We have lost our harmony. How shall we find it again?

I was sitting up late one night; such nights when you wake up too early and you are in the balance between sleep and wakefulness. It’s such a night when you slept off leaving the TV on, and in that moment of wakefulness, you find a movie playing and you start watching it midway. On this night, I found one movie, I don’t know the title, but I found it at an interesting point… a point at which a professor who had recently lost his wife was being badgered to go to another city to make a presentation on behalf of his colleague on a book that they both authored. He didn’t want to go, but he had no choice, so eventually he agreed and went.

It so happened that he had an apartment in that city and thought he might stay there. Getting to the apartment, he found a young black lady bathing in his bathroom. Both of them were startled, but the lady called in her boyfriend (a Syrian) and shortly after the boyfriend of the lady came in to harass the professor. In the midst of the madness and argument, they found out that a fake agent had rented them the apartment. They apologised to the professor and to leave that night, but out of sheer humanity, the professor asked them to stay till they could find a place.

Gradually a friendship developed between the two men. The Syrian who is an illegal immigrant is a drummer, and his girlfriend (a Senegalese) sells handmade beads. The drummer taught the professor how to drum and one day, he took him to a park to play; I think central Park.

In the park, several drummers and instrumentalists were there. They didn’t all know one another, but they were all there for one thing… to perform in harmony. This is how it worked. Someone starts to play a tune without actually thinking about it. Then the next drummer joins in, and plays to that tune, and the next and the next. So you come in, play your instrument to the tune that is currently being played, and when you are done, you move on… Dancers will come in, dance for a while, and leave.. and that band continued all day…It was so beautiful, so perfect, so melodious, so exciting!

And it struck me… there is harmony in that place! Such a harmony that people come in to meet and join, and when they are leaving, they live it undisturbed. Wow! As simple as that is, that was mind blowing to me.

Life has a harmony. Mother Nature has a harmony. The plan of God and the design of God has harmony. There is zero entropy in the things of God. He created everything to move together, to work together, to function together. Our body is a temple of such a harmony. We were designed with all our organs and components working in harmony. Any time they work out of joint, we are in trouble

The planet was designed to run in harmony. Our world was designed to work in harmony. The food chain was designed to work in harmony. Our waste is food for another specie. What gives life to you is the one thing that the trees eject from their own lives. Things were designed to function in harmony! Human beings were designed to be at peace with their world, and even in our finding… and discovery, there is dire consequence when we disturb the harmony of the universe.

As I am typing this, I am thinking, this subject is huge… I can’t touch every part of it. For this piece therefore, I am more interested in the harmony within man himself. Harmony within a man brings peace to that man. You are free of worry, of anxiety. You are not lazy, but you don’t run on your own clock… There is clock in nature. There is a rule of God in nature. That movie reinforced my convictions on this subject, and prompted me to write this blog piece

The professor was out of harmony with himself and nature. He had pains, bitterness, fulfilment and loneliness. Tariq, the Syrian drummer was in tune with nature. He has Zainab, the love of his life. He lives a fuller life as an illegal person than the man who is a citizen and has more money. He plays his instrument without thinking… tunes come to him naturally. He has talent, but he depends on something out of himself to give him the inspiration. I am a believer, and I know that this inspiration comes from God. Phil 2:13 says He is the one at work in our lives both to will and to do of His own good pleasure.

When we get our motivation and inspiration from God, we do things that are in harmony with the things that he has created. A man who has peace with God will have peace with himself. A man who is at peace with himself will most certainly be at peace with the world around him.

Every act of aggression is a consequence of something that has caused an imbalance in the life of the aggressor. Have you ever wondered for examples why taxi drivers are aggressive, or while Okada men are that maniacally audacious? Their reaction is stemming from an imbalance in the principle guiding harmonious living. A guy who is under the rain, under the sun, in the heat of the day is not going to be as logical as the one who is stepping from an air conditioned room to an air conditioned car. The former will not wait at the road junction because he is not comfortable, but the latter will be easier to be persuaded to wait. I know Nigerians are a different breed, but think about it, there are imbalances in our lives generally as Nigerians. So we react from different sources of imbalances.

I believe that a man that is at peace with himself will find that things naturally come to him. He doesn’t have to run after them. Nature has worked that out. And the owner of nature has decreed it such. You find fulfilment in things because you are not self-driven, but you are God-led. You find successes come to you because you are aiming to please rather than to be pleased. You find joy within and outside of you because your plane of reference respects harmony.

People who work in corporates call their chase for promotion and status a rat race. I think that even outside the corporates, we are all in a rat race. The actions that comes from thoughts like; my house must be bigger than the next compound’s; my fence must be taller; my sitting room must be better decorated; my church must be bigger… etc. forces us to compete against one another at a cut throat pace.

These desires have caused us to lose harmony in our lives and in our society today. Our streets are littered with banners trying to outdo themselves. Our roads are littered with all kinds of cars and SUVs all trying to vie for attention. Our schools have abandoned learning and are now into showmanship. Our streets are no longer dignifying, and certainly no longer harmonious, because of the discordance in the way we have built our houses and fences.

There is no peace in us, or around us. We are jumpy, needy, edgy and searching all the time. We don’t take enough time to appreciate what we already have. We want the next thing. The search never ends. We are not at peace with ourselves. We travel outside the country to find peace, but you have to start from inside of you first.

I believe everyone should try to find a balance in their lives. At a point, professor in that movie was spending money trying to learn to play the piano. But Tariq thought him to play the drums, and his life found the balance he had lost. He became freer. He was able to enjoy life. He was able to see things around him.

I spend some time in Douala in the course of business, and every time I go, my friend Ben takes me to these outdoor places where we eat fish, and something made out of cassava (Eaten with spice) and do you know that in that place, the society does not care who you are and what you have? You just sit outdoors near the edges of the street and just eat your fish. There is this other place at shores of the Atlantic; very quiet and peaceful. You sit and eat your fish, and these itinerant musicians play ballads for you. Not noisy, just a little bit above the ambience of the place. It is so peaceful you could stay there forever.

Of course there are other places he can take me…but then I lose harmony in those places.. Too much noise from people shouting to hear themselves over the noise for loud music, too much façade- everyone trying to be people they are not; too much into ourselves, not seeing what nature has gotten to offer us. But he chooses to take me to places where we don’t have to talk much, just eat fish and drink malt in silence, looking at the horizon as the sun disappears to be replaced by the moonlight.

Nigerians especially should try to find harmony in their lives. Spiritual harmony is the first thing required. That opens you up to live life not just for yourself. It is the basis for lifelong harmony… A consciousness that you are here to do whatever it is you are doing in partnership with your creator gives you a sense of dependability. And if you can conquer the ‘forces’ that tears you apart instead of putting you together, then you are on your way to a life of spiritual harmony.

God has given us each something that can help us come to true harmony within our bodies. It is a gift that every man should find. Creativity brings harmony. Everyone who has something creative they do…they find harmony. Artists, artistes; music creators and producers, music writers, and even authors, people who make stuff with their hands or their minds…they are people of harmony… They are in tune with their innermost personalities. Of course there are other creative things beyond what I have listed, but you will know yours and you will know that it is the entry point to a place of peace that you cannot find anywhere else.

We have lost harmony as a nation. Think about when you were growing up. I remember mine. We played street soccer. People just appear and play. The team is made up of all sorts. In my primary school, there will be a large field and maybe 20 footballs and everyone was just playing... and trying to score. It does not matter which ball comes to you, just play and dribble somebody and try to score.. Sometimes everyone was attached to one ball, and they are either trying to defend their goals or trying to score. The goalkeepers didn’t care, they just try to keep every ball away from their goal. It was so hilarious, ..but it was a kind of harmony.

Then, we would visit people, and don’t need to tell them we were coming. You just show up with friends. You go to parties, no IVs.. Just show up. We were free, we were happy. Our houses didn’t have fences. We walked to school and we had fun. Today we are afraid to walk on the streets, even afraid to let our kids play in the grounds of our gated houses.

In the years gone by, we didn’t care that someone was from somewhere. Most ‘Yards’ then were a mix of all the Nigerian tribes and they were happy. One didn’t have to come from a certain place to be good. There were no suspicions, no nervy stares.

Our harmony is gone! The result is that we have so much bile in our bodies now. There is so much negativity, so much that we are shrinking instead of blossoming. We apply all the make ups but we are still not looking as good as our old unmade up faces. We are not ‘chopping life’ any more. It is the other way around; life is ‘chopping us’.

The professor was finally liberated. He took a leave of absence, and started playing his drums at subways, and he was so happy, so free and so in tune with himself. In the middle of that, he found love again, it came to him naturally. He found friendships that came naturally… Nothing was forced… it just arrives in its own time.

I heard once from a doctor, that if a woman is trying to be pregnant, she will be helped if she is in harmony with herself, her body and her environment. Harmony again!

The movie finished, and I asked myself… are you in touch with your inner self… Are you happy? I can declare after some period of soul searching that in spite of the uncertainties around me, my inner core person is happy, free, fulfilled doing the things I love… having the people I love around me. I am happy knowing that I can have friendship that is not based on who I am and what I have; just people connecting and sharing. I have my God and a fantastic relationship with Him (the key part); I have my music, I have my books, I have my wife and kids (the best part obviously), I have my blog (I make a promise to love it more, lol); and in summary I have things that makes me rooted and happy.

I have harmony in my life. Do you have it in yours?