BREATHE, EAT, FUCK, BELIEVE

Times New Roman. 12. No spacing (a.k.a 1.0 spacing). That’s how I like it. That’s how it was on Windows ’95. That’s how it was, that’s how it should be now. Now we can increase spacing and make it seem like we’re writing a lot, when in truth, what we’re writing is full of holes and 2.0-and-above-spacing.

Welcome back, Retardimus, welcome.

Back to my favourite word processor. Back to one of my favourite hand movements. Back to one of my favourite pastimes. Back, bitch.

Fela has always been a great influence on my life, even before I knew he was. When I was a kid, my father would play a Fela tape in the car whenever we went on long trips. I have now come to realize that he might have done that because of the convenience of the length of Fela’s songs. When I was about 8, I began music lessons with a very accomplished music teacher not two blocks from Fela’s house off Allen Avenue. It was 1996. I caught a few glimpses of this great man. Moreover, Seun Anikulapo-Kuti was the only other student that my music teacher elected to teach. He taught for free.

So yeah, Fela has always been there since forever. And he’s there in full force right now, I can tell you that. I discovered marijuana without his help, and when I came to be enlightened, I was happy to realize that Fela and I fucked the same plant.

There are many different aspects of Fela’s life that I can relate to. In fact, in my own way, almost all of it. The love for music, rebellion against the institution, his opinions on politics, his opinions on race, and so on and so forth. Maybe I’m not as promiscuous as he is, but, you know what? I’m not even gonna talk about that; get myself in trouble.

One aspect of Fela’s life that I have not been able to completely sync with is the religious aspect of his life. Fela went back to his African roots and was an avid follower of his traditional religion, the Yoruba traditional religion. Many times he quipped that the African man must go back to his roots to become great again. There’s no need to go out of Africa for greatness. He said that the foreign religions of Christianity and Islam were just tools of colonization; Christianity to colonize us in the western tradition, and Islam in the Arabic way of life.

I agree with Fela’s quips about Christianity and Islam. However, I am not as enthusiastic about the Yoruba traditional religion as he is. There comes the anomaly. I am very much enthusiastic about the Yoruba traditional religion. It is indeed very fascinating. There is so much wisdom and knowledge about the little things of life in it. I am not ashamed of my culture, although I am ashamed of what my people have become; how they have degenerated. We will find that the degeneration of my people is pretty much an effect of our westernization, and the advent of Christianity in our society.

I am however not going to bow down to Ifa and the other gods, simply because that is not my way of life. I don’t see myself doing such a thing earnestly. It would seem that the Yoruba traditional religion is well suited to me. There are not many compromises to be made for me as a person, it pretty much suits my way of life. The rules are loose. I can do anything I want. But it’s still not my thing. I have the knowledge, but I do not believe in it.

It is in my deep thought, perusing of religious literature, to sort out my confusion of the religious aspect of my life that I have come to realize that I really don’t need any fucking religion to receive my polite nods and bows.

I’m not talking about being an atheist or an agnostic, or a this or a that. I’m talking about being me, man. I’m talking about being Retardimus Prime. I’m talking about just being.

Human beings always feel the need to believe in something. Just like they feel the need to eat, breathe, and fuck. And there are various institutions that provide those things for us. Farmers provide food, nature provides air, and the opposite sex provides sexual intercourse. In the days before, religion was provided by mouth. The babalawo told you wassup with God and shit, thereby fulfilling your need to believe in something. Various pieces of literature have shown us that the Egyptians that lived during the times of the Pharaohs didn’t really give a fuck about their religion. They needed to believe something, the Pharaoh said I’m God incarnate, believe that or else, and they were like what the fuck? Something to believe.

Today, all these human needs have become more packaged and commercialized. When last did you drag your ass off to the farm to get some produce from the farmer? You can now eat at restaurants and buy packaged food in grocery stores. Now, if nature doesn’t provide you enough air, you can get yourself an alternative in the hospital. Now you can get prostitutes, call girls, even girls pretending out your fantasies while you fuck.

You can also get your belief from your local neighbourhood church and mosque. And you must pay. You must drag that last 20 bucks from your pocket and give it to an invisible guy who will give you back a hundredfold. Did I tell you I want invisible money? Comot.

You gotta believe something my nigga. I’m telling you. Try being an atheist. Try being a scientific man, motherfucker. You’re still gonna believe in logic and science. You tell me that the earth moves around the sun, but have you ever seen that shit occur? You jump up, you fall down, some motherfucker calls it gravity and all of a sudden that motherfucker must been some kind of wise and knowledgeable guy? Man, shit has been going up and falling down before they called it gravity. They tell you that Queen Victoria did this and that, and cus some motherfucker wrote it down and stamped his name on it, you believe it. You call it evidence. Because some scientist can show you that the finger print on the piece of paper is the same fingerprint as Queen Victoria’s or the blood spilled from sealing the letter is the same as Queen Elizabeth the Second’s you believe that shit.

Logic is a belief.

Have you ever wondered why they say ‘You gotta see it to believe it’? They don’t say ‘You gotta see it to know it’. Nah. You gotta see it to believe it. Even knowledge, fact, assertions with scientific proof, visual proof, any other kind of proof is a belief. Even so, science and logic are the most verifiable, reliable sources of knowledge we have, and to a large extent I believe in them. But even a scientific man, Popper, the originator of the principle of falsification, has hinted that scientific knowledge is based on faith. He told us that for scientific knowledge to progress and continue, we must use the principle of falsification. Only through proving someone else’s earlier theory wrong can we gain new knowledge. Popper is basically saying that we believe it’s this way for a while, then it changes and becomes something else, and we believe it’s that way for another while. Popper is acknowledging here that we are not in control of the way things are. If we had knowledge then why tha fuck are the weather patterns of the world changing on us? If we had knowledge, things would stay the way they were since the beginning.

Things change. Even if we know they’re going to change, we don’t change them, so what’s the use of the knowledge we have? Take it from me, knowledge is just recording the shit that nature does. Even our most advanced technological and biological processes are just results of us tweaking nature. Man did not come about cloning by himself, scientists watched how the cell divides into perfectly similar parts of itself. Mitosis. Check that shit out. It is the origin of cloning.

Fela believed in the Yoruba traditional religion. He had some spiritual experiences that even members of his crew doubted, but he had them nonetheless. And they defined his beliefs. You might wonder why if it’s ok for him to have spiritual experiences and define his beliefs by them, when it’s not ok for you, a Muslim or a Christian. I would say get the Arabic and Jewish dicks out of your mouths for a second and think.

I can’t prove to you that God or Allah isn’t real, but what I can show you is this. You’re a dude. You learn Yoruba but you’re not Yoruba. I’m Yoruba. We’re having a conversation and some other dude, Yoruba, quotes a Yoruba adage. Some Yoruba proverb, and there are lots of those. You’ll understand it, but you won’t feel it. I’ll feel it. I’ll nod my head, and my face will show so much understanding that you’ll wonder whether you translated the adage wrong. That’s why Fela says go back to your roots. That subconscious feeling, which I’m pretty confident everybody gets, is my evidence. That’s why I can boldly tell you, even if some Christian pastor raises someone from the dead in my presence that Christianity and Islam are bullshit. They’re not yours. When something is yours, you’ll feel it, you’ll know it, you’ll believe it.

Moreover, is it not surprising when you come across different versions of the same proverb in different parts of the African continent? Different versions of the same traditional practice? The Yorubas have it their own way, the Ashantis have it their own way, the Hutus, the Tchongais, they all have it their own way. Different versions of the same thing. What is yours is yours, and Christianity and Islam are not yours.

Gbe enu e kuro. Ode.

Ha.

At the end of the day, we’re all living life bro. And there is a way you are supposed to live life, and that is no way. Free. And don’t deceive yourself, you are freest inside your culture. When you come across a man’s culture, some things he does, you’ll wonder how this motherfucker can fucking deal with this shit. How can he widen his ear-lobe for an earring three inches in diameter?

You can’t visualize it because it’s not yours. It’s his. When he learns of your culture, there are some things in your culture he’ll feel the same way about.

I believe in nature, and I believe that nature is the ultimate form of knowledge. It is the only database of knowledge that continues to give you proof every fucking second. We can fuck with planet Earth all we like but everything is still natural. Nature will not die. I don’t have to bow to any gods, and I don’t have to become a monk. Everyone’s religion is manifestation of nature in their culture. I don’t need religion, all I need to do is believe. Believe in what? The one thing I don’t even need to believe in – Nature. Nature is me, nature is you, nature is everything. If you don’t believe in nature and you believe in some SUPERnatural bullshit, then you’re a fucking dunce. Look at it man; they even called it supernatural. They’ve been giving you signs that they’ve been fucking with your head since forever and you still can’t get it.

I mean, Christians, what clearer sign can you get than when the God of the Christians chose the Jews to be his chosen race? He did not choose you, you fool. You’re not part of his culture.

I don’t have to bow to any gods. I don’t have to go to any religious gatherings. All I have to do is what all humans naturally do – breathe, eat, fuck, and believe.

Ok so this guy is pretty funny.

Ok, so this guy has a website where you can take a legit IQ test (apparently thows are common now), and this is like, his welcome note.

There is only ONE rule (okay, it’s actually a couple of rules, but I wanted to start off big).

You have 13 minutes to answer 38 questions with either TRUE or FALSE (that gives you about 20 seconds for each question).

WARNING: Even to my surprise, the START button starts the test and once that has happened, there’s no way (as in 1^st date – 3^rd Base) to pause it.

Keep in mind:

If your time runs out before you finish, you are A: borderline retarded and B: disqualified.

If you finish under 13 minutes, you’re a show-off but will be awarded bonus points.

To get an accurate result please only take the test once … it’s also a legal thing and I’ll sue your ass off if you do it twice. Three times, that’s cool, but not twice.

By the way, I did the test. Score: 128 Scale: 126 -135 (Gifted; pretty close to genius). *Shrug* Hahaha. Peace y'all.

They're Not Talking To Me

“Did they tell you, you should grow up, when you wanted to dream?

Did they tell you, better shape up, if you wanna succeed?

I don’t know about you, who are they talking to? They’re not talking, to me.” – Metric.

There was that dream that you had when you were a kid, when you were a teen. You’re in university now, and that dream is constantly slipping away.

You realize that it’s not gonna be possible. Even if it was possible, you probably need a mix of extremely hard work, lots of luck, and maybe some divine intervention.

So what do you do? Before you burn out, you wanna enjoy your dream one last time. Wile out, smoke, drink, whatever.

It is at this point that they start to tell you those things in quote. Get your act together son, it’s time to grow up.

I don’t know about you, who are they talking to? They’re not talking to me.

It’s bad enough that I have to sell my brain to the society when I leave this goddamned place. I have to sell my soul and my mind too? Fuck that shit. I’m not getting married, I’m not going to church, I’m not wearing Kaftans, and I’m getting out of this country as quickly as I can.

Jesus. I’m supposed to stop reading comics, and stop watching cartoons now? Because I’m a ‘man’. Because I’ve taken my place as drone number seven billion and something.

Fuck no. I’m not gonna live life like everybody else. There’s so much more drones are missing out on because they’re now grown-up.

“I’m higher than high,

I’m lower than deep,

I’m doing it wrong,

I’m singing along.” - Metric.

I’m a 22-year old ‘man’ who smokes weed, smokes cigarettes, indulges in cocaine, reads comics, watches cartoons, reads books, follows politics, drinks like a fish, likes to have extra-marital sex, loves music, uses the internet a lot, and is more exposed than you drone motherfuckers.

That’s not what is expected of you, but you know, they’re not talking to me.

Caveman Stigma

The only way an insult gets to you is if it’s true. I realized that today. You see all those squabbles, and some guy just says one thing to the other guy and the other guy goes all ‘Hulk Smash’ on some-guy’s ass. It’s because what he said was true.

I mean, I’ve been called all sorts of names today ‘Big Dummy’, ‘stupid’, even ‘wicked’. I haven’t even had the slightest inclination to get angry. I have been irritated though. I’ve gotten like one billion calls today. Some time for me, maybe?

So the deal is my mother found out I smoke weed, and that I was even gonna get some for my sister. Whoa!

So there’s some crazy shit going on there, which explains the phone calls from one thousand family members, all lasting about one thousand minutes by the way, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about.

We’re here to talk about why these people have a problem with me anyway. We’re here to talk about why they’re calling me all the time because they found out I smoke ‘Indian Hemp’. I’m telling you, it’s a big problem. My aunt actually said those lovely three words to me – I hate you.

I got the distinct impression from all the conversations I had with different family members (my mum told everybody!) that they think I’m now a dumbass irresponsible skin-scratching dirty degenerate because I smoke marijuana.

They said shit like “So how many times a day do you take the thing?” “ I know your brain isn’t working well.” “That’s why you failed isn’t it?” “You’re now a big dummy.” That’s how I got that distinct impression.

I have this conversational tactic. It works pretty well. When you don’t say shit and the other person does all the talking, they come to realize you’re not gonna say shit so they just say a few harsh conversational conclusions and they hang up and probably send you a text message. Which you will not reply.

It was during one of the lovely monologues that I began to become weary of the insults and began to think they were true. But then I realized that for every insult the opposition had come up with, I had come up with a way better counter-insult that woulda shut them up for life, metaphorically, and shut them up for quite a few minutes, literally.

Insults are the epiphany today people; insults.

I am not a dumb-ass. I am not irresponsible. Man, if my mum knew about some of my colleagues, she’d take me to The Vatican and try desperately to get me Saint status. What?

If due to some extenuating circumstances like my instructor doesn’t like my attitude much, I don’t get a C or a D, then I’m dropping you an A. Every single time. Boom. A. I’m dropping it like a runner’s sweat. Except for the extenuating circumstances.

I’m a dummy, uh?

I got a job at a news house as a librarian that one time. Remember mummy? I was a librarian. One month of work, and I was writing for the paper. Remember that mummy? You and daddy were so proud.

I used to smoke weed on my lunch breaks mummy.

I guess I’m getting too personal here. It’s pretty simple. I thought it was just a myth but apparently, it’s true. It’s true that people are actually that dumb, so dumb as to go about assuming that because you smoke some marijuana, you become some Brenda-baby-throwing crack whore.

I don’t know what to say man. Let me tell you a little story. There was this guy, his name was William Shakespeare. No biggie. Dude wrote like one million plays in what became to be termed the British Renaissaince. Playwrights, poets like William Blake, writers like Dickens, all those mo’fuckers, they came out of this era. They did some good shit.

William Shakespeare dominated the pack. The English that we speak today, consider it Shakespeare’s gift to the world. One dude, man.

Some two hundred years later, some silly scientists go poking around Shakespeare’s shit, and they find his pipes. They test the motherfucker’s eight or so pipes and find residues of marijuana in every last one of them. Every fucking last one of them.

There’s this new science gizmo that can check bone content and know how much weed you’ve smoked in your lifetime, that kinda thing. They’re gonna take a small pinch of Shakespeare from where he’s rested (they’re not gonna exhume him, no) and check his bone content.

What do you expect the results to be?

He was the leader of the fucking pack. In every last one of those pipes, they said.

What else can I say?

It’s just a pity though. That such people exist. That there is such ignorance in a world where information is power. People still don’t know shit. Somewhere a white guy is still killing a black guy just because he’s black. He doesn’t know any better. He’s ignorant. Somewhere someone’s kid is being subjected to religious hilly-billying because his/her parents found them reading Harry Potter. It’s about witches and wizards. The kid’s gotta go to spiritual deliverance in church.

Here, I’m being threatened to be disowned because I smoke marijuana. There is still that ignorant caveman stigma. It’s just a pity.

Ignorance is dangerous is what I learnt. Amongst other things. Dummy. Stupid.

You know, whatever.

I rolled this blunt really well though. Even for myself.