tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7349386654451361402024-03-12T19:12:21.285-07:00Th-ink-ing it!
𝕺𝖓𝖊 𝖛𝖔𝖎𝖈𝖊 𝖈𝖆𝖓 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖑𝖉 𝖇𝖚𝖙 𝖎𝖙 𝖙𝖆𝖐𝖊𝖘 𝖆𝖑𝖑 𝖔𝖋 𝖚𝖘 𝖙𝖔 𝖇𝖊 𝖆 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖉 𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖑𝖉. 𝕭𝖊 𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖙 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖌𝖆𝖒𝖊 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖗𝖘Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-46935151607099271382020-06-19T01:00:00.001-07:002020-06-19T01:00:34.260-07:00How YouLead Summit re-ignited my spark of genius.<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IN; mso-themecolor: text1;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G0OoSpt0eyA/Xuxs__3RddI/AAAAAAAABZU/-lev4UFHUpg5oTXO8NQR214ftsqwB4CCwCK4BGAsYHg/s4128/YouLead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2322" data-original-width="4128" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G0OoSpt0eyA/Xuxs__3RddI/AAAAAAAABZU/-lev4UFHUpg5oTXO8NQR214ftsqwB4CCwCK4BGAsYHg/s320/YouLead.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I am proudly associated with YouLead; arguably East Africa’s largest youth gathering. I started with this program (summit) <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">since its inception</a>, in 2017. I had been running a campaign for a coalition I founded, for the <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Clinton campaign</a>, in 2016, lost an election, had my dreams shattered, and got terribly depressed. I was not sure I would get right back up into anything to do with writing in the shortest time possible: the pain was very unbearable for me and gut wrenching.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For almost a full year, I was very depressed, deactivated my old Facebook page and went in the dark. Then one day, someone shared with me a link calling upon bloggers across East Africa. I had built my name as one of Uganda’s finest, with a very big readership but my energies were so low. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do blogging anymore. But, I also needed a new inspiration, something to give me life, to breathe anew. It was a purely volunteer call, no compensation was mentioned but were to be fed and housed the whole week we were at MS TCDC, I told myself, “Grace, this isn’t so bad. Go and network; meet new people.” I looked for money to take me to Arusha, have since never regretted. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My first experience with so many energetic young people from all the countries, both excited to meet and share stories about each other’s countries. YouLead Summit of 2017 is an experience to remember; even at the very start, you would believe in the future ahead. Truly so, the experience has since changed, it gets better each year. All the people I have met through the years, the YouLead Alumni, all have one thing in common: they say the YouLead Summit has and continues to get better. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I met people who have since been above the price of rupees; I grew my network and has since grown it overtime, I have also grown personally, today, I am the Communications, Media and Marketing Lead for YouLead, something I don’t take lightly: it is an opportunity to embrace, a learning curve for me and an emancipation of mimi – yes to meaning –to never be too jaded for hope. It is not my finish line. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Many people ask; “Grace, what is your life after You Lead?” There is so much that I do outside YouLead; I write, I am a farmer back home and I have two projects to launch in due course: a media marketing company and a global campaign, on activism for blacks; saying yes to decency, to respecting our fellow human siblings. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>YouLead is a torch for my skills, it is a learning curve, it is not permanent but I am forever indebted for bringing back my creative spark of genius, both as an immediate employee and, if the future permits so, a consultant.</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I mentor so many young folks and people older than me in things that I am good at, and are passionate about, the truth; if you don’t have a platform, even if you have very great ideas, they [ideas] will never reach anywhere, and you will get stuck in the ruts. Seeing what YouLead does, amplifying youth voices across the region really makes me happy as an individual;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>I know there is so many folks out there who need someone/ an organisation to say, “I see you, you matter”: YouLead Summit does this – harnessing the full potential of youth across the region – inspiring hope and self-esteem to young people.</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have been doing intense reading on <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Sashisko</a>, In sashiko, the goal is not to hide the repair but to celebrate it, hence a patch is attached to the inside of the fabric using neat rows of tiny stitches, leaving the tear still visible. Sashiko exemplifies the Japanese principle of wabi-sabi, which has no direct English translation but expresses a sense of beauty in the incomplete and imperfect. It honours the strength to be found in the fineness and delicacy of the work: a patched and repaired garment is a source of reflection, even reverence. On Instagram, you’ll find examples of the skilful use of patches in contrasting colours and patterns that render a mass-produced garment unique and expressive, a product of individual experience and taste and with a delicate and coherent beauty all its own. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As I wrote on my Facebook page, I am launching a global campaign on being <a href="https://graceabahosr.blogspot.com/2020/05/appropriation-dear-black-people-dont.html">unapologetically black </a>but first, this. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">•I haven't "arrived" - I don't subscribe to “arrivism”, all of us need each other to sell ideas, win battles, and build movements. So, I will need your support, black or otherwise: we are always stronger together </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">•I love words - I do both spoken word and I write but; I have a high preference for the latter, writing. That is how I have got here. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">• I am an advocate for personhood and human decency - through the years; I have written so much here and across the aisle, both as a ghost writer /essayist and an individual, on the importance of respect for our fellow human siblings, my campaign will promote these two core elements. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">•I have zero tolerance for bullies - No one bullies me, no one. Whether you are the most feared man in your local village or not, or have an echo chamber that makes you feel you are more important than others, or my boss at office: no one bullies me. And: because I respect all else, I expect respect in equal measure, if you play opposite, I pick pitchforks. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">• I disappoint so many times - I believe in universal goodness but while at that, I also speak for the minority opinion, often called the unpopular opinion. Free speech, yes; respectful free speech, if you look down on anyone, we are not taking the same ship: as I often say, black lives matter, as all else. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">• I know so much and I learn so much - have a lot to learn - but! My intellectual humility has limits, if you condescend, I will call you out; if you act like an A - hole, I will come for you, without fear or favor. I know it is important to be humble but humility, on my end, has limits. I have been taken advantage of, I can't afford another time. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">•I am very daring - this means so much; I don't cuddle and coddle people who have made perimeter walls of eggshells; you are either/ or. I love going the distance, always. I move with the movers and doers, the ones that see magic in the power of yet: <a href="https://web.facebook.com/hashtag/dontbeafraidtobe?__eep__=6&source=feed_text&epa=HASHTAG">#dontbeafraidtobe</a> movement. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IN; mso-themecolor: text1;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><br />Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-84103698168094196402020-05-29T01:37:00.004-07:002020-06-19T01:03:23.306-07:00Appropriation: Dear black People, don’t apologise for being.<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fn27S8PpKRw/XtDIG5k3LBI/AAAAAAAABVQ/1BoUnuc6H4UYSj6a7OnxNlQshPdTdHQEQCK4BGAsYHg/black.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="540" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fn27S8PpKRw/XtDIG5k3LBI/AAAAAAAABVQ/1BoUnuc6H4UYSj6a7OnxNlQshPdTdHQEQCK4BGAsYHg/s320/black.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">no shame</a> in being black. It is not a crime to be born black. It is not privilege but it doesn’t make you less than. It is very sad, that more often than not, we re-live the very absurd history of making a black man a second class universal citizen. This world continues to make us look like aliens, as <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">some world leaders</a>, shamelessly , have called their fellow human beings for not being born like them, and /or sharing the same privileges. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To be born black is to be human, not a death ticket. To be born black is to be made for greatness, like all our fellow human siblings. To be born black is to a recipient of pure unadulterated love, in equal measure in as much as we give. To be born black is to expect and receive, respect. The underlying malady in expecting is that people see and use it for vulnerability; they see it as a ground to have us lynched, with no remorse. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When will colour stop to be a <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">metric for what one can do</a>? When will colour stop to be the ground upon which one rises to the ranks? When will colour stop to be the ground upon which justice is served? When shall humanity not blind itself to the hurt we receive because of being black, but rather, that we are one human race: one human tribe? When shall we, black people, not be treated as the have-nots? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">These are questions that are both endless and hurting. They are questions that every black person wakes up to ask themselves in the morning and even as they go to bed at night, they are questions of introspection, they are questions, and that we as a black race ought to boldly bring ourselves into, and say: I love us, I love you. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We absolutely cannot EVER forgive white racism! Any form of it. When whiteness feels under siege, it always achieves a sense of order, harmony, redemption, unity and consolidation of power through the systematic, ritualistic destruction of Black bodies. Honestly, white people sending apologies about these murders and other craziness, with nothing to show for change is the illusion of normality – a second insult – that sorry is wasted breath and ink is if there is no change in behaviour. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Because as a voracious reader who hangs out in the bloody archives - that chamber of horrors - history has already taught me to expect the worst and to focus my attention and energies on people who actually understand what it means to be human and focus on people who do not reside in a state of constant de-evolution. Break that trauma bond and abandon those expectations. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I see the <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">case for Reparations</a> and the <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">case against reparations</a> every time this happens, I see white supremacy, and I see hate and vitriol for the black human: I am filled with rage. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As the famous poet and Nobel laureate, Joy Harjo, writes in verse, in <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Eagle Poem, 1951</a>, </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">With sacred wings.</div><div style="text-align: center;">We see you, see ourselves and know </div><div style="text-align: center;">That we must take the utmost care</div><div style="text-align: center;">And kindness in all things. </div><div style="text-align: center;">Breathe in, knowing we are made of</div><div style="text-align: center;">All this, and breathe, knowing </div><div style="text-align: center;">We are truly blessed because we</div><div style="text-align: center;">Were born, and die soon within a </div><div style="text-align: center;">True circle of motion, </div><div style="text-align: center;">Like eagle rounding out the morning </div><div style="text-align: center;">Inside us. </div><div style="text-align: center;">We pray that it will be done </div><div style="text-align: center;">In beauty.</div><div style="text-align: center;">In beauty </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-12103826518566840362020-05-24T05:15:00.002-07:002020-05-24T05:15:36.894-07:00A memoir on Transformation and Love: chapter 1-10<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 30px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="line-height: 24px;"><font face="georgia"><font color="#5e5e5e"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://bit.ly/2WX2B2i"></a></span></font></font></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="georgia"><font color="#5e5e5e"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oi1r095RozY/Xspk1ghwLzI/AAAAAAAABTo/veVgxJ-ej-kcQG3gaaPrZ2vybGXLqEQwQCK4BGAsYHg/IMG_20200524_145341.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="794" data-original-width="1123" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oi1r095RozY/Xspk1ghwLzI/AAAAAAAABTo/veVgxJ-ej-kcQG3gaaPrZ2vybGXLqEQwQCK4BGAsYHg/s320/IMG_20200524_145341.jpg" width="320" /></a></font></font></div><font face="georgia"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #5e5e5e;">Previously, an introduction</span><span style="color: #5e5e5e; font-size: 12pt;"> to <a href="https://bit.ly/2WX2B2i">Tell it Boldly</a> : I have lived a life of mistakes, of small and big wins, of self–introspection and of pure adulterated love; so many times, I have noticed, this life is built on the premise of giving, sharing and receiving: for both the haves and have-nots. If you decide to hide in the avalanche of lies, find comfort in the bed of lies, in a world already torn to pieces, by plagues, deceit, foolery, bad politics, war and terror, no one will ever ring the alarm, you have to be the point of light, whenever that is possible. Speak truth to power, to self, spread love and not hate, be kind, share your stories, they matter.</span></div></font><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #5e5e5e; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"><font face="georgia">Can I be honest? Truth – telling is expensive, you will ruffle feathers doing that; you will make very great enemies but also, very great friends, above the price of rupees. In this book, so many of the things you will read are informed by what I have traversed growing through life.<o:p></o:p></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #5e5e5e; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"><font face="georgia">The promise we make to ourselves, if we ever pay fidelity to it, is to be ourselves, to be honest, to be authentically who we are, an attempt we often wave a futile flag to. If we have just lip service to keeping it real yet hide in plain sight, what is there to show for authentic happiness? If we lie through our teeth; what is then our metric for truth and honesty? If we are selfish and don’t care what our neighbour is going through, if not hypocritical villainy, what do we have on our report card for personhood and human decency? This book in progress seeks to shine a light on these fundamental questions, when it is finally out, find it and read it.</font></span></p>Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-45139481092632625412020-05-20T05:37:00.003-07:002020-06-19T01:05:00.959-07:00Unpopular opinion: Ashburg and Bobi Wine symptomatic of the cult of false worship<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia"></font></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7FDjMLYNW-8/XsUjUdn_tiI/AAAAAAAABSs/ez8BZwvk32oi_mRFtTOZO_2hAE0d0rzuACK4BGAsYHg/False.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="680" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7FDjMLYNW-8/XsUjUdn_tiI/AAAAAAAABSs/ez8BZwvk32oi_mRFtTOZO_2hAE0d0rzuACK4BGAsYHg/s320/False.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bobi and Ashburg: <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hot100.ug%2Findex.php%2F2020%2F05%2F19%2Fashburg-kato-i-have-been-patient-with-bobi-wine-but-hes-a-user-now-president-museveni-has-made-me-wear-the-engule%2F&psig=AOvVaw1eiAKLhStYViWimLhKgfmn&ust=1590064007257000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA4QjhxqFwoTCOi_kKO4wukCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD">Source</a><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="georgia"></font></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is so many activists world over who lie through their teeth, but as is often said, you can fool people but not all the time. So many innocent people often jump into the bandwagon because a particular individual speaks to their biases. It is called confirmation bias. Then when these people ditch you on the side of the road and find a new prince, you cry salty waters: sending out all slurs and memes, cursing, hosting hate rallies online and otherwise.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Look, Bobi Wine and AshBurg are cut from the same cloth, both are fair-weather politicians. A one, Bobi Wine, who only grew to fame, politically, because he associated with Dr. Besigye through the year, an assertion so many deny; well, welcome to the human race. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ashburg (see Bobi Wine) is a mere political intermediary: He is a young man whose besetting vices are self-righteousness and reductionism; he underestimates the force of political passions. He wishes to enjoy the fruits of politics without paying the price or noticing the pain. He likes the fruit and not the tree; he wishes to pluck each fruit: liberty, honesty in government, good Medicare, economic prosperity, employment for the populace…. etc. Thus by definition outside politics or he may think that politics is simply the acts of political parties and politicians—thus narrowing the scope of politics drastically and unrealistically. But steeply though, he draws such lines, he always leaves some place for politics. He merely tries to scrub it down, clean it up and tether it firmly until the terrier becomes a fairly lifeless, if respectable, lap-dog. Honestly, he is the guy whose last act of betrayal reads: money is better business. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have been in the political commentary space long enough to lay claim that I know for certain what I am talking about, there is none of the two, and their cult of false worship, who has your best interests at heart, they are all using you to have an overdrive of their ego and personal ambitions. Ashburg, who claims he has worn the “engule’ first before all else is a symptom of the many reasons why Museveni and his cohort will take Uganda for a ride, even much longer than you expect: Ugandans are gullible. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2016, Ashburg took his very gullible echo chamber for a ride saying that he had got a note from Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerburg, thanking him for the great blogging work he was doing in Uganda. Do you know debunked his lies? I did. I brought his foolery to a quick death; I proved it was a hoax. There was an online program where you would self-generate the notes. I did the same exact note and posted to his status update, it must been cringe-inducing that evening. Certainly, more times like these, a time for the reckoning is coming, we will know them at the end: the bible says, those who believe till the end will win the crown of life. Politics too, if you start a mission just to get you five minutes to the president; you are a fraud, a scam, a con artist. We see through you. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-51828033858542705692020-05-18T05:08:00.004-07:002020-05-18T08:57:23.307-07:00The Graduate: What next after University?<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia"></font></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><font face="georgia"><span style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://graceabahosr.blogspot.com/2016/04/my-first-college-degree-onward-climbing.html"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="632" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YnATQiyZK6k/XsJ4WIvcIXI/AAAAAAAABSA/HUyLT00d1BI_kdm_Yf5IHY2X_ef8VDI3wCK4BGAsYHg/s320/Grad.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></font></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><font face="georgia"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia"><a href="https://graceabahosr.blogspot.com/2016/04/my-first-college-degree-onward-climbing.html">After graduation</a>, where do we go from here?</font></span></b></font></b></div><b><font face="georgia"><o:p></o:p></font></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia">There used to be a false narrative that for
anyone to be successful or take off in life, they should and must have a decent
paying office job, something that has been debunked over and over again, the
most successful people in the world didn’t attend college and /or had office
gainful employment, they started their hustles and believed in them. It is true that
getting a college degree gives a comparative advantage but what matters the
most is translating the degree into a real life solution.<o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia"><span> </span>Having
a shiny college degree and [or] so many of them isn’t a big deal, the real
degree is, what can you do with it? I have a job today but do you know what
else I do with my life? I dig. I go to the gardens, with garden tools and do very
great work there ; those you who have seen my gardens can attest to this, they are
impressive. Do not let degrees blind you to the realities of life; there is
more to life than academic credentials.<o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia">For the Love of it<o:p></o:p></font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia">After school, you can choose to do something
that ends up changing your life, for the Love of it, often called amateurs. As
a fresh graduate, three years on the street without a gainful employment, I
decided it was time to take on writing as my second reputation, a writer. For
so many times, I have dressed, paid my rent, bought the basics for myself
through the years, without gainful employment, as an “amateur writer”. <o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia">I made writing my new job and started earning
from my legit hustle, outside what I thought I would translate into after
school, a procurement officer. The hustle life can sometimes be draining and
excruciating, especially as you build your brand, but in the end, it can pay
off. The beauty about sit-home jobs is that you can commit two hours off your
schedule and earn money to take you through a week, once the you broken the
market. This is something that requires patience and constant self- education,
because you are competing with “professionals” who have a cutting-edge
experience.<o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia">Start as a wannabe<o:p></o:p></font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia">Six years ago, I was a “wannabe writer”,
today, considering I have earned from my pain, got recognition even on an
international level, trust me I have the bragging rights. Born and raised in a
very humble background, little did I know that a self-made village boy would
run a campaign for and on behalf of the former first lady and secretary of
state of the United States, Hillary Clinton. I <a href="https://www.voanews.com/africa/young-ugandans-pick-sides-us-election">founded a team Clinton in 2016</a>,
after many years of writing out of passion on President Obama, Dr. Besigye and
doing speech writing for so many powerful people in our land.<span> </span>It has taken me places and yes, today my
reputation precedes me.<span> </span>When J. K Rowling
said that we do not need magic to change the world because we carry all the power
we need in our hands already to imagine better, she was right, “we have the
power to imagine better.”<o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia">“Amateurs” rise<o:p></o:p></font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia">At the most basic levels, professionals in
any field are simply people who earn a living in that field, while amateurs are
people who don’t. But the terms amateur and professional often imply something
else- something about quality and expertise. People often think of amateurs as
second rate, as those who perform well below professional levels. Amateurs are
the ones who gesticulate too wildly in the local theatre production, who score
over a hundred on the golf course, or who write cute stories. When we call
something amateurish, we use the word as a pejorative. We are suggesting that
the thing that the thing upon which we are commenting is nowhere near
professional, that the effort is something of an embarrassment.<o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia">Sometimes it is reasonable to draw sharp
distinctions between professionals and amateurs. There can, after all, be
enormous differences of accomplishment between them. If say, I had to do a
vasectomy, I would prefer to put it in the hands of someone who did that sort
of thing for a living than someone who occasionally dabbled in it. But often the
differences between professionals and amateurs have less to do with quality
than with choice.<o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia">More education - back to school and upgrade,
they say. What about lack of Mobility? What about competing in the global economy?
Education really isn’t the answer to making a dime to your name. How can the
answer not be education? Yes, of course should be the answer but education will
only be the answer when it becomes a democratic education for a democratic
workplace.<o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia">Yes, then it will be the answer but it is not
the answer yet, and, in the meantime, might only reinforce the top-down
authoritarian corporate structure that is preventing education from being the
answer. Getting educated is the drumbeat for all; you might probably not
compete with someone with a master’s degree at any workplace if your recent
academic qualification is an undergraduate degree/diploma. Sad, isn’t it?
Doesn’t it reinstate more education? <o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia">There is no foothold left in big cities, or
any place else where the global winners live, for high graduates to exercise
even a tiny bit of power. <o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><font face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">At the 2020 <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/16/21260992/obama-commencement-speech-hbcu?fbclid=IwAR31B4hm3dgzu-GFzTiAxOWcF5aY7PfvWd3vwL8dyCY5SFUocuJb0vDRaEU">HBCU virtual commencement address</a>, president </span><b style="color: black; font-size: 12pt;">Barack. H. Obama</b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
has hit it straight outta the park, he said to the graduates: </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">“You’ve got
more </span>road maps<span style="font-size: 12pt;">, more role models, and more resources than the civil rights
generation did. You’ve got more tools, technology, and talents than my
generation did. No generation has been better positioned to be warriors for
justice and remake the world,” couldn’t agree more. If we use what we
have, meet the right people, we can be what we have always wanted to: go where
we have always dreamed of. Onward Together!</span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p><font face="georgia"> </font></o:p></span></b></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-34854014787612184272020-05-18T00:33:00.002-07:002020-05-18T01:23:32.152-07:00Tell it Boldly: A memoir on Transformation and Love<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nHDQvfBmUow/XsI0Fff3A6I/AAAAAAAABRM/u9httoO0NsgIfIJBA8w8Q2iLd6T3O0Z0gCK4BGAsYHg/65e4726186b25d01dc0c1ae6209de5ce.0.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="540" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nHDQvfBmUow/XsI0Fff3A6I/AAAAAAAABRM/u9httoO0NsgIfIJBA8w8Q2iLd6T3O0Z0gCK4BGAsYHg/s320/65e4726186b25d01dc0c1ae6209de5ce.0.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://greycemusings.wordpress.com/2020/05/15/tell-it-boldly-a-memoir-on-transformation-and-love/">Upcoming memoir</a>: the book cover<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><div style="text-align: justify;">Boldness? To wake up and decide to be bold is one of
the greatest choices you can make in your personal life. Boldness isn’t just a
word, it is a philosophy, and it is a whole template to a life well- lived. You
don’t have to be a bully for you to be bold; you have to own your story, in
lieu of everything that can go wrong, exude decency and move toward shining a
light with your candle. Sometimes, as is the case with impostor syndrome, we
are drowned into the illusion of insignificance, we believe the lie that we
don’t matter, that our ideas aren’t worth sharing: we are always dealing with a
600 pound elephant in the room, always doubting ourselves.</div><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">I have lived a life of mistakes, of small and big
wins, of self–introspection and of pure adulterated love-so many times–I have
noticed, this life is built on the premise of giving, sharing and receiving:
for both the haves and have-nots. If you decide to hide in the avalanche of
lies, find comfort in the bed of lies, in a world already torn to pieces, by
plagues, deceit, foolery, bad politics, war and terror, no one will ever ring
the alarm, you have to be the point of light, whenever that is possible. Speak
truth to power, to self, spread love and not hate, be kind, share your stories,
they matter.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Can I be honest? Truth – telling is expensive, you
will ruffle feathers doing that; you will make very great enemies but also, very
great friends, above the price of rupees.<span>
</span>In this book, so many of the things you will read are informed by what I
have traversed growing through life. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The promise we make to ourselves, if we ever pay
fidelity to it, is to be ourselves, to be honest, to be authentically who we
are, an attempt we often wave a futile flag to. If we have just lip service to keeping
it real yet hide in plain sight, what is there to show for authentic happiness?
If we lie through our teeth; what is then our metric for truth and honesty? If
we are selfish and don’t care what our neighbour is going through, if not
hypocritical villainy, what do we have on our report card for personhood and
human decency? This book in progress seeks to shine a light on these
fundamental questions, when it is finally out, find it and read it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><br /></div>Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-51667094503626404272020-05-10T03:01:00.002-07:002020-05-10T23:27:50.538-07:00Dear mum, I am forever indebted.<div style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1vKyeDklu5U/XrfQp53tNNI/AAAAAAAABMs/6wffMoBoKWghrgP1esn4dALPBGFe9gDmQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/22195722_1766385263372513_6481772200140939312_n.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="448" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1vKyeDklu5U/XrfQp53tNNI/AAAAAAAABMs/6wffMoBoKWghrgP1esn4dALPBGFe9gDmQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/22195722_1766385263372513_6481772200140939312_n.jpg" width="320" /></font></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">Every time it is mother’s or women’s day, every day, I
think about mum, she was a rock, a solid foundation for who I am today. I saw
my mother give the best of herself to give us the life she didn’t have herself,
I saw her work hard, I saw live to the true meaning of what it means to be a
mother, dead as she is, she is and will forever be the greatest woman in my
life: for that, I am thankful.<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia"><br /></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">THE WOMAN EVERY MAN,
CHILD, NEEDS: OUR MOTHER, PATIENCE.<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<font face="georgia"><br /></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">Momma was a hard-worker;<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">She woke up before
everyone, always.<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">Picked up her garden
tool, the hoe;<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">marched with ease to her
garden.<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">She did this for years;<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<font face="georgia"><br /></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">Yes, she was learned:<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">And, she had an office
job.<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">But: that never stopped
her, she dug every day;<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">I swear momma set the bar
so high!<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<font face="georgia"><br /></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">I told my sister a while
back;<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">That she does ‘fit’ in
momma’s shoes.<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">Yes; the shoes are very
big—and weighty;<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">But she is trying.<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">Not because she goes to
the garden;<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">because she learned her
lessons.<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">And she employs them in
many places.<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<font face="georgia"><br /></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">We all learned from momma<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">That “<span style="text-decoration: none;">Patience leads to Victory</span>”;<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">And that hard work pays.<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">We are not where we want
to be;<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">But with hard work,
humility and Unity—<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">We shall get there; we
are unlimited.<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<font face="georgia"><br /></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">Does every family need a
vegetable garden?<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">Does every family need a
phenomenal woman?<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">Do women matter in
society?<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">Is society dead without
women?<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">To all these, as a matter
of fact, YES!<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">Dear Ma may soul rest in
eternal Peace<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<font face="georgia"><br /></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: #444444;"><font face="georgia">It hurts each day that you aren’t here with us but if that
has taught me anything, it is that legacy isn’t how you are celebrated when you
are alive but rather what remains of you when you are dead and gone, you are
here each day, we celebrate you, we love you and miss you: see you when we get
there.<o:p></o:p></font></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-33880734057018054382020-05-06T09:24:00.002-07:002020-05-10T23:27:20.653-07:00Finding oneself: who are you?<span><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SUsXjUOlGYk/XrLheO8LJSI/AAAAAAAABLQ/ZggVntlTzVwK5dilyhy3tCNAd-a9Uil5wCK4BGAsYHg/scv20200406_080816-1.jpg" style="text-align: left;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1477" data-original-width="2541" height="374" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SUsXjUOlGYk/XrLheO8LJSI/AAAAAAAABLQ/ZggVntlTzVwK5dilyhy3tCNAd-a9Uil5wCK4BGAsYHg/w640-h374/scv20200406_080816-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finding oneself, </span><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pW2b1vwwf4" target="_blank">who you really are</a></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, is one of the hardest tasks in anyone’s life. There are several small voices that keep telling you how you aren’t enough. Voices that short-change the course of what you should be doing and where you should be. For the most, it is society. Society can be very cruel; telling you what you can do and what you can’t do emphatically: society hardly looks out for your strengths, it strangles you, telling you how less important you are. It can get to your head and make you hate yourself and what you love doing, just to conform; it can make you beg for lighter shoulders.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recently, I was telling a friend how I am dealing with impostor syndrome, I am at a point in life where I have lost confidence in myself in things that even society knows that I am really good, like writing. I am only lucky that I still have great admiration for reading. Writing has always been therapeutic for me, as is reading. In finding the meaning of life, I have had to walk so many journeys with writers I have never met whose words have become points of light, like Viktor Frankl.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have read hundreds of books during the course of my life but one book stands out for me, </span><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4069.Man_s_Search_for_Meaning">man’s search for meaning</a></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, more than any other book I have interacted with, it helped appreciate life and everything that comes with it in ways I had never imagined, to see life clearly at its lows and highs: because, in earnest, that’s where we find the meaning of life.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Everything can be taken from a man,” Frankl writes, “but one, the last of human freedoms, to choose one’s way in any given set of circumstances.” I have grown conscious of one thing, everything is temporary, some days will be dull, tough, unbecoming and you will feel like giving up but never ever think that is permanent, if you stick to hope and reach your wells of resilience, there is no doubt that you will see a better day: when it rains, expect it to shine again.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the start of my teenage years’ favorite song, </span><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1yKCRp5qzU">when I look at you</a></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Miley Cyrus sings, “Everybody needs inspiration; everybody needs a song, a beautiful melody when the night’s so long,” this song comes in my mind every time I am under the bad weather. Even when I want to be a point of light to my fellow human siblings, this song rings home: towards what do I orient my life; inspire hope, and be a point of light through personhood and human decency. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I did an introspective, on what people say and know me for, I was left in awe. It is flattering that no one gave me a negative attribute but considering I know I am an imperfect messy glory, I said to myself, “these friends love me,” of course I don’t mind negative constructive feedback.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">According to my friends, this is who I am many things: Grace is a great writer, selfless, speaks his mind unequivocally, real and hates hypocrites, loves his children, full of human touch and connection to the perils of human frailty, is an incurable romantic, loves women with natural hair, shy at first sight, avid reader, gentle, has self-love, father of twins, a great gardener and that I pay them in dollars and cut the bullshit.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As my friend David Brooks writes in </span><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/david-brookss-search-for-meaning">the road to character</a></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, “we are called at certain moments to comfort people who are enduring some trauma. Many of us don’t know how to react in such situations, but others do. In the first place, they just show up. They provide a presence. Next, they don’t compare. The sensitive person understands that each person’s ordeal is unique and shouldn’t be compared to anyone else’s,” and that is accurate! We each have come a long way to get where we are today, crossed so many rivers, valleys and hills, we each owe ourselves and above all, God, gratitude: thus far the Lord has brought us.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As simple as it reads, the question, (</span><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">who are you?</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">), never gets an immediate right answer. I was recently watching a Christian movie, </span><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.overcomermovie.com/" target="_blank">overcomer</a></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, I got teary as I did, but if my tears meant anything it is that the message in the movie sunk in: that surely the<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3312604/" target="_blank"> </a></span><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3312604/" target="_blank">beauty in the broken</a></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Human beings are inherently selfish, all of us, our goodness is mostly clouded by this. In answering who we are, we parrot that which only serves our ego, and even without thinking through forgetting that, in retrospect, on our own, we are nothing. So, I am a child of God. And as I have written, God is the greatest; all the rest is background noise.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, for anyone to find oneself and meaning in this world, in life, as much it is important to say yes, it is also prudent to note that no is an answer, too. As Sarah Knight so perfectly says, “the first thing you have to do is to discard those things that don’t serve you, the things that annoy you, that do not bring you joy,” she explains. “You have to be honest with yourself and you have to really sift through it all and go: why am I doing this? Why am I spending my time, energy and money on these things that I don’t want to do, with people I don’t like, with time I don’t have? After that, you organize life around whatever is left.” Life is for the living, as I have always written, medals aren’t given to the dead. Be your best self. Be authentically you.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-75437152563680033272020-01-03T09:09:00.000-08:002020-01-03T09:09:20.310-08:00What does consent taste like?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Did you actually ask if I was okay with you kissing me?" he asked.<br />
"I couldn't wait for your lips to touch mine," he added jokingly. Believe you me, I struggled to stop myself from tasting the Kahlua on his lips.<br />
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He had had "minted man", and I a "slippery nipple". These cocktail names were the perfect conversation starter and one would would add, a perfect recipe for rape thereafter. While my minted man preferred to spend time in the gin ministry, I found delight discovering what each of the folks in the whiskey ministry was up to. We headed home with the remaining sobriety to unlock the house. He was a tad bit tipsy to force himself on me, and with my loose summoned, anything was possible.<br />
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Intoxicated, we were now inside the ho. He asked me if I wanted to shower and pointed me to the bathroom as he fixed us a late-night snack.<br />
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Omlette? How do you like it? With cheese? How about some pepper? He called out.<br />
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Every step of the way, every spice decision, he asked. <br />
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"Add whatever you deem necessary" I shouted on top of my voice. In that instant, I was trading my free will, unbeknownst to me.<br />
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Now that he had fed me, I was ready to feed him too.<br />
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This athletic, 6'4 man, whose lips tasted like a cocktail of orgasms, mint, coffee etcetera was giving me an option to spend my night, away from his arms, in another room.<br />
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Was I not attractive? I wondered. Did my gorgeous body not catch his attention? I mean, I am a 6'2, slender-bodied, thin waisted, and curvaceous in all the right places, the thoughts lingered on. I had finished bathing, and thrown the thong back on. I had also left just enough water on my body before I joined him on the kitchen counter and started to eat some of the just-whipped omelette and his signature coffee. Holding the fork teasingly, I had asked if he wanted to taste some of his magic. That was my green light, to feed him or drop some of it on my skin and ask him to eat it off.<br />
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Except, he hadn't given in.<br />
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"Are you freezing?" he asked.<br />
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I responded embarrassingly with a muffled "Yes."<br />
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He rushed to his room and brought a robe that he wrapped around my body without looking longer than I would have preferred.<br />
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I hated him for being slow. How could he not see this form of flesh, carefully molded together, as though the artist's mission was to show off.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
He was of Adam, but tamed. And I a seething Eve, an untamed one.</blockquote>
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The next time I lay next to him, I told him we were not having sex, not that night. His manhood shrank and he held me, in his arms. We woke up 10 hours later and I was untouched.<br />
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I have been looking to taste consent off another man's lips. The last one kissed me like he was a starved child until my lower lip bruised.<br />
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Before him, I had encountered an animal in human form. His brain stopped working when his blood would flow to his manhood. If only he had bought lubricant, it never occurred to him that I was always bruised when he forced himself in me. But he was my "lover". When I mentioned to him that it hurt, he said my body would get used in a few months and right now he was orienting me. I shut down my brain everytime the act was upon us. I feigned interest, else, he would pound me harder, to make me 'feel' him or in this case, bruise me more. Foreplay was forbidden in the walls of his room, as was a heads up if and when we would have sex. As long as I was in his space, he was entitled to do with my body whatever and whenever he pleased.<br />
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I dreaded being in his presence, I dreaded being in my lover's presence. Staying away from him for 2 weeks felt like a win. Then he devised an alternative, that we would watch late-night movies at TJ, that way, it would be too late to go home to my house. When in fact, it was his chance to train my pussy and my brain to treat rape as normal.<br />
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Consent was in the arms of the man I kissed who rocked my body, unrushed I had to beg him to stop because if he hadn't, my body would have shut down. This body has gotten accustomed to being told what to do, now it doesn't know what a proper sexual encounter should feel like. It goes cold everytime, it experiences pure pleasure.<br />
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I have caught glimpses of consent in stories of other people, and in jaded memories at bars, because alcohol didn't make any man rape me. It was the sober one, the one who drank 4 liters of water daily to stay hydrated and sane.<br />
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The minted man and my slippery nipple, never made contact. But we want to blame intoxications, and shield animals masquerading as lovers in the day, turning into wolves when no one is looking.<br />
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Is this what consent tastes like?</div>
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Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-45871381417018358292020-01-03T08:26:00.001-08:002020-01-05T00:43:02.596-08:00#MeToo Movement Uganda: the untold story.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-50697139" target="_blank">BBC</a></td></tr>
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Rape and sexual harassment are always making news all over the world; what is sad is, for the most part, the victims suffer twice, both psychologically, emotionally and physically sometimes. Being a very voracious reader, I have read so many books and watched so many movies/series that make me cry sometimes. Sometimes you can read something and it elicits a very tough emotional attachment, tearing away just comes handy. <br />
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Across the aisle, the #metoo movement has taken shape since the Harvey Weinstein saga that made rounds on the internet and other international news outlets. We have seen so many women and sometimes men come out to share their very painful stories, most of which date back to centuries ago. The challenge that comes with these stories is that they are met with a very deadly question for our times: <b>what took you this long?</b> <br />
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On the question of whether these stories deserve hearing; they should be heard. For me, as I have commented in one of the spaces where we have had this conversation going, the stories become a light force for future victims, and sometimes the old ones. Activism goes both ways; it is informed by the past to shape the course for the future, the stories are worth sharing: <b>share your stories, they matter. </b><br />
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If we are to remind ourselves, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/23/us/metoo-replacements.html" target="_blank">#MeToo Brought Down 201 Powerful Men</a>, they had often gotten away with it for years, and for those they harassed, it seemed as if the perpetrators would never pay any consequences. Then came <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html">the report</a> that detailed Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assaults and harassment, and his fall from Hollywood’s heights. <br />
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A year later, even as the #MeToo movement met a crackling backlash, it was possible to take some stock of how the Weinstein case had changed the corridors of power. A New York Times analysis has found that, since the publishing of the exposé (followed days later by a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">New Yorker</a> investigation), at least 200 prominent men had lost their jobs after public allegations of sexual harassment. A few, including Mr. Weinstein, faced criminal charges. At least 920 people came forward to say that one of these men subjected them to sexual misconduct. And nearly half of the men who were replaced were succeeded by women. Let this sink as we start off. <br />
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See, more often than not, the stones are thrown at he who comes out first, then suddenly, the person becomes the hero(ine). As someone who comes from a very informed place of activism, I say this with utmost authority, without fear or favor. Following the case in point, I have three accounts of very close people, some of whom I have been involved with and other people I know. What smacks very hard is that so many people feel like you are selling pale tea just because they have never witnessed or been victims of circumstances, the hope is that this blog smacks them awake.<br />
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One of the people I know personally know that have publically come out to share her painful rape experience is Irene M. Namara. I knew Irene about four years ago when I was still involved in political commentary; we were very close friends and one day she told me about her experience with the Matooke Republic boss who she claimed raped her; a sad story that made it’s way to the internet yesterday. So many people might not believe her but I choose to give her the benefit of doubt, she told me about it even before she resigned from her job. So, that is why some people need to listen. I have advised both their audience on all their social media posts, and I will sill re-echo this:<b> desist as much as you can from the <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story" target="_blank">danger of a single story. </a></b><br />
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There are people who claim that they “know Irene so well”, that she can’t be raped, that she consented, then there are also those who “know Darius so well” that he can never ever rape. Both these two are very disturbing statements to make, they close the path to the truth: how do you expect to know the truth with a closed mind? </div>
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There those who say that people who use drugs (smoke or drink alcohol) create the atmosphere trying to make a case but in a condescending manner, there is no justification for rape. The sad thing though, sometimes people are looking for a comeback, when the chance knocks, trust me they will exploit. My dad always said, “there are two sides of a coin, never see one and lay claim that you have seen the whole coin.” The dissenting views and accounts of these stories should be accommodated with an open mind, not doing so erodes the path of a full story. That's what we lack the most in society; it's beat with blanketing generalizations. <br />
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Not long ago; one of my Kenyan girlfriends told me a sad story about her boss; he would call her to her office and lock it and then try to force himself on her. One day; while at it, the poor girl on the verge of screaming out loud, was saved by the personal assistant who knocked; she survived. He got off her; threatened the hell out of the lady and told her this was never to see day or light. This is a girl you can call you beautiful at any rate. Young, beautiful and intelligent. In her very prime years. If she told you her story, you would say it is a slay queen making up a story, unfortunately, no. <br />
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When this lady told me she was resigning and she wanted my help in finding a new job; I was filled with rage and utterly smitten. Not because of resigning her job but rather what she had traversed. I asked her to let me use my circles in Nairobi to make this monster pay for it, she declined. I felt more rage and anger. She told me that the accused was a very powerful man; I also told her that I am equally powerful but lo, she told me to let it slide. I had to, painfully. <br />
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All of these stories and so many others hurt to the core, especially if we know the victims. A few days ago, I was watching Sons of Anarchy, somewhere in Season two, episode 7; the wife to Clay and mother to Jacks is brutally raped by a gang just to get to the club. She chooses to let all of it gone unsaid but only to the police officer who found her and the doctor who treated her, her daughter-in-law. It isn't until the police officer breaks the silence that the club begins to find a way of seeking vengeance. <br />
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Why am I telling you this? Most rape victims and sexually assaulted people die in silence with their psychological torture and humiliation because they fear to be judged, not believed. They also, for the most part, are "protecting" the image of the abusers and themselves, it's sad. The moral dividing line though is that not talking about it enables rape; please share your stories, they matter.<br />
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<a href="https://graceabahosr.blogspot.com/2020/01/what-does-consent-taste-like.html" target="_blank">What is consent?</a> This story explores the other side to this question.</div>
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Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-64399222895077934312019-11-25T01:38:00.000-08:002020-05-18T01:23:11.823-07:00Tell it Boldly, Chapter 5: ViolaWe are born into families not out of choice, none of us has a biological family that we choose. When we are born; we learn to live with everyone around us, especially people who are older than us, first our parents who mold us into beings. The human tribe is quite a large one, growing through life has so many people who come into our space, into our lives. I wake up each day thanking God for the family I was born into, as other chapters have clearly spelled out. <br />
<a name='more'></a>One of the greatest gifts I have had in this lifetime, other than being born in a family that is loving, it is the love of our only sister: Viola.<br />
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<img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-89y3ucbNE-U/Xduge3i_WXI/AAAAAAAAAmU/u8k6evgYmScgUG1scTHMrMRofohcVjVtACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG-20190602-WA0006.jpg" /></div>
Her life philosophy<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
life will always throw lemons at you, squeeze out the best lemonade,</blockquote>
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isn’t far removed from mine,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
life is for the living.</blockquote>
Family is everything. No matter how high you climb or how independent you become, the most important thing in anyone’s life is a family. Families are flawed, all are, let no one tell you otherwise.<br />
<br />
Having an only sister has been an added advantage; being my immediate follower, and our last born, we have been like twins, she has loved me when I am wearing my flaws like an apology, when I was breaking when I have a lot of hurt within: this love means the most. I am forever indebted.<br />
<br />
When we were young, there are very fond memories of my sister and I, especially back then in kindergarten- and even later in life- to date. I am older than her by two years, which meant security from the bullies even way back. We walked to school together, every day, more often than not. Our mother at times had to come with her as she came to school; at that time, our mother was the kindergarten teacher and later, headmistress of the private school we attended. At school, we always looked out for each other. <br />
<br />
For Viola, she took the ‘twinning’ next level, even were young; she felt she had to go to the same class as I was when were in the top class, she started following me to my class and my desk to sit with me. At first, my mother felt she wasn’t ready, that she was so young to join us but later, when Viola insisted by continually coming to my class, she gave her the benefit of the doubt: she let her embrace what she thought belonged to her- top class- and to study with me.<br />
<br />
She was a sharp girl but of course being a little older, and equally sharp, I was always her model, her security, her big brother. We would have a class up to 1pm. We would be released to go for lunch in our homes. I remember, on our way home, I always had to pick milk from a certain man who had a cow from whom we bought milk every day. We didn’t have a cow at our own then. As all kids are, sometimes, I would be jumping around and I would spill the milk; that meant I would have to answer before mum later in the evening. Our mother didn’t tolerate being careless. Viola either had to be the ‘snitch’ and say things exactly as they happened or she had to lie to protect me. She did both, on different occasions, as I did too.<br />
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<br />
All people lie, sometimes we lied to dodge the punishment. She would cover for me, if she owed me, I would also cover for her, if I owed her: ours was a win-win situation. We worked for and embraced synergy even when we were kids. We knew from an early age that no one is self-reliant; that no one can do it alone. We didn’t lie all the time, we knew our mum wasn’t that stupid and we also knew for certain that if she found that we faked it, it wasn’t going to go well. This kept our lies in check; we have grown to hate foolery. I have advocated for truth and honesty all my adult life; I am wrong sometimes and I am called out. I call out people all the time; family or otherwise. My sister out there is the real life equivalent of my hate for someone lying to my face. I know a lot of people get hurt when someone believes a lie; when they hope unto a lie, I have been there, it is not a good place to be: it scars the psych.<br />
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We had a very great time in the very early years of our lives; reminiscent of those years is everything there is to bonding as siblings. I don’t know what it is about friendships forged during those formative adult years with other people, but the bonds I share with Viola run deep. We became ourselves together, and as we’ve continued to grow and change over the years, we still understand the core of one another. Being with her by my side reminds me of who I am — how far I’ve come, the hurdles I’ve cleared, and the lessons I’ve learned. She has been by my side through all of it, lending support and solidarity, inspiration and encouragement. And I’ve seen her through the same. It might have been coincidence that we shared the same class but it wasn’t and will never be a coincidence that even years later into our adult lives, we have bonded the most. I have siblings that I love so much but the truth, I love my sister the most, she has taken the time to understand me and to wear my shoes than anyone, besides dad.<br />
<br />
I got kids earlier in life; as I wanted it, at 24 I had my first child (a boy, Shane) and about five years later, a set of twins (a girl and boy, Layla and Liam respectively). This means most of my late twenties have been very busy years of parenting and trying to make ends meet, with no particular gainful employment to my name. This is a bad time to have children but it is good when you have people who always have your back, like Viola: for that, I am thankful.<br />
<br />
Life can be very sad and sometimes empty but when you have people who remind you everyday that you are better than you think, you forget your troubles. I have had the luxury of being told that I am a very brilliant man who gives the world the best of myself- even when I am dealing with so much myself- these words have come from my sister; someone I know for certain doesn’t have ulterior motives. Someone who speaks from a place of total honesty, not just to coddle me. When you have such a person on your side, you are blessed beyond measure.<br />
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Back then in the early years, just post kindergarten, I used to be one of the smartest kids in school, I was always number one until primary four when we changed school. I was not good at mathematics, the boy who always took the top spot had that advantage over me, he beat me to it. Viola wasn’t far from us, she too, came in the top ten, always. Better than me at mathematics. We changed school when I was 11, we joined a new school from class 5 to class 7. At the new school, I didn’t come in the usual position of mine although I stayed in the top 5, Viola in the top 10 as usual. At the end of the term, when we got home, our mother had this to say on looking at our reports. “You were doing better; what has happened? Are you getting so playful?” I didn’t know how to explain the decline but quickly I told her “it is just because we are in a new environment, the grades will get better with time.”<br />
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Promising that was easy but I knew deep down in my heart that our mother would still remind me these words the next terminal report came home. My mother was someone whose words didn’t impress, actions and changed behavior did. I learned from her that words matter but actions speak more; that lip service decorum doesn’t mean a thing if it doesn’t translate into action- and where need be- changed behavior. Into our first holiday in our new school, we wouldn’t have too much time for play, we had a promise to keep and manifest the results later. <br />
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Our mother who was a teacher; not at the time we went to a new school but for about ten years earlier, knew how to help a child concentrate not just on play but also on academic work. She would emphasize to us that she can’t stop us from playing but we should learn to balance play and school work. When we were on holiday, always, she would encourage us to find time to revise our notes and have discussions from other schools, to compare notes. She would remind us, always, that education wasn’t for her, it was for us to secure a bright future for ourselves. Those are the truest and strongest words anyone has told me in my life. <br />
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Most of the time, as people of our age would, we always concentrated utmost an hour or two into in our private revision or discussions, after that we would be tired and longing for play. At the back of our mind, whether we played or not, there lay one truth: education was to shape our future. The stark contrast is that a young age doesn’t necessarily offer the true meaning of that but somewhat, it gives you a glimpse of what the future may look like, using the vivid examples in the community for case studies- as we did more often than not.<br />
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Whenever the holiday was almost done, we would prepare ‘grab’. We had just got into boarding school, our first experience the previous term was that to survive the first week happily, you had to have some ‘grab’ on you. For me, my ‘grab’ always got done in the first two days, I had so many friends who stormed the decker bed I slept on every time I was from home. That meant that I sometimes had to ask Viola to keep some of my grab to make it stay a little longer. Even if I didn’t generously give it away, some of the boys had vices of breaking into our suitcases if they smelt grab or knew it was there. There was no point in having my case broken into, I had to give it away as fast as I could, or keep with Viola: those cases were rare in the girl’s dormitory.</div>
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<br />
Two years later, into our new school, we were candidates, which meant a lot of seriousness, with pressure to be very serious with academic work. At school, we had regular tests. At home, we presented the grades we got from the tests to our parents—especially mum who only wanted us to report the first grade, always. I was still struggling with Mathematics and doing very well in the rest of the subjects, English, science, and social studies. Viola was picking up very well, now both of us were in the top five in our class. <br />
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The long-awaited time to sit the national exam that would see us into another level came; we had prepared so well. Like any other exam, we were under pressure, especially because it was a national exam this time. For me, the exams weren’t hard, even when I knew where I was weak. For Viola, she wasn’t sure what to say about them, she would say, “they weren’t bad, let us wait and see what happens.” Our holiday began with a lot of excitement, planning for schools we would go to once our results were out and plan to sleep much more than we did in the school year. <br />
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When our results came out a few months later, we both had performed very well. That was good news for us and our family; being the last batch to sit the primary leaving exam. We both excelled in first grade, priding ourselves and our parents. Viola performed even better; she had seven aggregates, I had nine, she kicked ass. She actually was among the top 3 in our class and also among the best in the district. All of us were proud of this great milestone, onward, we would talk about the schools we would go to over and over again: Viola ended up in Mary Hill High School (one of the best girl’s schools in Uganda) and myself in Kigezi High School.<br />
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In what became one of the greatest learning curves of my teenage life, I was more or less a student at the girl’s school my sister was at. We would exchange mail throughout the term. At her school, I made several pen pals. We would exchange pages of handwritten letters sharing experiences in the mixed school- and them- from the single school. I learned most of what I know about relating with women and raising a girl child from those letters; other than my mother; it was a learning curve for me, on both sides of the aisle: academically and socially. Some of those friends I made back in the day are still my friends to date.<br />
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Before we were done with the early years of our secondary school life, right into our form three, thunderstruck: we lost our dear mother. On the fateful morning of January 15th, 2007, our greatest rock as family lay dead in her bed to an attack, this became of the toughest moments for both us- being orphaned at a time when we needed her the most- especially for Viola. I didn’t know how to tell Viola it was going to be okay without mum; neither did she know how to comfort me, we chose to find comfort in ourselves and walk through this grief, we gave ourselves time to grieve the woman who meant the world to us. Viola was the most vulnerable; being the only girl and the youngest of us all, she needed soothing and comfort, I stepped into shoes that would never fit me- our mother was irreplaceable- never will be.<br />
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Ironically, while I thought Viola needed my support more than I needed hers, it turned out I needed her too; I wasn’t strong enough to transition yonder without a mother figure, I turned to her for this figure. She and I knew that if we were to survive these teenage years as sane human beings, we had to support each other, offer counsel to one another where it was necessary, call out each other in love where we had to and the most of all: always have each other’s backs.<br />
<br />
We have grown conscious of one fundamental truth, that grief is a form of love. Personally, I had never understood what it meant to lose anyone until we lost our dear mother; more than anything, what you get from loss of a loved one is an awareness of other people’s loss, which allows you to connect with the other person, which allows you to love even more deeply and to understand what its like to be a human being. Through grief, we learn to love and are transformed in ways we have never imagined for ourselves; I can confidently say, that together, Viola and I have had that kind of growth: of empathy, personhood, and human decency.</div>
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Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-89311410748766388962018-12-07T05:25:00.004-08:002020-01-05T01:00:28.334-08:00Isabel Wilkerson on Michelle Obama’s ‘Becoming’ and the Great Migration<div class="css-1ygdjhk e2kc3sl0" style="text-align: justify;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t0CYD2WAbp4/XAp0aper6YI/AAAAAAAAAh0/6nVmy3tXX8YEu315N9UeRYgX1afEneRIQCLcBGAs/s1600/merlin_147447792_4fa0f234-0fa4-4978-adee-404b3a78abea-jumbo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="738" data-original-width="1024" height="230" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t0CYD2WAbp4/XAp0aper6YI/AAAAAAAAAh0/6nVmy3tXX8YEu315N9UeRYgX1afEneRIQCLcBGAs/s320/merlin_147447792_4fa0f234-0fa4-4978-adee-404b3a78abea-jumbo.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<figure class="css-1lghxe1 e1a8i6eb0" itemid="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/12/23/books/23Wilkerson5/merlin_147447792_4fa0f234-0fa4-4978-adee-404b3a78abea-articleLarge.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" role="group"><figcaption class="css-1l44abu e3zkro30" itemprop="caption description"><span class="css-8i9d0s e1olku6u0">Michelle in Kenya in a photograph taken by her then boyfriend Barack Obama.</span><span class="css-vuqh7u e18m0s9i0" itemprop="copyrightHolder"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1afaoz0">Credit</span> :Barack Obama/Obama-Robinson Family Archives</span></figcaption></figure></td></tr>
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Back
in the ancestral homeland of Michelle Obama, the architects of Jim Crow
took great pains to set down the boundaries and define the roles of
anyone living in the pre-modern South. Signs directed people to where
they could sit, stand, get a sip of water. They reinforced the social
order of an American hierarchy — how people were seen, what they were
called, what they had been before the Republic was founded and what was
presumed they could never be. The signs reminded every inhabitant of the
very different place of black women and white women in the hierarchy.
There were restrooms for “white ladies” and often, conversely, restrooms
for “colored women.” Black women were rarely granted the honorific Miss
or Mrs., but were addressed by their first name, or simply as “gal” or
“auntie” or worse. This so openly demeaned them that many black women,
long after they had left the South, refused to answer if called by their
first name. A mother and father in 1970s Texas named their newborn
“Miss” so that white people would have no choice but to address their
daughter by that title. To the founding fathers and the enforcers of Jim
Crow, and to their silent partners in the North, black women were meant
for the field or the kitchen, or for use as they saw fit. They were, by
definition, not ladies. The very idea of a black woman as first lady of
the land, well, that would have been unthinkable.</div>
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<div class="css-1ygdjhk e2kc3sl0" style="text-align: justify;">
It
was with the weight of this history in her bones that Michelle Obama
walked onto the world stage as the first black woman to become first
lady when her husband, Barack Obama, was sworn in as president in
January 2009. Her memoir, “Becoming,” is a long-awaited account by a
woman others have tried to decode for the last decade. The book was
almost as closely guarded as the nuclear codes, and, as soon as the
embargo was lifted, journalists tore into it for newsworthy bombshells
of score-settling palace intrigue. There were few, aside from her blunt
words for her husband’s successor, Donald Trump, whose birther attacks —
“his loud and reckless innuendos,” she calls them — had put her family
at risk. “And for this, I’d never forgive him,” she writes. But those
focused on sound bites will be missing the larger meaning of a serious
work of candid reflection by a singular figure of early-21st-century
America.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk e2kc3sl0" style="text-align: justify;">
While many of the <a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/first-ladies/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">45 first ladies</a>
who preceded her were the daughters of wealthy merchants (Edith
Roosevelt), bankers (Ida McKinley), judges (Helen Taft) and slaveholders
(Martha Washington and Julia Grant), Michelle Obama was a descendant of
the very caste of people that some of the previous first ladies had
owned. She knew, as she held the Lincoln Bible at her husband’s
swearing-in that frigid day in Washington, that she would be held to a
different standard from that moment forward, her every gesture
scrutinized. “If there was a presumed grace assigned to my white
predecessors,” she writes, “I knew it was not likely to be the same for
me. … My grace would need to be earned.” She adds, “I stood at the foot
of the mountain, knowing I’d need to climb my way into favor.”</div>
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In
finally telling her story, Obama is doing several things with this
book. She is taking the country by the hand on an intimate tour of
everyday African-American life and ambition, while recounting her rise
from modest origins to the closest this country has to nobility. She’s
meditating on the tensions women face in a world that speaks of gender
equality but in which women still bear the greater burdens of balancing
career and family, even with a forward-thinking husband like Barack
Obama. And she is reminding readers that African-Americans, like any
other group, experience the heartbreak of infertility, as she describes
the challenges she and her husband confronted in order to become
parents. The book is a Chicago coming-of-age story; a love story of a
pair of opposites; and a political saga by a woman who was skeptical, if
not outright disdainful, of politics, who tried to apply the brakes
where she could, and who ultimately transcended her worries to become
one of the most popular first ladies in history. As a measure of the
public’s adoration, her memoir sold more than 1.4 million copies in its
first week and quickly became the best-selling book of the year.</div>
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[......]</div>
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<div class="css-1ygdjhk e2kc3sl0" style="text-align: justify;">
“Becoming”
is refined and forthright, gracefully written and at times
laugh-out-loud funny, with a humbler tone and less name-dropping than
might be expected of one who is on chatting terms with the queen of
England. One of Obama’s strengths is her ability to look back not from
the high perch of celebrity or with the inevitability of hindsight but
with the anxieties of the uncertain. She writes in the moment, as she
saw and felt and discovered — as events were occurring. Even though we
all know that she and Barack Obama end up getting married and having two
kids, that he wins the 2008 Iowa caucuses and that they make it to the
White House, she never takes any of it for granted. On the contrary, her
tone is one of wonderment as to how this all happened. This gives the
book’s first half, in particular, covering the part of her life we know
least about, an unexpected suspense. She writes in the confident cadence
we have come to recognize from her campaign speeches, looking back at
her youth from within the aspiring heart of a daughter of South Side
Chicago. Over and over, from high school to the White House, she asks,
“Am I good enough?”</div>
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<div class="css-1ygdjhk e2kc3sl0" style="text-align: justify;">
She
was born Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, in January 1964, during the term
of Lady Bird Johnson. Her family lived on the second floor of a brick
bungalow owned by a prim great-aunt and her fastidious husband. Her
father, Fraser Robinson III, worked for the city tending boilers for a
water filtration plant, and her mother, Marian Shields Robinson, stayed
at home looking after Michelle and her older brother, Craig. The Shields
and Robinson families had fled the Jim Crow South for Chicago decades
before, during the Great Migration of African-Americans out of the South
to the North and West. Her ancestors on the Shields side came from
Alabama, the Robinsons from South Carolina. Both her grandfathers ran
into obstacles in the North. They tried to enter the trades but found
that many unions excluded African-Americans, and thus many well-paying
jobs were closed to them. They carried a heaviness about them that
Michelle didn’t fully understand at the time but which impressed upon
her the need to make the most of whatever opportunities came her way.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk e2kc3sl0" style="text-align: justify;">
This
was a neighborhood, South Shore, where “people tended to their lawns
and kept track of their children,” she writes. Grandparents, cousins,
aunts and uncles lived within blocks of one another, and her own family
doubled up in their one-bedroom apartment with low ceilings and faded
carpet. She and her brother had adjoining space in what was intended to
be a living room, now divided into two makeshift bedrooms separated by a
paneled partition and plastic accordion doors that their grandfather
built for them.</div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk e2kc3sl0" style="text-align: justify;">
Afternoons, piano
keys plinked in her great-aunt Robbie’s rear room below — her young
students practicing their scales. Aunt Robbie bore the unspoken
disappointments of her generation and was an exacting elder in
Michelle’s life. Perhaps everyone has had an Aunt Robbie, the one with
the porcelain figurines that children were not to touch and the
plastic-covered furniture that stuck to bare legs. Michelle would
eventually take lessons from Aunt Robbie, too, on the older woman’s old
upright with the chipped keys, and find it hard to please her. Yet the
aunt’s tenderness broke through in an especially lovely moment at a
piano recital, and Michelle would go on to admire Aunt Robbie’s
“devotion to rigor.”</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk e2kc3sl0" style="text-align: justify;">
Full story originally posted by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/books/review/michelle-obama-becoming-memoir.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> </div>
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Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-24857645270130730742017-12-03T06:03:00.000-08:002020-05-18T01:23:51.571-07:00# YouLead17: Talent is Genius<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jNXCeMMazoo/WiQXOJIJs3I/AAAAAAAAAhE/fA1CwtR4arowSguPHmk7ewLPTeS5zNVTACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Team.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="961" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jNXCeMMazoo/WiQXOJIJs3I/AAAAAAAAAhE/fA1CwtR4arowSguPHmk7ewLPTeS5zNVTACPcBGAYYCw/s320/Team.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I
am happy to know <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/taye-balogun-0834913a/" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Taye Balogun</b></a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is a Producer, Lecturer,
Photographer, social developer, Activist, Pan Africanist and he is “woke” among
many things. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Taye Balogun is without doubt one of Africa’s finest brains in the
world of Art and certainly his name stands out on the global scene, too. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Taye is
a Success; being friends with him promises a future of great inspiration and
catching on the spark of ultimate sophiscation, because that is who he is:
working with you was and still is something I will live to appreciate my
brother, let’s rock on!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Taye
is an intelligent, hardworking, kind and honest man; he will not just sit idly
by and see talent go to waste, just like he can’t fail to speak up on social justice
issues. Under “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZHhmujsh3I" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Music is our Weapon</i></b></a>” Project, a documentary that tells of
Sarabi, Taye Balogun passionately pushes for recognizing the <a href="http://oyungapala.com/how-i-fell-in-love-with-sarabi/" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">unsung hero in Mandela</i></b></a> —he says; “As a filmmaker, their back story was
compelling and I could see that it was a good story. I never revealed to him
that I wanted to make their film but in the middle of the conversation, I declared
that, ‘You have a fantastic story and I want the world to hear your story”.—and
to this; Mandela responded, “We just want to change the world, our environment
and use this music to give a voice to the voiceless”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">As
I earlier wrote in the <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.com/2017/09/staywokethe-sanity-i-get-writing.html" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sanity in get writing</b></a>,
this is what we talk about when we talk about owning your voice; “</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I am a stubborn person at times; I
don’t “fight small wars” or react [see; respond] to things that are so small,
in most of the social media expletives and blogs I have written through the
years (even in real life). If one thing, above the all motivates me, it is “the
pride in me”. Yes, pride is a motivator, as is <a href="http://scottberkun.com/essays/55-how-to-stay-motivated/" target="_blank">written</a>:
Prove people wrong. They say it can’t be done? Do it. They tell you it is a
waste of time? Waste away. Never let anyone define for you how to be, how to
use your time, or what you or anyone is capable of. Turn the naysayer into a
competitive guidepost, recasting every doubting Thomas into a secret twisted cheerleader.
However, be careful not to cop out into spite: don’t center on them, they are
just ammunition. Take their judgment, harness it into your next pride, and ride
them past the fools over the hills, and towards a dream. When I thought writing
this piece, I told myself one thing, I was going to commit the writer’s chief
sin: recommend it as my “<u><a href="https://thewritelife.com/you-cant-edit-your-own-book/" target="_blank">baby</a>”
</u>for my readers—read on.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The
world needs men and women of courage, resilient souls; grace-filled brothers
and sisters: a universe of personhood and human decency. Sometimes the most
disturbing question isn’t whether I am doing enough to please the world but
rather, whether I am doing extra-ordinary things. At times, the extra ordinary
isn’t about doing much, it is doing a little but with a purpose of lightening
someone’s burden, and in the end that is what is reflected unto the world. Save
for the present-day social media melodrama, where “idiots” are making a
“change”. In a world where there is hopelessness, the extra-ordinary is giving
someone a glimmer of hope—that tomorrow, no matter how blurry it is today, is
going to be better. In a world of lack, providence is the real hero. That is
extra ordinary stuff, don’t look any further.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jNXCeMMazoo/WiQXOJIJs3I/AAAAAAAAAhA/PQBqtb_tm3cyMbdgTBfgtSvl1Gd0lcVSwCLcBGAs/s1600/Team.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="961" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jNXCeMMazoo/WiQXOJIJs3I/AAAAAAAAAhA/PQBqtb_tm3cyMbdgTBfgtSvl1Gd0lcVSwCLcBGAs/s320/Team.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At EAC.L-R & R-L; Fahad, Grace, Taye. Sahlim, Gael & Kefa</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">At
the East African Youth Summit 2017; where I was <a href="https://youlead.blog/2017/11/29/a-thematic-session-on-civic-social-leadership-at-the-eac-headquarters-day-2/" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">one of the bloggers</b></a>, Taye eloquently told the youth solid truths;
he said, “<span style="color: red;">Talk is cheap; what have you done? Don’t wait for someone else; Do it.</span>
” Precisely—<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pW2b1vwwf4&t=54s" target="_blank">become who you really are</a>. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">As
author and biologist, <a href="https://www.brucelipton.com/about" target="_blank">Bruce Lipton</a>, so passionately explains, during the first
six years of our lives, our brains exist in a hypnotic, trance-like state, such
that we passively absorb, record and believe the things that are impressed upon
us from the outside world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>[…]</span></div>
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And no matter which perspective
appeals to you, it all boils down to this: <i>authentic happiness and total
wellness are your natural birthrights</i>.</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-118"></span>You have a unique purpose to fulfill in
this lifetime, even when your role seems small. So, your second key to
transforming your dreams into reality is <i><u>to love who you are</u></i>.
From there you can revive the true self, rewrite your self-description, and
rebuild the living temple of your authentic self.</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
Brother Taye; we got a whole lot
of unfinished business but one step at a time; we are going to continue
radiating to others what we find. Love you brother; I am at your service whenever
you need me. Blessings!</div>
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<br /></div>
Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-49796887828061347162017-11-28T20:12:00.000-08:002020-05-10T23:30:43.996-07:00Sandra Creason is a friend indeed.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WmrT0O7l7tc/Xh_99sd6aRI/AAAAAAAABGY/Jmpykctq9BYe1TIeTZZ9c1IYOHYwqDk_wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/20200116_090524_0000.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1102" data-original-width="735" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WmrT0O7l7tc/Xh_99sd6aRI/AAAAAAAABGY/Jmpykctq9BYe1TIeTZZ9c1IYOHYwqDk_wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/20200116_090524_0000.png" width="213" /></a>Sandra, I don’t know the perfect words to express how much I love this portrait; it is the most beautiful gift I have ever received from anyone in this world, after my son Shane. I can imagine the time and carefulness you have invested in reproducing it this way—as beautiful as the original. Talent is genius, you are proof positive.</div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
It takes me back to how we met four years ago—over there on twitter—and then facebook. I met a very talented writer; writing her musings under her ‘conspiracy theories blog’, her ink drew me to her. I discovered she was multi-talented. After a good number of twitter interactions, I asked her to be friends on facebook; she accepted and has since been in my corner. She has been the big sister I never had; the mother I no longer had and a strong confidant—she knows my “shit”. Two years ago—it was April 16th 2015—here on facebook, I asked a question of guidance on how I was going to roll with my career life (after a year without a job post- graduation); Sandra gave me the kindest, real and most influential piece of advice—it has pushed me through the worst adversaries since—my appreciation knows no bounds! </div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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Why limit yourself? You are young, kind, articulate, talented and handsome; you have plenty of time to explore the world and see both what you have to offer it and what it has to offer to you.</div>
</blockquote>
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</div>
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Many successful people in the world have more than one passion. I say, take on the world like a child; explore, learn, be ambitious but be happy about things that matter to you. Eventually, you will find all the pieces that make you well-rounded and whole, and you will not get stuck in a rut of any single thing. Maybe you are meant to do and be many things,” Sandra commented.</div>
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I captured this in my first college degree story (<a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/04/my-first-college-degree-onward-climbing.html">on the blog</a>) and will still share more about it in my book—a work in progress—and now that I have an official portrait for the book cover, I am game. Sandra, your kindness, maturity and unconditional love through the years has been a great learning curve for me; thank you for being all this to a stranger—now family. Thing is , If you are a loving, caring soul—like Sandra—it is hard to just not go unrecognized. </div>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The author and social activist Bell Hooks once said: </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
our culture doesn’t recognize passion because real passion has the power to disrupt boundaries. I want there to be a place in the world where people can engage in each other's differences in a way that is redemptive, full of hope and possibility.</div>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Not ‘in order to love you, I must make you something else.’ That is what domination is all about, that in order to be close to you, I must possess you, remake and recast you.” Sandra, thank you for being the friend who lets me dial in my own essence and be unapologetically me.</div>
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I believe in a very simple notion ; we are more than just a single story; we are a vast compilation, composition, composites of a consortium of fantasy, fury, fascination, faith, trust, distrust, fear, pain, discomfort, comfort, joy, happiness, laughter, generosity, selfishness, greatness, failure, humility, pride, insecurities, boldness, confidence, unity, division, helpfulness, helplessness, optimism, pessimism, the list is too enormous for our brains; even the most intricately beautifully mind to conceive, at what moment, during which time, an unintentional, unrehearsed story will unravel, during the course of our schematically designed lives—we always gotta embrace it ; knowing it is not our defining moment; the story that has residence inside me is enough reason to love every single story I have, whether expected or unexpected, it’s all a part of me. God bless you and your dear family—and thanks again for this lovely portrait.</div>
Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-50878383056029600502017-10-16T04:28:00.001-07:002020-05-10T23:31:05.862-07:00Looking back at 2017 through a 'camera lens'<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Through Photography I learn to appreciate life as it is right now, instead of wishing better days ahead. I am so thankful for the way my camera offers me gentle reminders to have patience, slow down, and enjoy life’s moments as they happen.</span></blockquote>
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I write from a lens of truth. In the words of Lao Tzu, “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power,” –there is <a href="https://www.thriveglobal.com/stories/14963-scheduling-just-15-minutes-of-personal-development-time-into-your-calendar-can-change-your-life?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Thrive">no in-between</a>, successful people don’t grow by accident, they grow by design.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-weIF7q-JGhY/WeSOQ-09zJI/AAAAAAAAAf8/AcPMj2bQvUA3iYngp_LohpDDhhSMGGZNgCLcBGAs/s1600/camera.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-weIF7q-JGhY/WeSOQ-09zJI/AAAAAAAAAf8/AcPMj2bQvUA3iYngp_LohpDDhhSMGGZNgCLcBGAs/s320/camera.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The road of truth-telling is not an easy one for many but I will still be here to smack you awake. Most of the pieces I have written through the years intersect with real life—life as it is, not as we think it should be or wish it was—this one is going to be reflective, about 2017. This year has been tough. It has at times beaten my ingrained discipline of fidelity to resilience (sometimes I have logged out of hope). I have learned though; that resilience isn’t an end in itself—it is surely a muscle one can always reach and pick the strength to carry on—that’s life for you and I .I am tired. Tired of having to keep problematic people in my circle, just for breathing. Keeping people who in their convoluted mind think that just because they area round, I am privileged.I am going to put it cut and dry, playing a fool doesn’t mean I am naïve. This might not sit well on your nose but I am out of fucks to give, let’s shake the honest nest.<br />
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Consider these words from <a href="http://jimdaly.focusonthefamily.com/justice-antonin-scalias-other-legacy/">Justice Scalia</a>: “Devout Christians are destined to be regarded as fools in modern society. We are fools for Christ’s sake. We must pray for Courage to endure the scorn of the sophiscated world…Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophiscated world.” <br />
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We all have friends—make friends in life—but what is the hardest thing is keeping the true kindred spirit of friendship (call it personhood and human decency , as I often love to say).Friendship is so watered down to materialism; to deception, to go-getting and to keeping up appearances—real friendship has dwindled down to nothingness. For people like me, that truly look for and hope for the best in people( not double standards and wearing facets), people like me that trust not because of naivety but rather in belief in the goodness of people often get terribly hurt. It is at times timely to have songs like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tmd-ClpJxA">Look what you made me do</a> (by Taylor Swift) on the iPod or as favorite on your playlist. Sometimes, society has treated us so bad and so hypocritically that you don’t know who to share your fears with, hopes and plans anymore: that is what this year has taught me more than anything.</div>
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Being the honest person, I have had a lot of trouble with people who keep up appearances albeit I have sometimes with the benefit of the doubt been played the ugly card over and over again—yes, I have lived a lie through another—at times from the same person( people).I have not just felt like drawing the curtain on these souls; I have been buried in anger, disappointment and the ultimate feeling of betrayal—you sure know what I am talking about if you have ever been let down, lied to and taken a fool by people you least expect to treat you like shit (some of them respectable and others common place vultures) .</div>
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It was <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.8.viii.html">Aristotle</a> who noted expansively on friendship: Not a few things about friendship are matters of debate. Some define it as the kind of likeness and say like people are friends, whence come the sayings ‘like to like’, ‘birds of a feather flock together’, and so on; others on a contrary say ‘two of a trade never agree’. On this very question they inquire for deeper and more physical causes, Euripides saying that ‘parched earth loves the rain, and stately heaven when filled with rain loves to fall to earth’, and Heraclitus that ‘it is what opposes that helps’ and ‘from different tones comes the fairest tune’ and ‘all things are produced through strife’; while Empedocles, as well as others, expresses the opposite view like aims at like. The physical problems we may have alone (for they do not belong to the present inquiry); let us examine those which are human and involve character and feeling e.g whether friendship can arise between two people or people cannot be friends if they are wicked , and whether there is one species of friendship or more than one. <br />
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There is more than one way to <a href="https://onbeing.org/blog/omid-safi-how-to-reach-out-to-someone-who-is-struggling/">reach out to someone who is struggling </a>but one thing stands out—let us remember not to ask anything of someone who is drowning. Have you been wretched out that you feel everything is conspiring against you? Well, pain is an <a href="http://www.newreleasetoday.com/article.php?article_id=2182">invaluable thing</a> (ironically true)—‘Richard Rohr says, ‘The only things strong enough to break our heart are things like pain, mistakes, unjust suffering, tragedy, failure and the general absurdity of life. I wish it were not so, but it clearly is. Fortunately, life will lead us to the edge of our own resources through such events. We must be led to an experience or situation that we cannot fix or control or understand. That’s where faith begins.’</div>
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It seems that it’s only when our former ways of understanding , coping with , and controlling our own lives break down—through loss, crisis, failure, upheaval, or pain—that we are open enough to receive new life.<br />
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-If we experience this enough times and recognize the pattern, we begin to be less afraid of it and may learn to embrace it. On our best days, we may be able to look at the storm clouds gathering in the distance and say, ‘bring it. Let the storm come because I like what it made me last time.”<br />
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In my recent article –<a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2017/09/staywokethe-sanity-i-get-writing.html">the sanity I get writing</a>—I write, ‘the world needs men and women of courage, resilient souls; grace-filled brothers and sisters: a universe of personhood and human decency. Sometimes the most disturbing question isn’t whether I am doing enough to please the world but rather, whether I am doing extra-ordinary things. ‘I want to emphasize today that as a writer; a truth-teller, nothing overjoys me if someone is lifted because of my work, whether it brings an extra penny to my pocket or not.</div>
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At <a href="https://www.shewrites.com/blog/view/1898206/tips-of-the-trade-how-many-readers-is-enough">she writes</a>, I am in agreement with what they say about how much readership feels enough, that–‘Maybe most of us, satisfaction doesn’t stem from numbers at all. But if not, what does keep us going? How do we measure success? For some of us, what matters is the quality of our readers. Panelist Chad Simpson, for example, aspires to “a small but devoted cult following.” For Kellie, too, it is not how many readers but the depth of connection that counts. “Who is my ideal reader?” she asked. “It’s the reader who finds my work compelling.” The readers who sustain us are those who let us know they understand what we have written, who show that they are moved by our works, who take our ideas to new places of their own. Even if these readers are small in number, they are large in impact.”<br />
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There is a beautiful friend of mine, Vera. We meet a few months ago ‘on the internet’, a few days ago; she wrote something about me that moved me. Yes I have had praise from very many people across the globe but I will talk about in particular, for purposes of this article. She wrote, ‘I met a friend. On here. He has a name-Grace Abaho. He is a native of an Eastern Country—Uganda. He can be described with many adjectives and adverbs even without meeting him yet- honest. Ambitious. Great Writer. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/abaho.grace1">He Writes</a>. And more.’ She goes on to say, ‘Thank you, Grace Abaho (He Writes); I appreciate who you are and your distinct voice in the affairs of your nation and humanity.’</div>
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For this special soul up there (Vera), I don’t know how to express the gratitude I have for her being a point of light. I am glad I met her and if the future permits, I want to have a human moment with her: ‘human moments require energy. Often, that’s what makes them easy to avoid. The human moment may be seen as yet another tax on our overextended lives. But a human moment doesn’t have to be emotionally draining or personally revealing. In fact, the human moment can be risk, businesslike, and brief. A five-minute conversation can be a perfectly meaningful human moment. To make the human moment work, you have to set aside what you are doing, put down the memo you were reading, disengage from the laptop, abandon your daydream, and of course focus on the person you are with. Usually when you do that, the other person will feel the energy and respond in kind. Together, you quickly create a force field of exceptional power.” We both haven’t met but we have had a virtual human moment, at least she calls me and gives me attention when I am feeling lowly-for that I am thankful.</div>
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On my sister’s birthday earlier on 30th September, while telling my resilience story through hers, I wrote about hope being a <a href="https://onbeing.org/blog/courage-is-born-from-struggle-brene-brown/">function of struggle</a> as I was agreement on being. I wrote, ‘hope is not an emotion. Hope is a cognitive, behavioral process that we learn when we experience adversity, when we have relationships that are trustworthy, when people have faith in our ability to get out of a jam. Which is different from this pattern of having faith in our children, which means telling them that everything they do is wonderful and shielding them as long as we can. But girl we know this, don’t we, this desire to create a beautiful world for the people we love? ” </div>
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In a world where wealth and not wisdom is the most desired quality; where the top is rotten so you have to be rotten to get to the top. Where money generates the largest within us, those who speak about self-development that is not financially relevant are deemed unpractical. It is easy for those who wake up to realize there is something wrong with this world. The alarm has gone off in their soul to go and ask questions. In a world where the church rocks the cradle, when as many children ask adults questions, they are told to shut up or that they need more faith, the facts are not relevant. If they do not want to go to “hell” they need to keep quiet. This message is all that some need however there are those questions inside them that will not remain silent.</div>
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In one of my favorite works of C. S. Lewis (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Weight-Glory-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060653205">Weight of Glory</a>), he writes about the<a href="http://www.lewissociety.org/innerring.php"> inner ring</a>, and he warns; ‘Of all passions, the passion for the inner ring is more skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things. Once the first novelty is worn off, the members of this circle will be no more interesting than your old friends. Why should they be? You were not looking for virtue or kindness or loyalty or humor or learning or wit or any of those things that can be really enjoyed. You merely wanted to be “in”. And that is a pleasure that cannot last. The momentary part of being part of the world, or the cliché is never worth the compromise. It only leads to a loss of integrity and an endless search for acceptance.’<br />
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Your fears will manifest if you allow them to be the primary focus that drives you. Be driven by unfettered view of what is possible for your life. Remember that you will attract an equal energy you allow to penetrate inward and radiate outward.Do nOt free yourself then, simply be the self that is free. Embrace the misunderstood “orphan” in the loving arms of awareness. Much of what we do in life is shaped by our values. Some people have the character of perseverance in the face of difficulty, while others give up when the going is tough. People who persevere have grit, they don’t give up when the times are tough, they don’t take shortcuts, they don’t compromise and they see things through to the end. If you can’t master this, going through tough times will be the real life equivalent of an ambition of pulling the sun out of the sky—embrace the darkness—as I wrote <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2017/04/raw-seeing-myself-in-light-and-darkness.html">earlier</a>. <br />
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There have been a few times when I have deactivated my social media accounts( especially facebook, for a break from the noises in the background).I do a lot of “pro bono” (for half a decade now, I post free political commentary, play the fair arbiter and all you can think of ) , I share insights and I defend people who instead of being there for me when I am in the ruts, they watch in the selfsame silence as the very ones I can’t call friends—this , I have seen on many occasions—at one point I almost got imprisoned. I learned that I need to give myself space; I started to do troubleshooting on my social media platforms, using the block and unfriend buttons. Interestingly, some will still say that I am censoring them. I just can’t withstand draining myself. I keep my peace and ‘troubleshoot’ when I have to, regardless of who you are. All this I have learned isn’t far removed from<a href="http://www.theemotionmachine.com/reframing-your-dark-side-embracing-your-shadow-is-key-to-genuine-mental-health/"> reframing your darkside</a>. In retrospect,our goal in this coming year shouldn’t just be about happiness, our goal should be <a href="http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/12/in-2017-pursue-meaning-instead-of-happiness.html">mean</a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>ingfulness. Instead of picking projects, hobbies and relationships based on how happy they will make us, let’s focus on things that will make our lives more significant and worthwhile.<br />
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Finally, as the years go by, my <a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/3039161/obama-speechwriter-david-litt/?utm=share_twitter">theme</a> into the next months and the New Year will be, “it’s not about all the good you can do—it’s about the bad you can prevent. That’s less inspiring but it’s true.” As I wrote earlier, <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2017/04/dare-to-be-speak-life-all-time.html">speak life</a>. I need help at times; just like you and all else—help if you can—the fragrance always stays in the hand that gives. As I wrote on facebook recently, ascribing ones success to individual effort while ignoring all the support from society that made your opportunities possible is first degree conversation narcissism; we all have someone who has pitched in for us—be it your parents, your friends or whoever you are afraid to tell the world. Yes it is a ‘feel-good-thing’ to give yourself all the credit but it is not true that your intelligence, resilience or special tactics have mapped your way; someone always comes through the equation. What I am saying is that “I am because we all are”: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(operating_system)">Ubuntu</a>. If only we can attune our minds to this thought perspective, maybe the world would be a better place. He chastens who loves well. Blessings</div>
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Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-25255084300837219272017-08-16T06:54:00.000-07:002020-05-10T23:31:26.769-07:00#UGBlogWeek: The future is writers and artists, readers<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The task of the modern educator is
not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts- C. S. Lewis</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qg7lBZ_h4sY/WZRH9VgdnnI/AAAAAAAAAfc/fsZJ6Wz4oTQ-TXPt6RFniNQs8O8_52KBgCLcBGAs/s1600/300px-Fountain_pen_writing_%2528literacy%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="221" data-original-width="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qg7lBZ_h4sY/WZRH9VgdnnI/AAAAAAAAAfc/fsZJ6Wz4oTQ-TXPt6RFniNQs8O8_52KBgCLcBGAs/s1600/300px-Fountain_pen_writing_%2528literacy%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Source: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing" target="_blank">here</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Writing
is one of the most important things histories and the future looks
at—scientists love to argue otherwise but the real truth is that the world
rotates a lot around stories—stories shape the narrative of what is and what
will be, erasing this truth is erasing the truth about humanity. More often
than not, many of my readers ask where I get the courage to write what I write
and I honestly tell them, “the truth is a balance of the past and present, if
you keep a keen eye on the realities; even the unnerving stories become ‘easy’
to tell”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">If
there is anything I have learned through the years, there is one thing that can
give you a voice, especially if you are one of the <u>voice-less</u>, writing
and art is the way to go. If you put up a piece of work for the world to read,
or paint a photo or take a picture, once you share it with the world, you don’t
leave your audience the same, someone out there is watching you and they will
keep learning from you and you from them—that is not rocket science—visibility
is two way. So, if you have some good ideas, don’t hesitate to share them with
the world, they could be the wings you have been waiting for to take you next
level, or give you a bigger audience: like me</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Writing
is <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/the-writers-process" target="_blank"><u>a process</u></a>, often times comes with procrastination for many (at times
) but there is no in-between, you either start on the project or let your gift
to the world dwindle away; the bad news is you could be sleeping on what the
world needs to be a better place. I read <a href="http://booksbywomen.org/chasing-the-muse-by-amanda-reynolds/" target="_blank"><u>somewhere</u></a>: "sometimes the words
will flow freely, fingers nimble across the keyboard, the hours dissolving into
one another as the daylight sleeps away….[…..]….there are lots of practical
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</span>well and good to have a strong work ethic, maybe a target word count
each day, or an expectation of how much time you should be in touch with your
work-in-progress, but efficient working is more about words produced or the
number of hours spent welded to your desk chair".</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">As
I <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/08/a-scholarly-masterpiece-on-quest-for_17.html" target="_blank"><u>wrote earlier</u></a>, my mentor C. <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Joy<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">B</span>ell</span> .C, can best tell how and why my audacity
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we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings
to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know
where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may
not know where you are going, but know that so long as you spread your wings,
the winds will carry you</i>”.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">
often look back at all the bickering and yammering I have been through: the
background noise from people who think and thought I am just a ‘little man’
grasping at straws, I sit back and take a good laugh and cry to God to make a
way for me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s been tough but I have
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the last thing I need. In life, you have to come to terms with the world and
accept the world is full of mean-spirited people: that may never applaud your
hard work no matter how hard you try, the best thing to do therefore, just do your
thing—your life is yours alone to shape, throwing it in someone else’s hands is
the last thing anyone should do, my report card from the university of life has
taught me that already. Go out there and be the change you want to see in the
world.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-24434733195684149682017-04-26T09:11:00.004-07:002021-06-13T00:25:20.351-07:00 “El Sol sale para todos/ the sun shines for everyone.”<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hzvcWFrbZ-E/YMWyk1SNM7I/AAAAAAAABm0/nqEw5oUBLRUSySHqCjkpBKybOHjU8S65ACLcBGAsYHQ/s742/s9%2Bcamera1611792867103.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="742" data-original-width="650" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hzvcWFrbZ-E/YMWyk1SNM7I/AAAAAAAABm0/nqEw5oUBLRUSySHqCjkpBKybOHjU8S65ACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/s9%2Bcamera1611792867103.jpg" /></a></div>We cannot live lives of other people but we can be authentically
ourselves by the lives that give us a definition of hope, a look beyond the
abyss we might be into, a way through our messy lives and a path to the bright
side of life. Often the unfortunate part, we are blinded into the thoughts of
repetitively thinking that somewhat, rock bottom is our place to stay, that as
long as nobody lifts us up, we are never going to make it through: that is a
lie, rock bottom is not a conclusion, it is a foundation. Yes, you may need
someone but the first person you need for self-liberation is you. At times your
help, even the one you expect so much, so soon, may take so long to come
through, or even never. Once you pick your stead, tell your story, this is what
this article is about— that a </span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Paradox is also a way
of being that’s key to wholeness, which does not mean perfection: it means
embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus once said, </i><i><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“Of all the things which
wisdom provides to make life entirely happy, much the greatest is the
possession of friendship,” let me be your friend herein.</span></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">There are so many times when I reflect on
what I longed to be as a child and <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2017/04/dare-to-be-speak-life-all-time.html" target="_blank">who I am today</a>, where I am, honestly; sometimes,
it is frail but one profound truth remains: I found myself and I can give a
part of me that is good, at any rate. There is no god-send picture of myself
that I will present, or have ever presented; it is a message straight out of my
heart: the explanation is creativity embedded in <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/08/28/the-art-of-thought-graham-wallas-stages/" target="_blank">artistry</a>. <a href="https://qz.com/584850/creative-peoples-brains-really-do-work-differently/" target="_blank">Yes</a>,</span></i> the
common traits that people across all creative fields seem to have in common are
an openness to one’s inner life; a preference for complexity and ambiguity; an
unusually high tolerance for disorder and disarray; the ability to extract
order from chaos; independence; unconventionality; and a willingness to take
risks.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>“…I stand among you as one
who offers a small message of hope, that first, there are always people who
dare to seek on the margin of society, who are not dependent on social
acceptance, not dependent on social routine, and prefer a kind of free-floating
existence under a state of risk. And among these people, if they are faithful
to their own calling, to their own vocation, and to their own message from God,
communication on the deepest level is possible. And the deepest level of
communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond
words, and it is beyond speech and beyond concept.”</i>— <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Asian-Journal-Thomas-Merton-Directions/dp/0811205703"><i>The
Asian Journal</i> of Thomas Merton</a></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://onbeing.org/blog/a-friendship-a-love-a-rescue/" target="_blank">Healthy reminder is</a>: things do
not always work out so well, of course. History is full of tragically failed
visions of possibility, and the more profound the vision, the more likely we are
to fall short of achieving it. But even here, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Ground-Love-Thomas-Merton-ebook/dp/B004N624N8">Merton
has a word of hope</a> for us, a paradoxical word, of course:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>“…do not depend on the hope
of results. …you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently
worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to
what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to
concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of
the work itself.”</i></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In broaching the possibility of
being, in some way, against <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/05/23/against-self-criticism-adam-phillips-unforbidden-pleasures/" target="_blank">self-criticism, </a>we have to imagine a world in which
celebration is less suspect than criticism; in which the alternatives of
celebration and criticism are seen as a determined narrowing of the repertoire;
and in which we praise whatever we can.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Our masochistic impulse for
self-criticism, he argues, arises from the fact that ambivalence is the basic
condition of our lives. In a passage that builds on his memorable prior
reflections on <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/10/05/adam-phillips-missing-out-frustration-love/">the
paradox of why frustration is necessary for satisfaction in romance</a>,
Phillips considers Freud’s ideological legacy:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In Freud’s vision of things we
are, above all, ambivalent animals: wherever we hate, we love; wherever we
love, we hate. If someone can satisfy us, they can also frustrate us; and if
someone can frustrate us, we always believe that they can satisfy us. We criticize
when we are frustrated — or when we are trying to describe our frustration,
however obliquely — and praise when we are more satisfied, and vice versa.
Ambivalence does not, in the Freudian story, mean mixed feelings, it means
opposing feelings.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[…]</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2017/04/if-you-cant-learn-to-love-stay-out-of.html" target="_blank">Love and hate</a> — a too simple, or
too familiar, vocabulary, and so never quite the right names for what we might
want to say — are the common source, the elemental feelings with which we
apprehend the world; and they are interdependent in the sense that you can’t
have one without the other, and that they mutually inform each other. The way
we hate people depends on the way we love them, and vice versa. And given that
these contradictory feelings are our ‘common source’ they enter into everything
we do. They are the medium in which we do everything. We are ambivalent, in
Freud’s view, about anything and everything that matters to us; indeed,
ambivalence is the way we recognize that someone or something has become
significant to us… Where there is devotion there is always protest… where there
is trust there is suspicion.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[…]</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We may not be able to imagine a
life in which we don’t spend a large amount of our time criticizing ourselves
and others; but we should keep in mind the self-love that is always in play.If we give in to fears that come
with lowest of the lows, it is so often very easy to assume that those who “have
it all” are okay but beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you
question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up
for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for
any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making
paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that
there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are
limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-Why-More-Less/dp/149151423X" target="_blank"><i>The Paradox of Choice</i></a>,
Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom
and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our
psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal
prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to
the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has
paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how
our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“In the course of studying learned
helplessness in humans, Seligman found that it tends to be associated with
certain ways of thinking about events that form what he termed a person’s
"explanatory style." The three major components of explanatory
style associated with learned helplessness are <b><i>permanence</i></b>, <b><i>pervasiveness</i></b>,
and <b><i>personalization</i></b>. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i>Permanence</i></b> refers to the
belief that negative events and/or their causes are permanent, even when
evidence, logic, and past experience indicate that they are probably temporary
("Amy hates me and will never be my friend again" vs. "Amy is
angry with me today"; "I’ll never be good at math"). </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i>Pervasiveness</i></b> refers to
the tendency to generalize so that negative features of one situation are
thought to extend to others as well ("I’m stupid" vs. "I failed
a math test" or "nobody likes me" vs. "Janet didn’t invite
me to her party"). </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i>Personalization</i></b>, the
third component of explanatory style, refers to whether one tends to attribute
negative events to one’s own flaws or to outside circumstances or other people.
While it is important to take responsibility for one’s mistakes, persons
suffering from learned helplessness tend to blame themselves for everything, a
tendency associated with low self-esteem and depression. The other elements of
explanatory style–permanence and pervasiveness–can be used as gauges to assess
whether the degree of self-blame over a particular event or situation is
realistic and appropriate.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The last word: Expressing emotion when
you’ve gone through extreme pain is not weakness. It is humanity. For every man
that willfully shares a story, or an insight, be thankful—even if it makes you
mad in the heat of the moment, just think about it, hopefully you will
something—<a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/12/best-gift-lens-of-love.html" target="_blank">always</a>.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in; text-align: justify;">
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<br /></div>
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Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-30281635548494494732017-04-22T08:52:00.001-07:002020-05-10T23:33:58.585-07:00 The citizens or the government? Whom shall we be afraid of? A case for Dr Besigye<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p3m4lfR3NeI/WPt7WijsH4I/AAAAAAAAAec/t_UUVdwd_qoUUxczqLMz0xPySYDKknyAQCLcB/s1600/13173975_1265903553420689_7977034655460790832_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p3m4lfR3NeI/WPt7WijsH4I/AAAAAAAAAec/t_UUVdwd_qoUUxczqLMz0xPySYDKknyAQCLcB/s320/13173975_1265903553420689_7977034655460790832_n.jpg" width="308" /></a></div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
Every time I see
Besigye smiling, I smile<br />
Every time I hear he is well, I pray for better days<br />
Every time he is tortured, I stand <span class="textexposedshow">out to his
plight</span><br />
<span class="textexposedshow">Every time he is jailed, I see the hypocrisy of the
jailer</span><br />
<span class="textexposedshow">Every time he has a court appearance, I wait for
the next lie they have against him</span></div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
Every day that passes,
I don't get it:<br />
Why is a man the Museveni government claims lost the election; so popular than
the one they foist on us?</div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<br />
When will justice be served?<br />
Shall the president of the people continue to be harrased? <br />
All these questions I don't have immediate as answers,<br />
But I know: it takes us, the people.</div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
Don't demonize us.<br />
Don't torture us.</div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<br />
Don't take our Patience for stupidity.<br />
Don't think its okay to suffer at your expensive.<br />
The Museveni government,do you copy?</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
-</span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/abaho.grace1">Grace Abaho Sr.</a> ™ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>©For Dr.Besigye</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span class="textexposedshow">Now
about Museveni’s slew of lies,they can go on and on if I were to begin. I will singularly
deal with one lie he told in the 80’s: ‘the problem of Africa is leaders who
hinge to power”—(PS: remember, you can never get a second chance at making a
first impression).This, about leaders that Museveni said is both true and
false—it is true that actually they are a problem and a lie because he told it
to take advantage of the people. Sadly the lie saw him to power, that’s how he
won the war with just 27 men. And today, Museveni calls these people rats, mad
men and all the other names you can imagine that are horrible.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">You tell me: who said Africa has a problem of
leaders who hinge to power? (see Museveni),who has refused to go?(see
Museveni),who lied and has lied and lied?(see Museveni),who is thwarting the
will of the people and is defiling the constitution right, left and center(see
Museveni). Basically, that’s the erosion of civil liberties.</span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I can’t be party to that sort of moral
silence that shortchanges both our rights and our future:it has to be common
sense logic against Museveni’s trickery and concealment. The rule of the law is
not rhetoric; it is the very fibre that binds a society together. Government’s
core mission should be to protect the right to life and liberty of all the
people but the current administration has decided to willfully allow some to
blatantly ignore the laws to suit their political agenda making itself derelict
in its duty to protect its citizens. Are you going to keep watching and let
this happen? If you do, that’s your fault, we need to know defiance is an
option for those who have been abused again and again—it has to be us against them.
When the water starts boiling, it is foolish to turn off the heat. Advocacy
beyond this line can feel like pale tea to those who have lived their whole
lives below it but that’s all you have, your call</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">As I <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/08/a-scholarly-masterpiece-on-quest-for_17.html" target="_blank">wrote</a> earlier, if you and I shake the honest nest, Museveni is a very toxic leader, the direct opposite of Dr. Besigye: </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A leader is a person who has an unusual
degree of power to create conditions under which other people must live and
move and theirbeing, conditions that can neither be eliminating or shadowy as hell.
A leader must take special responsibility for what’s going on inside his or her
own self, lest the act of leadership create more harm than good. Political
leaders, parents, clergy have potential to cast as much shadow as they do light.
Refusing to face the dark side of leadership makes them abuse more likely. All
too often leaders ‘do not even know they’re making a choice, let alone how to
reflect on the choice of choosing’</i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Claremont
graduate professor <span style="color: #7030a0;">Jean Lipman_Bluman </span>uses
the term toxic leaders to describe those who engage in destructive behaviors
and those who engage in dysfunctional charateristics .At the same time; derailed
leaders act vs. the interests of the subordinates and the organization; they
bully, manipulate, deceive and harass followers; they may be stealing from the organization,
engaging in fraudulent activities and doing less than expected.
Constructive leaders, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">on the other hand</i>,
care about subordinates and help the organization achieve its goals while using
its resources.Havard professor <span style="color: #7030a0;">Barbara Kellerman </span>believes
that limiting leadership solely to good leadership ignores the reality that a
great too many leaders engage in destructive behaviors. Overlooking that fact, <span style="color: #7030a0;">Kellerman </span>says, undermines our attempts to promote
good leadership not by ignoring bad leadership, nor by presuming that it is immutable,
but rather by attacking it as we would a disease that’s always pernicious and
sometimes deadly”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%;">T</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">he
former President of the United States <span style="color: #7030a0;">Thomas
Jefferson </span>once said, ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the
government should fear its citizens</i>’ .Our government, on the contrary,
laughs at us. It raises enormous hand and says, ‘<span style="color: red;">go to hell</span>’.
It isn’t even trying to pretend anymore—what I would hope, what I would call
for is a peaceful yet drastic change in how we function as citizens. We should
be utterly unforgiving of corruption and entrenched injustice and we should
make government officials guilty of such indiscretions pay dearly for it. The
renowned <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">Ai
Wei Wei </span></i>eloquently warns us that, “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If you don’t act; the danger
becomes stronger</i></b>”., this has been proven a thousand times every day of
our lives: things are not getting any better, it’s crazy when people instead
cheer on steady regress as steady progress, a very scary situation to be
bystanders to.</span></div>
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Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-22085317264935363082017-04-20T06:20:00.004-07:002020-05-10T23:31:57.626-07:00If you can't learn to love, don't love at all.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Kyi9WR3XV0I/XasgT0plhSI/AAAAAAAAAkc/VFpw5PbOKJwZ1GVUNnJgjedMl9HGWn0zACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/heart-bowl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Kyi9WR3XV0I/XasgT0plhSI/AAAAAAAAAkc/VFpw5PbOKJwZ1GVUNnJgjedMl9HGWn0zACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/heart-bowl.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=on+love+and+dating&client=firefox-b-d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwickqGOxqjlAhUC2KQKHVCQDP4Q_AUIESgB&biw=1366&bih=654#imgrc=NCIVJusN6JQjnM:" target="_blank">Photo Credit</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">The
Question of who messed up in the relationship always finds a very quick
accusing finger; it is the person telling the story of a heartbreak that
ultimately has the answer: suggesting the other party screwed up everything.
This is both true and false, for the most part; it is the accusing finger that
really messed up stuff. We should get used to taking the blame, we should
unlearn looking for someone to blame, and we ought to learn to love: <a href="http://www.thebookoflife.org/on-compromise/" target="_blank">loving is learned</a>, it is mastered, and it is a repetitive cycle of working very hard to
be better lovers.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">I
think it takes a long time to find an article that resonates well on love. When
I <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/matt-walsh-i-didnt-fall-in-love-with-my-wife/" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">find</b></a> one, I wish every one of us
that aims at being a better love reads it, because love is the most important
and strongest force on earth. We want beautiful pure adulterated love but we
are so lazy to make an effort to earn it, we forget love needs some effort,
some refute that but here’s the reality especially when everything goes ripe
over the bend: these were our <a href="http://www.thebookoflife.org/how-we-choose-a-partner/" target="_blank">choices</a>, every step of the way, and that state
which we’ve found ourselves falling in and out of is not real love. Real love
is an act of will. A decision. A conscious activity. It is something you do and
live. Love is chosen, and if it is protected and nurtured, it grows. Love is
sacrifice. Love is effort. Love is everything St. Paul describes in First Corinthians,
and especially in Ephesians 5: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved
the church and gave himself up for her<sup> </sup>to make her holy.” Love
is dying to the self. Love is many things, and none of them happen by accident.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">We
are poor lovers because we have been taught to love the wrong way, we have been
taught the wrong verbs and adjectives to spell the word love: we are poor
receptors and givers of love. Sugarcoating love doesn’t cut, it makes love more
vulnerable: love is a <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/12/best-gift-lens-of-love.html" target="_blank">journey full of tidal waves</a>. It can be tough, ugly and it
can be smooth. I love to look at love like a Poem, and this analogy often
brings me to what Gwendolyn Brooks gave to her students as a piece of <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/04/19/gwendolyn-brooks-advice-winnie/" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">advice</b></a>, In writing your poem, tell the
truth as you know it. Tell <i>your</i> truth. Don’t try to sugar it up. Don’t
force your poem to be nice or proper or normal or happy if it does not want to
be. Remember that poetry is life distilled and that life is not always nice or
proper or normal or happy or smooth or even-edged.</span></span></div>
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Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-4880642665210566892017-04-19T03:24:00.000-07:002020-05-18T01:24:07.929-07:00 Life is for the Living<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Age brings losses and perspective I guess. Today ,when laid eyes on this, I saw only blessings. After all these years, I am sane enough to notice that none of us is perfect; 'we trust our instincts as we fight our daily fights, some we win, some we don’t-but some we will only know in time. But we live each night and day hopeful that today's sacrifices have worth it—that our instincts haven't led us astray, we do our best because this journey is worth our best—dare to be. There are people in our lives who discourage us from pursuing our dreams, often because they have given up on theirs. Ironically, you have to smack them awake by becoming a ray of hope to them as you move on with yours. People need to see the forest through the trees. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/opinion/trump-letter-comey.html?_r=0">Don’t confuse motion with progress</a>. A 'rocking' horse keeps moving but doesn’t make any progress. </div>
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In his book, Man's <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/an-overview-of-victor-frankl-s-logotherapy-4159308" target="_blank">Search for meaning</a>, Viktor Frankl writes: <br />
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<i>everything can be taken from a man but one,the last of human freedoms, to choose one's way in any given set of circumstances.</i></blockquote>
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Basically, at my youthful age, I think I have lived through enough challenges, hopelessness and deceit from this cruel world to know those are some of the most beautiful words I have read, although they are from the story about an incarceration camp experience, the profound truth is:we all go through hell.This might sound like a merely convenient – and sentimental – thing to say. But it is soberly true and the proof lies in an area we know very well: literature. Novels are stories of other people that we don’t mind hearing; because they are also, at their best, stories that teach us about ourselves. The reason why so-called great writers are interesting to listen to (even when they talk about themselves) is that they have mastered the trick of teasing out from their experiences what is Universally Relevant from what is Locally Specific.<br />
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We have been taught to fear, to feel we are not enough, to succumb to the whims of society and lose our voice in this world: that’s not what you ought to do, you were not sent here to be just a follower, lead too. Be meek, all the time, but don’t be a rag for someone, have your seat, bring your ideas to the table, make someone listen, that’s why you were sent here in this world, not be a slave to someone else’s hostility but to be you, to be a voice on your own and if you can, for someone who shares your plight: that’s the essence of being.<br />
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You may need an anthem to keep you in shape, you may need something to keep you in perspective, all you have to remember is just one thing, to be you: We cannot change the presence of an enemy, but we can change what an enemy means to us: these figures can shift from being devoted, impartial agents of the truth about one’s right to exist to being – more sanely – people who have an opinion, probably only ever a bit right, about something we once did, and never about who we are (that is something only we decide).<br />
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An inner voice was always once an outer voice that we have – imperceptibly – made our own. We’ve absorbed the tone of a kind and gentle caregiver, who liked to laugh indulgently at our foibles and had endearing names for us. Or else the voice of a harassed or angry parent; the menacing threats of an elder sibling keen to put us down; the words of a schoolyard bully or a teacher who seemed impossible to please. <br />
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And certainly we end succumbing to the pressures of this background noise; we forget to do the most important thing for the moment, to recite ourselves a phrase like this one that I have found handy: ‘Kings and philosophers shit and so do ladies’. A helpful reminder that everyone who intimidates us is, at heart, very much like us in their underlying vulnerabilities. And therefore not really so frightening at all.<br />
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Here is the catch, be a warm person. But there’s another – more realistic and more important – vision of what a good man is like that’s (comparatively) been given very much less attention and creative encouragement. This is the very opposite of the cool man, what we call: the warm man.<br />
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The warm man does not put out many fires by himself. He hasn’t killed anyone either. He is, instead, very much alive to his own anxiety. He would drop the gun and would tell you quite candidly he had done so. What is distinctive, and admirable, is his relationship to his anxiety. He is aware of it, honest about it, funny with it – and yet not overwhelmed by it. The warm man has a good sense of how demented and fragile we all are. So he goes out of his way to reassure, to be forgiving and to be gentle. He has tried very hard, at times, to get things to work out better for himself but it frequently hasn’t worked. The warm man has known many sorrows: he has done stupid things, he has lost people he loved, he has made daft decisions. His weaknesses have made him immensely generous to others.<br />
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When the waiter spills the cocktail, the warm hero laughs (he has spilled a few himself) and leaves a generous tip if he can. When he forgets someone’s name (which he does quite often) the warm hero is ashamed but frank and says – sincerely – ‘I’m really sorry, and very embarrassed, but it’s slipped my mind… forgive me, help me out…’. When they’ve messed up at work, the warm person admits it, feels sorry, openly apologizes and explains as best he can what actually went wrong and how he might be put it right in future.The essence of the warm man is vulnerability well-handled; he is conscious of his flaws and failings but uses this knowledge to become interestingly humorous and a rich source of sympathy for the secret troubles of every life he encounters.<br />
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Montaigne, the popular essayist – in the 16th century he wrote candidly about his fears of impotence, his tendency to belch at inopportune moments, and his love for his father; he was filled with self-doubt (his favorite phrase was ‘what do I know?’) and was ashamed of, and yet honest about, his own blunders, laziness and lack of career success.<br />
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The Last word: Make a mark, <a href="http://ideas.ted.com/there-are-three-sides-to-every-argument/">do not leave a scar</a>. I would be the last person to toot my own horn because surely, what i have <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/05/why-self-compassion-works-better-than-self-esteem/481473/">learned through the years</a> is this universal truth: all of us—every one of us—has the opportunity to serve, even in the midst of personal heartache</div>
Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-7802466208720986472017-04-07T03:32:00.001-07:002020-05-10T23:34:38.843-07:00None of us is perfect, thrive on.I am a flawed human being, I self-acknowledge that I am and that helps me face my demons. Unlike so many of my peers or worse people older than I am, they want to hide in plain sight and present themselves as the angels the lord just sent to save the world.<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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Like so many people out there, I have seen both light and darkness in my life but every way that comes through, I see darkness as the means through which we all know the power of light: light is what shines in a place full of darkness, not what presents itself as light. To see the darkness, you have to know what there is in a dark place. Sometimes telling a <a href="http://www.thebookoflife.org/how-to-narrate-your-life-story/">story about our lives</a> is hard, or we don't know how to do it but here is the truth: the difference between despair and hope is just a different way of telling stories from the same set of facts. </div>
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Only a small number of us ever self-consciously write our autobiographies. It is a task we associate with celebrities and the very old – but it is, in the background, a universal activity. We may not be publishing our stories, but we are writing them in our minds nevertheless. Every day finds us weaving a story about who we are, where we are going and why events happened as they did.Many of us are strikingly <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/06/a-thousand-petty-humiliations-of-broke.html">harsh narrators</a> of these life stories. We hint to ourselves that we’ve been morons from the beginning. We’ve stuffed up big time. It’s been one disaster after another. That’s how we go about narrating, especially late at night, when our reserves of optimism run dry and the demons return. </div>
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My friend and <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/12/best-gift-lens-of-love.html">personal mentor</a> C. JoyBell C put it better for us— “People want to have a clean world, but they will not bend over to pick up a piece of trash at their feet. People want to worship the image of Jesus Christ on the walls of the church, but they forget that Jesus died a very violent death in order for them to be able to do that. Jesus walked with the sick, the lost, and the bruised. Jesus did not for a single moment turn his face from the negative darkness in the world and in other people.<br />
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In reality, the current state of humanity's obsession with positivity is the thing destroying people on the inside, and the planet on the outside. Show me a person who will touch the sick, eat with the lost, and not fear the darkness in others, and I will show you a holy person.<br />
I believe strongly in <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">positivity and light</a>. The difference with me and others though, is that I believe in producing light, not just basking in it. I believe in making diamonds out of rocks. It's positive, but it's not surface stuff. It's roots stuff. Rootwork.<br />
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To have a beautiful rose, make sure the soil is good. Others may want to have a garden full of roses and I want that too, but I know that a garden full of roses comes from a good soil and long roots. I am the maker of the garden; I am not just the one who wants to walk through it. And I believe that there should be more makers of gardens.”<br />
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Those are without doubt words of truth and honesty; it is what is gone wrong with our world. Growing up and through life, I have seen and lived through so many self-righteous people who present themselves as perfection-flags but that’s all wacky. Perfection is <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessicahagy/2016/10/20/imperfect-is-everything/#7e50a0365eaa">Photoshop</a>: Unlike perfection, you can work with what’s imperfect, you can work make imperfect ideas better, you can change imperfect objects, you can relate to imperfect people. Imperfection is opportunity. It’s workable, ownable, and worthwhile. Perfection is Photoshop. It’s fakery. It’s unrealistic. It’s a refusal to accept complexity and reality. There are no perfect mothers, bosses, workers, victims, athletes, thinkers, or leaders. There are no perfect people.<br />
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I at times do some moral-policing, of course, but it is often <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/fashion/sheryl-sandberg-and-elizabeth-alexander-on-love-loss-and-what-comes-next.html">through darkness</a> that I see the light, not basking in the light, this way I see the darkness and light in <a href="https://dailyoccupation.com/2017/03/14/toxic-attraction-empath-narcissist/">appropriate lenses</a>. Darkness is real and so is light but it is imperative that once we come to terms with that, we do not hide in plain sight to overlook one of the most disturbing facets of human evolution: darkness and light.<br />
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I recently read a very important article on the dangers of a good child, that so many of us may relate with, it said things that only I would have loved to say on my own if I hadn’t met that beautiful <a href="http://www.thebookoflife.org/the-dangers-of-the-good-child/">piece</a>. In this article, I found these golden words: the good child becomes a keeper of too many secrets and an appalling communicator of unpopular but important things. They say lovely words, they are experts in satisfying the expectations of their audiences, but their real thoughts and feelings stay buried and then generate psychosomatic symptoms, twitches, sudden outbursts and sulphurous bitterness.<br />
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In one of the movies I love so much, the Great Divorce, based on C. S. Lewis’ <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Great-Divorce-C-S-Lewis-ebook/dp/B002BD2US4">book</a>, in one scene of the movie, a certain man refuses to enter heaven because a man he knew so well was a “sinner” was already one of the people he saw there, he instead chose hell. The essence of this story is that, if we don’t stop to look for what we don’t disagree with in people, and focus on what makes us better as human siblings: just like God intended for us, we aren’t even an inch closer to how we present ourselves to the world, or want the world to look at us. Be unapologetically you but remember to face your demons, acknowledging the existence of darkness in our lives is the first step to being a better human being: we see the <a href="https://onbeing.org/blog/a-friendship-a-love-a-rescue/">light</a> through the darkness.</div>
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Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-22595954000273624382017-01-05T02:07:00.000-08:002020-05-10T23:32:25.785-07:00If only Andrew Mwenda listened more<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kQAZn1Al6I0/XYTvJ5eiJHI/AAAAAAAAAj4/52hKDj47DwM_CFdCzx9MK4A2w2bCHyEWgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/quote-i-like-to-listen-i-have-learned-a-great-deal-from-listening-carefully-most-people-never-ernest-hemingway-12-93-93.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="850" height="150" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kQAZn1Al6I0/XYTvJ5eiJHI/AAAAAAAAAj4/52hKDj47DwM_CFdCzx9MK4A2w2bCHyEWgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/quote-i-like-to-listen-i-have-learned-a-great-deal-from-listening-carefully-most-people-never-ernest-hemingway-12-93-93.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I
thought last year was the last time I would feel so <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“outraged” to respond to this man’s sly
comments but I was so wrong, we are just started; the good news is that
somewhat <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it is necessary for this kind
of thing to go and on—the thing here is whiles every attempt I have made has
been dressed in casual clothes, Andrew seems to have issues of being regarded
unintelligent when he gets some inconvenient truths:no, Andrew, you are
intelligent—take heart; problem though, you are a very poor listener. At your
age and the years you have been in the media things, you should be the first to
know that criticism isn’t a bad thing. I will not say you are gay, as some allege,
but if you are going to understand this I am going to first state my place: my
vantage point of view is that you have built a false assumption that those who
don’t subscribe to your doctrine and ideology are dumb and stupid, you have
tried that <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/04/andrew-m-mwenda-anti-thesis-dude-i-am.html?m=1" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">stunt before</span></a>, it wasn’t good news for
you if I am to remind you; just take a glance out of the window and tell me
what you find.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I
am mad as you can imagine but I am going to be very quick to paint my rebuttal,
you Andrew are a very poor listener. Let me first remind you what Dr.Besigye
said on November 4<sup>th</sup> 2015, that you emphatically pretend to have forgotten.
He said: “we are going to have a campaign of defiance. We cannot have a
compliant team that is complying with dictatorship”—unfortunately, those who
have paid fidelity and stood by the precedent of this message are stupid and
dumb in your world of reality. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">You have continually <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/03/in-defense-of-dr-kiiza-besigye-andrew.html" target="_blank">dismissed Dr.Besigye off as the loser of the last election</a> we held here, just as a moniker to pivot your
“gospel of truth” that surely has the simplest nail to its head—pay attention
here, Andrew; calling out a pattern and practice of lies and propaganda is not
a grudge match. Resentment doesn’t drive our vigilance in continuing to oppose
what we rejected in Museveni at the polls February last year. If I am to remind
you again, your friend Museveni dismissed an external audit, you will tell me
why later. Of the things that make you a very horrible listener, you have
selectively chosen to see that as important, but you are very fast to shove in a
why; case in point, Besigye has failed to win the locals.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In
this age of telephone, radio and television, most of us spend more and more
time listening to the spoken word. Paul T.Rankin,of the Deteriot Public schools once
made a two months’ study of the personal communications of sixty-eight people
in different people in different occupations. He found out that, on the average,
75 percent of his subjects’ working day was spent <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in verbal communication—30 percent in talking
and 45 percent in listening. Yet most of us don’t know how to listen, like you Andrew,
you are an incessant talker on several talk shows you have been to but you
hardly pay attention to your opponent’s contribution to the discussion. I think
it is prudent to stop feeding your ego, let us go back to common decency and
etiquette for effective communication, listen to what we are saying on the
outside—it is said, and out rightly so, listening is the most important skill
but the most difficult to learn—the act of listening requires that you more
than simply let sound waves into your ears, just as the act of reading requires
that you do more than look at a print.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It
seems we are at a point in time where it is unavoidable to say you wear blinders
to the perils of human frailty, especially for the common Ugandan man.I will
begin with my points of information: those who support Besigye are not stupid—they
are patriots, in all forms, who are committed to Article one of the
constitution of Uganda, to pursue truth and say what’s on their minds—power
belongs to the people. You don’t make sense when you say<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>you are aware of the machinations your friend
Museveni has put to thwart all there is to Besigye’s presidency yet you claim
Besigye is the problem of the opposition.Besigye doesn’t need every Ugandan to
become President, as is your underlying motive, for the most part. And finally,
a question—are you a terrorist? In one of the your recent posts on facebook you
advanced an agenda, both implied and figurative, saying that Ugandans should
lose blood as is and was in Congo; that pushed Kabira to the opening of his
eyes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I
saw you cheering on the police and army last year while the people in Kasese
were being butchered last year, we lost in tens of bundles, but to you that was
not enough. It doesn’t surprise me when you cheer on such animosity, it is fond
of you; but I am frustrated and my angst is that you still claim to be a true
altruist of the rights of humans. As you are aware, the last rebuttal on the <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/08/grace-abaho-sr-vs-andrew-mwenda-andrew.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">specter of Police brutality</span></a>, where I said succinctly
inelegantly that you are employing the prism glass of a simpleton to overlook that,
you left me lost for words.Maybe,in James Baldwin’s words, I can be more clear:
“he may be a very nice man.But I haven’t got the time to figure that out. All I
know is, he’s got a uniform and a gun and I have to relate to him that
way.That's the only way to relate to him because one of us may have to die”,
that is how bad it is, Andrew.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">See:
the battle isn’t for those that support Besigye alone albeit you have chosen to
make it look that way while ferociously painting those who support him stupid.
I am going to make a very impassioned attempt to take to you to class if you
let me: ‘only two things are in life are certain’ Benjamin Franklin once
remarked—death and tax<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>es. But there is one unpleasant uncertainty:
criticism. No one escapes it entirely. And often our careers, our emotional
stability, our happiness depend on how we react to it.There are really two
kinds of criticism: the gentle, tactful, constructive variety (which no one
gets much of!) and the blunt, harsh, hostile kind. I can speak with wry
authority about the second kind. For years everything in my life went fairly well.
Then some very vocal critics of my writings and advocacy appeared; as soon as I
singularly picked candidates of my liking that I supported with every nerve of mine,
both in the local and international scenes. When the storm arose, I didn’t know
how to handle it—I learned the hard way, that’s why and how I came to write a <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/08/a-scholarly-masterpiece-on-quest-for_17.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">masterpiece on the quest for freedom and justice</span></a>. What
I learned mainly is that is that if you are a sensitive person, and an honest
one, you can’t just brush criticism aside and pretend it’s not there. You have
to face it on three levels: the emotional, the rational and the practical.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Controlling
your emotional reaction is the hardest.Criticism is a direct attack on your esteem,
like the gay-melodrama I have been seeing making rounds on the internet, I
don’t want to talk about that—whether true or false, that your damn business.
So it is easy to react with anger and resentment, paint those who <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>pay fidelity to the defiance campaign stupid,
but that makes you more vulnerable—if all you do is resent your critic, you are
only poisoning yourself.So,I have been thinking; the first step, if you are
going to listen with intent, force yourself to be dispassionate. This is never
easy but it can be done. For the last American Presidential election season, I
met over a million readers of my work. One of the critics, of the people that
called me a troll, as is the case with American dissenters taught a valuable reason.
He came to comment on some piece I had shared with a news website, to that
thread, someone had called “Putin” and said I was meddling in their
Politics—this dissenter, who didn’t agree with my candidate of Choice, <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/11/the-great-what-if-may-be-there-is-catch.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Hillary Clinton</span></a>, said this: “Grace is a special kind
of troll; he is annoyingly smart. He says things that I don’t agree with but I
love the way he says them”—that’s why I said earlier I speak with wry authority
to this. If you are keen enough, that’s the dialogue I often talk about to you.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The
bible says,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> pray for your critics</i>;
bless them that hurt you. This may seem preposterous to someone smarting under
the lash of undeserved criticism, but the amazing truth is that it does relieve
the hurt. If you force yourself to pray for your critic, you cannot
simultaneously brood about the injury that has been done to you. Yet another
way to steady your emotions is to reflect that strong men and women have always
been criticized. If your life has any vitality at all, if you are determined to
get things done, and especially if you blaze new paths, you are going to
encounter hostility and opposition. The greatest man who ever walked this earth
was bitterly criticized, finally crucified by contemporaries who would not
stand the point of his revolutionary ideas. Abraham Lincoln once said, “If I
were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop
might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how,
the very best I can.If the end brings me out all right, what said against me
wont amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I
was right would make no difference”—if you ask me, Andrew, I am my biggest
critic and at times I am harsh to myself, too.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Like
I said earlier, you and I can be as certain as we look at our very faces in the
mirror, we will always meet critics especially if we are still holding our pens.
It is thus imperative for you and I to take up criticism and examine it
objectively for as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Theodor Leschiticky</i>,
the great piano teacher, remarked, “We learn much from the disagreeable things
people say, for they make us think; whereas the good things only make us glad.”
Ask yourself honestly if there is any truth in the criticism. Beware of
self-excuses or rationalizations; if you give in to these, you may just
compound the original error. If you are forced to the conclusion that whatever
your critic is saying is the truth, the best thing to do is to admit it.This in
itself will silence him. After all, if you agree with him, what more can he say?
Besides, it is astonishing how people can admit that he has been wrong.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">What
I will not recommend to you to entirely, though, is what I just said above—you
may choke on it; it goes back to the question: Is he reputable and sincere? If so,
you had better dismiss his words too readily. Has he reason to be spiteful or
jealous? Then perhaps you can dismiss them. Dignified silence is often the best
reply to Slander. Sometimes, of course, if the criticism is false and damaging,
you must reply to it.But it is best simply to sate the facts, not to try to retaliate.
Another thing to remember: when criticism finally comes to your ears, it may
have become exaggerated.There are always people who enjoy the excitement of a
feud and will throw gasoline on the flames if they can. “Come on,” they say, in
effect, to the Victim of the Criticism. “Put up a fight”. You must be aware of
these not-so-innocent bystanders. If I am to reference the bible that Andrew
doesn’t buy into a lot the bible commands us to return good for evil.This is not
pious nonsense; kindness is stronger than malice.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">As
Disraeli once remarked, “It is much easier to be critical than correct”—so
there will always be plenty of critics in the world, some well-intentioned, others cruel. You can defend yourself against the unkind ones by learning how to
control your emotional reactions, by adopting a calm and rational attitude and
by honestly trying to help your critics rid themselves of their anger. But, in
the analysis, your best defense is your day-to-day conduct. It is keeping your
moral standards high. It is having a clear conscience. It is living a life
without any necessity whatever for deception or for lies or for concealment.
That said, Andrew, the ‘old man of the clan’, allow me to rest my case. I am
sure we will have another and if need be a cup of coffee; that’s how open I am
to constructive dialogue.</span></div>
Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-83286118196483212042016-12-01T01:49:00.000-08:002020-05-10T23:32:44.394-07:00Love Well<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sdG4kp2HjJM/WD_w5eRDE4I/AAAAAAAAAcg/x8F7bXLT6OcOsAbMRt1RlkRBEYTWpKYEgCEw/s1600/Bu9ePPwIYAA037G.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sdG4kp2HjJM/WD_w5eRDE4I/AAAAAAAAAcg/x8F7bXLT6OcOsAbMRt1RlkRBEYTWpKYEgCEw/s320/Bu9ePPwIYAA037G.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What to me is the lens of Love: an eye for my dream family.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">If
there is something that surely initiates maturity, it’s Parenthood—when you
have a kid(s) of your own, all these questions come rumbling at you—how will my
child(ren) live; survive? Where will they stay and with whom? What influence?
How will they turnout?. All these are very tough questions but the deal breaker
is that they can’t be avoided, you have to gird you roins like a man and look
for answers—at times these answers are very hard to find, in the event of
frayed relationships,the binding force could be those children: Love is what
stays in the midst of all that can go wrong, that’s the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/25/lockdown-with-your-partner-heres-how-healthy-couples-survive/" target="_blank">lens of Love</a>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When
I sit down to write about love, my heart melts because I know it so well that
love is the most important thing on earth. I was talking to a friend recently
in a chit-chat and I remember eloquently signaling this, ‘if there is one thing
I talk about with Authority, it is Love’—I have loved, been loved and <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/06/a-thousand-petty-humiliations-of-broke.html" target="_blank"><u><span style="color: #1f497d; mso-themecolor: text2;">suffered for love</span></u></a>. I have
wanted to give up on making compromises for love so many times but every time I
am at the verge of surrendering, I am reminded that I would rather not give up
on Love itself but believe in love again since it can always be found and nobody
can live without love. Here, I am looking at the bigger picture of love. The
intent for this article though is for frayed relationships and marriages. I
want to begin with inference from one of the articles I wrote with utmost
intent—<a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/05/love-wins-decade-of-love.html" target="_blank"><u><span style="color: #1f497d; mso-themecolor: text2;">a decade of love</span></u></a>—like
I am doing for this. I am fetching this for the start: “</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Yes,
every war needs a strategy as </span><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">CLARA</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> says at
the start of the movie:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> “<span style="color: red;">There always seems to be
something to fight for. But one thing has remained true of every war; behind
the field of battle, someone has developed a strategy. I find myself amazed
that of the many battles we engage in today—be it money, control or matters of
the heart, very few know to fight the right way or understand who we are really
fighting. To win every battle, you have got to have the right strategy and
resources, because victories don’t come by accident</span>”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I may
not have been married [though, at times it feels like it] but I can offer
road-tested truths about the perils of human frailty in the realm of dating as
well as marriage. The thing about life, I have learned from my personal experience,
is that if you pay fidelity to growing through Life; there is so many things
you will learn even before you are ‘old’—wisdom in this case has a life blood
link to learning, unlearning and relearning. When it comes to love, self-realization
together includes the right of each partner to pursue individual interests. I
think it may take about five years for a young couple to discover that “we do
everything together” is sentimentality not love. The most unnerving thing in
love, I think, is the loss of emotional unity. When the emotional touch
flickers out, trouble ensues, for love to thrive the two people in love have to
be emotionally attached to each other: it always takes two to tango, that’s for
a fact. Jimmy Evans had it right, ‘the only way two things can become one is
when both things sacrifice’.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I
learned from Laurie Lee, What Love Must Be: “We are indefatigable love-seekers
all. Why, then, are we often defeated finding durable love more difficult to
win than almost any other ambition? To be in Love of course is to take on the
penthouse of living, that top most toppling tower, perpetually lit by the
privileged radiance which sets one apart from nether world.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Love
should be an act of will, of passionate patience—flexible, cunning, constant;proof
against roasting and freezing, drought and flood, and the shifting climates of
mood and age. Most of all it must be built on truth, not dream, the knowledge of
what we are, rather than what we think it is fashion to be. The sum of love is
that it should be a meeting place, an interlocking of nerves and senses, a
series of constant surprises and renewals of each other’s moods—best of all, a
steady building, from the inside-out, to extend its regions where children and
live and breathe.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This
seems a promising ground yet the fact remains that love fails more often than
it succeeds—a failure due chiefly to the intolerable pressures of the age. Love
needs to seed in a certain space and quiet—and even marriage requires some
single-mindedness. Love still has intimations of immortality to offer us, if we
are willing to pay it tribute. If we can learn to forget the old clichés of
jealousy and pride and not be afraid to stand guard, protect acquiesce, forgive
and even serve. Love is not merely the indulgence of one’s personal taste buds;
it is also delights in the indulgence of another’s”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Recently
I did <a href="https://www.facebook.com/cjoybellc/photos/pb.114572855240850.-2207520000.1480584819./1293156800715777/?type=3&theater" target="_blank"><u><span style="color: red;">a review</span></u></a> [as a privileged member of
the Beta team for the raw manuscript] for
the upcoming book from my selfless literal mentor, <a href="http://cjoybellc.blogspot.ug/2016/11/the-conversation-of-dragons-review-by_26.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">C.JoyBell C</span></a>, the Conversation of Dragons. When I had just <u><span style="color: red;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1404601912884185&set=a.402114643132922.102457.100000031684863&type=3&theater" target="_blank">started reviewing</a> </span></u>the manuscript, I proclaimed it
was and will be one of the most powerful books ever written. I was struggling
to write something I really needed to write, this article, I must say it is part
of why I have finally put word after another. You can find the review(s) on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/conversation-dragons-review-grace-abaho-c-joybell-c-?trk=mp-reader-card" target="_blank"><u><span style="color: red;">LinkedIn</span></u></a> and also on the <a href="https://www.blogcatalog.com/art/writing/the-conversation-of-dragons-a-review-by-grace-abaho/" target="_blank">blogcatalog</a>. Like I say
[partly] in that review, “the book offers a sublime deep look into the perils
of human frailty in ways only the Conversation of Dragons ever will. She
doesn’t mince words; she induces the readers to looking beyond their ego and
while at; it she encourages self-love. I learned that from the ‘thirteenth
tenet’ and if I am to paint that picture more accurately: believe people when
they show you who they are. It is not only fair to them; it also fair to you.
When you become honest, healthy person, you can cultivate honest healthy relationships
with others”—(Dragon unto Dragon, Creed unto Creed).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Where I
am right now, I have discovered some very profound truths about humanity; I
will not be selfish but rather share with my fellow human siblings: ‘No two
human beings can possibly live in the most intimate emotional relationships
without sometimes frustrating each other. Understanding is needed because where
Love is blocked it turns to anger and hate. To think there are no things to be
given up for each other is to suppose love costs nothing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Love is
self-discovery and self-fulfillment through healthy growth with and for the
other person. Real Love will grow as the years go by. The very experience of
loving will lead to the discovery of how to love better. The only thing in the
world as strong as love is truth, and there are reasons for believing that as
far as marriage is concerned they are different aspects of the same thing. A
deep and an abiding love is the emotional response to an intellectual
recognition of the truth about another person. Love’s development, like that of
a tree is not a steady progress but an irregular one. The art of Love is
Patience till the spring returns. But what we have really loved one another can
never be lost. Its influence on our personality is always with us, and perhaps
even death doesn’t take it away.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">That said,
relationships are fucking hard. Every day is a new challenge but you find ways
to get through them together, like Player 1 and player 2 in an endless runner
video game. Obstacles never stop flying at you. Sometimes you get hit in the
face and have to start again and other times you catapult off your partner’s
back and smash that shit to pieces and are showered in gold coins and celebrate
with high fives all around. Every day I am reminded how blessed I am to have
Shane’s mother in my life. I have never known someone who could make me laugh
so hard and yet cry so hard; I can’t help but burst into tears and in the next
moment she can have my brain hurting with a question or fact that I have never
considered but I am so desperate to get to the bottom of. I will be the first
to admit. I’m overly emotional, stubborn, slightly addicted to social media,
messy as hell and can surely put what I feel into words—I guess that’s part of
my magic charm</span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Every
one of us knows in his heart that he could be a better person—more tolerant,
more unselfish, more generous, and more kind. None of us ever fully lives up to
his ideals, but the encouraging thing is this: improvement is always possible.
Sometimes willpower can do it.Sometimes Prayer. Sometimes words on a page. “Our
chief want in Life,” said Emerson, “is someone who will make us do what we can”.
Veteran marriage counselor Emmanuel Hallowitz, assistant professor of
psychiatry of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine once declared: “In almost
every disrupted marriage there is, on both sides, self-deception.” On the other
hand, the ability to look at yourself hard and honestly—admitting both the good
and the bad—is the most powerful untapped source of human energy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">As you
grow through life you realize manners are an important aspect of relationships—
“Manners,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, that champion nutshell-putter, “are the
happy ways of doing things.” And he added that people are always watching your
manners, and awarding or denying you prizes accordingly. Certainly good manners
soften the hard edges of reality. They lie at the heart of that mysterious
thing called charm. They can be oil on that troubled sea of matrimony. How to
have them? Imagine yourself in the other person’s shoes. Then treat him as you
would like to be treated—that’s all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Wisdom,”
says the dictionary in a hopeful attempt to define the indefinable, “is the
ability to judge soundly and deal sagaciously with facts, especially as they
relate to life and conduct.” But everyone knows that wisdom is more than that.
It is a kind of glow that lights a man’s world when he has experienced .It is
the invisible plus sign that all of us would </span></div>
like to have added to the sum of
our lives.<br />
<br />
“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom,”
wrote Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Whatever you call it, it remains distant and
difficult goal that most of us seek, all through the days of our lives. I
thought of what I would have for my last article this year (2016), what I envisioned
as a Year of Yes, and I came to something about Love—it has been a year of
rugged paths but in the end I have seen myself through—the greatest men are
usually the simplest, the most approachable and the most willing to share the
insights that have made them what they are. Sometimes they were given by a wise
teacher or an understanding parent. In any case, fortunate is the person who is
privileged to catch a spark from one of the immortals—and pass it on<br />
<br />
I, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/abaho.grace1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #7030a0;">Grace Abaho (Sr)</span></a>, have been molded by both nurture
and nature—thanks to you my dear literal Princess of a mentor, <span style="color: #7030a0;">C.JoyBell <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>C</span>, for helping me
have the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/abaho.grace1/media_set?set=a.1350455798298797.1073741850.100000031684863&type=3" target="_blank"><u><span style="color: red;">confidence</span></u></a> to radiate to others
what I find. I love you, God richly bless you, forever indebted to you.Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-73972093437540615022016-11-24T03:06:00.000-08:002020-05-10T23:33:12.031-07:00The Great What If<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_WupQOpTvKs/WDbFxcixVgI/AAAAAAAAAbs/fVmr0BPtSns5MLWqxV8lXpxLDeHz6TVuwCLcB/s1600/lead_960.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_WupQOpTvKs/WDbFxcixVgI/AAAAAAAAAbs/fVmr0BPtSns5MLWqxV8lXpxLDeHz6TVuwCLcB/s320/lead_960.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hillary Clinton: <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/clinton-trump-debate-overprepared/501899/" target="_blank">Source</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Not
long ago, I wrote something, I said she was and still is <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/10/presidential-temperamentaly-fit-hillary.html" target="_blank"><u>temperamentally fit to be President</u></a> of the United States. <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/author/clare-foran/?page=2" target="_blank"><u>Clare Forlan</u></a> agrees with me
and as she<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/clinton-trump-debate-overprepared/501899/" target="_blank"> <u>wrote</u> </a>earlier, Clinton readily admits that campaigning
doesn’t come easily for her. “I am not a natural politician, in case you
haven’t noticed, like my husband or President Obama,” <a data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'5',r'501899'" href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/hillary-clinton-i-am-not-a-natural-politician-220544">she said</a> at a
Democratic primary debate in March. At the debate on Monday, she framed the
effort she has undertaken to run for president in a positive light. “I think
Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate, and yes, I did,”
Clinton said, after Trump commented that he had “been all over the place” while
she had “decided to stay home.” Clinton added: “You know what else I prepared
for? I prepared to be president. And I think that’s a good thing.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It
may be very hard to take in but if there are chances to redeem the loss, maybe
Hillary Clinton should buy the<a href="http://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/11/23/13726784/trump-clinton-election-audits?yptr=yahoo" target="_blank"> <u>recount rhetoric</u></a>, if doesn’t give the
anticipated results though, there is a problem: “The second and more serious
objection is that frivolous recount requests could compromise public faith in
the election results. Throughout the campaign, Hillary Clinton stressed the
importance of accepting the results of the election. Skeptics worry that if
Clinton were to request recounts without any tangible evidence that the
original count was wrong, it could legitimize conspiracy theories and
ultimately undermine confidence in the election result — and the democratic
process more generally</span>.”</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"></span></div>
<div class="clay-paragraph" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
Maybe there
is a catch, there were some irregularities. I may be wrong that she won the
election but my skepticism keeps getting a new reason to grow. She is leading
by a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/hillary-clintons-lead-over-donald-trump-in-the-popular-vote-has-now-passed-2-million-us-presidential-a7433826.html" target="_blank"><u>sizeable margin</u></a> of the popular vote and there is <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-challenge-election-results_us_5834e3a6e4b000af95ed3a34" target="_blank"><u>this</u></a>: “Clinton
needed to win all three states for an election victory. Wisconsin and
Pennsylvania went for Donald Trump by the smallest margins of all the states
that he won. The race in Michigan hasn’t been certified, but the state is
likely to go to Trump. A Clinton win in all three states would give her enough
Electoral College votes to claim the presidency. The activists, who have not
spoken publicly about their findings, presented their evidence to Clinton’s
campaign team last week. An aide to Clinton told HuffPost the campaign is “not
saying anything yet.”</div>
<div class="clay-paragraph" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="clay-paragraph" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
Some data
scientists and political statisticians, including FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver
and The New York Times’ Nate Cohn, cast doubt on the claims, which compared
voting in counties that used paper ballots with those that used electronic
machines. Silver and Cohn said the suspicious results disappear when
controlling for demographic factors like race and education.”</div>
<div class="clay-paragraph" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="clay-paragraph" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
If this is
done and the results match the ones we have<u>,</u> If it is not done and America
stays stuck with the option of giving Donald Trump <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/11/9/13570328/hillary-clinton-concession-speech-full-transcript-2016-presidential-election" target="_blank"><u>a chance</u></a>, there is <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/31/the-new-yorker-endorses-hillary-clinton" target="_blank"><u>one thing</u></a> to remember: “She has been a pioneer throughout her life, and yet her
career cannot be easily reduced to one transcendent myth: she has been an
idealist and a liberal incrementalist, a glass-ceiling-smashing lawyer and a
cautious establishmentarian, a wife and mother, a First Lady, a
rough-and-tumble political operator, a senator, a Secretary of State. Her story
is about walking through flames and emerging changed, warier and more
determined. In her intelligence, in her gimlet-eyed recognition of both the
limits and the possibilities of government, she’s a particular kind of
inspirational figure, a pragmatist and a Democratic moderate.”. For People like
me that envisioned the tsunami of misogyny with Hillary’s presidency, we have
one option left, to be<a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/11/forever-indebted-to-you-hillary-clinton.html" target="_blank"> forever indebted to her</a> :she has <a href="http://time.com/4575126/hillary-clinton-childrens-defense-fund-transcript/" target="_blank"><u>earned it</u></a> and we
know for sure we are always <a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/11/quick-psa-stronger-together-won-popular.html" target="_blank">Stronger together</a>. In Martin Luther King’s words, I
will draw the curtain: “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends
toward justice”.</div>
<div class="clay-paragraph" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-734938665445136140.post-42401844332828486002016-11-11T01:03:00.002-08:002020-05-10T23:33:24.638-07:00Stronger Together Won<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Tj8bb6J1Wxc/WCWIbNGicaI/AAAAAAAAAaI/M1YcVnwYVBURARhXCBa8NV9bCC49YitygCLcB/s1600/khkh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Tj8bb6J1Wxc/WCWIbNGicaI/AAAAAAAAAaI/M1YcVnwYVBURARhXCBa8NV9bCC49YitygCLcB/s320/khkh.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/abaho.grace1" target="_blank">Grace ABAHO Sr</a>: <a href="http://www.voanews.com/a/young-ugandans-pick-sides-us-election/3585384.html" target="_blank">FOUNDER TEAM HILLARY UGANDA</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The <a href="http://thegedsection.com/blogs/conservatives-criticize-michelle-obama-for-bare-arms-stay-silent-on-melania-trump-s-nude-poses-dl" target="_blank">hypocrisy</a> with Donald Trump sympathizers quoting the bible is staggering
and pitch 8 BS. If you're conservative, don’t be a liberal, be the tadpole that
ain't no Frog. If you want us to really read the bible, let’s READ it from
Genesis to Revelations, otherwise you're just sure fire bible thumpers: SIMPLY
PUT, FIRST CLASS Hypocrites. No matter how much anyone tries to normalize it
that America made the right choice by electing an outright bigot, Donald Trump,
it will never be normal. It is not normal but only if we agree to this—History
takes three shapes—forward, sideways and backward. He has had a campaign built
on outright lies and that is the foundation of all there is I will be using for
all the years he may have in the white house, as foundation of my criticism, I am <u><a href="http://graceabahosr.blogspot.ug/2016/11/forever-indebted-to-you-hillary-clinton.html" target="_blank">forever indebted to Hillary Clinton</a></u> because I know we are always
Stronger Together.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It
is important to note with concern that Dr.King had right when he said that “people
should be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin”.
I am still working on a full article but while I do that, I am going to be sharing
snippets of it.Meanwhile, here are powerful reminders from <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/11/9/13570328/hillary-clinton-concession-speech-full-transcript-2016-presidential-election" target="_blank">Hillary’s concession speech:</a> “Our campaign was never about one person, or even one
election. It was about the country we love and building an America that is
hopeful, inclusive, and big-hearted. We have seen that our nation is more
deeply divided than we thought. But I still believe in America, and I always will.
And if you do, then we must accept this result and then look to the future.
Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the
chance to lead. Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of
power”.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And
finally <a href="http://variety.com/2016/biz/news/president-obama-post-election-speech-donald-trump-1201913862/" target="_blank"><u>President Obama’s words</u></a> on Hillary’s loss: “I could not be
prouder for her,” Obama said of Clinton. “Her candidacy and nomination was
historic, and sent a message to our daughters all across the country that they
can achieve at the highest levels of politics.”</span></div>
Grace Abaho Srhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623824623259464825noreply@blogger.com0