Nanadadzie Ghansah – Page 26 – The Creative Space

Mimento Mori

In old Rome, when victorious generals returned from battle, they had parades held in their honor. Even as a general rode in these processions, at a time when most would feel a great sense of achievement and maybe even some hubris, the Romans had a way to keep these generals grounded. In the chariot with a victorious general was a slave. His job was to continuously whisper the words “Mimento Mori” to the general. This Latin phrase means, “Remember you must die”. This reminded the general that in spite of his recent victories, death was always just another battle away. It was reminder of their mortality and forced them to consider humility.

Rome fell centuries ago but this concept of reminding ourselves of our mortality has lived throughout the years. For some, it is the Skull & Cross Bones. For me, it is the cemetery.
I love cemeteries. They are my Mimento Mori symbols. Even though I love to go cemeteries for the peace and serenity and to make great pictures, they function more as a constant reminder of mortality. I am always reminded about how short life is. I almost hear a clock tick.
The main purpose of my Mimento Mori symbol is to remind me of the lack of Time. Time. That the years are passing by. Time. That every minute in this temporary life is precious and that one has to seize each moment. Time.
As one wanders around and reads the epitaphs, pictures come to mind of lives lived, of dreams realized and shattered, of love, sorrow, pain and joy. Overwhelmingly though, one realizes that irrespective of what these souls went through, it all ended one day. Their lives were finite. My life is finite. Yours too.
I always leave resolved to do more, worry less and fill every hour but alas, once the symbol of temporariness recedes, I slide back into the delusion that I have all the time in the world. Like a victorious Roman general, I need a voice in my ear whispering Mimento Mori. I still have so many battles to fight.

Life as a Sisyphean Task

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus has been punished for his sins to roll a huge boulder up a hill in the Afterlife, only to have the boulder roll back down to the bottom of the hill once he gets to the summit.
Sisyphus is believed to have been the founder and king of Corinth who was smart, cunning and ruthless. He had no regard for Gods or men and ruled with an iron fist.
Of all the escapades of Sisyphus, the two that stand out the most and probably drew the most ire from the Gods was when he imprisoned Hades, the God of Death and when he conned his way out of the Underworld.
He was so cunning that at his appointed time, Hades himself came for him. Well, Hades showed up with handcuffs and Sisyphus asked him to demonstrate them. You can imagine what happened. Hades handcuffed himself onto the wall and Sisyphus had the key! The God of Death in handcuffs! So, for a while, no one could die. Ares, the God of war, pissed off that wars were no fun anymore (no one died), went over to Casa de Sisyphus and freed Hades. After telling Sisyphus to report immediately to the Underworld, Hades promptly scurried away.
So Sisyphus had no choice but die. Before he did that though, he asked his wife not to bury him but to throw his body into the Town Square. She was also not to put a coin under his tongue. One uses the coin to pay the ferryman on the River Styx, so he can get you to the other side. Nothing is free, you see. Not even when you are dead.
The dear wife did that so when he showed up before Hades’ wife, the Queen Persephone in the Underworld, he was totally not ready. He claimed he wasn’t buried properly and had no coin. So he sweet-talked Persephone to let him back to alleviate all the mistakes his wife made! The nerve! Persephone obliged!
He returned to life where he promptly forgot about death and partied like it was 1999! For years!
Finally Zeus had it. Sisyphus had to go. Hades wasn’t risking another trip to Casa de Sisyphus. So this time, Hermes, the God of Transitions, more cunning than Sisyphus himself went to get him. Hermes hauled his behind down to Hades where he was sentenced to hard labor, rolling the boulder.

Which finally brings me to my point. Is there a moral to this story. Well, several. Don’t piss off the Gods, would be one. Another might be that all good things must come to an end.
I can imagine that, if the Gods punished a man, a King at that, they would give him a punishment that not only probably sought to break his spirit but also was unlike anything he was used to. So hard labor for a King would be a good punishment. But then, how do you break the spirit of someone so cunning? Someone so full of spirit? Someone who apparently is goal-oriented and a visionary? Well, you take the purpose out of their lives. You put them in a situation where their very existence has no meaning. Like rolling a boulder up a hill for it to come crashing back down once you reached the summit. For you to do it endlessly – no end in sight, ever!
For us mere mortals, isn’t that our very existence? Rolling boulders up the hill of life only to have then come down just when we hit the summit? Isn’t life a series of these fruitless trips?
The little victories in life are when we get to a ledge somewhere along the hill and rest. We look back at the distance we have traveled and pat ourselves on the back. Unlike Sisyphus, we do not know yet that the boulder is going to roll back down. We kid ourselves that once we get to the top, it’ll stay. So we labor to get this boulder up there. Sometimes we get to a summit and think we’ve made it. We look up and see another peak and keep rolling. That is our curse.
Maybe, the point of life should not be in where you get the boulder to. It should be in the experience. In the day to day. In the relationships and contacts one creates. In finding some joy in this endless task. In knowing that you can roll the boulder up.
Sisyphus has been doing it all these years. Something beside the curse must keep him going. Maybe, the knowledge that even if the boulder rolls down, he still can get it up there. That no matter how many time he has to do it, he can summon the strength of spirit to move it. Maybe he has discovered that as he rolls this boulder up there, the experience is much more rewarding, the very process more fulfilling than the goal.
The very few are those who live life like Sisyphus the King. For most of us, it’s the life of Sisyphus, the boulder-roller. Find your joy in your labor. If you do, let me know how you did it.
I can’t.

Life as a Sisyphean Task

We forgive you

“I forgive you. You took something very precious from me. I will never talk to her again. I will never, ever hold her again. But I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul.”
Nadine Collier, the daughter of 70-year-old Ethel Lance to the man who murdered her mother and eight others in Mother Emmanuel on June 17, 2015.

How could they do it? Forgive a man who gunned down their loves ones in cold blood? I probably couldn’t.
The amazing effect of this act of forgiveness has been felt all over. It has melted the hearts of even die-hard confederate flag lovers. That is all good, but how could they do it?

One can surely ascribe it to their faith. Faith is a powerful thing.
Faith and spirituality is what has sustained most African-Americans through 400 years of untold misery. What you saw during that bond hearing is a product of this strong faith. It allows families of the victims to forgive a most heinous crime that reminds them of very dark times past. Yes, that is what this faith does. Then these families know that the minute they let bitterness in, they are not going to be able to deal with what awaits them when they step outside into that Charleston sunshine after the dust of solidarity has settled. They need that faith to deal with the world as is for a black person in South Carolina, in the USA.
Those words of forgiveness were also significant in that they sounded like a whole race telling another that they forgave them. Forgave them for years of slavery, lynching, raping, mass incarceration, Jim Crow and exploitation. Years of being treated like their lives didn’t matter.

Forgiveness is a powerful thing. More powerful than revenge. It frees the soul and melts hearts.
The families of the Charleston Nine have forgiven the killer. I hope this will be a teaching moment for the whole nation.

Nine Lives

A Tribute to the those massacred on the evening of June 17, 2017 in The Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC.

Nine lives!
Nine beautiful lives.
Cut short while seeking solace in a place of worship.
Nine extraordinary lives, then every life is extraordinary.
Lives full of hope.
Lives chasing dreams.
Lives, not blobs of color that can be erased.
Lives that nurtured families and loved ones.
Lives that looked forward to tomorrow, a tomorrow that never came.
Lives that loved, cried and shared.
Shared a dream that all humans were created equal.
Lives that believed that you were more than the color of your skin.
Lives that didn’t see hate but prayed for redemption.
Nine lives.
Nine lives that should make us all look into ourselves and ask if there is not a better way.
Nine lives that stood at the intersection as racism and an out-of-control gun culture collided.
A culture that does not even respect the boundaries of faith and worship.
That left blood flowing like a river in place where peace should engulf your soul.
Nine lives!
Today we mourn and soon the sun will set and bring in a new day called Tomorrow.
Tomorrow erases memory.
It makes the heart ache less.
The terrible pictures of yesterday seem to fade.
Chances are we will forget.
Forget those lives.
The nine precious lives.
I implore you not to forget.
Then if you do, their death would have been in vain.
Hatred would have won and next time who knows how many lives it will be.
Whose son,daughter or mother?
Whose father or uncle?
It might even be you – your life.
So as you lay down tonight, say a prayer for those nine wonderful people.
Nine prayers
Nine Lives
May the next life be kinder to them.

Nanadadzie

Cracked

My mum’s gave us a beautiful wooden bowl on one visit. The bowl was designed beautifully with adinkra symbols. One of them was the “Gye Nyame” symbol.

The symbol means “No one lives who saw its beginning and no one will live to see it’s end, except God”, popularly translated “Except God.”
Anytime I looked at it, I thought of the gift of life. I saw the bowl as a crucible that held life, the soul, the spirit. Like the gift mum brought us, life is gifted to us too. When we are given this gift of life, it comes with a reminder – Gye Nyame. That we are supposed to take care of this gift and the dear Lord, being omnipresent, is there to help.

A few months after we got the bowl, it fell and got a crack right through the “Gye Nyame” symbol! We were devastated. As I starred at the cracked bowl, it made think of what happens when we did not take care of the gift – it broke. I thought, life is a gift just like the bowl and if we don’t take care of it, we break it. We destroy it.
As life gets destroyed, the reminder, “Gye Nyame” is not enough anymore. It is just another symbol.
I took a picture of the bowl with a 150-year-old lens and printed it with a 150+ year-old technique. Sort of saying some truths are ancient..

Barbados, A Good Example

I am in love with the island of Barbados.
Forget the beaches, forget the weather, forget the food.
I love the people. That Blacks are running a country they call their own and doing the most with the little they have.
Look around the World and Blacks are not know for good governance – period.
On this little island, they are perfect but they are trying their best.
I observed something today that really impressed me.
My home country of Ghana could learn a thing or two from this island.
I was so struck by the experience that I sent this mail to my friend Ace Anan Ankomah in Ghana.
Ace is an attorney, activist, governance Guru and part of the group that founded OccupyGhana.
That he loves Ghana is an understatement.
Below is the mail I sent him:

We first visited the island a year ago and liked it so much we came back again this year.
Background – I researched the English-speaking islands in the Carribean and liked what I read about Barbados.
Just like last year, we didn’t stay at a high-end resort. We found a home along the beach and rented it so we live among locals.
So much reminds one of Ghana (it’s not even funny!). I think one reason is that Barbados was an English colony too.
The people are friendly, carry themselves with dignity and take very good care of the little they have.
They eat well (McDonalds folded after a year here), stay active and take things easy.
The last point is rather typical of the West Indies.
With it’s proximity to the US, it is becoming a surrogate for Ghana.
Decades ago, they realized that tourism was the bane of their existence and so they all pitch in to make it work. The island does not have a tenth of the resources we (in Ghana) have, it is also much less populated but the way they run stuff could serve as a blueprint for how Accra is run.
We rented a home near the beach and the road that runs in front of it, though narrow and curvy, is also quite busy. Yesterday, a driver going rather fast in his Toyota, missed one of those curves and careened into 2 utility poles, hit a water meter and finally came to rest against my neighbour’s wall. There was water, wires and debris all over. This happend around 12:30 pm. By 4:30 pm, the car was gone, the 2 poles were back up and water supply restored! The street was totally clean! 4 hrs!
I watched as cops showed up, redirected traffic allowing the utility people to come and fix it all! No Kwasi Broni! All as dark as me and you. Getting it done and with equipment that doesn’t look anywhere as nice as I see in the States.
Ace, it is possible! Maybe not in our lifetime but someday, we’ll get there.

Nanadadzie

A Touch of Humanity

I try to see each patient before they come back for surgery. It is not easy in the kind of fast-paced medical practice of today.
Each time I walk to a patient, the reception is different.
Some patients are friendly, others indifferent and resigned.
Every now and then, some think I am an orderly coming to roll them back for surgery. Can you blame them? – after all I’m black and speak with a funny accent.
Then is the occasional “Have you even finished Medical School yet?” Well, I cannot help my boyish, good looks. Hey, don’t hate!
Then are the really difficult patients who come in with their own treatment plan and expect every doctor and nurse to follow this treatment plan they pulled off the internet.
“I don’t want the IV till I am asleep!”
“I am leaving my dentures in!”
Then are those who won’t stop talking. God help you if you are pressed for time and you get a garrulous one.
“So, have you had any problems during an anesthetic?”
“Doc, You wouldn’t believe what happened in 1963, just after I came back from the war. Have you heard of Vietnam. Kate, how old was Emily then?”
My favorite ones are those with a sense of humor, the older patients with very interesting lives and the old ladies who think I’m cute as a button. Again – don’t hate!
I love to ask the older couples how long they’ve been married. Some of the answers are impressive. The record so far is 69 years. Is amazing how these old couples dote on each. So so heart warming.

Then are the frankly scared-out-of their-minds patients. The interesting bit is how each of them expresses their fear – flat affect, weepy, hostile, demanding, talkative, direct, unfriendly. Whatever the form of expression of this fear, you cannot but see it in their eyes. It has that get-me-out of-here look. it is really easy to chalk it to the patient being a horrible person. In my case, I could always pull out the race card. However, I think it’s in those instances that one should stop being a doctor and be a fellow human being. It is in those moments that one should lose the impersonal tone and warm up to the patient. Break the ice.
I am rather direct and go “You look worried. What is bothering you?” or “You look totally scared. Want to ran away?” The reactions are interesting. I always get a torrent – of tears or words. The men are tougher to crack. You know us. We need to be tough and all.
Once the torrent starts, I just listen or wait with a box of tissues ready till they finish crying and then listen.
Listen to their fears. Listen. As you do, don’t be disdainful, even if their fears sound silly to you. Call up all the empathy you have. When they are done, try to explain in lay terms why each fear is realistic or not and if realistic, what the surgical and anesthesia teams do to prevent any such misfortune(s) from happening. The little expression of humanity is way better than any anxiolytic you can order for the patient, believe me.
A surgical procedure is very scary for most patients. It is a time in one’s life where one is totally at the mercy of other people (air travel offers s similar situation). These am-at-their-mercy people are supposed to be experts but how good are they really? Are they rested enough? How many of these procedures have they done? A patient is supposed to have asked all these questions at the surgeon’s office but for some, their fears were not allayed enough. There is that element of chance. What if something goes wrong?
Then there are those facing terminal illness or the possibility of a terminal diagnosis.
Is it a surprise that some patients are scared out of their wits?
We are doctors, highly trained in the art of healing. That is our job. We are pressed for time. We have to leave emotion out of it. Beyond all that we are also humans. So are the patients. Sometimes, these patients want to see that human. Show it to them.

A Touch of Humanity

A Virtual World

A few weeks ago, two of my friends lamented about the fact that their kids seem to spend all their time playing video games and on Instagram and Facebook. They remembered how we grew up – spending time with friends, discovering the world around us and getting into trouble.

It made me think of the world that has been created by the internet. Yes, a world. A Virtual World. Very different from the brick-and-mortar world in which we live. It is in this Virtual Wolrd that a lot of teenagers and young adults live and spend their time. It may sound exciting, full of new and challenging possibilities but it is still virtual.

A lot of people have gotten extremely wealthy building this world. It has greatly enhanced our lives to a degree but it carries with it it’s own risks and perils too. I don’t want to dwell on the security risks inherent and which have been made apparent lately by the myriad data breaches. Rather, I want to touch on the issue of the psyche of a teenager or young adult who’s spends most of his time in this virtual world.

Back in the day, when there was no internet, children went OUT to play with other children. You talked to other children face-to-face. Friendships were created that could last a lifetime. You observed the environment you lived in. You saw how people spoke, carried themselves and dealt with challenges. If there was a fight on the playground, you saw the real violent interaction. No one could really make false claims because they had to back it up. You grew up in reality and you learnt to deal with it. That ultimately prepared you for the real world out there, which can be rather unforgiving.

Fast forward to today. Children, teenagers and some young adults have retreated to a world where one “friends” people they have never ever met. All they have to go by is profile they cannot verify and a picture that might not even of the real person. They hear claims that may be unfounded and are forced to compare themselves to people and situations that could be trumped up and non-existent. Chou and Edge published a study 2012 that looked at this issue. At Utah Valley State, they looked at about 425 frequent users of Facebook. Below is a quote from the study: “The multivariate analysis indicated that those who have used Facebook longer agreed more that others were happier, and agreed less that life is fair, and those spending more time on Facebook each week agreed more that others were happier and had better lives. Furthermore, those that included more people whom they did not personally know as their Facebook “friends” agreed more that others had better lives.” In other words, one is measuring the quality of their lives against claims made by people they’ve never seen or met or even spoken to. They are accepting the virtual as reality!

These hours are not only spent on social network sites but also playing video games which have been linked to violence. Craig Anderson has some fact on that here.

Then is the little issue of lack of movement and it’s links to obesity, a condition that has reached epidemic proportions in the US.

Which begs the questions – are these kids, teenagers and young adults going to be ready for the real world? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe they are going to convert the real world into a likeness of the virtual one. Then, I guess all those hours would have paid off. For my part though, I don’t want someone to just “like” me in a virtual world. I prefer my “likes” to be real and come with hugs, a listening ear and the occasional shoulder.

References:

1. Chou HT, Edge N. “They are happier and having better lives than I am”: the impact of using Facebook on perceptions of others’ lives. Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw Feb 2102

2. Craig Anderson. Violent Video Games: Myths, Facts, and Unanswered Questions. www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2003/10/anderson.aspx