26/10/2023
He blows my mind.
By the things he does.
This friend of mine.
Who lives in the United States.
Married loosely.
And purposefully sterile.
Hence he transverses the globe to explore his hobbies, fancies and fantasies.
Helped on by the wealth he has created.
From being a ruthless trader in stock, bonds, forex, crypto and angel investing.
Today he called me and told me that he has struck four things off his bucket list.
The first being that he has visited Tokyo, Japan.
The second being that he has stayed there for 7 nights in a luxury five star hotel suite with a breathtaking bird-eye view of the city that costs $15,999 a night.
The third being that he has drank the 'Diamonds are forever martini' which has a real diamond in it, which you keep after the drink and which costs nearly $20,000 a glass.
The fourth being that for each day he stayed in Tokyo, he ate an Olive Wagyu beef steak. Which is the rarest variant of the Kobe beef steak. Which in turn makes it the most expensive meat in the world, costing around $500 a steak. It is this expensive because of the way the about only 3,000 cows who exist only on the island of Shodoshima in Japan are fed, nurtured and slaughtered. One of these cows cost over $100,000, with one having been sold at auction for $400,000.
His laughter was soft.
As he relayed his accomplishments with shy humility.
This friend who I knew way back during my days at the University of Ibadan.
An orphan, who had to come to Lagos during the weekend to work as a bus conductor and sometimes driver, to raise enough money for another week at school.
I remember when during the holidays I ran in to him at Maryland bus stop, working as a conductor. I was walking with a couple of my friends from other universities, heading for Ikeja Cantonment to see another of our friend.
He had shouted my name and hurried over to say a quick hello.
I greeted him with the same affection and introduced him to my friends.
And just that action endeared me to him.
As he would tell me later in school.
"Men, I can never forget what you did that day... You were not ashamed of me... you just hugged and introduced me like you didn't notice my clothes were dirty, I was wearing slippers and I was a danfo conductor."
We were close friends.
Me in the Arts.
Him in Social sciences.
But somehow no matter how much I prodded, he blatantly refused to talk to me about his past.
The only thing he would say.
In a very indirect way was.
"The amount of suffering I have seen in this life has taught me that life is not fair and it doesn't send you, whether you are good or you are bad. The only thing you can do for yourself is enjoy your life to the fullest. So me o, as you see me like this, I know I will make it. And when I do, I will live my life each day as if it is my last day. Whatever I dream about and desire, as long as I can afford it, I will do it. I will give to others, if I choose to and not because anyone tells me it is my job to do it, because I have seen the face of real ingratitude before. I have seen that the spirit of entitlement is like witchcraft. It is filled with wickedness and jealousy. The ones who receive will respond to their inability to no longer receive with hatred. They will hate you and those you love and care about because somehow you can no longer give to them what you were giving to them and they will blame it on the ones you are giving and also on you, instead of being grateful for the fact that you once were able to give to them. I have seen where a man gave everything he has to his family and his people, school fees, houses, cars, clothes, food, in short they didn't even need to ask, since once he saw a need he immediately satisfied it. But when his wife fell sick and died, none of them showed up to help, when he in turn fell sick for a long time, sold his properties and spent nearly all his money in order to survive but eventually died, there was nobody. And he was so abandoned that his siblings buried him like a rat, and made his three children their houseboys and house girl. One to each sibling. One of the boys died of typhoid that was left untreated, the girl who was seven years old, went missing one day and no-one bothered to look for her, and it was so horrible for the last boy that he had no option but to run away, if not, he knew that the same fate awaited him..."
Lagos
Jude Idada
April 24, 2021
