Thought Picnic: Breaking the yoke of the firstborn

Good intentions count for nothing.

I reflected recently on a situation where many depend on you, but you cannot depend on them. It was highlighted clearly but unnoticed at the time when an appeal was made for help and support.

What was obvious was what others actively did to contribute to that appeal, while those who were expected to do more were caught hand-wringing and hesitating, and were more concerned about how my plight affected them than genuinely caring about what I was going through.

Any contribution, no matter how small, would have helped, but all I heard was intention, and it never amounted to more. I am very grateful to those who, from afar, showed their generosity to a man who was going through a difficult period in his life.

I cannot say if it was a total indifference or a lack of compassion that informed the lack of interaction that visited my cancer diagnosis last year, because a cursory view of my blog and social media activity would have revealed as much, but it might be conceited to think others should be that concerned.

They care little for you.

And so, when one re-evaluates issues as they are, some tough love must be applied to relationships that have become transactional due to family responsibilities. I dare say, they have lacked the care, love, or attention one would normally expect in such settings.

In my many experiences with adversity, they have not been the ones offering to support me; it is friends who stood by me. My shortcomings have been more an embarrassment to them than an opportunity to help, whether emotionally or materially.

Even the supposed comfort once offered by the matriarch soon wore thin as I struggled with my confidence.

Firstborns bear significant burdens of duty, often at the expense of their well-being, especially in non-Western environments. Extraneous demands are placed on us to deliver with little respite; we invest considerable resources with little return, as expectations and entitlement drain what little we try to save for tough times.

Firstborns Anonymous to the rescue.

The lesson we fail to learn is that everyone eventually manages on their own, whether we are there or not. How we burden ourselves at the cost of our own good is rarely talked of. A support group like Firstborns Anonymous could help us break free from these constraints to focus on ourselves.

We have become hostages to misfortune; we did not choose where we end up, and if, for many, we haven't asserted ourselves to gain privileges from our birth circumstances, then perhaps a selfish gene should take over, setting different priorities from cultural norms.

None of it was an investment.

We need to close the door to endless demands and build sufficient capacity for ourselves before we help others. Sadly, none of what was expended was an investment; if it had been, there would be some returns, some relief, some ease. Instead, they are sunk costs we struggle to walk away from, like unprofitable ventures.

In the end, when everything is accounted for, you owe nobody anything. When you exert yourself, do so with the hope that it benefits those who are truly grateful for what you do, and rest assured that if times are hard, they will stand by you.

The disappointment is tangible; our expectations were misplaced in what once seemed like a store of treasure, in family.

When moral standing is made homeless

Knowing when you are there

Like mine, I could imagine that many minds are filled with one type of regret or the other, where an unfortunate lack of insight at an opportunity we find ourselves in is not used to any benefit until we have left that position.

The power of hindsight reveals how we have misused both opportunity and responsibility, when that unique situation we were presented with offered more than we realised we could do.

A friend tried to contextualise this with people who have been in power, position, and providence, who failed to understand what they could do to change, improve, or give enduring value to things and on their exit have resorted to writing memoirs about how they were unable to do things they were so uniquely able to do, when they were in that position.

Perfect vision outside power

However, this extends into other spheres of existence how when not endued with power, much is said, but when those who saw so clearly out of power assume power, the realities dictate everything that borders on hypocrisy and worse.

How one can soon forget the moral standing that comes with position that you are left defending the indefensible and justifying the unjustifiable.

Much as a critique of our current government is difficult, it can be encapsulated in the recent resignation last week of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Minister for Homelessness and Democracy) whose brief and responsibilities need detailing for context and understanding.

• Homelessness and rough sleeping
• Housing delivery and strategy engagement
• Homeownership and homebuying process
• Supported housing and domestic abuse
• Elections policy and delivery
• Planning casework

A total lack of awareness

It just so happens that as she was pushing reforms through the parliamentary process, she ran afoul of the protections she was seeking to put in place. She evicted her tenants on the pretext of needing to sell her property, only to put the property back on the rental market, a couple of weeks later, at a hiked-up rate.

She might protest that she had done nothing wrong and every idea that this was rank hypocrisy might have been an unfortunate coincidence of realising her property could not be sold for the asking price, leaving her no other option but to access the rental market again, but other lives are unravelled and upturned, I dare say, landlord greed entered the fray.

Invariably, she created an untenable situation for herself in government, that the only recourse was to tender her resignation. You cannot superintend a law where appearances suggest that it is one law for others whilst you find yourself outside the ambit of the same law being promulgated.

Then taxes went up again

Moreso, I can remember in March 2024, the current Prime Minister then in opposition lamented that we had reached the highest tax burden in 70 years, only for them to gain power in July 2024 to find a £20 billion black hole.

That has instigated another tax hike that might take the burden to the highest in about a century, but how amnesia has overwhelmed any reckoning or memory. [BBC News: Tory Budget 2024: Is the tax take the highest for 70 years?] [BBC News: Labour Budget 2024: Key points at a glance]

Meanwhile, that was £45 less, per month, on my take home pay when it all took effect, and they are not yet done with the proposed tax rises. It just looks like the black hole is getting bigger. [BBC News: Reeves must raise tax to cover £41bn gap, says think tank] [The Guardian: Reeves and Starmer to prepare ground for tax rises in a difficult autumn budget]

Let’s talk for the voiceless

It is easy to talk in opposition, when in power, reality bites and the choices to be made are more impactful and far-reaching than they let on. Let us not delude ourselves, our politicians are in the same game of trade-offs, beholding to some with great influence and less so to those without a strong voice.

Except if you were a tenant of Rushanara Ali who were fortunate to have their distress amplified enough to force the minister’s hand, you are like many, on your own. [BBC News: Homelessness Minister Rushanara Ali quits over rent hike claims]

The responsibility of having opportunity and being in power is a great one, we often fail to make it easier for those who gave us that opportunity to do something significant.

Thought Picnic: As Words Shape Our Understanding

The Language of Identity

There is something profoundly fascinating about the power of language and how a simple misspelling can open doors to philosophical musings.

Recently, I encountered a thought-provoking juxtaposition—"child" misspelt as "chide"—and it sparked a reflection on the delicate dance between correction and nurturing that defines our relationships.

The twin burdens of correction and care

"There is much to say about the chide and much to pay about the child." This phrase has lingered in my consciousness, revealing layers of meaning about how we navigate our connections with others.

To "chide" represents the corrective aspect of relationships—the moments when we feel compelled to guide, correct, or redirect. These instances of criticism shape the dynamics between parent and child, teacher and student, mentor and mentee. The way we deliver these corrections speaks volumes about our values and communication skills.

Yet, the "child" symbolises investment and responsibility. We "pay" not merely in financial terms but through emotional commitment, sleepless nights, and the constant balancing of protection versus independence. This metaphorical payment represents the sacrifice inherent in nurturing another's development.

Finding one's voice in linguistic exploration

What fascinates me about this wordplay is how it illuminates the delicate balance required in meaningful relationships. Too much criticism without demonstrated care creates resentment; excessive indulgence without guidance leads to underdeveloped potential.

I'm reminded of other linguistic explorations, like discovering the Yoruba word "àwọ̀dọ̀" for "wrist" alongside variations like "Ìgbànkáwọ́" (literally "joint of the hand"). Language offers multiple pathways to understand and describe our reality, just as relationships offer multiple approaches to correction and nurturing.

The perspective of experience

Having navigated my own complex journey—including health challenges that have shaped my perspective—I've come to appreciate how words and relationships intertwine. When I faced cancer treatment, the words others chose either strengthened or diminished me. Similarly, how we "chide" and how we "pay" in our relationships determines whether those connections flourish or wither.

The juxtaposition of these concepts reminds me of what I've observed in Manchester—the countless human interactions that reveal our deep need for both guidance and support. Whether it's the passionate polemicist on the bus expressing unresolved grievances or the young men seeking viral fame through destructive acts, we see the consequences of imbalance between criticism and care.

A consideration of others

At its core, this reflection on "chide" and "child" speaks to consideration—recognising others and treating them with the respect we ourselves desire. The unwritten code of conduct that guides civil society rests on this simple principle.

Perhaps the African proverb puts it best: "A child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth." In our words and actions, we either offer the warmth of belonging or risk driving others to destructive means of being noticed.

As I continue to contemplate this linguistic interplay, I'm reminded that in both words and relationships, balance is everything. There is much to say about how we correct, and much to pay in how we nurture—and finding harmony between these aspects may be the most important work we do.

Postscript: This conversation started with thoughts on a WhatsApp chat where I surmised, "There is much to say about the chide and much to pay about the child." The rest results from interactions with a number of AI bots writing in my style.

Is Kemi Badenoch suffering a midlife identity crisis?

Kemi’s Nigerian baggage

Once again, Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, is in the news, not for policy ideas on how she intends to lead His Majesty’s government, if she becomes the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but by defining herself against her Nigerian ancestry.

Her new tirade is about how she no longer sees herself as Nigerian, while how you identify is quite left to the individual. One can only wonder if our principal is suffering an identity crisis in trying to situate herself comfortably in the minds of the electorate she desperately needs to appeal to. [The Guardian: Kemi Badenoch says she no longer sees herself as Nigerian despite upbringing]

Gosh! A baby girl

The difference between her and me? I did have a childhood I vividly remember in the UK, born of parents who were students and residents rather than of a mother gaming the system for pecuniary advantage, the likes of whom forced the government of Margaret Thatcher to change the rules of birthright citizenship.

Kemi might protest until she is blue in the face that her mother was not engaged in birth tourism and consequently she herself was not an accidental anchor baby, but let us speculate on how having a medical doctor father in Nigeria, it was expedient for her mother to travel to the UK for medical treatment, and then she pops out in a maternity hospital, how convenient.

On the other hand, my mother was heavily pregnant with my sister, as anyone would have noticed in the last picture we took before boarding the plane on our departure from the UK. How things might have been different if someone had counselled my mother about the need to anticipate the opportunities Kemi now has for her then-unborn daughter.

Embracing all influences

I identify with Nigeria by heritage and influence through some of my formative years, but now, I have spent about 40 years living in Europe, and I do not define myself through the denigration of Nigeria as she does. When I was in primary school, most of us Black kids had foreign accents, and our schoolmate children of immigrants or expatriates in Nigeria mostly had Nigerian accents.

I am broadly European, even though I have a mastery of Yoruba and an understanding of Hausa. I do not pretend to know Nigeria that well, and I spent more time than Kemi in Nigeria, but left 35 years ago.

I'm affected daily by Nigeria because I have family and relations there, and a thriving and prosperous Nigeria is a comfort for all of us of Nigerian heritage in the diaspora. Yes, there are bad memories as there are fond memories, but it is in the UK that I have experienced muggings, racism, prejudice, and all sorts of attacks on the person.

I didn't live in the Netherlands for 13 years, trying to please the Dutch by putting down England or Nigeria, I embraced all influences that make up my third culture kid identity.

She needs a better narrative

In Kemi’s case, it is both political and personal, the need to constantly redefine herself in the context of Nigeria. If we set aside the circumstances of her birth through her mother for some unforeseen benefit as the story gets told, her pronouncements framed in a negative mindset about Nigeria are becoming unfortunate.

Eventually, someone is going to ask her what she intends to do in government and whether she can drop the Nigerian baggage she lugs around as a chip on her shoulder and see herself as just a black English girl who happens to have Nigerian parents.

I have no problems saying I am an Englishman with a Nigerian heritage and European influences, accent and all. More importantly, I am comfortable in my own skin; I dare say, she exhibits a form of self-loathing with an eagerness to belong and please.

Nigerians getting agitated by each outburst by Kemi are missing the point. The issue is not Nigeria; Kemi is still struggling with who she thinks she is, and well into midlife, she has not found a clearly positive narrative to embrace all the influences that make up her multifaceted identity.

Thought Picnic: Emotional abuse masquerading as peace making

Setting the Thought

One thing I have striven for, and perhaps never fully mastered but have always applied myself to learn, is to have good judgment coupled with the instinct to do what is right. I need to be assured that I am directing my energies towards benefit, not only for myself but also for others.

Then again, regarding the pursuit of happiness I have written about many times before, having material means and provisions is not inherently the main source of happiness; it can also be the cause of great misery.

However, if you find yourself with the opportunity and privilege to make others happy, it is quite likely that you will end up happy as well.

The Responsibility of Cultivating Relationships

You might wonder how the thoughts of the previous paragraphs are connected; I see them in the context of cultivating relationships—some enduring, others fleeting—yet all meaningful for everyone involved.

Imagine the responsibility of a pilot of an aircraft: even if one might say unwittingly, you are in charge of a vehicle worth over 100 million pounds or dollars, but more importantly, you carry a cargo of human lives that you cannot take lightly, numbering around 200.

Appreciating the weight of that responsibility instils discipline, self-control, and the importance of working with your team to ensure your duties are carried out with excellence.

In our endeavours, we may not be pilots, but we are pilots of sorts. Whether as parents, teachers, or professionals in fields like medicine, engineering, law, finance, or the humanities, there is impact, consequence, risk, and reward.

Human lives are affected, and relationships that matter can dissolve through poor judgment, bad faith, a bad attitude, bad behaviour, or simple neglect—failures to recognise and address issues in our development that become disadvantages.

A Consideration of Others

All of this hinges on the issue of consideration—not of ourselves alone, but of others—because how we involve ourselves can affect others more than we realise, often because we are solely focused on ourselves.

This year, during two nuptial preparations, I have observed a profound lack of good judgment and an absolute inability to include important people in planning, organisation, and execution.

This has left relationships strained, with attitudes ranging from nonchalance to indifference from those whose various contributions could have made the events more successful.

We should not delude ourselves with the hubris of thinking we matter more than we do to the couple beginning their lives together. However, there must be a way to address issues before resentment develops from being ignored.

It is merely emotional abuse.

Yet, for those with the greatest influence, tolerating the worst offenders while appealing to the good nature of the offended is not peace-making; it is emotional abuse, emotional blackmail, and worse.

The points I initially intended to address will have to wait for another time because the crucial issue here—emotional abuse—has now become the focal point.

Good judgment fosters the development of relationships, especially when considering how the responsibilities we have, acquire, or are imposed on us can make a significant difference in the overall happiness of all involved.

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - LXXVIII

A spectacle of living

Manchester Presents would be a fitting title for a programme that highlights the intriguing peculiarities of this city, demonstrated through its residents and their way of life and pursuits.

I generally consider myself more of an observer than a participant. Usually, I find out about events in my city long after they happen. If I happen to learn about something before it occurs, I might make a mental note, but due to disinterest or lethargy, it often slips my mind.

However, whenever I step out for something as mundane as shopping for essentials, these encounters make me wonder if there’s more to the beating heart of Manchester—something I have yet to fully grasp after nearly 12 years of living here.

But a polemicist

For example, I was on a bus returning from the shops when a lady of South Asian origin boarded. Stylish and quite sophisticated, her makeup stood out—her eyes accentuated with black markings resembling the upper rim of large, rectangular spectacles.

That alone would have been an interesting story. Then she started to speak—at first I thought she was on a phone call until I realised she was addressing us, the passengers on the lower deck. She wasn’t a preacher, a few of whom I’ve seen, but not in Manchester.

When I understood what she was saying—her somewhat coherent remarks—it was polemical, with references to government involvement in fraud, with the citing of sections and paragraphs too. If I had been paying closer attention earlier, I might have laughed at the absurdity of it all.

Achievement without recognition

If I heard her correctly, she was either a professor of Punjabi literature or a close relative of one, and her father was a renowned professor named Kohli. She even spelt it out. Then she launched into a tirade about prejudice, racism, and not being recognised because she had brown skin.

Despite her accent, she exhibited every sign of a good education, with flawless grammar and a conviction in her delivery that persisted until she disembarked. It seemed she was making a case—perhaps a grievance or an injustice still bothering her.

Upon reflection, I suspected she might have been a victim of a miscarriage of justice influenced by prejudice, racism, workplace harassment, maybe denied promotion—situations often encountered in academia—and this appeared to have affected her mental health, reflected in her behaviour on the bus.

May she find peace

At the very least, she probably needs therapy. I was quite concerned about her, and I’m somewhat relieved that no one tried to silence her. As disturbing as it was, we simply let her vent her spleen, though there was more to it than met the eye. I sincerely hope she receives the help she needs.

For a lady who, by her bearing, could be of a certain age above the golden jubilee, there’s little to distinguish eccentricity from being sectioned. On that spectrum, she seems closer to the latter. I truly hope she finds peace.

Meanwhile, no face masks seen, but some of us are still taking Coronavirus booster jabs.

Essential Snobbery 101: Judicial ire for communal warmth

No sense of consequence

The motivations behind certain actions just escape me, whether it is for clicks on social media or personal thrills, a communal and societal pact seems to have been broken.

That awareness of action and consequence is lost in a reckless belief that there is no one to hold you accountable and no time for anyone to investigate the situation.

Two incidents have brought the law into the lives of some thrill-seekers with far-reaching implications.

Even with the advent of TikTok, which can produce useful content with a bit of imagination, malevolence for laughs and shockability appear to be more attractive. The lure of going viral is irresistible.

No concern at all

For example, two teenagers are facing the law at Stratford Magistrate Court because they threw a large seat off the top floor of a crowded shopping mall as an internet prank, which did go viral.

When confronted and questioned by the police, the boy who threw the seat said, "It's not that deep, it did not hit no-one.” [BBC News: Boy admits throwing seat off Westfield's top floor]

While there is a real chance that if the seat had hit someone, it could have caused serious injury or death, we might be getting ahead of ourselves. The key question is why the boys believed they could achieve anything by hurling a large seat off the top floor of a shopping centre, whether it was crowded or not.

What kind of pastime could have occupied their minds enough to dissuade them from such an act? We may never get the answer, but there is no reason why they should escape punishment for this egregious act, which showed a complete lack of understanding of the harm it could cause innocent people in a public space.

A chop for gaol

Additionally, as for escaping punishment, two men have just received four years and three months each for cutting down a tree.

Just a tree, but that tree—the Sycamore Gap tree—is a renowned sight, over a century old and near Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland. [The Guardian: Two men behind ‘senseless’ felling of Sycamore Gap tree jailed for more than four years]

Their quest for notoriety, recorded on a mobile phone as one used a chainsaw to fell the tree in minutes, shows they travelled 40 minutes at night, then walked through a storm for another 20 minutes from a car park to conduct this pointless act.

What kind of thrill could they have been seeking in their apparently restless lives that this tree became their target for reckless vandalism? Though in court, before turning against each other, they acknowledged that what they had done was being covered in the news.

The importance of community

Despite any mitigation that might temper justice with mercy, many seem unable to foresee the consequences of impulsive actions, showing a lack of deep thought about our deeds.

Furthermore, there is little consideration of how our actions might impact, offend, upset, or harm others. This reflects a selfish society.

If only there were a sense of community in these individuals’ minds, perhaps they would have realised their actions were wrong and chosen to find another way to contribute positively rather than to harm.

The point is recognising others, like not littering, keeping noise down in residential areas at night, wearing headphones on public transport, or avoiding reckless stunts on the main road—are fundamental signs of respect.

Surely, there is an unwritten code of conduct, learned at home and reinforced at school, based on the simple principle of treating others as you wish to be treated.

Maybe it is asking too much of that African proverb, “A child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” What price some pay for that need for warmth, which can often lead to the unnecessary heat of judicial retribution.