall reinforce yourself. Be sure that the world shall flog you with scorn and displeasure if you do not conform.
They might stand like status to look at you with awe. It is easy for you to deal with them; those sour faces, because their sour faces have no deep impact if you do not take them seriously. They are timid and vulnerable themselves. Their rage against you is feminine, do not overestimate their unintelligent brutish faces, you must have a godlike mind to treat them as trifles and laugh at their follies.
You must be consistent if you wish to be self-reliant because people refer to your past acts in connection to your present acts if they are connectedly consistent. Their minds are like computers collecting your data, but when you are consistent, they would be disappointed. With consistency, you have less to worry about. Speak on an issue the way you will speak about it today, and if need be, speak about it the way you ought to speak about it tomorrow – do not wave because the world expects you to do so. Do not care if you are misunderstood, most pure and wise spirits that had ever taken flesh as humans had been misunderstood in the course of history. Your honest actions will explain itself, (don’t defend anything) and will explain your other honest actions. What you do honestly will justify you.
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I speak for this our generation. No doubt, we sit on the lap of great knowledge and intelligence, which of course makes us receivers of truth and the depth of its activities. (Imagine life without the social media and phones then) When we see justice and truth, we allow ourselves to walk towards its beams and rays of light. Truth is like day and night, not to be disputed by any soul. Its only low minds that see truth yet argue with it. They contradicts between truth and perceptions and opinions, they do not distinguish between them. They rather think, ‘I choose this and hold it as truth’, which can be fatal to common Sense.
Continue to insist on yourself, imitation could be fatal too. Your own gift was presented to you originally while an adopted imitation, you possess half of it, if at all. Its only your Divinity, your Maker that can teach you what he has bestowed on you. You cannot get it from imitation. Who taught Obama the ingenuity of making great speeches without reading from notes? Who taught Wole Soyinka the craft of writing?
Be conscious of the society you live in, society never really advance totally as we are made to believe. It loses in one side as it gain in another side. It undergoes changes continually. (Who could ever think we would be experiencing the likes of Boko Haram and ISIS in the 21st century with their savagery as if we are in the era of barbarians?) The society loses it morals and at the same time it becomes more scientific.
It could become barbarous, civilized, rich amid abject poverty at the same time. For everything that is given, like spiritual sacrifices, something worthy is taken. Societies acquires new acts and may lose old leanings. How many of us know what leaves of the forest are used for medicinal purposes these days? Yet, we are 24 hours on Facebook.
Today, the government told us we can no longer rely on her for our sustainability. So the call for agriculture for self-reliance has been on for a while now. For long we have relied on oil and gas that we had assaulted both for too long. For too long have we been looking away from ourselves. We have been measuring our self-esteem with what we have, not who we are. But a self-reliant man should be ashamed of the properties he came across by accident, by inheritance, by gift, by crime…He should feel ashamed of all that does not belong to him by toll and therefore does not have root in him.
They are still there because no popular uprising, robber or honest government had taken them away from him. What a man is is a living property that cannot be taken away by the mob, fire, storm, government, bankruptcies… Whatever the self-reliant man is will continue to renew itself as far as he breathes. I think when a man puts off all his foreign supports that he is adjudged to be strong. He is weak by everything he is given without sweating for it.
Nothing can make your heart as happy as much as that which you can give yourself. Nothing can bring you peace as much as knowing how self-reliant you are and your triumph on principles.
