Involuntary attachment to identity.

We all want to achieve something stupendous, in life…but, unfortunately, not everyone really achieves something colossal, in life. We all fantasize about lavish lifestyles. 

We have dreams of owning nor driving the cars of our dreams, houses of our dreams, nor having all the money in the world. Most of us haven’t reached that level, some of us are still below, yet we’d even include suicide in our escape methods, if we were to lose the little we have.

In the world where a preponderance of people strive to be something, in life; it becomes almost impossible for such individuals to not find themselves immersed in despair when their objectives nor goals do not manifest. We all have our own ideas of success, nor progress; however, as disparate as our meanings for the previously mentioned words may be, but their impact on our lives is almost the same. The hoi polloi was programmed to devoutly believe that success is the finish line, while some may beg to differ; they may believe that success is a lifestyle. A title, may seem like a miniature word when you read it on a text; however, its impact on a person’s life may be utterly disparate from what we perceive, in text. “Dr.” may seem to not carry much weight when being read on a piece of paper nor text, but the treatment that the owner of that title receives from those who have attained an understanding of its meaning, is utterly disparate from what we may see on text. 

Obviously, it would’ve required quite a lot of hours, effort, perspiration and emotions into acquiring such title; therefore, the owner of the title wouldn’t allow any factors to feasibly bereave them of their hard-earned accolade. I mean, who would want to go from “Dr.” to a mere “Mr.”? 

“No one!” As one of the humans, who’s emotionally attached to a title nor external objects, would utter. Politicians, celebrities and public figures would barely function if they were to lose their titles nor accolades; hence, the media uses scandals to control the emotional and mental states of such figures. Without their image, their lives are consanguineous to death. Many billionaires, millionaires, politicians, celebrities and public figures are the most naïve people on earth, and a preponderance of humans haven’t realized that. Their biggest fear is losing all that they have. These individuals spend time trying to fix their images, and whenever a scandal pops up and tarnish their images, in lieu of moving on with their lives and ignoring the scuttlebutts as if nothing happened, others would be enormously devastated, some would post a long thread of tweets to justify their acts nor to try and clean their image. Others would go as far as having back to back press conferences just to try and defend themselves. Hence, businesses refer to it as a “brand". This type of emotional attachment, is not only exclusive to well-known people, but also to individuals who’ve never been on television nor been heard on the radio. Try to think of how you react to situations whereby you face embarrassment, disappointment nor any situation which many cause a person to be anxious. Nobody wants to be in the position of being embarrassed in front of a cornucopia of people. Nobody wants to be disappointed by their lover who always appears in their social media posts nor profile pics. That is akin to being stabbed with a knife in the heart, to those individuals. Think of how much time a preponderance of people spend ameliorating their external appearance. Aliko Dangote once said “Your name is your most valuable asset"; therefore, it makes sense why most of us would rather go broke just to attain one expensive jacket by a well-known clothing brand, instead of just purchasing 10 jackets of an unknown brand, for the same amount spent to purchase that one jacket. Most would conclude that they are chasing quality, but the irrefutable truth is that most of those individuals’ choices are dictated, solely’ by vanity. 

Even in magazines, we often see sections where celeb events are published, and also a list of the best dressed and the worst dressed. Which means, a preponderance of people no longer buy clothes to cover their backs, but now choose clothes based on whether they will be able to gain them the attention they require from people who don’t even care about them. This life of emotional attachment to titles is the reason why so many black businessmen behave like Donald Trump, immediately when they begin to get a taste of millions, some are even boastful about being in possession of a few hundred thousands. In music, you’d even hear more than 1000 rappers labeling themselves “best rapper alive”, without even being recommended by the listeners. If you take a good look at this, you’d realize that slavery, apartheid and oppression did a lot of damage to the minds of Bantu people because they’ve been deprived of their power for quite a long time, therefore, they’d use every chance they get to over exaggerate the little power they have, negatively, on their own people; hence, today you’d find a black business owner treating other people with utter contempt owing to the fallacious belief that having a lot of money offers one the warrant for disrespecting those who are in the lower social class nor lower financial status. This mentality of self-importance and treating others with utter contempt, is rife in Bantu communities; in fact, it seems like it is a poison that is mostly fed to Bantu business owners, celebrities and public figures. It’s rare to find a Bantu person who is a high-achiever nor who is rich/wealthy, who is contemporaneously humble and treats others with the same level of respect he expects from others. It’s extremely rare to find such individuals, in Bantu communities. R 5000, alone, is sufficient to impel a weak-minded Bantu person to convince himself that the world is below him. In black families, those who have acquired certain accolades at their respective universities, would barely hold any colloquy to conclusions without informing their interlocutors about the accolades they possess, nor the universities they went to. In a sense, their titles nor accolades eventually reach the point of being consanguineous to, nor overshadowing their natural identity. You’d barely find a Bantu person, who’d exclude their accolades and past achievements, whenever the question “Tell me about yourself” arises. “I’m a qualified engineer, graphic designer, etc." is what you’d often hear in their introduction. 

You’d be lucky not to be told about the varsity life, in the body of the colloquy. Equally, you’d also be lucky not to be asked about what are you doing, in life. That’s the subject matter of people who are devoutly attached to their titles nor identities. 

How more foolish, can the mortal humans be? 

Every mortal human being, is well aware of the irrefutable fact that all of us are mortal and our physical lives, on earth, are ephemeral; therefore, why do we have to immerse ourselves in ego, emotional attachment, conceit when we have good knowledge of the fact that one day we will leave our physical bodies that we often go broke while trying to adorn them with expensive clothes that lose value as soon as we leave the retail store?