Thoughts on Nuts

 Woke up thinking about nuts. Palm kernels in particular.

Isn't it weird that we never seem to see them anywhere again? It’s a bit baffling because when we were much younger, they seemed to be everywhere. Especially In the village, they used to be so common that we’d use them as snacks with Gari or just nibble them on their own.

In hindsight now I realize how terrible the effort–reward ratio with those bloody things were. You could spend the whole afternoon cracking these little fuckers with dangerous implements like hammers, stones or other similarly heavy objects, dodging shell splinters, putting your fingers and hand at risk and all for what? Only to end up with impossibly tough, mostly tasteless, fiber-rich kernels which provided very little by way of actual satisfaction.

I guess a lot of our efforts then were made just for the novelty of having something new and “fun” to do but it just struck me how a lot of the effort–reward ratio thing can be applied to so many aspects of our lives.

A lot of people I know just seem to be stuck in this plenty effort, low rewards rat race of a life and it gets me a bit philosophical.. Like, who determines these things? Who can say for sure why there is so much toil and stress in one person’s life with little or no material rewards to show for it while others get so much output from minimal efforts or input in the affairs of life. It is strange.

A recently jarring experience with an ex-classmate from secondary school is very fresh on my mind. I’m not a Facebook person at all but once in a while, I’ve resorted to logging in and casually surfing just for the sake of it and most recently to satisfy my penny-pinching minion by looking for cheap deals in the marketplace on the site. A message pops up as if it had just been waiting for me to come online and I see a message from this guy. He starts off reflecting on the past and making all the right noises about how long it has been and reminiscing on all things secondary school before he comes to the meat of the matter and starts begging for financial assistance as he claims to have just lost his job. Now, I’m the last person on earth to get scammed by anyone and my antenna goes on alert immediately. But this is obviously the real deal and the earlier conversation confirms that he is the real person doing the asking…. I make up my mind and send him some money to help out. Fast forward 2 months later and this same guy comes back with the same format but this time leaning heavily on the fact that his children have not eaten for days and I should please “heed the cry of the children”…

Sigh. Unless you're my wife, i don't like being guilt-tripped and additionally, I’m not in a position to help out, so after ignoring the request for a day or two, I let him know.

Till today, I’m not sure if this was a real experience or he was just scheming his way through conning acquaintances for money but anyway, that’s a story for another day

It just seems so strange sometimes that despite all the effort most people put in, Reward does not equal input and it’s just at the whims and vagaries of this bitch called life. I just close my thoughts and say a native prayer for family and friends, for us to achieve whatever aspect of life we all desire and regard as being successful.

May our palm nuts be cracked for us by the benevolent Gods and may the kernels be sweet and rich.

A big “amen” to that.