Definitions are very important for the reason that they tell us the areas a given word can apply. Put differently, they set out the boundaries of a word’s applicability. In the Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, the word come is shown to be capable of applying in 9 different contexts and can be used to form many phrases. When we talk about hunger in the sphere of poverty reduction, we’re wont to alluding to just one meaning of hunger and this is inappropriate. Its inappropriateness leans against the backdrop that we’re cowed into holding a single story of hunger. “And the problem with single stories,” observed Chimamanda Adichie, “is not that they’re untrue, but that they’re incomplete.” Of course, we can’t afford to work with “incompleteness” in our fight against hunger.

My dictionary, Macmillan, renders 3 meanings of hunger:

1. A lack of food that can cause illness or death, especially among large numbers of people: STARVATION.
2. The feeling you have when you need to eat something.
3. The feeling you have when you want something very much.

Seen thus, hunger is both a lack and a feeling. And to meaningfully relate with hunger, we must bear these elements, lack and feeling, in mind, and also proffer solutions that gear towards simultaneously dealing with both. Yes, for the one who lacks always feels, while the one who now has but yet feels will soon lack.

My point here is that we’re all hungry in different ways, and are in dire need of hunger reduction and/or eradication. I must immediately add that this hunger issue is so complicated that only a comprehensive solution is the way forward. This complication hinges on the fact that as some people “want something very much,” some other people correspondingly get to “lack food” and other provisions of fundamental relevance to meaningful livelihood.

Let me explain further. Relative to available resources, human wants are insatiable. That notwithstanding, we’re in the know that humanity’s commonwealth can bear the brunt of hunger and starvation. This is a fact, and one testimony in support of it is that Bill Gates’ $86billion net-worth exceeds the yearly budgetary allocation of a number of countries. This is just one man! Of course, I’m not in for the industry argument here; I only demonstrated that we’ve enough.

The way forward…

We must preach contentment and simplicity and discipline

Hunger fighters are wont to having recourse to material provisions, especially via governmental budgetary allocations, as the solution, and this is rightly so.

However, this is a quick-fix, and the problem with quick-fixes is that they are not far-reaching. The recent events in Nigeria is exemplary. It was pretty cheap for Buhari to distribute N5000 in lieu of employment, but how far can that amount go in the fight against hunger? He even ends up disowning that promise. And then let’s see how far the N500billion allotted to social security will go. Of course, it can’t go a long way.

Methinks that a bankable way forward – for the interim – are the trio of contentment, simplicity and discipline.

1. Contentment instructs us that while we can’t get it all, we can make do with what we have. Whenever we feel content, hunger is kept abay.

2. Simplicity is even the mother of genius. A simple lifestyle is a rich one, wherein maximum value is derived from lower cost – relative to value. The simple person’s philosophy is: live and let’s live. Of course, flamboyance and ostentatiousness cost real money.

3. Discipline helps us curb our desires. Knowing that hunger keeps recurring and that the joy of having increases by having, we get to know that there is no earthly solution to the problem of hunger. We can’t eat to all our heart’s content in one sitting, and we can’t possibly have it all. What do we do, then? Discipline helps us keep our calm.

The very idea of women empowerment presupposes that women lack power, for what is empowerment if not to give power or to make powerful. And the fact that there is no men empowerment suggests that men are already powerful; powerful enough not to need more power. Since at the end of the day both women and men lay claim to the same humanity and traceable to the same God, needless to say that this power distribution reflects a gross imbalance; it is even unjust.

On a second thought, when Jefferson and his friends quoted, as part of the American Declaration of Independence text, “All men were created equal and were endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” did their men mean the collective humanity of both sexes or just the masculine gender? Given that the 1776 American woman wasn’t equally opportune as her American man counterpart, those revolutionaries would have, at best, been paying lip-service to the gender question. The fact that they even kept slaves betrays them further, for a slave does not know rights – not of life, not of liberty, talk less of the pursuit of happiness.

It is interesting that our own age and time has woken up to the reality of the gross gender imbalance and the fact that women are more often than not treated as second fiddles. We find this common interest in especially the naming of Gender Equality and Women Empowerment as one of the hitherto Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, and the up and running Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs. Of course, it is laudable that the entire world, under the auspices of the United Nations, is speaking the same language in this regard. And we’re optimistic things will turn out for the better.

However, while the UN and the governments of her member-nations are strategizing on how to best realize this particular and peculiar goal, methinks that there are some very simple things we can all be doing every single day with a view to upturning the status quo in little little but significant ways. The following are needful:

1. Women must put their house in order

While a handful of women are doing something about the struggle for gender emancipation, a whole many others appear to be glorying in the status quo. Of course, they prefer the current order where it’s the man’s job to bread-win. Minus that, most of the inhumanities being meted out to women are carried out by women. Who executes female genital mutilation? Women. In some cultures, who accuses the widow of bearing a hand in the man’s death and have her drink the corpse’s bathwater? Women. Women appear to always be competing about one thing or the other, leaving us with the case of a kingdom divided against itself. To make headway in this gender thing, women must put their house in order in order to forge a common front.

2. Mothers must raise boys and girls in a new way

Socialization is everything! No human being is born with the sense of gender. It’s something we acquire as members of society, which is what culture is about. I’ve personally heard mothers tell their girls to respect their boys because they’re “men.” What sort of orientation is that? What do we make of the recurring scenario where the girl-child is programmed into subservience from Day 1? She must learn how to cook, take care of even her older brothers, “make” herself the “object” of men’s sexual appetite, etc. And then the boy is given license to lazy around and lord it over her sisters. This is mad. Mothers must ensure that boys and girls grow up to understand that neither masculine nor feminine is a superior gender; both are complementary.

3. Women should understand power in a better light

Days back Kim Kardashian posted a nude photo of hers that raised a lot of concerns on Twitter. She had to do an open letter afterwards to answer her critics. Part of that letter says, “I am empowered by my sexuality.” Nigerians would render this as “bottom-power” – power derivable from being sexy. “Bottom-power” is responsible for commercial sex work, for instance, and every other instance where women solely bank on their sexual prowess to get things done. Chimamanda Adichie says that “bottom-power” is not power at all. Her reason is not unconnected with the fact of “women objectification.”

In essence, women must become powerful by developing their potentials and getting busy at solving the many problems plaguing our collective essence as humans. Of course, the “bottom-power” thing is an advantage – not power qua power.

4. Men must be true to their women

As a reason for anything, “Because you’re a woman is not good enough.” Even women lift heavyweight. Why must the fact of being a woman pose a challenge to one? Men must demand that their women sit up. And yes they can! By not insisting our women rise up to the challenges of life, we encourage them to go lazy and lazy and lazy, such that they’re caught up in the intricate web of dependence. Truth be told, no real man wants to have a woman overly dependent on him. This example is inspiring. A man said to his wife: What if I die now what will you do? Of course, the women didn’t need any soothsayer to tell her that sitting up is not optional.

I set up this blog myself shortly after midnight on February 8, 2016. Yesterday, March 8, 2016, made it 30 days. I even had to do the count on my fingers to be very sure of the number of days it amounted to. 30, confirmed! Today, I decided to look back; I never did all along. I just busied with churning out posts and sharing their links on social media – WhatsApp, Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. I never looked back all along because I didn’t want to gamble with any form of discouragement. Actually, it was always in the plan that I looked back after 30 days of nonstop blogging, to know if to continue or to walk. Yes, I’m a diehard fan of time management, and lately, time revolution. Of course, if blogging isn’t worth my time, I’d walk.

In 30 days, we’ve come a long way! 30 posts for 30 days, more than 1,500 visits, a good number of fans who’ve made it a task to spread the word, kind comments on and out of the blog that fire me on, and God’s generosity with inspiration. Moreover, I’ve especially learnt the following lessons from my so-far-blogging experience:

1. Intention is never enough

The intention to blog isn’t a long time coming. Actual blogging started almost as soon as the intention showed up. For heaven’s sake, it’s your business wanting to do all this and that, but what really matters is ACTION. That night, February 8, shortly after midnight, I remembered that what really matter is action, and I did take one. Simple: turned on my laptop, moved my SIM to my modem, got internet connectivity running, and typed www.wordpress.com on my address bar. That was it! I didn’t have to be a pro. I just kept trying and erring and retrying, and that was it!

2. God makes so much difference

Before February 8, I had done the needful: I prayed. I’m Catholic, and the Blessed Sacrament is central to our worship. Interestingly, I did the planning of this blog in church, before the Blessed Sacrament. I’d always known that the laborer labors in vain if the Lord isn’t the builder. Today, in more ways than I can say, God made all the difference.

3. It’s gradual and gets better with each passing day

Yes, I know the number of people that visit my blog. I’m told by WordPress. There’s even a bar chat to that effect, and there’re stats for all the posts. I make bold to report progress. It’s also interesting to report that the very first post has the least number of views, and then it started growing and growing and growing. Yes, life is evolutionary, and things grow gradually. Get used to it and don’t be discouraged when the figures ain’t soaring like the eagle.

4. Everything conspires to your favour and it gets easier by the day

Maybe we’re called bloggers because blogging is a way of life. Yes, it is. Even as I type this post I’m already working on that of tomorrow in my head. I can even let you into the title already: “The vocation of sitting down.” Interestingly, too, I began to work out potential blog post from events and people around me. For instance, after meeting with Ijenna last Saturday, I did a post about her shortly afterwards. Again, after closely seeing the US presidential stuffs on CNN on Saturday night, I did a post about it on Sunday. Even tomorrow’s “vocation of sitting down” comes from a conversation I had with a friend at Bigard Memorial Seminary yesterday; it was his idea and I already have his permission to do a post on it.

Furthermore, things just keep falling in place. I’ve had to travel many times over the last 30 days, and can report that I’ve done this blogging from about 10 different laptops; I really don’t travel with mine. Things just keep falling in place. When it became compelling that I needed a domain name, my friend Johnpaul come to the rescue, and I’m thankful. And that’s where the God-factor comes in; it always does.

5. “As you let your light shine, you unconsciously give other people permission to do the same”

Those are the gracious words of Marianne Williamson, and they are true. In the past 30 days I’ve challenged my friends to rediscover their writing spirit, and some of them have. They tell me. I’ve made others realize that whatever is conceivable is achievable.

In this way, I’m convinced that www.corneliusndubuisi.com is bearing a hand in making the world a better place.

Today, I especially celebrate my mother, Agnes, who loves me far more than I can say. Let me say something about her. Like Lincoln, I dare to say that I owe everything to my angel mother. She did not not only sit and watch my infant head, nor were she only always there for me; she provided me a ‘balanced love’, exactly the quantity I needed to turn out a great kid. I especially remember two interesting episodes with my mum. At the age of less than 10, about 7 I think, she gave me the beating of my life in an open market; it took the market women some time to rescue me. That was allowed in the 20th century when I was born, but the 21st century now brands her action child abuse. Truth be told, I deserved that beating and I’m better for it; no amount of talking would have corrected me. Again, as a primary school pupil, 5am was my rising time, as joining her to church every morning wasn’t optional for me. Others could stay back in bed, but never me.

And so, my mother’s life instilled in me respect and admiration for women. I see her in every woman. In fact, the wonder of every woman’s being moves me to heartfelt praise to God their creator. How better would the world have been without them? Adding my testimony to that of God, it was never a good idea that the man should be alone. I like to immediately revisit the Garden of Eden episode, where women got the infamous and notorious reputation for being the reason why things fell apart. In truth, Eve was true to her calling, she wanted to see her man to the next level on the scheme of things; she wanted to move the family of Adam & Eve from humanity to divinity. Was this not a noble aspiration? Of course, her action was sin but her intention informs us to be fair in our condemnation of her. How would God have become man if not for Eve, even? And then she kept some of the fruit for Adam; Adam shows up to partake in the eating; God shows up to do the cursing.

Have you bothered to reflect on the role of Adam in the Fall? Methinks that Adam is to blame, and God himself gives us clues as to why he is to blame. The woman receives the fruit and eats it, and she neither goes naked nor calls God’s attention. Adam shows up and joins in the eating, and they both go naked and attract God’s attention. Didn’t God know that it was Eve who set the ball rolling in the first place? If he’s omniscient, and he is, and so knew it was Eve all along, why then did he fire the question at Adam? Fact is, he expected more from Adam; Adam should have known better; Adam should have guided Eve aright. But he didn’t. So, why are the children of Adam, my fellow men, taking it out on women? That’s not fair.

Having attempted to lift that pristine blame, I now wish to announce that women are a dignified set. Fact. One may not fully understand this until one sincerely tries to imagine what life would have been without women. For me, miserable is the word. The whole motherhood argument, that is, the argument that women deserve respect because they’re our mothers, is too obvious and simple. All mad men probably know that. But there is more. Even the mere fact of their being around is something great. When we see them, when we hear them, when we feel them, when we smell them, and even when we [taste] them, we feel something out of the ordinary. We’re ready to take a bullet for them; an entire country called Troy was wiped out because two men wanted a woman. We appear to be ready to do anything in the arms of a woman…

Personally, I try to be objective, I try to be realistic, and I try never to forget the one woman who loves me more than I can say and the fact that many a woman shares those same attributes for which I hold her so dear. Again, I try never to deceive myself, too. If at the end of the day I’m sure to hook up with a woman, get married to her, and get to rank her only second to God my God, it is high time I started getting used to appreciating and celebrating womanhood. And today, International Women’s Day, is a good day to start.

Gentlemen, let’s pop some champagne on our women! 

There is undoubtedly an irresistible drive and a seemingly unquenchable thirst in every human person to attain the status of genius – a quality by which one is said to be exceptional. William Shakespeare is the envy of many a writer; Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein have become deities in the sciences; Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are household names in the philosophical circle; too many people wish to become a Bill Gates, a Steve Jobs, a this or a that. Oh! If wishes were horses, beggars would ride ahead of royalty.

But genius is a state of being, a way of life, an attitudinal disposition, a value orientation, the product of consistency in the rightness of our choices and the soundness of our decisions.

Genius is multidimensional. A shrewd businessman is as genius as a distinguished academic; a spiritual avatar is no less than a scientific trailblazer; and just the ability to be exceptional is genius. To some, such as the whizkids, genius is a birthright – they couldn’t help but become one. But to some others it is a struggle to becoming, evident in the longing for and the motioning towards.

At this juncture, those that have genius for their heritage are at liberty to quit reading this piece. Although the idea of natural genius is highly debatable. However, for those of us that share the fate of having to work out genius by the sweat of our brow, this piece is a must-read.

The 3 Steps

1. Interest. That you were attracted to this piece is the very first step: that thirst, longing or drive that propels one to seeking after genius. However, too many people score an A or even A+ here. Let’s progress.

2. Count the cost! That genius is not bought for cash does not mean it costs nothing. Indeed it costs more than mere cash can ever afford. However, the nature of the cost is so complicated that even a beggar could pay without having to go abegging. The cost is time, energy, and old unproductive habits; the cost is you – because all of you is involved.

3. Do the treasure hunt! If genius were not a treasure, then becoming one would have been as simple and as common as to having to fetch a sack of sand from a beach. But it is a treasure, sought after like diamond and gold. Where can it be found?

… in the words of our fathers, on the lips of babes, on the pages of books, in the gossip of the neighborhood, in the cresting on shirts, walls, and vehicles, on that sheet of paper you just stepped on, on that newspaper you just set on fire without reading, in that argument that ensued between your cab driver and the traffic warden. It is written all over you: your very life whispers it to you, the trees around chorus it, and our dreams reaffirm it

Now, all you need do is get the right tools for the hunt: your senses and your reason. Like every other human being, use your senses to collect the various data of perception, but employ your reason to make unconventional meaning out of them – for which you become exceptional.

When you see it from a different angle, when you listen to it with rapt attention, and indeed perceive it beyond the average man’s compare, then genius is not far away.

In the final analysis, you won’t fine genius anywhere because genius is not found; you become it! And we move from genius to more genius as we intensify our quest for it. Sounds bad? I would have told a lie if I said something different.

Become genius? Yes, you CAN!