Modern Pursuits

Do not pursue companionship.

Do not pursue it so hard you lose your individuality.

Didn't you learn lessons from your grandmother?

Until you saw her obituary posters, you didn't realise she had a first name, a second name and even a nickname.

She was always somebody's something: somebody's wife, somebody's mother, somebody's relative. Her name was lost in duty.

Do not pursue companionship.

Pursue the singularity of your person such that no matter who you wed and bed,

No matter what great lives are pushed out from the spread of your thighs,

No matter whose friend or employee you are,

Your name is not forgotten.

We were not all made for the spotlight, but don't we all have a right to a name?

Do not always seek to be agreeable.

Do not seek malleability in this world that seeks to bend you to conformity.

Haven't you learnt lessons from those women who have made "yes" their favorite language?

Yes to people who ride roughshod on them.

Yes to in-laws who keep meddling.

Yes to debasing jobs.

Yes to society and its shallow concepts.

Do not always seek to be agreeable.

Pursue immunity.

Pursue it such that even praises sang loud and clear

And stones of cynicism hauled at you,

None fazes you.

Do not pursue survival alone.

Do not pursue to only get by, blending in to the ebb and flow of the ordinariness of everyday.

Do not pursue survival alone.

Pursue relevance, to be the answer to the wailings of muted hearts.

Because life...

this life is fleeting.

Ucheomar