By Babatunde Jose
Human life is a journey that can be compared to a day from dusk to dawn. Elaborate with reference to ‘The Seven Ages’ by William Shakespeare. The cycle of life from birth to death is inescapable and we should play the roles assigned to us at various stages just like professional actors
A human being’s journey of life is like a day. When he is an infant, he is very gentle and sweet – just like dawn. Slowly, when he goes to school, he is lazy just like in the morning. Then he is a lover filled with illogical thoughts. Then he plays the role of a soldier, very angry, just like the scorching sun of the noon. Slowly, the age shifts, just like the temperature of the sun. Now he is full of advice and good thoughts. Then he becomes a slippered pantaloons, just like the setting sun. At last, comes a halt to his life and he has nothing, like the darkness of dusk.
Dawn is young and energetic, beautiful and peaceful, just like a newborn child. His life is calm and not chaotic. He brings with him hope and love, just like every sunrise. As the day commences, every living soul loves the mild sunlight, just as everyone loves a child. Noon is the time the sun shines bright and brims with all the emotions as if trying its best to please every soul touched by its rays. Similar is the state of a human when in love.
The wings of time fly and now the sun is no more bright, yet strong enough to make its presence felt. Then comes evening, which shows the sun is about to set and its rays are very mild. One, in this phase, is old and needs support. As it is the time for the sun to set, so is there a time for one to leave this world. Yet, both leave with the promise to return, be it in the same form or another, and travel their journeys of life all over again.
Slowly but surely, the landmarks of one’s childhood, youth and adult years disappear, and so do those one spent those years with. And there are other sorrows as well.
For those who have had an active life; retirement and progressing age bring feelings of uselessness and despair. Those who have worked their entire lives now find it difficult to kill time since their lives previously revolved around their work schedules. The lack of activity or involvement is a major cause of depression among the elderly. With fewer responsibilities on their shoulders and not having tasks to do, they often begin to lose purpose in life and begin to think that they are now useless and sometimes even a burden on the family and society.
For many parents, a time comes when their children are no longer with them; some leave for greener pastures while others may consider a nuclear family as better suiting their lifestyle and hence move out, leaving the parents alone.
The parents may be well provided for and may have other people or domestic help caring for them and doing their chores, but the very thought that they are away from their children adds a feeling of loneliness to depression.
Alhaji Nasir is one such senior member of society who spends almost every evening with a couple of like-minded (and like-aged) people from his community. Presently, he is working on establishing a small computer centre and library around the nearby mosque.
This is just one example. There are so many ways in which the elderly can make the most of the time on their hands and keep themselves busy. They can pick up hobbies and interests for which they didn’t have much time when they were professionally busy; they can read books (or write books, for that matter) or help with small routine chores around the house. The key is to keep oneself busy and useful. Don’t count the years that have passed; count the ways you can make the remaining one’s matter.
It should be remembered that from 60, after attaining the evening of life, the time remaining on this terra firma can never be as much as the time spent. Each day in the twilight of time becomes an added grace. It is therefore a signal to start tidying up our affairs.
Our thoughts are – nominally – free to go in any direction at any time of day or night. In practice, perhaps far more than we dare to admit, they remain tightly tied to wherever we happen to be on the Earth’s twenty-four-hour axial journey around the Sun.
There can be no more resonant span in this rotation than the interval we know as dusk, when the sun slips below the horizon and throws its beams across the lower atmosphere, rendering the sky – for up to forty minutes in the northern latitudes, and as little as twenty minutes in the equatorial ones – neither quite light nor quite dark.
There might be many sorts of dusks around the world, but what they whisper to us tends to be very similar. Harald Sohlberg, Spring Evening.
Throughout daylight hours, we are invited to be purposeful. Our horizons are limited to the human world. The shadows are short, and our perspectives can grow so too. We push our miniscule part of history forward a few more millimeters: we send emails, call meetings, attend conferences, write a paper. With the sun high in our meridian, we grow tall in our own estimations. We make plans, we accuse someone of disrespecting us, we get frustrated with our progress.
But then comes dusk with its range of contrary messages. A narrow band of cloud many miles away turns a brilliant crimson. Distances we had forgotten about make themselves felt. We are no longer the measure of all things. Whatever has agitated us recedes in importance. The moment bids us to loosen our mind’s fervent hold on the memory of the missing document or the course of the tetchy meeting; for the first time in many hours, we know viscerally that these things, too, will pass. Harald Sohlberg, Spring Evening.
Dusk invites all of us – the desperate, the anxious and the arrogant – into the shelter of night, where grown-up priorities can weigh less heavily on us. There is nothing more we can do to alter anything now; we will have to wait and keep faith. We must stop grandstanding. And for a few especially pained ones among us, dusk is there to confirm that it might all be OK, despite the hatred, the shame and the ignominy.
The miraculous thing about every day – often missed by people who are extremely busy, content or conceited – is that it will inevitably end. However dreadful it has been, and some days are mightily so, it will reach a close. And all the things that draw their seriousness from the height of the sun will be dimmed by the approach of night.
How unbalanced we would be if – through some technological innovation – we managed to banish night altogether. Dusk saves us through erasure. Without dusk, there would be no more recalibration and no time for our arrogance to abate nor for our anxiety to be absorbed. We can be grateful that, despite all our gadgets and our pride, the wisdom of dusk is only ever a few hours away.
Unfortunately for man, the dusk does not promise a new dawn. It marks the journey to the end of days. It’s a journey of no return.
Talking about the twilight years of man, we come to the realization of the entry of our big brother, Latif Adisa Adejumo, who today moves up to the 8th floor of life. Like his late father before him, he is a quintessential good man. My late father met his father in 1948 and they bonded and developed a friendship that developed into inseparable brotherhood. Brother Latif was just 4 years old then.
Writing in his epic book. ‘Walking a Tight Rope’ my father had this to say about his friend: “ . . . (1948) I met Abdul Raheem Akande Adejumo. At the end-of-Ramadan Eid prayer at Obalende, Lagos, a man beckoned to me to come on his mat. When the prayer was over, the man introduced himself to me as Raheem Adejumo, a police sergeant in the Special Branch (Intelligence). We shook hands and he invited me to have a drink with him in his one-bedroom apartment at Igbosere Road. . . . Three years later, he retired from the Police Force as an Inspector, but he has remained my most trusted friend and confidant, after my father.
“When I was going to England for attachment to UK newspapers in 1951, he was tempted to go for law studies. His elder brother, Alhaji Brimoh Adejumo wanted to finance his studies. But my friend calculated the cost of five years stay in England and decided that he could use the money to trade with real benefit.
“By the following year, he left the Police and started trade with money provided by his brother. Today, he is the Chairman of Adejumo Fam Nigeria Limited, a wealthy businessman, a philanthropist and one of the leading promoters of lawn tennis in Nigeria.”
It is fortuitous to note that when the late Jose and late Adejumo met in 1948, Adejumo had a 4-year-old son, Latif who had lost his mother. He would remain in his father’s apron until Papa remarried and started having other children. But Latif would forever remain his father’s pet-child, his eyes and ears and his right-hand man, following in the business started by his illustrious father.
Brother Latif, as we all fondly call him, has been an inspiration to us all. Studied Textile Technology in Manchester and came back in 1971 to take a position in his father’s business. He has since retired from active business involvement but not from life.
A devout Muslim and religious leader in NASFAT, Brother turns 80 today and we pray that Allah will preserve him and grant him many more years in good health.
“Our Lord! Condemn us not if we forget or fall into error; our Lord! Lay not on us a burden like that which Thou didst lay on those before us: Our Lord! Lay not on us a burden greater than we have strength to bear. Blot out our sins, and grant us forgiveness. Have mercy on us. Thou art our Protector; help us against those who stand against Faith.” (Quran 2:286)
Barka Juma’at and happy weekend.
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