Those now famous words in my mind resound over and over, and over again each time there is a serious task at hand. The words are meant to echo long, though the brief episode of their utterance lasted less than 30 seconds: Those now famous words in my mind resound over and over, and over again each time there is a serious task at hand. The words are meant to echo long, though the brief episode of their utterance lasted less than 30 seconds:
We are all pebbles in the river of life and are bound to crash from time to time…
The past few months have been a hubbub of activity in almost every sphere of life, and funnily, most of it went by unnoticed despite the fact that its expression was glaring, and its sound a blaring ear-deafening cacophony to some and sheer bliss to others. Such is life, you cannot capture all the beautiful moments, and should therefore be content that you at least saw a snippet: there is just no way one as an individual can carry it alone, there are others to share the load with on the journey along the way of life. What counts is not the amount of weight one is carrying, but what really matters is whether one can bear it all to the end. The solution lies in understanding that every wall is usually built from one brick to the next, the wall does not just pop up complete one morning after we wake: it is in practical fact built from one brick to the next until the final brick in the last course.
The story of the mason and his fraternal order rooted in the pledge to be of mutual assistance to all and to practice brotherly love at all times is not an accident or a myth. Those who struggle in life understand well the meaning of kindness and joy, because sadness and poverty is a road well-worn by their boots and unshod feet. The poor know when to gather, how to gather, and where to gather to beat the leviathan that poverty, unemployment, and disease are to the world in modern times. It oftentimes takes a group’s efforts to see a dream turn into a reality, and sometimes (even oftentimes) it takes the whole of the will of an individual to see to it that what was envisioned finally becomes a reality that can be touched and pondered over. This means that such an effort has to follow a certain pre-planned pattern based on the commitment of all those (many or individual/s) involved in the making of the entity envisioned in the wish or the dream. A lag in the amount of commitment to the plan in any of the parties may actually mean the failure to achieve the dream, the goal, or the objective envisioned.
Part mason, part teacher, lecturer and many other things in between is the man that I have come to know, and intention always acts as the guide to the commission of each and every task that comes along. Without good intention being the guide to the action, then one is bound to fall down or back and lose on what they first set out to achieve. With good intention as the guide, every task one is handed becomes and actually begins to feel like a duty, for then the hours one puts into seeing that it bears fruit begin to lose meaning, the task having become a temple of expression and freedom rather than toil and travail. Intention sets the bar one should aim at in the pursuit of the envisioned dream or goal, and where it lacks or is of the not so virtuous type, only under the par work is the result, thus the basic or primal need for one to always keep good intentions when it comes to the execution of tasks.The fact is: a wall is built one brick to the next until the last brick in the wall, and I believe that the masons of this world are aware of this fact on the various construction sites.
They toil, mixing mortar and sweat, laying the brick on the line with their eye and mind, until entire suburbs are filled and city skylines are dotted with the silhouettes of sky-scrapers. What one sees in terms of the architecture of the land they come across on their daily journeys is the direct result of how those poor ‘uneducated’ boys from the homelands and the villages followed the course from one brick to the next. It did not matter that many of the labourers on the various construction sites that built many of the cities and the suburbs that we can see had seen only a few hours in the classroom (having more serious occupations such as tending to their herds to perform), but the fact that they had intention as expressed by the foreman to follow guided them to the end of each flat-top and high-rise that they came across.
Looked down upon by the system due to their simplicity in terms of honesty and frankness, the simple labourers actually contribute a large part in the determination of the progress of this world. The plebeian class understand very little of the complexity and sophistication of the uppity classes who can only manage the pen and the order, their world is actually less worrisome because they follow the way of the good intention, which is why most of what they aim to achieve actually comes to be. Burdened with lifestyle issues, many of those folks one sees on the African continent actually fail to achieve their dreams because they fail to acknowledge that every wall is built brick by brick. There may be shortcuts in the building of a wall, but I can bet that they are not as strong as the brick and mortar or stone and mortar wall built by the masterful hands of a patient ‘uneducated’ village boy. We lose out when we forget that being simple does not in fact dictate that we should forget our sophistication.
The problem is only when we do not know how to separate the two forms of behaviour in a manner that makes them effective tools. I often liken simplicity to a clear blue day where everything is clear to see because it is in plain sight and there is enough of the sun’s light to complement its visibility. Sophistication is similar to a cloudy day in autumn where one is not sure whether there will come a light drizzle or a torrential storm. In the clear day of simplicity, one knows where to go and can follow their path outlined on the land clearly, and this means they can map out their course with a clear mind on what to do on the particular day.
The uncertainty of sophistication renders one hesitant, fickle, and at all times on the edge due to the simple fact that instead of envisioning or mapping out one’s route with the faith of a clear blue sky, one ends up having to live from minute to minute. Though the more desired of the two behaviours, the latter (sophistication) often gives rise to effects in character that render the individual that adopts its patterns a figure that stands out but is seen as weird, a curio that the other members of the community within which he lives ponder on most of the time. The simple man however shifts seamlessly from one task to the next without much ado and interference from the other members of the community within which he lives. The simple people are not hard to define and understand, the sophisticated are always questioned.
This is due to the fact that sophistication demands that one should wake up on a quest to be the best in every little task and travail, that they should be the leader in everything that they do. The simple know that they cannot lead in everything, that sometimes they should let others take the lead because they are more experienced or gifted in terms of executing the task at hand. I often think that the African society was actually a better place in the days when Ubuntu was the guiding credo for communal living. Back then, the “I am because you are” meant that there was an automatic sharing of roles in society based on skill and not competition, on mutual understanding and not economics.
Each person’s role in the community was determined by their level of knowledge of a given task or entity and not how popular they were. Observed from birth by the entire community, it means that one’s role was clearly defined by the time one reached puberty, and one stuck to it until the end of one’s life, giving one ample time to build their reputation in terms of efficient execution of that which they were acknowledged for. It is a different case with sophistication where one has to deal with multiple tasks to prove a point, where affiliation carries more weight than one’s reputation and level of skill.Benjamin Franklin (the face on the American $ 100 note) a man of vast and varied talents, a writer of merit and social observer writes in his masterpiece Poor Richard states:
“But with our industry, we must likewise be steady, settled and careful, and oversee our own affairs with our own eyes, and not trust too much to others; for as Poor Richard says, I never saw an oft removed tree,Nor yet an oft removed family,That throve so well as those that settled be”
In the quest for sophistication or its copy image, many have found themselves moving from one task to the next, in search of elusive success that renders its pursuer mad trying to catch its tail. There is always the lame defence that one should always try hard to gain that which they desire at all costs, but the cost is sometimes too high because it ends up costing one their life or their family.
The boy who grows up wanting to be the magnate but who lacks the understanding that the simple chores that are handed by the parents actually hone him to be the individual that executes duties flawlessly at the end of the day ends up being a drug dealer or cash-in-transit heist specialist because he wants to be like the Trump or the Motsepe but does not know that even a carpenter can become the millionaire if the carpenter puts their mind to the task at hand. Some men have become billionaires and built their fortunes from doing tasks that other individuals frown upon. The boy (and his peers) who invented (innovated actually) the machine on which I am typing this piece actually focused on improving its functioning because he followed one task (to improve the effectiveness of computers) and stuck to it until he became the Bill Gates we now know of.The lie most of the time is that one should be the many things celebrities always claim they are on the TV and other media.
The truth is simple, one can only be one thing at a time, and fatherhood or motherhood (as is commonly mentioned and listed in the stilted celebrity interviews on the telly) is not actually a task but an obligation. There should be clear lines of demarcation between what duty and calling mean, what task and chore are. The confusion that modern sophistication brings with its multiple definitions is what actually perpetuates the confusion of who and what one exactly is with regard to their true role in society.
It is only enlightened communities that know how to help raise their young in an environment that inculcates a thorough understanding of what the child’s role shall be to render them an effective member of a future society. Such communities thrive, whilst we lag behind, boastful that we are ‘educated’ with empty bank balances, claiming to be sophisticated whilst living most of the month on borrowed money. This in my view is not sophistication but poverty posing as something it is actually not, the truly sophisticated are wealthy because they know where to plant themselves and actually strive to be the best at that one task.Henry Ford became the magnate he was because he understood the true value of letting those that are talented in their given field within his company to excel at it without interference. He was simple because he was focused on one thing:
the success of Ford Motor Company. We can thrive as a continent if we acknowledge that given individuals are really talented in their given professions or fields and actually give them time and space to excel in their given profession. This confusion where a cousin or nephew is doing the work of an accountant or engineer shall throw the continent deeper into the mire of poverty it is in. We should acknowledge who we are first, what we are capable of, and then to be frank and honest enough to give due respect and acknowledgement to those that truly excel in a given field that aids in the progress of the land, the country, and the continent. It is the only way: the simple way that will lead us to true progress.
By: Tšepiso S Mothibi
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