A gazillion shades of blurry, gray pencil streaks.

...Omonoba...
Our people say:
Esan: Aah ii tọni egbe bi eji egbe rẹ tọnọ. 
English: Do not scratch your skin just the way it itches you. - Esan (Ishan) proverb. 
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I initially strayed from the original topic.  'my fascination with the juju man'... COMING SOON! Let this serve as a prelude.Daalu.

(One morning in the mountains, just looking. 

It is easy to take for granted the mysteries around us)

It is safe to say that there are few things I stand for, since a couple of principles usually cover many other things and are enough to live a  beautiful life. Few things, also, in this life are black and white - I can count them before I run out of fingers. The rest of life is painted in a gazillion shades of gray. So, the few principles for which I stand are broad scopes like my belief in most things not being strictly black or white, my belief that I must live my life today with hope for tomorrow and reasons for yesterday (they must not be good, there just have to be answers), my belief in (my) God, etc. When I am faced with paintings of gray, blurry, inconsistent pencil streaks, I will be able to act accordingly, based on the principles of broader scope. So, this part of my living, for the most part, is clear and straight-to-the-point in my books.

Within my head, however, is an array of cleverly interwoven threads of oxymoron.

Perhaps as an entity, I embody oxymoron. After all, taking the country from which I stem, there lie so many contradictions that seem to exist side by side and without much interference with the other side. Nigerians are ingenious in the art of resilience. So, in my head is a field where I grow maize and plantains and fish and cattle and imported dainty flowers. I am the farmer who must attend to these since I should not be taking in more than I am willing and able to cultivate well.

But when my cattle start to drink up all the water and there is insufficient for maize to thrive, what do I do?

Sometimes, I have to choose, other times I have to remember that perhaps one is more resilient than the other and could stand a little more abandon that the other. In fact, that is the only way to survive through paradox. And paradox is not new to me, it is like my middle name.
Sooner than later, I learned that I do not need to defend my actions up till the point where everyone has made logical sense of it. As a matter of fact, I am the only one who even remotely believes in such a possibility since the rest of the world is made up of people with varying beliefs / approaches and some will just not make logical reasoning of mine just like I will never make logical reasoning of theirs. So, since I need to convince only myself, how do I assure upbringing that experience and exposure have now secured a place in my living and so have interaction and faith?

Recently, I have listened more and observed even more than I have talked and have seen that there are many situations of gray shades where I would need to allow seemingly contradictory stances live side by side. Co-live and co-thrive, not just co-exist. And my life has become better. But upbringing and experience and exposure and interaction as well as faith, have learned to argue intelligently without resulting in war. I am still learning which ones are more resilient than the others and may suffer greater abandon. For the times when they all match - like parts of a puzzle - I am extremely thankful.

NakedSha.