richiebabalola

[richiebabalola]

#10 - Playing the Long Game

The long game is a process that naturally any human being in their right mind would want to avoid, I mean generally, most long things don’t seem to resonate with us; long queues, long university lectures, “long time no see” emails from Netflix when you’ve finished the free trial and moved onto the next newly created account to activate another free trial, thinking that they should’ve caught the hint by now. 

If “life is short” as they say, why should we have to endure things that are long? 

I remember when I was young (er) and the times when I lost a game on Fifa Career mode, I turned the Xbox 360 off, sometimes even from the power source so that the career would not save the game history and I’d have the opportunity to play the match again. The L’s were kept between me and my maker. There were even times that I would turn up the player dials mid-game to gain an unfair advantage, the equivalent of giving them digital steroids. Thoughts I might as well get all the guilt off my chest :(

The alternative would be losing the games and ending up without a title, or trophy. Many would do the same in my shoes. If you’re a size 11 that is. However, after a while I stopped doing it, well, started doing it less and less :) Eventually learning to defeat the computer AI, from semi-pro and professional to word class and legendary. 

Most recently, I even switched from legacy to tactical defending after much game shaming from my peers. 

Apart from the jargon dump, that if you’ve never played FIFA, your head would be spinning right now, in hindsight we can extract a really important life lesson from my actions as a young child. 

I stopped the game cheats because it made the victory less satisfying. Taking the more difficult route, although it was harder and much longer was more worth it in the end. The longer and harder the journey makes the victory mean much more. In the process, you learn and develop more than ever despite the losses and shortfalls. 

The quick wins fade away just as quickly but patience and longevity produce long term results. Play the long game. 

#thinkpiece #writing #gaming #philiosophy #life

[richiebabalola]

#9 No Calculators Allowed

For human beings, finding answers is a trait that is just as instinctive as eating, breathing, sleeping and pretending you're on the phone to avoid mind numbing small talk and jaw breaking fake smiles with an old primary school friend you haven't seen in a lifetime. 

Speaking of jaw breaking, who's smart idea was it to make a spicy jaw breaker? Like the teeth shattering sugar ball wasn't enough torture.

It was fitting that kids usually eat up practically whatever nonsense you present to them, even the ridiculous notion of a tooth fairy (*rolling eyes emoji, cause this server doesn't support emojis for some reason), whom interestingly enough would naturally be in order after eating a jawbreaker. Does the tooth fairy take tax and inflation into account? Or do they just operate above the law somehow? Ignoring safeguards against property trespassing.

It's questions likes these that mankind have long sought the answers to.

Even the more serious questions we ask ourselves like:

How could this be?

When will it happen?

And the most popular one - Why me?

Naturally, we seek for answers as quick as we can get them, rushing to the endpoint even before ensuring the credibility of the source. We want answers and we want them now.

It's like the maths test in school days when you were not allowed use a calculator. "No Calculators Allowed" written at the top of the paper in bold writing and a clear sign to catch out the half wit students that suddenly turn dyslexic on exam day. Typically, we often ask ourselves and sometimes ask aloud: "Miss, this is mad long, what's the point when we have calculators to give us the answers?". A teacher who cared enough would normally give the generic reply: "It's to teach you to think for yourself".

On the surface, the logic of the student makes sense. Why do we go through all of the time and effort when we can just use a calculator and find the answer much easier and much faster?

In the same maths paper the questions regularly ask you to "Show you working out". Thus not only requiring the answer but the process of how you got to the answer. In fact you would get more marks for showing your working than giving the answer itself.

And here is we here the truth lies; when we apply the same reasoning in the real world we can uncover an extremely significant life lesson. Like using a calculator we often want the answers quick and easy, when in fact the real value wasn't in the answer at all but in working it out ourselves through our experiences, whether it be:

How could this be?

When will it happen?

and the most popular one - Why me?

'Showing our working' in this context would be the understanding we would gain and consequently the advice we would have for others who go through the same thing.

The process to the answer is harder, longer and in the moment it may seem pointless, but we'll surely learn to think for ourselves.

Maybe the teacher was right all along?

In life there's no calculator allowed.

[richiebabalola]

#8 The Art of Procrastination ll: The Snooze Button Dilema

The holidays are over, the shirts have been ironed, the shoes have been polished and the Oyster cards have been "beeped". It's like a dream that you wake up from, within the dream you're automatically convinced that it is real, somehow the flying and jumping off skyscrapers don't give it away.

Once you do wake up, the illusion quickly fades away and reality kicks in. The familiar and frustrating sound of your alarm you reluctantly set on your phone violently wrestles your eardrums until submission.

It's at this point that you have a choice to make. The snooze button is only at touching distance as it stares at you more intently than the security guard at your local Sainsbury's. "Half an hour more sleep couldn't possibly hurt right?

I'll just skip breakfast and get Greggs on the way" This would be a good idea in a ideal world in you were the last human alive and the bakery wasn't packed full of people with the exact same intentions as you.

7:30am

As the phone vibrates you quickly press the button in anticipation of the noise to come, "5 more minutes so my brain cells can recover from the last night's Netflix overdose"

7:35am

The sound of the alarm returns with a vengeance, the five minutes was indeed five minutes and not the 1hr you thought it would be your head as you ask yourself, was the five minutes really worth it in the end.

In the end, your intentions were not that bad, all you were hoping for extra moments of comfort but it came at a price of a headache because of the last 40 minutes of a an interrupted sleeping pattern.

Some people may be disciplined when it comes to their Morning routine but figuratively speaking, a lot of us still press the snooze button even when we are miles away from our beds.

Every time we unnecessarily delay an action that can be done today, the "I'll do it tomorrow" speech we tell ourselves, "half an hour couldn't possibly hurt right?" - yeah we've haven't heard that one before.

In my first ever think piece: 'The Art of Procrastination', I spoke about procrastination with sarcasm and irony to prove a point.

This time I'm using an analogy to get my point across. Every time we procrastinate, we press the snooze button: hoping for extra moments of comfort but paying the price with the headache that comes afterwards.

#people #society #thinkpiece #writing

[richiebabalola]

#7 The Terms and Conditions

We have all been guilty of it, the worst of all crimes committed on a daily basis, and I’m not even talking about overdue library books, or testing the grapes at the fruit section of your local supermarket to see if their nice or not, I’m not even referring to leaving the food pot unwashed in the sink “so it can soak”, apparently.

You’re probably asking yourself what could I have done that could worse than the above? Whilst your conscience cries in hindsight of your past transgressions.

In this case, it’s what you didn’t do that really matters.

Signing up for Club Penguin back in 2006, signing up for Miniclip, Bebo, MSN, MySpace, Facebook, BBM, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, SnapChat, online shopping, agreeing for websites to maliciously share your information with companies through the use of cookies and programmatic advertising so you can spend money you don’t have (Think piece about this coming soon 🤦‍♂️😂)

What do all these things have in common, apart from self destructive procrastination of course “LOL” (on that note, check out my think piece: ‘The Art of Procrastination’ - also on Tumblr) What all the above share in common in that they all require you to agree to the terms and conditions.

Terms and conditions are rules by which one must agree to abide in order to use a service.

Here’s the “worst crime of all” I was talking about, here lies the most unforgivable and yet overlooked mistakes of all, when we sign the terms and conditions without reading them. It’s something that we’ve done a million times, without a single second thought: guided by the common assumption that “it’s probably nothing” or put off by the barriers of it being “long” or you “CBA, this isn’t GCSE ENGLISH for me to be reading”. To be honest, this is often the reality, reading the t’s and c’s is very long and is indeed “probably nothing”, well most of the time at least. It’s only small, nothing to worry about right?

As human beings we are nothing less than creatures of habit, and if we do this with the “small” things such as not reading the terms and conditions, we can only imagine we act the same when it comes to making life choices and not considering the consequences, from ordering extra hot chicken at Nando’s when you’re used to lemon and herb but you don’t want to look half-hearted in front of your friends, to more important life decisions like marriage or what barber you go to after the last one let you down for the last time 😤 (sorry for a bit carried away with that one 😅).

The point being, if we read the terms and conditions more often: meaning we took the time to think about and really understand the implications of the choices, then perhaps things in life truly what we signed up for.

#society #rules #people #life #choices

[richiebabalola]

#6 Heroes and Villains

Usually, people are the heroes of their own stories, and in our stories, people who pose or impose any threat or opposition to us in any sort of way, naturally take up the role as the villains. 

Villains can take many forms depending on the hero of the story, for some, villains are the police, ticket inspectors, traffic wardens, and tv license officers, for others, villains are those people who walk painfully slow in front of you in rush hour and you’re running late for work or school, for many, villains can even be parents, teachers, and managers at work. Notice that the common denominator of all these villains so to speak are as aforementioned that they all ‘pose or impose some sort of threat or opposition to the hero’. 

Literature would define us heroes or heroines as protagonists: 'the leading character or one of the major characters in a play, film or novel’, villains are defined in a much more harsher tone as antagonists 'who provide obstacles, complications and create conflicts’. Looking back, we can see that this is something that we’ve been taught since we were very little - from the days of 'Biff, Chip, and Kipper’, we have learned about goodies and baddies and the distinct roles that they play, but truthfully it has never been that simple. 

When looking at a heroes journey in popular culture, we often see a character endeared by the audience, who despite all the odds overcomes the opposition, and is victorious. Whereas, a villain is portrayed as having no other purpose but to threaten the cause or objective of the hero. 

However, if we look deeper we can see that heroes and villains are nothing but an important yet mostly overlooked lesson in human perception, and all it takes is to see things from all points of view. 

We often perceive ourselves as the heroes of our own stories, and honestly who wouldn’t want to be the hero. They usually are the ones who get all the fame and glory at the end of the stories. 

Yet, looking at the bigger picture we can see that villains are more important than we think, even perhaps more than heroes. 

The full definition of villains in literature reveals that the purpose of an antagonist is to 'test the protagonist, thus revealing the strengths and weaknesses of the protagonist’s character’. By consequence, a villain helps the hero to see their strengths as well as identifying their weaknesses for them to improve. This especially applies to people in our lives who are only there to help and guide us despite their means of doing so, such as parents and teachers, who are often unfairly branded as a villain despite their good intentions.

Ultimately, the challenges and conflicts created by the villain, in doing so help the hero to be stronger and eventually fulfill their role in the story, the role of a villain is essentially what makes a hero a hero in the first place, neither would exist without the other.

#thinkpiece #heroes #villain #writing #society #people

[richiebabalola]

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[richiebabalola]

I approached my first day at secondary school with mixed emotions. I was excited, of course, new experiences are always exciting, well most of the time.

 I distinctly remember my school uniform, I turned up to school with a brand-new maroon blazer that was specially tailored for someone 2 or 3 years older than me, a pair of heavy leather school shoes and an exceptionally basic jet black raincoat. It was like the Black-British starter pack, the back to school edition. Looking back, I don’t blame my mum, it was the recession so that uniform had to last until I graduated from university. I had a Nike bag so that was a bit of a consolation, sadly my school made me colour it in because they didn’t allow logos, it was North Korea like conditions really.

At the entrance there were the trademark black iron gates with sharp spikes on the top, it was all very welcoming; on the gate, there was a solid banner that read ‘St’ Julian’s College: Specialist in Maths and ICT’. I picked this school for obvious reasons, my best friend in primary school, Hector put the school as first choice in his application so I urged my mum to do the same, however, she declined and instead put it in third place in favour of two grammar schools. She wanted the best for me.

Unfortunately, it happened that I only managed to pass the entry test for St. Julian’s. My mum suggested that I purposely fixed the outcome of the application, what an outrageous accusation.

Over the years, the school had garnered a bad reputation for gang activity as well as fights and disruption between the neighbouring schools. It got so bad that they even had to change it’s finishing time to an earlier time than the universal 3:30pm finish to prevent future conflict, sometimes there would even be police officers patrolling the area for security purposes. Consequently, my mum wasn’t too keen on me attending there, her only solace was that it was along with the rest of the 5 other choices, an all-boys school. There was some distrust there surely, really I was just a young and naive boy with a dream and a £1 for chicken and chips after school.

I remember how nerve-wracking it was walking into the school gates for the first time. It was an environment that first impressions were at that moment undoubtedly the most important thing in the world.

The school playground was swarmed with Year 7 & 8s in their maroon blazers, there was some noticeable tension between both year groups but the large majority kept their distance from each other, today was the induction so only the first two year groups were in school and the rest were not due in until the next day. I suspected that some of the older boys were silently identifying their victims amongst the new recruits so I kept my guard up. For some, this process would be the first and last time they would ever be first pick. Back then being first pick in football was just about equivalent to a knighthood.

My fellow year sevens were mostly calculated in their behaviour, some finding security amongst old friends from primary school and Sunday league football, the others in the corner desperately attempting to maintain a low profile. Hector was nowhere to be found. I naturally assumed that he was running late, but that was unlike him. Hector was the most over-prepared boy in Great Britain, he was the type of guy to revise for a blood test.

I walked further into the site towards the lower school area, there I found even more students. I stood still and looked around at my surroundings. There were two levels of ground in the lower school with all the sides separated and covered with cheap copper fences that were riddled with holes.

Exactly at the moment happened what normally happens in your typical narrative of ‘the new boy starting his first day at school’, the popular guy in Year 8 approached me with a menacing look on his face.

His name was Frank, the loud mouth comedian who also happened to play for the Chelsea academy. If social status had a FIFA Ultimate Team Card, he would be a 93 rated player. The situation wasn't looking very promising. “Hey, you there”, he yelled, the lower level of the playground went completely silent, it was like a movie. “Why you wearing building shoe bro”. Some of his fellow Year 8’s burst out in laughter, luckily for me, not one Year 7 dared to laugh in fear of drawing attention to themselves. A part of me felt to respond to him, but my wit wasn’t too healthy back then and I was clever enough to pick my battles wisely.

Suddenly, one of the Year 8’s jumped to my defence with great authority he said: “Allow it man, leave him alone, he’s my cousin, he’s my cousin”, before wrapping his arm around my shoulder. At birth, he was named Michael but he insisted that no one would refer to him as what he described as his “government name”. Michael would rather be addressed as Micah. Micah was a big light skinned guy that looked like Binky from Arthur. His appearance was as intimidating as it was hilarious. Considering our different nationalities, and the fact that I’ve never met or heard of him in my entire life, his claim to be my cousin was indeed questionable. However, considering the hostile circumstances I was unwilling to object his conveniently timed affirmation.

Micah was affiliated to a local gang, so his words were taken very seriously; the Year 8’s stopped laughing immediately, and Frank withdrew from the situation. If Frank had a 93 Ultimate Team Card, Micah was an inform Messi: with 99 shooting stats. There are levels in this game.

With his arm still around my shoulders, he led me away from the crowd. I had a strange feeling in my stomach, that I’d been recruited to some kind of mentor to mentee relationship. “If anyone tries to bother you yeah, let me know bro, I got you”, he reasserted. I didn’t reply, it all happened so fast really, but I guess he interpreted the silence as a “yeah man, thanks Micah”. “What’s your name bro? he went on to ask. Micah was suspiciously uninformed for a self-proclaimed relative of mine. “Richard”, I replied. My mum put Richard as my name on my application form instead of my official birth name, Richie, so I carried it as an alias throughout secondary school.

I know what you’re thinking. Why would I be named as Richie rather than Richard? Considering Richie is just shortened version of the Richard. A lot of people ask me that question, it can be irritating at times but it’s a decent ice-breaker so usually, I give people the benefit of the doubt. To be honest, I never cared enough to ask my mum, so it remains one of the universe’s unanswered questions, like why are round shaped pizzas in square shaped boxes.

Anywho, back to the story at hand. Micah responded with joy on his face. “Richard yeah, yeah I remember you”. “Do you know Steinz ?” He inquired. The name sounded familiar. Under much duress, I complied with the conversation in hope it would eventually die of natural causes.

“Oh yeah, Steinz ”, I replied as I nodded and gestured with enthusiasm to add a touch of authenticity to it. Abruptly, the sound of an almost deafening whistle tore through the lower school.

A short ginger haired lady, who looked to be in about her 60’s walked towards the entrance of the lower ground. She was wearing a dirty brown cardigan with camouflage trousers and brown leather shoes. Despite her relatively simple appearance, her authority was made know swiftly and sternly. She raised her hand to signal silence and the all the students obeyed without hesitation, her name was Mrs. Kinsey, she was the Head of Lower School, in charge of the entire of Year 7 & 8, she had the power to suspend and exclude at the flick of her wrist, so generally no one tried to be a hero.

Then came her iconic speech, one that I would remember for the rest of my living days. Her addressal was almost political, it was as if her tenure as Head of Lower School was elected and she was running her campaign for a second term. “This is St. Julian’s College”, Mrs. Kinsey exclaimed. “We will not tolerate any misbehavior, trouble nor rebellion. You must abide by the strict policy on the school uniform, no trainers, hats are not allowed indoors and you must carry the appropriate bags, no ‘Just Do It’ bags allowed because we will not ‘Just do it’.

I highly doubt it was a Nike endorsed reference, but I admired the sarcasm nonetheless, though it provided much needed comic relief to the tension and suspense of Mrs. Kinsey's grand entrance, anyone who dared to laugh would do so at their peril, so many withheld the sniggers from escaping their lips.

The Year 8’s were then dismissed into their forms, and Mrs. Kinsey proceeded to organise the Year 7’s into their respective tutor groups. 6 groups from 7.1 to 7.6 made up six queues in the lower ground. Mrs. Kinsey called out the names of the students as she placed them into each form. It reminded me of Harry Potter when the students were divided into Gryffindor and Slytherin and so on. What happened next, however, was less amusing.

[richiebabalola]

#5 - Politically Auto-Correct

'A self-help guide to being offended by everything'

In the neo-liberal society that we live in today, in which freedom of speech is a nonexistent as Sadam Hussain's Weapons of Mass Destruction. Everyone is on guard about what they say in case someone might take offence to it.

Public figures are particularly held accountable, given their large following as well as their mass reach and impact. However, anyone with any sort of social media presence risks the scrutiny of public opinion.

Topics such as race, gender, and class are socio-political "no-go zones" for many. Those who do choose to venture into these territories, do so at their own risk and peril. Facing the threat of an increasingly sensitive society, desperately eager to be offended by everything and anything.

Many argue that being easily offended is a natural talent that a person is born with.

I beg to differ.

Introducing...

"Politically Auto-Correct" my self-help guide to being offended by absolutely everything.

As trolling is the skill of being offensive for no apparent reason, politically auto-correct is the skill of being offended for no apparent reason.

However honing this skill takes loads of time, effort, and dedication. For years I scrolled day and night on my twitter timeline looking for something to take offence to.

Soon, I became numb to the big three topics: 'race, gender, and class', and began to explore the world and the web in search for anything that I could be offended about. On this existential journey, I discovered a formula that lends you the ultimate power of sensitivity and political correctness.

Then, I thought to myself, as the great Uncle Ben said: "With great power comes great responsibility"; so I felt it was my duty and calling to share this with the world.

- Tip #1: Being offended based purely on your own perspective comes across as narcissistic and will not have the effect you desire. You have to always be offended on behalf of a community or social group.

- Tip #2: To comes across genuine, your statement of offence has to be as long-winded and as seemingly thoughtful as possible. An open letter would be great, a paragraph would do but I'm afraid 2-3 sentences will just not cut it.

- Tip #3: Emotion over logic - it doesn't matter what you're saying lacks any sense whatsoever. Emotion draws the allegiance of public opinion like nothing else, so make sure to throw as much emotive language in there as you possibly can.

Got it yet?

This is a perfect template for how to be as offended as possible for no reason.

"On behalf of bus drivers across the country who work day and night tirelessly to ensure that people who run for the bus do not catch it, I am extremely offended by the reintroduction of 3 door buses, it completely defeats the purpose. More and more people are actually receiving the service that their overwhelmingly excessive taxes fund. It's a travesty.

You will not be easily offended by anything and everything overnight, at first it will seem like what your doing is absolutely ridiculous but ignore your common sense and keep going; soon the skill will become automatic and you will become one of the most easily offended people on the planet.

A Master of being Politically Auto-Correct.

#society #Social media #politics #politically incorrect #writing #thinking #creative

[richiebabalola]

#4 - What is hood?

“You’re not hood”, said a friend of mine

... he addressed me with such great affirmation that it almost had me convinced, to be honest, I am not a person who is easily convinced. In return, I proceeded to ask him a question, “What is hood?”. The perfect response to being questioned is always a question in return, it catches the person by surprise and puts them on the back foot. He then responded with the most clever and sophisticated wit of all time, “the hood is not you”, an ingenious deflection, he was certainly on his toes.

This is not the first time me and my friend have engaged in such a conversation, for a laugh I would sometimes satirise the cliches or stereotypes associated with quote on quote “the hood”, with an excessive use of slang and idioms such as “you know like dat”, “they ain’t on smoke”, or "grab the burner" (Disclaimer: All of my views and perspectives on this blog do not necessarily reflect my views or perspectives😂) knowing he would react.

My friend has quite a fixed idea of what “hood” is, and rightfully so, growing up on a council estate in South London, his point of view is certainly more legitimate.

I certainly did not have the upbringing nor genuine character to appropriate the “hood” culture. Though I grew up and still to this day reside in Brixton, recently ranked No.1 in the Guinness Book of Criminal Records, I lived in terrace located right next to the local library, but it's not like my mum voted for the conservatives, I still grew up having to drink water for dinner like the rest of local civilisation.

At first, I wanted to debate his statement - I do love myself a debate

but I realised that authenticity cannot be proved by words but by rather by the consistency of character, so I left it alone.

If anything the topic became more valuable post conversation, as I began to think about what qualifies a person as hood.

- Do you have to grow up in a council estate? - this would make sense as hood is derived from "neighborhood", of which has plenty of urban connotations.

- Do you have to have some sort of gang affiliation?

- Is it simply enough to use the most informal and colloquial language?

All of the above suggest that becoming "hood" is a process of environmental influence on a person. Here we can see a correlation between socio-economic variables such class, and character.

However, I was also exposed to the same environmental influences nevertheless it would be almost impossible to find a friend, colleague or acquaintance of mine that would describe me as hood and keep a straight face.

Why?

Rather than playing football in the cage all day, I spent most of my childhood reading the books that I borrowed from the library next door.

Petty crime wasn't as an attractive proposition me as writing poetry, short stories or even just exercising my imagination by daydreaming.

Not to mention that my mum was so strict, that going out was less common than a citizen leaving North Korea.

Whereas, someone who grew up in Chelsea and Kensington and spent their youth listening to drill music and watching BKChat, in the process could become more "hood" than I am.

Despite all the environmental influences in the world, succumbing to these influences are always a matter of preference and choice.

In reality, being "hood" is not just about growing up in the "hood" but rather accepting and allowing the pertaining tendencies to grow within you.

#brixton #hometown #london #hood memes #black hood #society #sociology #writing #story #dream #diary

[richiebabalola]

#3 - The Decadent Lifestyle of a Clout Chaser

Attention. To varying extents we all desire it. Usually, it's about what we are willing up invest or sacrifice in order to achieve or attain it.

Alongside receiving it, we also give it on an everyday basis. Thus, this process becomes a legitimate social economy.

In a capitalist - social economy there are always winners and losers, some receive more attention than they pay, others pay significantly more attention than they receive. Who knew, that even in an intangible and borderline hypothetical economic space, some people still manage to have a bad credit history.

But who are the real losers here, as aforementioned, the attention you receive will always be a consequence of what you are will to invest or sacrifice for it.

Some people are willing to invest time, effort & energy, or even sacrifice their principles, relationships and even their dignity to receive attention.

Here we see attention seeker become something far more decadent, a clout chaser.

The difference between an attention seeker and a clout chaser is that the latter is far more open to crossing moral and ethical boundaries for attention (clout). Whether it means shaming a stranger, embarrassing their friends and family or even embarrassing themselves, they are willing to do whatever it takes.

In an age an era of digital & social media in which, visibility has somehow become more important than security, clout chasers have thrived and flourished. With the simple click of the @ button on Twitter, anyone has the ability to lure the most influential of figures into public spats, just so that they can ride on their coat tails to achieve exposure and reach.

Other even ride on the bandwagon of legitimate social movements just for clout.

Like, you can’t have #BlackLivesMatter on your bio and then tweet, “free my bros in the cells” (publicly endorsing individuals convicted for murders of people within the same demographic and community). That's the most ridiculous contradiction since Diet Coke.

And you definitely can't tweet ‘Men are Trash’ with the same phone you're dad paid for. It just doesn't make sense. But then again, clout chasers don't operate in the realm of logic, only in the realm of clout chasing. It's a sport now, and everyone wants the medal.

Most clout chasers, simply by the method of trial and error, eventually receive the attention that they crave. But in the end, is it even worth it.

Is it worth the wasted time?

The lost friendships?

Or the potential backlash?

Even though clout is treated by some, as a stronger currency than the Pound Sterling, unfortunately, you still cannot get a mortgage, a car or even an oyster card (11 - 15) with 10k retweets.

The irony is, all you can get is more clout.

#social media #attention #digital #society #social #people #logic #advice

[richiebabalola]

#2 - The Curious Tale of an Internet Philosopher

As a writer, stating the obvious is a talent of mine.

No matter how self-evident the things you write, as long as it's packaged poetically, it can sound like the most sophisticated perspective ever.

It doesn't even matter if you have no clue what you’re talking about, as long as you can make others people believe you do, that is what really matters. The first and last rule of a successful political career.

The art of stating is obvious is timeless really.

Even the greats such as Shakespeare employed similar devices, I mean: “To be or not to be? that is the question”, the greatest obvious statement of all time. Of course “that is the question”, he literally asked a question.

In modern times the industry of stating the obvious has become a lot more crowded, writers no longer have a monopoly and have to share the limelight with others, such as university professors, motivational speakers and internet philosophers.

Internet philosophers are individuals that have a passion for expressing their intellectual perspectives on social media. Except most thoughts are more self-evident ideas than enlightening revelations. They have embraced the craft of stating the obvious more seamlessly than Bush and Blair's friendship.

Typical examples of internet philosophy include a tweet that read “nobody is perfect” or a picture of an oak tree on Instagram with the caption: “embrace who you are”.

Sometimes I think about the life of an internet philosopher. I wonder about the way in which they wake up every morning and look for any opportunity to be inspired, maybe they open the curtains and the light comes into the room, immediately on their Facebook timeline we see a post that reads, “tomorrow is a new day”.

Or they are late to work that same morning, and a post on their LinkedIn reads: “mistakes are natural”. Any and every experience they've had have has the potential to be internet philosophised.

Access to a twitter and a thesaurus and people start thinking they're Aristotle. Sometimes it just gets out of hand, an internet philosopher would watch the matrix for the first time as if it's some kind of super woke documentary, jump onto Twitter and be like “society is an illusion”.

The worst thing is, that as a writer I am more at risk to chronic internet philosophytis; I always have to keep an eye on my social media activity and the level of self-evidence in my writing to make sure I'm intellectually healthy at all times.

Or else as soon as you know it, I too will be posting self-portraits of myself smiling on Instagram, with captions like: "It's best to always be yourself".

I'd rather retire from writing to become a teacher than become something more dire and dreaded: an internet philosopher.

#creative #writing #internet #society #social media #philosophy

[richiebabalola]

#1 - The Art of Procrastination.

Procrastination. We’ve all be there. In fact, I’ve been there so much I probably have citizenship by now.

Sometimes I feel like buying a Mac Book Pro (for motivational purposes only), just to sit inside Pret A Manager and stare aimlessly through the window - won't buy anything of course because I refuse to pay a fiver for Croissant, regardless of how organic the pastry is.

Plus, I’m living in the financial uncertainty of post-Brexit Britain. So I'll just settle for water and the complimentary oxygen. 

I really have it all planned out to be honest, I would pull out a quick Google Doc and casually type gibberish in it to give off an illusion of productivity.

Regularly, rubbing my chin just to make the routine a tad more convincing.

I've had enough of innocently finding myself on twitter whilst working on a 4,000-word essay that just happens to be due at midnight - that's all elementary now.

I have to take my procrastination to another level.

I call it 'Premeditated Procrastination'.

Falling victim to the momentary whims of my distractions is getting boring, it's time that I step it up a gear. I can never be the accomplished and acclaimed writer I aim to be if I continue to linger at the basic levels of procrastination.

It's time I become more sophisticated in my approach and strategically plan and schedule my time wasting as anyone one with any sort of ambition would.

In fact, I should even utilise a calendar or a even a vision board to ensure that I’m time wasting as effectively and efficiently as possible. 

What is it they say, 'Failing to plan is planning to fail'. In this case, successful planning would be in fact planning to fail. I'm determined that my failure to be productive will most definitely not be due to lack of trying because I will be literally trying to be unproductive.

You see, procrastination is more than just the delay of planned activity - even though that is literally the dictionary definition of the word. 

To me, it's more than that, it's a way of life - it's an art almost. One day I hope to reach the upper echelon of time wasting, like poetry or yoga.

That's a distant dream though, for now, it's just baby steps.

Wow, whoever thought one could even procrastinate in an objective to procrastinate. However profound the irony is, I guess that makes me a trailblazer - the Christopher Columbus of time wasting (minus all the controversy of course) 

Even this MacBook in Pret thing is a bit of a long shot, to be honest, maybe I'll just settle for an Hp in Starbucks like the rest of the common folk. 

You've got to start somewhere right?

#creative #sattire #thinking #art #writing