The Noise or Your Gut?

Thank you all for your comments on the last blog. However, is there a reason ‘followers’ have not increased from 20 people?? #thinking

I  came across this article by Thomas J. Barrack Jr, the CEO of Colony Capital, and not one to generally gravitate toward or intentionally read anything financial, I was so entranced  reading this article from the first sentence! He wrote on ‘Harness Your Amygdala’…and yes, I had to Google that ‘horrid’-sounding word!  And thanks to Barrack, I have two distinct, and totally different blogs; the other is on fear (I now have 3 blogs on ‘Fear’ sitting in my drafts. Na wa oh. Fear fear fear!!!)  

Let’s go there….

Barrack asks, in the midst of the emotions being fed into our system, in the confusion (as I call it)going on in and around us, ‘are you listening to the noise or to your gut?' It goes without saying, that we are indeed in the age of technology; the world has shrunk so drastically it is no longer so amazing how I can see someone’s front door or flowerbed all the way in Australia, thanks to Google Earth! That we are bombarded by the noise called information,  everywhere we turn...internet: social media, print media...all sorts, emanating, 24/7 is an understatement;  you hardly have time to pause, assimilate, reflect before making a decision! It is all so exhausting and terrifying. How do you cope?

Gone are the days when we have to make a deliberate effort to go look for information, now it is with us, before our faces, we carry them in our hands, in fact, we are it! How do you get away from the ‘heat’ of it all? How do you exist outside the incredible maze of data upon data, all on the click of one tiny button, data that transports and transforms you from the place where you exists almost normally as ‘you’ into that place where most almost never return from. It takes discipline and a conscious effort to Just. Stop. How are you not swayed by the myriads of stuff fighting for first place in your brain? Into where do we reach to find the strength, the discipline to resist the lure, the attraction offered by incredible world of cyberspace?…by listening to your gut, because in the final analysis, all that surround you is just noise.  Like I would say, Indian film trick!

How attached are you to the screaming noise? What is it you need to desperately decide on? Granted,  information is very key to whatever project we are embarking on,  however, how what bombards you affect your sense of judgement depends entirely on you. It is so easy to Google everything; as in everything including ailments and diseases, just  researching (you know how the world has greatly ‘improved’ in the area of ‘new’ diseases! Illnesses we thought were meant for a certain age now strikes across all ages). People, so obsessed with wanting to know, and it being so easy to access;  is it any wonder that illnesses actually take a turn for the worse because people panicked when they read about that person on the opposite side of the world who did or didn't do this or that early enough...throws your sense of objectivity out of whack, introducing fear. Gbam. Blood pressure shoots up...and complication sets in. Barrack was so right when he said ‘we believe a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can be the cause of a tsunami in Thailand!’ So, granted, it is okay to gather info and data, God forbid that we be un-armed with the necessary ‘tool’ needed for whatever next steps we ought to take but there is something greater and bigger than the data you have amassed. 

Me thinks it is important to be able to shut off and shut out the hullaballoo, the buzz, the attractive lure of the music of The Noise and retreat into place where your gut is the only voice you hear. For those of us who live in this great Naija; I always used to imagine that I could absolutely hear a small still voice while standing the middle of what was the (then) crazy, confused sea of humans and buses called Oshodi! …biko, what are you listening to? Noise? Gut? Ha, be free fa.

I look forward to having you readers complete this blog, there is so much that can  said of this topic...I have only blogged from one tiny side...go for it.

Be (absolutely) free oh!

Part 2 of the post, inspired by Barrack coming up….next