A Little Self Lore

A tale from Bolaji

I remember one time I was trying to start a generator for a place I was doing an internship at. And the generator would not start. To my credit, I think something was wrong with it, more so than anything was wrong with my muscles anyway. Even though there was also something wrong with me at the time, being that I was not feeling all too well. But the person I was working for got impatient, a woman with an intense urge for gossip. She had been muttering some pretty funny statements behind me. As fate would have it, some agbero guy was walking past and she called him over to help and he managed to start the generator after a few tries.

As one would imagine, he received praise for what he did, and I received subtle mockery for not having the strength to pull a generator to life. It was a funny time in my life, like how all the times between graduating from secondary school—with an optimism for the the so called things life away from school had to offer—and going into the university, usually are. A time so funny that I was being told that a street guy who probably earned a living from collecting “dues” from unsuspecting good citizen who mistakenly crosses his turf, was better than me for being able to “drag gen.” Tough.

Writing about it now, it is hard to ascertain how bad I felt about it. I know I certainly felt a tinge of shame in my heart, but it was not something I let simmer in me for more than a few minutes, because it was not something I was new to experiencing. I had always been the “soy boy” among my brothers. I was born with a very fragile body and my parents always let me know that as the reason I was not allowed to do a lot of hard “hand’s on” work.

In contrast with the culture I was brought up around, a culture were masculine strength was life, and disagreements between—but not only men—were traditionally expected to be settled with wrestling—Ijaw culture was actually quite martial in a lot of ways. Usually when children fought one another in a playground disagreement, adults would be told not to interfere to enable that the children grew up strong and not as weak. As I was.

My family did its best to keep me away from all that. As genetics and inate personality, would have it, I inherited the genes of the calmest and most watchful woman I know, to supplement my already fragile body, and so I was a gentle soul that never really got into fights, and even developed a subtle fear at getting punched. But there were times when the Ijaw-Niger Delta mania would sink its claws into them, and they would encourage that I and my brother fought off school bullies and made sure that they felt pain from crossing our paths, instead of letting them walk over us.

My parents were peace loving Christians, from whom I had learnt an early life virtue to be peaceful and shun violence. So this advice, clashed with these Christian virtues—or perhaps virtues I had readily accepted because they were quite the smoke screen to act as cover for my physical fragility. It was a classic case of Jerusalem clashing with Yenagoa, in contrast to Nietzsche’s Rome clashing with Judea.

You must think I was an incredibly cowardly child, yes? Actually no. Like most little boys, I fell in love with rough and tumble, war-play, action movies, and actually fighting. Of course I was still weak and fragile, but I had something the other boys my age did not have. Wit. I knew weak points, I had a flare for coming up with dramatic and elaborate stories that guided our war-plays, and I was quite interesting to be around. I’ve grown up to be far more introverted, but people genuinely loved being around me, and would place me as a leader, even if they were much more stronger than I am. My calm persona and thinking made me really charismatic to them.

This was a time when I and my brother ran a gang of other young boys who competed in fighting with other guys in the street. The gangs were arranged to resemble the Naruto Village System. It was a fun time, actually. A really fun time I get so nostalgic, thinking about. Times when I did not have to worry about paying bills.

I have been told that I possess a feminine temperament many times in my life. And I agree. The “feminine” parts of me have never really been things I have denied. I have never seen the reasons why I should. Apart from having a more fragile body than the average man, an almost “womanly” voice, I also was introverted, self-searching and introspective. I have never been a cultural zombie to blindly follow artefacts of culture, because I always asked questions to myself and people “why am I supposed to do this?” It was the only way I became atheist incredibly early in my life, and consequentially became also nihilistic and fatalistic. It was also why it never made sense to me that I was on the bottom of a pathriachal hierachy based on strength, domination, and violence, hence should be ashamed for it. My mind was too active to be caged in myths like that. I was too much of an agent to be trapped in such artefacts of culture.

And was I ever jealous of physical strength? I think not. There were times I did feel terrible for not being able to perform certain things other men did with their strength, but I could also do things other boys did not know how to do, things I myself had valued—I intuitively generated my own values.

For a long time I have been acquainted with the feminist rallying cry to men so they’d join their agenda—the so called “pathriachy hurts men too and makes them perform masculinity.” That never made any non-propagandaistic sense, especially in more recent time where the mockery of performative males—men who perform femininity or feminist—are now in vogue to be scorned and laughed at by usually the same feminists who preached the former. If there is a truth I have learned, it is that people are usually performative depending on the values they have, and will suffer and be mocked either way by the prevailing norm. This is because many people are cultural zombies, fueled by nothing but cultural indoctrinations and biological and genetic determinants.

And to add an advice to feminists who want to win men over—you will not get the “toxically masculine” men to change by telling them that pathriachy punishes them. All systems of value punish people who do not have the traits valued. You have to offer an incentive far better than that which is offered by pathriachy, and what incentive do you give to men? A life of safety, non-shame, non-guilt, all inclusive love, warmth, emotional security, vulnerability, and intimacy? How many men would want that?

The pathriachy hurts men too? And the world you imagine—however you imagine it to be—this world that you promise men to not be shamed, you suppose it wouldn’t hurt men and society in a way that you don’t think of? You don’t assume that just as warmth and emotional security is good, strength and being master of yourself is also good? Just as being able to plot systems of control and domination, is also good? Just as being a master of your environment, is good?

It is obvious to anyone with a head that is not full of soy, when they come across that statement, that such a society is only a projection of the feminine psyche, in the assumption that men want the things women want.

Your 7 year old son, plays rough and tumble with his friends, and acts out murder and violence with his action figures. Your 17 year old brother watches violent and murderous anime where he stans murderous morally blur characters. Your 27 year old fiance and boyfriend reads and enjoys the History of war, military tactics, and system building. On the streets men, who live in very peaceful conditions, gang up to wage war amongst themselves over “territories” and turfs.

No, the men you want to win over will not come by promising them a tellitubbies world. They don’t need that. And you would already know this, if you were not so in denial of inate sex derived traits that are in a continuum in members of the sexes. If this was something known and accepted, the idea of feminism going beyond just wanting equal rights before the law and before the state, would be deemed unnecessary. This is not to say I do not think there is nothing to be changed.

It is necessary for a modern state to have an equality all before the law and state. It makes things easier. But now, back to me and all that concerns myself.

I have seen certain male feminists pushing the same narrative as well, and I have come to wonder why when I was a feminist that was not a part of my talking points. I was physically fragile and weak. I think I have gotten better than before, although I am still not as strong as the average man, neither am I as athletic despite being a West African Black Male.

It was not because I did not know of it, but because I struggled to make it make sense to me. If men are beneficiaries of the pathriachal system how come are they still punished by it, and should abandon all their benefits? The sheer reason I became a feminist was not due to my physical weakness and personal failings. It was due to something I felt was ideal and good. Having women as a sub-class of people with less rights for men was not ideal. And I still hold on to this even now that I am no longer a feminist.

And it brings to question the motives these male feminists, who push that narrative to our face, actually have. They are also projecting their own insecurities, they are also cultural zombies primed to spew a propagandistic lie, and if I would push further, they are jealous insincere men, speaking from the shame they have received from the masculine cultures they have been born in for not being masculine enough. Emotionally vulnerable, sensitive and wanting other men to be as sensitive as they are. And it is obvious.

True strength lies in the courage in becoming what you are. You do not need an ideology telling you it is okay to cry when you can just cry, regardless of who is telling you to. You don’t need an ideology telling you that vulnerability is okay if you really are strong. You are just pulling down a hierarchy of values for another hierachy of values. The only difference is you are at the top in this one.

The strong man carves himself out of his own self, with a hammer and a chisel.