Follow Us on Google
This piece, like any ever found in this space, is from a deep place -a very deep place. In this life, there’s no thick line between any extremes. Wheat and tare grow together -the exact same way that good and bad mingle as forever neighbours. The line (this writer prefers to call it an invisible permanent in-between) is so fluid or faint it almost doesn’t exist: therefore, please be careful.
The journey of the thin line should start from the point of God and Satan. The line between the most-dissimilar-pair-ever ought to be a wide gulf, an unbridgeable chasm, but is it? Only a thin line. In fact, the line between God and Satan is so thin, their adherents need no code or passport to breeze in and breeze out, across the divide.
You see or hear some people you always believed were on the side of God and you begin to wonder if Satan needed own team. On the other hand, you get to intermittently encounter those the world set aside as satanic playing great godly cards. In this life, people have called priests herbalists and herbalists priests. In this booby league also belong those who don’t see the line, real time.
They are neither here nor there. They are neither for God nor for the pretender to the throne. They have their right foot on God’s side and simultaneously their left even more rooted on Satan’s. Chameleons show no line in their appearance.
Then, there’s life and its inevitable no-good-second, death. The line between both is so thin, so faint, you’d think it’s non-existent. Some people are unknown, unremembered and unincluded -as if dead; whereas some who had long died remain treasured, celebrated and generally indulged as though they never crossed over (the line). Really, there’s only a thin line between the first cry and the last breath; death starts the moment life stops.
That line is even thinner between sleep and death. I believe during sleep, death occurs momentarily. Some people are not so fortunate to bounce back. Hence, the sad line: died in their sleep.
What about between love and hate, friendship and enmity? The line is thinner than thin. Besties today, worsties tomorrow. You almost are tempted to conclude that there’s no such thing as love nor any such people as lovers in this world.
At best, we have love-hate or hate-love, and therefore love-haters or hate-lovers . The fluidity of love and hate is too alarming. It’s almost impossible to differentiate between lover and hater. Lovers especially move on or change, too easily; as if they see the emotion as child’s play.
The situation is confounding, to say the least. You can enjoy help and patience and understanding and forgiveness and friendship from someone you thought was an enemy. Alas, a friend you thought had your back would only offer judgement and anger and envy and betrayal and enmity. Here, the line is horrendously thin.
Next up: excellence and mediocrity. And, still to come: success and failure. The line between excellence and mediocrity is so thin, you could think there’s none. With the world frequently standing down excellence for mediocrity and all too often passing mediocrity for excellence, no one is so sure about any line.
The line is so thin, excellence -even excellence- is not a guaranteed talisman of success. Many mediocrities have defeated excellent opponents, hands down. That is to say, some known excellencies have failed, in spite of and despite being of the best or highest quality. If there was a line, even a thin line, how would mediocrity win bragging rights when we know it doesn’t even belong in the same league with excellence?
Where I come from, we have a funny poser that is both profound and instructive: how can a lion give birth to you but you behave like or resemble a goat? Anytime, I remember the idiom, I query if there’s a line between excellence and mediocrity or between success and failure or between courage and cowardice. If it exists at all, that line must be infinitesimally thin such that only with a microscope would we see it. That’s the reason sometimes mediocrity dares to challenge excellence to a see-saw competition in which failure always trounces success and cowardice almost always overwhelms courage.
Please, do not bother me about education and illiteracy nor about morality and immorality, nor indeed about loyalty and disloyalty. Ditto about clean and dirty as well as about innocent and guilty and about honest and dishonest. Instead of talking to convince me, simply show me the line between them, if it exists. In addition, please prove to me the value their line adds to this debate.
Now, please listen to me; even if you can’t. Don’t kill yourself over anything. There’s only a thin line between good and bad, between good and evil. There are no guarantees, whatsoever.
Love can hate, hate can love. Good can lose, bad can win. Excellence can fail, mediocrity can succeed. Sweetheart can walk away while the one you never loved can walk in, rescue the situation and stay on to turn a test into a testimony.
The truth is that life might seem a catch-22, but all you need to do most times is to look for help in the most unlikely of places. Friendship failed? Please don’t give up. Rather, look in the direction of enmity.
Life is like exploring for oil or gold. No easy answers. You must dig and dig and dig; deep, deeper, deepest. Only a thin line between hard work and the prize.
Hard work can pay the price but miss the prize while unseriousness that did nothing smiles home and to the bank. Yes, there’s only a thin line between favour and injustice. And, man can do nothing about it. Favour doesn’t do justice, it does favouritism which is a sweet-sounding name for injustice.
Never give up though, at least not too easily. And, never dismiss or discard anyone or anything because, just as nobody or nothing is indispensable, nobody or nothing is totally useless. Only a thin line exists between the rejected and the chosen stones. Only a thin line remains for the rejected to cross to become chief of the corner.
Henceforth, please pay that black sheep of the family some attention, no matter how hard they make it. Beware, the current hero can fail the family. There’s a thin line between hero and villain. Some villains can switch places and roles and immediately transform a tragedy into comedy.
Also, please never forget that the line between rich and poor is as thin as can be. The very rich can become the very poor, and vice versa. So, my dear, start looking at life with the eyes of a big man. Pay attention to your thin line.
Finally, never forget to remember that the thin line is a double-edged sword. It can give life. It can give death. Choose your own thin line wisely.
God bless Nigeria!
