IGBO

    ~~    Dreaming, Eating, Living, Talking, THINKING, Sleeping  ~~  IGBO

Igbo is my Culture, Igbo is my Language, Igbo is my Tradition, Igbo is my Tribe.

In sum, my quintessence is IGBO.

Ironically or sarcastically IGBO is the acronym of a reality in se: “I Go Before Others”.  

We want to believe in this factual statement, which does not, by any stroke of the imagination, imply SELFISHNESS OR SELF-CENTREDNESS.  NO !!!; nothing could be farther from the truth. This appears most natural, human and indeed 'reasonable'. 

The Latin adage is:  “Nemo dat quod non habet” – You cannot give what you don’t have. 

One evening I was visiting a family friend, their little girl was just beginning to crawl and make some 'verbal' sound; she could hear when mom or dad calls her. She will turn, giggle, increase her speed and pretend to go away from their direction.   My close observation was that whatever little Ada-mma picked from the floor - bread crumbs, cookies, groundnuts (peanuts), etc. goes into her mouth. Certainly she loves the mother and father, but she will not pick a piece of cookie or peanuts and take it to her mother, NO; she puts it into her mouth. Is this little girl, yet crawling, selfish? NO. When she grows up to reason, she will begin to know what it is to give/share. In the meantime, she is acting and responding to that which is natural and human:  The saying goes thus: "Charity begins at home", but does not end there.  Later this little girl will grow up to learn to love others, outside of herself. 

A few months ago we had a symposium shortly before the pandemic: one of the presenters had a power-point presentation and one of the slides says: "you cannot pour from an empty cup" showing an empty cup tilted, really empty. Basically if you have nothing, you cannot give anything. Like the Latin adage: "ex nihilo, nihil fit"~ from nothing, nothing comes.