Home » Business
Category Archives: Business
SHOULD I DIE
In 1998, my father died solitary in a bachelor quarters in Tshwane, South Africa. My mother followed twenty years later. Pneumonia related complications in both cases.
©Simon Chilembo, 2020 Author, President, ChilemboStoryTelling™
There were about eleven other fellow patients in my mother’s ward at the hospital in Thabong, Welkom. She had kept everyone awake all night with her moaning in pain, crying out an unknown name all along. Nevertheless, she managed to eat her 0700RS breakfast that fateful Sunday morning; much to everyone’s delight since she hadn’t had much appetite the two previous days. After eating she fell asleep.
When my nephew, Kgosi, and I went to check on her during the morning visit hour between 1000-1100HRS, we found her sleeping peacefully. Apparently. After hearing the report by fellow patients about my mother’s restless night, we thought it wise not to immediately awaken her. She could have her full sleep during the course of the morning, and we’d come back to see her again in the afternoon as per routine.
Fifteen minutes into our arrival in the ward, an impatient family friend found that my mother was cold and lifeless. A few minutes later, a doctor declared her officially dead. She had probably died two hours earlier. No one had taken notice. It was one of those cases of “She died peacefully in her sleep”, I guess. Perhaps the same may be said about my father. He had been dead for about two days by the time his corpse was found in his residence.
I opt to convince myself that, indeed, both my parents died peacefully in their sleep when their respective times to go arrived. Neither was surrounded by their loved ones upon breathing their respective lasts.
The thought of whether or not my own death will pounce on me in solitude has been on my mind since February, 1991. I had for the first time ever gotten ill with what I later understood to have been an acute attack of the flu. Bedridden with high fever and profuse sweating for three days in my single student room, I was so weak that I was unable to lift a telephone sitting beside me on my bed to call my school or doctor in Oslo.
One week later I had recovered without having had received any medical attention. An older, more knowledgeable friend told me that I had actually had a close brush with death. Perhaps I should consider getting myself a wife, he suggested. He argued that many people who live alone tend to die unnecessarily because there is often nobody there to render immediate assistance in times of emergencies.
In the northern hemisphere spring of 1995, I had a first-time mean attack of hay fever. I didn’t know what it was at first. For many days I kept sneezing like what I thought was like a mad man. Then I began to cough as inexplicably madly. What I thought sounded like a small cat soon started mewing in my chest. This made breathing painfully difficult even at the mildest physical exertion. Then I knew I was in trouble.
At great financial cost to me that I could afford regardless, a former lover at that time then finally hastily made it possible for me to acquire an emergency cocktail of various tablets, capsules, and an assortment of asthma medicines. Had I been alone at that critical time, I could have died from pneumonia, the former lover said later.
Today, the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, moving at a frighteningly fast pace is threatening human life across the globe. The United Nations and national governments are taking drastic and, in some cases, Human Rights defying draconian measures in individual and concerted efforts to isolate, treat, control, and eventually effectively manage the disease. The ideal situation would be to eliminate the disease, of course. But it’ll take time to develop necessary relevant curative and preventive medicine. Researchers the world over are currently working at break-neck speeds to achieve the latter.
Millions of people are under various levels of quarantine throughout the world, depending on suspected or actual infections and severity. Much of the industrialized world is under lockdowns. People whose immune systems are compromised from before are dying rapidly. Some people are quarantined in their private homes with their near family units. I am alone in my abode.
I am feeling well and strong. I can’t help, though, but think about my mortality in the event that my health should take a sudden, COVID-19 related downturn. Some other shit could happen too. One never knows when shit will hit the fan. I can’t help but think that were I to die now, I sure would do so peacefully. I’d die with no beloveds of mine surrounding me. If it happened to my parents it might as well be the same with me. Family solidarity. Family tradition. I’m their eldest child after all.
Like my parents, I leave no great fortunes behind. It’s just as well for me that, unlike my parents, I leave no children behind. As to whether or not it’s a good thing to die as my corpse shall be in a cremation oven, I shall find out upon arrival on the other side.
In the meantime, I can’t help thinking about one of my all-time favourite songs: If I Should Die Tonight, by Marvin Gaye. I’ve loved this song ever since the release of the Let’s Get it On album in 1973. Whereas the album title hit song planted me to its moment and has stuck with me to this day, If I Should Die Tonight continues to jettison me to a period that I now know marked the closing chapter of the happiest times of my childhood years: at the close of the 1960s decade to much of 1970, I got honey-sweet infatuated with an older woman that remains one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.
This woman was mother of my puppy love object at that time. And she was heart-warmingly kind to me. This woman had the sweetest of sweet song voices. She, together with some of her male contemporaries in our neighbourhood, used to sing acapellas of popular soul hits of the time: When a Man Loves a Woman, Crying Time, Stand By Me, and many more.
The sweetness that the whole of my being feels at thoughts of this woman is one of the sources of my emotional and spiritual strength at any time. This sweetness constantly fuels my desire to live and to love for as long as my life and capacity to love shall last. For I live, for I love, I shall dream, I shall hope, I shall create. For I create, I shall live forever.
I don’t have to meet the perfect woman for a lover. It’s not necessary. It’s not important for me at the stage of life that I have now reached. I don’t really need to. But this If I Should Die Tonight lady is one of those women that have profoundly impacted my life. That to such an extent that I pin on memories of her my belief that a perfect woman for a man is found somewhere out there in the wide, wide world. It’s only a question of whether the mortal man shall live long enough, shall travel the world wide enough. Even then, like the song says, “… If I should die tonight, though it be far before my time, I won’t die blue ’cause I’ve known [her] …”
There is much more to the phrase I won’t die blue for me. I won’t die blue. Never. I’ll die a contented man should I die at this very moment. It’s a daily preoccupation of mine to seek to do all that is within my powers to prolong my longevity for as long as it is possible. If I have a pre-determined lifespan, I want to beat it. Should I, however, die at this very moment, I’ll die a well pleased man knowing that I have defied death several times before.
I’m convinced that I have lived way past my allotted lifespan. But this I can only confirm to be true or false upon my getting onto the other side. If all truths of my life are indeed found on the other side, I certainly will be a happy man should I die now: finally I shall get to confirm who I really am, what my real purpose in life on earth was. Until then, within the best of my cognitive potential performance, given limitations of my human existential imperatives vis-à-vis universal creation, the following is the consciousness I’ll be taking with me should I die now:
- For all their strengths and their vulnerabilities, I got the best parents I deserved. I would choose them again could I start all over again. I love my parents very much, with all of my heart; I admire them beyond words. The joys of their lives I never think too much about. Joy never bothers me at all. I take it for granted that life ought to be a joy. Pure joy. Have joy, no worries. But I feel the pains of my parents’ lives from their beginnings to their ends.
Against the toughest odds, my parents managed to nurture the life that they had given me. They gave me all they could according to their life circumstances as a couple, and as individuals in a hard world. They had to endure untold sufferings, make huge sacrifices for that I could breathe and subsequently have the power to carve own spaces of manifestations of my influence through my creativity on planet earth.
If my creative power influence manifestations transcend planetary boundaries into the farthest realms of the universe, it is owing to, in search of, and for my parents on the other side. I want to tell them that I’m a humble but proud symbol of that they, indeed, left this world a better place than they found it. Thank you very much!
In all my endeavours, I am heavily inspired by my parents. It is in their honour that I do the good that I am often told that I do. It is for me and me alone to take the heat for the bad that I do. The bad that I do is never representative of the upbringing that my parents gave me. The errors I commit from time to time are a reflection of my own failings, my own stupidity imbedded in my own inherent human imperfections.
My parents are not my everything. My parents are but a microcosm of the grandeur of being human in the face of creation’s stupendous infinite spectrum of possibilities with all that humanity knows and has yet to fathom about it. I’m not an emulation of my parents. I’m but an extension of their collective and individual lifeforces. In that regard, creation dealt me a hand that is my own to play from birth. That in line with how I could synchronize with my parents’ energy bundles influences in me. Also according to how optimally I could utilize the unique powerhouse that I am in my personal journey through the infinitely intricate maze that is life.
I hope that as they took their last exhalations, my parents knew in their respective lonesome moments of dying that I hadn’t done half of what I had wished to do for them in appreciation of their having brought me to life, and all the good that they ever did for me. Furthermore, I hope that they knew that whatever little I did to make them happy were outcomes of only the best that I could do, having given only all the best effort I could harness for the goal when it mattered.
Consequently, I won’t die blue if I should die tonight because my heart is at peace in relation to my parents’ lives and how in their own way, they have contributed to making this world a better place than they found it from the times they were born.
My parents never got to seeing their grandchildren from me. Were children made like bread I’d have produced one-thousand-and-one-plus grandchildren for them. With the power of the written word, though, my parents’ legacies are etched in words by their thousands in thousands of pages in books that I have already written, and those that I have yet to write. Children might be born, die and be forgotten. Books might be written, get destroyed and burned, but words are eternal. Mr & Mrs ELWLM Chilembo, you have been immortalized. Now I can die.
- No, I won’t die blue if should I die this moment. I won’t die blue should I breathe my last tonight. I’ll be by myself. No one making noise around me, delaying my dying process. Should I die now, it’ll be peaceful. Really. I won’t be blue. I might see shades of blue because I’ll take my death like it’s an invitation into a meditative trance. I’ll spread my wings to fill up the entire blue sky for a moment, bid farewell to planet earth, and then merge with the vastness of space beyond.
Before I disappear into outer space forever, I’ll reach out to all those earthly souls that gave me so much joy, so much love in the living. They’ll say they saw me in their dreams. It is for these people that I have no fear of death. These loving souls ever gave me so much more than I could ever ask for of their kindness and generousity. It is for these people that if I should die tonight, it’ll be because my time to die would have arrived for sure.
Just like my parents, I’m no more than a microcosm of the grandeur of life. The good that I do is also grounded in the love, support, understanding, and tolerance of all the wonderful people I’ve had the privilege of interacting with in my life. It is for these people that I won’t die before it is my time.
- I won’t die blue were death to take me away tonight because I know that I never set out to make this world a worse place than I found it. Although I’ll be dying knowing that, also here, I never achieved half of what I had dreamed of doing for the world, I gave the best that I could, given the opportunities accessible to me and my strength to work.
- With time, the illumination that I could only be that which I am here and now, and I could only do what I do in a given time and space, freed my soul. I understood that I could only allow myself to be taught, led, and inspired by others. But I could never replicate them and their deeds. Neither could I necessarily ever replicate external manifestations of their successes, if not their abilities to shape even global trends across the entire sphere of human endeavour. This was that moment of know thyself landing home at last.
By extension, it became clear that I also could only teach, lead, and inspire. It’s never a given that all my protégés will share my values and social skills in the end. As such, I won’t die blue should I die this moment because I know that as much as I am loved, I am hated in certain quarters. The choice to love or hate is a personal prerogative based on certain reasons only known to the lover or hater. If these reasons ever are revealed, they do not have to make sense to the loved or hated.
I know that if I should die tonight, I’ll die with a smile on my face because I’m so full of love. I know that if I should die tonight, I’ll die with peace because I know that I’ve had all the fun I could reach for and accommodate in my life. May haters have a good life.
May Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) die tonight. Perhaps not. COVID-19 knows no lovers, no haters, no irrational human segregation rules. If the virus stays just a little longer, humanity might at last learn that we can make this world a far better place if we all understood that we are all equally small and vulnerable against forces of nature.
COVID-19 shakes even the foundations of both the concept of God and her might. Many an oppressor, a racist of the world has God as their spiritual and purported racial superiority anchor. If COVID-19 destabilizes even the almighty God’s multifaceted global movement, it goes to show that forces of evil seeking to destroy the good of humanity have no future.
COVID-19 may be but a small pre-taste of hell. Another Soul singer, Curtis Mayfield, has said: If There’s a Hell Below We’re All Going to Go. We might as well all be humane towards one another as all one, same universal person. But then again, this kind of talk is beyond cognitive capacities of propagators of racism and oppression in the world today. Ignorant fools. Stupid idiots. Psychopaths. It is these scum that COVID-19 must rid the face of the earth of.
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
Tel.: +4792525032
March 15-16, 2020
PEOPLE OF THE FUTURE
RACISTS CRUMBLING
If some idiots start a nuclear war, then we are doomed. Good-bye planet earth. The same is bound to happen if climate change is not given the serious attention it calls for. That will be sad because I want to be here in the 23rd Century AD.
Beyond two hundred years from now monoracials, monoethnics will be relics of the past. The future belongs to a new composite race spearheaded by multiracials, multiculturals already treading the world today. In tracing their individual origins these people of the future will have their lineage points dotted all over the globe. These will be the true citizens of the world.
I want to be there then in order to see the true brotherhood, sisterhood of humanity living as one big pluricultural race. Perhaps I’ll have made a direct contribution, or my progeny will have done so. In this new pluricultural race, only the unlikely more intellectually retarded than today’s pure races ideologues, racists, white supremacists, regionalists, and tribalists will still be looking to define skin colours and other physical features to classify and to separate people. A futile exercise. As a collective, people of the future will be a complex set of an infinite extrapolation of possible cross generational genetic permutations. Whether or not they’ll be a coherent mass living harmoniously on the planet only time will tell. I want to be there in order to see this for myself.
The world had better start preparing for the future today. Writings of the future that I predict are already on the wall. The writings are filling up aeroplanes of the world, are on the highways of the world, are guiding footsteps across deserts of the world every day. They are traversing jungles of the world. Seas and oceans of the world are also witness to the pervasiveness of these writings on the wall about the inevitable pluricultural people of the future. No one can stop the tide.
The writings are in refugee camps; in detention centres and prison walls of the world. They are on apartheid walls that are erected on the face of mother earth. Treacherous barbed wire fences cannot dissuade enlivenment of the writings either: calligraphed in blood, torn-off clothing fabrics, pieces of human flesh, if not dead bodies hanging here and there.
Every act of tyranny committed today everywhere on the face of the earth emboldens every letter on the writings about the people of the future. Every international trade deal signed at any level simply shines more light on the writings. International trade in all its forms and components across the board grows exponentially every day. It constantly shrinks the globe, whilst signals of the potential and actual birth and growth of the people of the future are as clearly readable as the brightest night stars. The modern world calls this globalization, baby.
Globalization spreads goods and services across the globe. If globalization is about econo-political might, for good or bad regardless, it is because it is essentially about people with their needs and wants. Globalization draws people to domains of opulence attributable to gains from international trade and geo-political power.
As a tool for continued inequalities obtained from colonialism and earlier epochs, globalization facilitates exploitation of natural resources at the expense of economic development of poorer countries. This tendency continues to cause social unrests often culminating in protracted brutal civil wars. These wars can border on, if not actually lead to genocide of certain categories of people in the affected countries. The latter typically breed some of the worst despots in the world at any one time in human history.
The most resourceful of survivors in these troubled lands shall escape in search for safety havens and greener pastures across the globe. They shall follow routes leading to globalization powerhouses in the western world, or any other place on earth that has the promise of a better life. Any place that helps to keep hope aglow.
Whether in torment or existing on the bright side of life, people will always fall in love and procreate wherever they may find themselves in the world. Indeed, it is not always that procreation shall be an outcome of love. There sadly is a dark side to being human too. I intentionally choose to dwell on love here. Love is the power I aspire for in my looking into the future state and endeavours of humanity. May love forever reign supreme on planet earth.
As the world gets smaller and smaller, people of the world get to interact with one another ever more rapidly in all sorts of spaces and circumstances. All this creates fertile opportunities for cross-racial, cross-ethnic, cross-cultural love and reproduction to thrive over generations. This occurring as rapidly and as infinitely as humanity manifests its diversity as a species on planet earth. In our time, it can only get better and better. With or without globalization, no barriers of any kind can stop this trend.
Driven by magnetism of love and curiosity, and that of need for peace and abundance, human beings will achieve anything; they will go anywhere, including planets many light years away from home. The walls of Jericho fell, as did that of Berlin. The Great Wall of China is but what it is today: a fascinating feat of engineering. China wants to rule the world. Fools keep building walls and fences, they keep digging trenches and canals, they shoot people down, they keep coming up with all sorts of outlandish ideas to curtail people migration across the world. Outrageous. It’ll never work.
What a wonderful world the future has in store for humanity. White supremacists and other racial purists are fighting a losing battle. Wake up and smell the coffee, people!
Of course, where there is love there is the presence or absence of God. I am convinced that it’s God’s plan that monotheism shall allow love to disentangle it in parallel with the imminent major existential transformation and paradigm shift of the state of being human in the future. If religion chooses to remain static, then God is going to be even wearier than she is today. Which could just as well be as annihilatory as a nuclear war, or climate change let loose. Heaven forbid!
If we survive, I’m curious to see the face of God too in the year 2201. Amen.
Simon Chilembo
Oslo
Norway
Tel.: +47 925 25 032
November 14, 2019
ONE YEAR LATER: ILLUSIONS IN MY WORLD
REALITY IS I AM HERE, I LIVE, I LOVE, I DANCE.
I AIN’T GOING NOWHERE
“Winter is coming now, Simon. If you have any doubts about coming back to Norway you still have a chance of returning to South Africa, you know,” said Sofia.
“Are you sure you have no regrets about coming back to Norway, Simon? You still have a home in South Africa, not so?” several others remark this way many a time.
I live with no doubts. If I have any doubts, I don’t do it. If I do it anyway and get burned as a result, too bad. What’s done is done. If I die, I die. Closed chapter. If I don’t die, no regrets. I pay the price I have to pay, and move on; assuming that I can still breathe, stand, walk, and think.
If I can think, I can contextualize my feelings. If it feels right to do so because it’s turned out that I’ve really screwed up, I’ll beg for mercy if given a chance to do so. When I’ve been unfairly screwed and the perpetrator is cool about it, exercising their own capacity not to regret unjust screwing up of other souls, I leave them where they are. I never look back. I never go back. I’ll always find new playing spaces.
I’ll always find new playmates. We might play on until our dying days. We might wear each other out in the midst of the golden years of our lives when some shit suddenly happens: somebody gets screwed up somehow, another one bites the dust, whilst the other glosses in new-found glory at the expense of the screwed. It is what it is. That’s how we roll. Falling out of glory is like milk spilling out of a glass. I never cry over either.
Exactly one year ago today, I came back to Norway more shattered than I was when I left for South Africa six years ago. At that time, I watched with dismay as the success empire that I had built came crumbling down. Getting to South Africa soon felt like I had evacuated a sinking ship without any safety equipment to wear or hang on to. Because I’m not a good swimmer, I knew that the only thing I could do was to let go and allow the ocean to take me where it pleased.
If any creature of the oceans came to eat me, I prayed it would be a shark: agile, precise, in perpetual motion straight on ahead. In my naked least-to-no-resistance state of mind in the middle of the waters, I decided to play dead, though. I survived. I marvelled at watching the last vestiges of my extended empire go with the wind to places beyond my fantasy.
By the time my mother died I had been thoroughly humiliated for five years and three months in South Africa. She died a disillusioned mother of a once indomitable son that had come on the verge of falling into the dreaded pit of poverty that is the fate of the vast majority of Black South Africans. On my part, I had long read and understood her despair. I had already long made peace with the fact that her inability to help me to fix my world would slowly but surely kill her. It was not only about me, but my two siblings also. But I had previously been a pillar of strength for the family.
I know that in her old age, my mother’s fear of living in abject poverty ate her soul like cancer did body cells. So, I am convinced that her death released her spirit to a place of lasting peace and abundance. I know that that’s what she aspired to achieve during her life time, anyway. My fourth novel and sixth book, Machona Mother – Shebeen Queen, is inspired by my observation of hers and other mothers’ and wives’ lives in South Africa. Through this I reflect on the challenges of wifehood and parenthood in oppressive societies the world over.
On the eve of my mother’s burial, I was threatened with a bullet in the head. My torment in South Africa had come to a head. I had to leave. Three months earlier, she had in fact finally acknowledged that my future in South Africa was bleak. The only thing she could do was to give me her blessings, and I’d have to find my way back. I should leave whenever I could. She was laid to rest on October 13, 2018.
Eleven days later I landed in Oslo. In grief. Tired. Bankrupt. Homeless. Businessless. Jobless. At total mercy of other people and the state for the first time in my adult life. I received unprecedented overwhelming support and love. This gave me a refreshing new taste of humility in my heart.
Alas, I’m still shocked by the discovery that love has inexplicably diminished, if not vanished altogether in certain quarters. But then again, love is like milk: when it’s spilt it’s gone. No salvage. No cry. Like milk, fresh love abounds. Always. Spilt milk tends to be messy. Post-spillage clean-up is ever so necessary, therefore.
Left unattended to, spilt milk can go stale and stink. Poison. There is a poisonous dark cloud of love lost hanging over my head. Apparently, this cloud is at alarming speed spreading itself throughout the extent of domains that are crucial for my continued existence as a free and happy man of the world.
I now feel that the time has come for me to dissipate the treacherous cloud. Had I lived a hermitic life somewhere oblivious to the real world of real people, I really wouldn’t bother. My imperfections notwithstanding, as an ethically conscious man living in a morally charged world, I have no doubt as to my personal integrity in every step I make every day of my life. It isn’t just about my ego. I respond from a need to protect the honour and legacy of my late parents. Through the latter I reach out to my ancestral spirits throughout the entire Sub-Saharan Africa.
My own legacy matters too. It’s not just about me. It’s all in the name of the living of my people in the afore-mentioned part of the world, particularly my clans in Zambia and South Africa. I have in mind my bosom friends, my godchildren, my teachers, and colleagues all over the world throughout my life’s journey thus far as well. I intend to stay the course until my last breath on earth, which won’t be tomorrow. I’m here for the long haul.
My thoughts also go to all the people the lives of whom I have impacted before, I impact today, and I shall be allowed to impact in the future anywhere in the world: my raison d’être. It is my wish and hope that all the people falling into this broad category shall never feel shame, embarrassment, guilt, or fear at the mention or thoughts of my name, my deeds. My legacy.
I’m proud of my roots. I’m protective of my heritage. I value highly the love and faith of my confidants. I am in awe of the big religious and philosophical thoughts of the world that daily inspire and guide me in my search of liberatory enlightenment in the labyrinth of life. Truth must never shy away from me.
With the poisonous dark cloud of love lost hanging over my head cleared, the following shall be revealed:
- I have been unilaterally charged and convicted without a trial.
- I am not a sexual pervert. I am not a dirty old man. I am not a sexual predator.
- I am not a paedophile. Neither in practice nor by inclination.
- I am not a rapist. I am not into the habit of imposing my sexual power over women. I am not in the habit of taking advantage of sick, weak, and vulnerable women. I am not a sexual manipulator. I am not a philanderer. I shall never engage in sexual intercourse at any price, with anything.
- I love power. But I am not power-hungry. I am not a powermonger. The essence of my being is not defined by the power that I wield as attendant to the things that I do. For example, when I’m revered for being a 6th Dan Black Belt Karate Master, I don’t take it personal. I am nothing more than a conduit between higher knowledge and the people that my position empowers me to serve.
With or without Karate and its inherent existential and functional attributes, I remain the same original Simon Chilembo ever aspiring to be a decent human being each and every day of my life, my fallibilities considered. Karate does not define the essence of my being. It is but one mirror of many that reflect the infinite potential of the essence of me as a human being, a social change force.
I shall never fight for power acquisition and sustenance at any cost. But I shall fight with all of my life against deliberate malicious application of unfairness and injustice as tools and manifestations of power against me, my own, including the values that I stand for. - I am addicted to love and peace.
- It is preposterous to seek to delete my existence in the historical developments of certain phenomena in my worlds. History never forgets. The wise will always query. Answers will have to be given, no matter how murky.
Having stated the above, I encourage anybody with any compelling evidence to contradict me to come forth and present their cases. This evidence shall be tangible, derived from real-life circumstances. It shall not be derived from ill-founded conclusions obtained from subjective misinterpretations of my literary works. It shall not be derived from malicious rumours about me either. Otherwise, people can just lay their weapons down and move on with their lives. We all deserve happily-ever-after living once love has found new hearts to entice. That’s the way of the world.
Character assassination claims and rumours about my person have been doing the rounds in Oslo and environs especially since the publication of my debut novel, When The Mighty Fall, in November, 2015. I feel strongly about these. Such that, in the unlikely event that it can be objectively proved that I am a molester, I will kill myself. That not as a manifestation of any suicidal vice about my character. Moreover, I will consciously choose to kill myself for my sins to save society resources and troubles of arrests, tedious court cases and all that goes with dealing with issues of crimes against humanity. It ought to be as simple as that, really.
I am not a fan of capital punishment. However, my abhorrence of sexual abuse, especially with respect to children, ignites the most primitive of my human instincts. Were I to be found actually guilty in this case, I wouldn’t hesitate to execute upon myself the ultimate punishment that my primitive instincts see as justifiable against child molestation.
I will publicly nail myself on the cross. I will invite the world to come and practice archery on my body until there’ll be no more flesh and bone left for an arrow to pierce. Then my corpse must be set on fire whilst on the cross. No funeral services. No urns. Let the wind blow the devil’s ashes away to places far away into outer space. No memorial services. Denialism of my place in history will be just fine, then: I was never here. I was an accident of nature. I was a figment of my imagination. I was just an illusion.
I say to my enemies all the time: you don’t know me.
Simon Chilembo
Oslo
Norway
Tel.: +47 925 25 032
October 24, 2019
ODE TO ANNE GRETE PREUS
WOMAN OF THE MOON:
It is the 1990s
My decade of
Big books, big love
Big moon, big moves
Big pushes, big rewards
Big visions
Big woman
This big bassline
Of the
Big moon song
Now I know
Limousined me
Through the decade
As if it was born
On January one, 1990
Only for the vehicle
To succumb to
The millennium bug
At time
Zero, zero, zero, zero hours
December 1999
January, year 2000
Splitting the old
From the new
Decade of
Big games, big monies
Big broken hearts
Big losses, big spaces
Of silence after
Big bangs
Big rebirths
I recall seeing her on TV once:
When she was a little girl
Her mother told her to drink milk
So that she’d grow big and strong
She did as implored
Strong she became
Big she became
She became so big
That when the big love
Of the 1990s
Came with moments of
Too big
Too dark to handle
Dark clouds of despair
I looked at her
The big woman
She filled my ears
With her
Big bass line drive
Her voice singing
In praise of the moon
Gave me strength
Gave me hope
I looked forward
To every new full moon
Coming on ahead
Hoping, praying that
This time around
It’s gonna be alright
Alas, the Y2K bug struck
As the big glow of
The 1990s love faded
In spite of
New decade full moon rising
Big love crashed
Pulverized into the
Big river
Of memories
Of sweet moments
Of sweet
Big loving here
Of sweet
Big loving there
That once was
And now she’s gone
The big woman
Big dark clouds of despair
Became a thing of the past
A long time ago
That is how I could
Watch the moon
Full and big
And dream again
The week just gone past
Big moon’s glow lingers on
In my mind’s eye
That is my comfort
To drown my grief
I shall do what she kept
Telling me through her song
During that decade of
My big love
That is history
Of mixed emotions
Today
She said that
Whilst the moon
Hoovers silently
Confident in wisdom
Amongst the stars
People dancing in circles
Looking for life’s answers
On earth
She
Big moon says no word
I too shall become
A pupil of the moon
So that I can
See my pain heal
See my joy
See my love
Return in silence
I shall remain
Pupil of the moon
‘till I see her again
Big woman of the moon
For she knows
Her Highness
The moon
Knows everything
About my world
A tear the size of
Full moon gracing
A star-free night sky
Has just dropped from
The eye above my heart
Jeg er månens elev
I shall cry
And dry
I shall sing
I shall dance
For I know that
If the moon is forever
So is her soul
Love x Love
©Simon Chilembo, 26/ 08- 2019
Oslo
Norway
Telephone: +4792525032
THERAPEUTIC MASSAGE
PEAK PERFORMANCE TOOL
1986 shall remain an exceptionally memorable year for me. That is because:
- I finally became a university graduate with a cool BA degree in Humanities and Social Sciences. Then I went straight into a job in the Bank of Zambia (BOZ), a prestigious employer at that time. At relatively late-bloomer age twenty-six, I’d finally join the ranks of my contemporaries in Lusaka. Some of these had as much as an eight-year lead ahead of me as university graduates at various levels of further academic development, or as already practicing professionals in various fields.
What mattered to me at that stage was that I had also “finished school” and landed myself a great job. I envisioned that like everyone else I’d soon start making big money. Yes, I’d also begin to regularly travel to the UK and the USA on business trips. I’d buy myself a Mercedes, get hitched, build me a mansion, and make many children with my wives. Indeed, I’d maintain several mistresses with my numerous extra-marital affairs children too. Oh, yes, I had become a man, at last. Hallelujah! - I was at the height of my Karate training, competition, and leadership career in Zambia. At the same time, I was caught up in a mean power-struggle crisis with influential rivals in Lusaka. My crime was to ruffle feathers in conservative Zambian and Zimbabwean Karate establishments. Everybody loves a super star. But superstardom can create serious enemies as well; it comes with the territory.
- Perhaps during the previous year, 1985, a pioneering professional fitness centre was opened in Lusaka. What was then, by Lusaka standards, state-of-the art equipment in Slim-Trim Gym attracted the Health & Wellness conscious middle class in the capital city. Jane Fonda-inspired Aerobics classes were offered too, led by some of the most beautiful young women in town. I had to join the gym too, of course.
In no time I had become a well-paid Personal Trainer for several business executives and sports personalities, notably senior players of the Lotus Cricket Club of the time amongst them. I balanced the PT work and my own specialized fitness training needs as a national team athlete during lunch breaks; also during the hour between knocking-off at work and Karate teaching at the University of Zambia. I worked on weekends too. This was a very hectic schedule, to say the least. - During lunch hours over a period of several weeks I had noticed a former high-ranking Zambia National Defence Force officer making a nondescript entry into the gym and going straight into the Physiotherapy treatment section. He’d come out about sixty minutes later, and leave as quietly as he had come in. I used to notice that each time the senior officer came out of the Physiotherapy section, he seemed taller and more at peace with himself. He also walked with a more agile gait, just like it would be expected of a man of his vocation.
One day, during a pause between clients, Physiotherapist John caught me staring in amazement at the General as he was exiting the gym.
“Perhaps you are wondering why the big man comes here for treatment instead of the Army Hospital, Simon,” John said.
“He needs privacy, I guess. His juniors mustn’t know of his vulnerabilities, no?” I replied.
John, “You are right about the privacy need, yes. But the big man is not sick at all. In fact, he is in superbly robust health. He comes here as often as he can only to come and relax; to recharge the batteries, you see?”
Simon, “How is that?”
John, “Well, I give him Therapeutic Massage, which I learned in Holland. On the one hand, massage can be deeply relaxing during the treatment session. On the other hand, in the hours and days following the treatment, people become more energetic and resilient. This benefit of massage becomes more evident over time as people get more and more treatment. You might say that the big man is addicted to massage now. Actually, he often falls asleep during the treatments. He says this is the only place he gets to relax totally.”
Simon, “Oh, I see! I’ve often wondered what it is that goes on in there because he seems to take longer than anybody else.”
John, “Maybe you should try it too, Simon. You are a very hard-working man, which is good. But it’s not hard to see that you are very stressed. You know, massage can make you more dynamic in all aspects of your hectic life. You must try this!”
I then booked my first ever professional Therapeutic Massage treatment. It changed my life forever. By the time I left Zambia two years later, I was on top of my game all round. In 1996/ 7, my brother-from-another-mother, Saul Sowe introduced me to something he called Idrettsmassasje.
“That’s Sports Massage for you in Norwegian, Bro. As a Karate Master working as hard as you do, you must include Idrettsmassasje in your overall work routines. Come to my gym Trim-Tram, I give you some good massage and make you even stronger!”
Then my massage experience and journey went to another level. Such that, immensely fascinated by the power of it that I could personally bear witness to, I decided to good to school and study Terapeustisk-/ Klassiskmassaje, Therapeutic Massage formally. That was in year 2000. In relation to professional and personal development, including job satisfaction, my life took an exciting and enduring trajectory that has brought me much joy since.
Through the years I’ve met and worked with all kinds of people from all over the world. They’ve all had variable needs regarding their wellbeing as professionals, family members, and responsible value-adding members of society. It’s ever a thrill to look back and reflect on the thousands upon thousands of hours of my Massage work that have had lasting impact on people’s capacity and desire to work at Peak Performance levels.
It is scientifically verifiable that people shall be all-round high-level optimal performers when stress and bodily pains do not impede their ability to work with both mentally and physically demanding endeavours, regardless of duration. I’m myself a proud living proof of that. Therefore, it is with the highest confidence that I invite you to dare to make massage an integral part of your personal “Live for Success” package. Book your appointment with me on the link https://akerbryggelegesenter.no
Massage enhances your ability to ignite and radiate your inner power with confidence. Massage improves your posture and the way you carry yourself around. Investment of time and money on massage is an investment in your health. Investment in your health is the best investment you can ever make.
Simon Chilembo
Terapi massasje spesialist/ Therapeutic Massage Specialist
Aker Brygge Legesenter: Telefon – +47 92 300 200
Stranden 89
0250 Oslo
Telefon: +47 925 25 032 (Simon, priv.)
April 14, 2019
NECROCRACY
MURDER IS MURDER
We live in necrocratic world. We, the people of the world, live at the mercy of our world leaders. We may be breathing and blinking about at this one moment. The next, we are obliterated from the face of the earth. BOOM! so fast and loud we can’t see it coming, we can’t hear it land, we can’t feel it explode. Just like that. Like with the snap of a finger.
©Simon Chilembo 2018: Author, President, ChilemboInspireInsights™
Death is death. Murder is murder, regardless of who executes it, no matter for what cause. Murder sustains necrocracy the world over.
We live so that necropots can justify their existence: “But, hey, the people of my great, the greatest country in the world, have elected me. Great people, wonderful people, smart people. God bless you! I’m gonna make you great again. Greater!”
Jeeezuzzz!!!
We die so that necropots can live: “We shall eliminate all the enemies of our great nation, the greatest nation in the world. The people of our great nation, the strongest nation of them all, by the way, say that we must follow our enemies of peace and our way of life anywhere in the world. We’ll find them. They can’t hide. The only place for them to hide is their shit-hole countries’ graves once we’ve taught them a lesson. Don’t mess with God’s greatest nation on earth. We gonna getcha!”
Lord, have mercy!!!
As a concept, an instrument of power, and process, leadership is, by default, murderous. Any person that, by any means, legitimate or otherwise, depending on the dominant existential paradigm in a given domain, assumes power over others, automatically becomes a potential murderer. The probability of necropower becoming a reality for a leader is directly proportional to the joint organic and structural complexity of the organization they lead.
We see the highest of such sociological complexity at the national leadership level. Therefore, all national leaders at the top of the decision-making hierarchy will either be directly murderous as individuals, or be directly responsible for murderous acts committed by others on their behalf. All in the name of national security, in defence of national sovereignty, territorial boundaries, and in support of allies in international solidarity treaties in times of strife in various parts of the world. In this regard, at any one time, no state leader can be seen to be better or worse than any other regarding necropower atrocities; be they locally, regionally, or globally.
Murder is murder. Death is death, regardless of who dies, no matter for what cause. Death is the food of necrocracy the world over. But all life is sacred. No matter the race, colour, creed, and all the possible permutations of the condition of being human on earth.
On the grander scale of conflicts, wars allow necropots to manifest the full range of their respective psychopathic dispositions. We die, we survive, we cry, we fight amongst ourselves, we mobilize mass anti- or pro-war protests, we run away to other lands for shelter, we are pro the one necropot contra the other/ -s, we go to the United Nations, we get peace-keeping forces, and we still die; all of us: children, women, men, combatants, cats, and dogs. Observing all this, these necropots just laugh at us. They think we are absolutely crazy. Murder is such fun. It is such profitable business.
The bigger, the more enduring the wars, the bigger the party for the necropots on either side, the more the money made by the war industrial complex, the more the blood on necropots’ hands, and the blinder the necropots get. Wiping the eyes with their bloodied hands, the necropots cease to see reality for what it is. They can only smell and taste blood money everywhere, oblivious to how they have led necrocracy onto an effectively self-destructive path, taking down humanity together with it. They seem to think that a nuclear bomb is a joke. Climate change, well, let’s not go there at this stage.
And we help them, necropots, along. We take sides. Our senses of right or wrong are clouded by our ideologies, personal ideals, identities, ambitions, psycho-social attributes, and much more. We go out and intellectually, psychologically, and spiritually kill those that do not share our views of the world, as in par with our chosen necropots.
Pro-necropot logic: It’s okay, our chosen necropots are not murderers, they only, necessarily, kill in self-defence, even if those getting killed are their very own people. The enemies of our favoured necropot carry out genocide, you see. Our favoured necropots are strong leaders; they only want to achieve the best for their people. It is irrelevant as to whether or not the people approve of our favoured necropot. People are stupid.
Only strong leaders like our favoured necropots know what is good for the people. It’s okay if some of these stupid people have to be killed in the process, you see. From time to time, a bit of ethnic cleansing never hurt anyone.
Our favoured necropot is breeding a nation of sheep people. These will abide by his rules without question, you see. Wouldn’t it be nice if people understood that good leaders, like our favoured necropot, are made and chosen by God for the people? Punishment for those defying God’s will is death. By killing his enemies, our favoured necropot is only carrying out God’s will. May the wrath of God fall upon the external enemies of our favoured necropot!
We live in an age where necrocracy shouldn’t have any space to breathe. We live in an age where it ought to be crystal clear that a war on another cannot stop war, or other wars. In this day and age, fundamental human wisdom ought to be at the general understanding that, irrespective of how we colour and name organized, systematized, militarized killings of human collectives by others, murder remains what it is: murder. Murder doesn’t change character just because it is committed for a worthy cause, as the proponents may perceive it.
We live in an age of stalemates in war. National leaders of the world shall go into their graves with our blood perpetually dripping off their hands. Eternal necropots. The whole lot of them. Ain’t nobody better. Ain’t nobody worse. All as equally guilty of mass murders as hell. The only difference being in numbers. However, even one person slain is one person too many.
There is no way anybody can ever win a war lastingly in this Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) age. Albeit in variable degrees, as shall be determined by intellectual and resources capacity, any nation, or subversive group has access to all that is available of knowledge and technology to wage a war, either or both conventional and guerrilla style. Cease fires and progressive peace and reconciliation talks ought to be the order of the day in our time.
Peace and reconciliation talks assume, before everything else, humility and mutuality of respect for one another from all the parties concerned. The same should apply on the ground, from supporters and activists on all sides. Arrogance and bullying will never lead anybody anywhere. Never. Only back to war. Guaranteed.
Nobody can ever be coerced to come to sit around a negotiation table in the absence of the recognition of their humanity, no matter how banal it might seem to third parties. Outsiders can never determine what people know and value about themselves and their place in the world. This is what is at the core of all wars of liberation across the world, both historically, and in our contemporary world.
As a warrior, I know that if somebody unjustifiably hits me, I will hit them back, if they haven’t killed me. If the situation calls for it, I’ll murder them without thinking twice about it. There is a potential necropot in all of us. Nevertheless, if I ever will have to kill, it will be in the protection of my own life there and then. It will never be out of the need to sustain my power and dominance over others, in any given situation.
As a leader, I don’t need to be told that I’m no longer relevant. More often than not, I can see potential power antagonism looming from afar. If, after weighing my options, I deem it justifiable, in view of the bigger common good threatened, I’ll nip the antagonism in the bud. Otherwise, I pack my bags and leave. I, both as a matter of principle and personal proclivity, will never impose my leadership on unwilling people with whom I’m supposed to be pursuing a common cause.
As a private person, in whom it is encapsulated my warrior spirit and leadership potential, I am conflict shy. I’m conflict shy to a point of misrepresented cowardice, up until I have to fight, if called upon to. Conflict gives me a headache. Especially if it is over situations that do not make sense to me, or over matters that I consider not as adding value to my existential imperatives. Such conflict disorients me. It makes my body itch.
Conflict makes me want to sneeze, but constricts my chest at the same time. I’m acutely allergic to what I consider to be nonsensical conflict pursuits founded on ignorance, parochial thinking, and poor philosophical principles, if any at all. I am conflict shy not only by choice, but also by natural disposition. Therefore, I am not prone to militant activism.
It is not about lacking the guts, or having no spine. I am simply not confrontational by nature. I am just not wired for unrestrained, militant activism. Neither am I inclined to evangelism with respect to life values I stand for, and the choices I shall want to, and, actually make in my life.
I speak and shout with my writings. I also often express my life views in professional, and other social engagements endeavours I’ll find myself in from time to time. It is what it is. Take me or leave me. I am anti-necropower, regardless of the practitioner, or their cause. Murder is murder. Necrocracy has no future.
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
June 21, 2018
Tel.: +4792525032
INTRINSIC MOTIVATION IN A NATIONAL CONTEXT
Guiding questions:
1. What spurs a nation or a people to attain heights of development?
2. Is it a collective that is the main driver or a leader with “Intrinsic Motivation”
©Simon Chilembo 2018
NOTE
The article below is motivated by Mr Fisho Mwale. It arose from a Facebook interaction yesterday, Thursday, January 08, 2018. I was one of the respondents to his posting, “BUSINESS IDEAS”. In it, he referred to his personal family experiences to highlight some cultural impediments towards following up emergent business opportunities in our society.
Mr Fisho Mwale, summarizing his bone of contention, wrote, “Sometimes out of the box great business ideas do not work due to many factors such as timing, cultural values and lack of guts. You have to believe in your ideas and it’s important to get ‘buy in’.”
In agreement with him, I responded:
“… Great real-life entrepreneurial development case study material, …. Thanks for the insights, Sir! I wish to also add lack of what I call “Intrinsic Motivation” to the list of factors inhibiting follow-throughs to great business ideas and, indeed, opportunities arising from given circumstances.
“Intrinsic Motivation is an active killer-instinct driven desire and determination to achieve set goals, and beyond. That arising, perhaps, from chance opportunities, or those created in response to certain apparent societal, if not bigger natural conditions and/ needs. E.g. the cholera epidemic mentioned above. It works independent of external deliberate or unintended hindrances, and is often a profoundly personal journey. Seen from the outside, people in “Intrinsic Motivation” mode can appear to be selfish, reckless, one-track-minded, and defiant, amongst other negative personal attributes.
“This kind of motivation is ignited by desperate survival need circumstances too, if not a pure natural curiosity state of being. When pushed against the wall, without any possible manoeuvre or exit, fearless, “thrill-seeker”-type-people with strong wills to live will find the most ingenious ways to survive: creativity kindled to find the most unconventional solutions that could be developed into business models, subsequently.
I believe that we have to teach ourselves to be hungry enough, curious enough, and afraid enough to ignite our “Intrinsic Motivations” in order that they, pushing the continuum farther, ignite the killer-instinct guts necessary to get us to see things through, no matter the odds. It is a mind, attitude thing, really. Doable.”
The reply from Mr Fisho Mwale was gracious. He concluded by throwing me a challenge, “Thank you and I would love for you to expand more and discuss it from a National context …”
The latter got “… my Intrinsic Motivation to find, and engage with like-minded people about national development issues, plus possible solutions …” to shoot to the roof.
DEVELOPMENT: Attainment, Nurture, Sustenance.
In Social Science, the concept of Development is defined in terms of upward qualitative and quantitative transformation of society over time. Operationally, it means that from society’s observable benefits of this positive change, people will reflect higher and enduring frequencies of subjective states of contentment, hope, and belief in an ever bright future for all.
This state of affairs will be a manifestation of societies ability to provide for all the people’s basic short-term and long-term needs and wants for successful living from day-to-day, all their days: food, shelter, health, education, security, and more. Abundance is when society has a constant surplus of all the resources that are necessary to ensure that the people’s contentment levels do not dramatically spiral downwards in cases of natural calamities, wars, and, especially, population growth in time.
The objective side of Development is, therefore, operationally seen in the growth, in sheer numbers and magnitudes, of material and service values of all the tangible and intangible aspects of societal management towards lasting prosperity attainment. Herein come elements of:
- Infrastructure – water reservoirs, food production facilities (agricultural land, food processing plants, etc), housing, roads, hospitals, schools, power stations and grids, telecommunications, and others.
- Services – the entire spectrum of social amenities and necessary operational personnel across the board (health workers, engineers and other scientists, entrepreneurs, R&D, and many more), national security (police, military), including culture, i.e. the whole possibilities field of the creative arts.
- Longevity – In sustained development states, short of mortal accidents of all kinds, under variable circumstances, people tend to live into ripe old ages. Absence of private and societal want, as well as a general sense and state of well-being in society tend to have a life prolonging effect on the people: resilience against various life-threatening illnesses, and ever improving medical treatments of the same.
Because Development is about growth, and is forward-looking, it can be encapsulated in the concept of progress. This means that stages of development can be measured, and isolated in terms of space and time. Viewed in this regard, it ought to be understandable that Development entails a rise in complications of societal management and administration.
In the context of this presentation, management is about the allocation of resources in appropriate quantities to relevant material and service needs in developmental work. Administration, then, sees to it that resources are applied for their originally intended purposes, and according to stipulated rules with regard to predetermined decisive conditions.
Therefore, from the point of definitions above, for Development to succeed, it is imperative that it is spearheaded by people of at least as intellectually and culturally progressive as Development itself is inherently, and necessarily entails on its reality.
“INTRINSIC MOTIVATION” FOR DEVELOPMENT: The Collective? A Leader?
On the one hand, human beings are inherently self-centered as individuals. On the other, because human beings are, actually, also very smart, they realized a long time ago that to survive in an inherently hostile nature, they had to learn to live in collectives. We, as humans against other earthly creatures, owe our position at the top of the food chain to our ability to work together in our necessary efforts to tame aspects of nature for our, yes, Development (-al) needs … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA BLOGS – As I See It”. Order Simon Chilembo books on Amazon)
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
Tel: +27 813185271
February 09, 2018
