A man of flaws and curiosities

My name is Tumukunde Collins. I am a man of flaws. My father Mr. Katoto James Mustapha was also never a perfect man but he was nevertheless my imperfect hero. Sir Alex Ferguson in his autobiography remarks about Irish fans and their love for people who are flawed. The likes of George Best, Gascoigne, Jimmy Johnstone. They saw reflections of themselves in these imperfect heroes. They understood the frailty. I too have learnt not to judge or criticize anyone because criticisms, like homing pigeons always come home. Maybe we would not do better if we jumped into the skins of these imperfect heroes and walked around in them.

But in my whole make up, I have found nothing so flawed as my righteousness, my personal relationship with God. I have always wanted to please God, be his servant but I have intermittently failed. The path of my Christianity faith has been thorny full of many setbacks. If it was not for the love of Christ and his re-assuring grace and mercy, I would be condemned eternally.

My great character trait is my self belief. That belief in myself that knows no bounds. It has also become a source of my despair when I have failed to achieve in all spheres of life. In my high school, I wanted to be the best footballer, and represent the school team. I was voted soccer captain in my senior 1 because of my footballing abilities. Everyone admired how I played soccer and it made me feel special. This created expectations in me and made me want to prove myself over and over again that I was as good as people thought I was. It never always panned out that way. Sometimes, I increasingly became selfish with the ball and did a little too much that infuriated my fellow team mates. But to me it was just about self-actualization in my talent that everyone knew I heard. They even nicknamed me wasted talent. Nevertheless, I earned myself a certificate during National coca cola football championships. I promised myself not to train for school team in my F.5, a decision I never regretted.

In my A level, I engaged in other social disciplines which I excelled at to say the least. My academics were good as well. I prayed to God to grant me government scholarship at university level and the gates of heaven opened that door for me. I joined law school on government scholarship and to this, I largely attribute to God’s favour. I remember my mother becoming hysteric when she heard the news from me. For my whole entire being, I had never been proudest till that moment. To see my mother cry tears of joy greatly reignited me with pride and passion at the same time. I was to do law and I wanted to become the best lawyer there ever was. Right now in my fourth year, I look back with mixed emotions about how things could have been different. I wish I had a CGPA of 4 and a first class but that is not to say, I have totally failed myself. I have always thought that I work hard in law school. But for some reason, I never got excellent grades. Instead I would get average grades like Cs and B’s at best and some underwhelming grades am not proud of. Nevertheless, I have always found the study of law intellectually satisfying. It has stimulated my curiosity on some many deeper levels. It has quenched my insatiable thirst in its abyss of unending knowledge. I have relished learning the law, its common law doctrines and exceptions.  My great admiration for judges like Lord Denning, Lord Diplock, Lord Reid et al has inspired me to be a colossus of the legal discipline.

I am also deeply religious. I have always asked God to help me perform better in my law course. After all, it was by God’s grace that I made it into law school with distinction. However, close to 4 years down the road, my relationship with God has been variable. The distractions have been many. I have had to learn to live a balanced life. To balance my spiritual, academic, and social life. At times I have been a lukewarm Christian while at Campus and I don’t know whether this has had a bearing on my academic performance but I deeply suspect so. I try to live a normal life, to be fulfilled in all spheres of life which also explains what has been my approach to Christianity in the past years. To this I attribute my scholarly inspirations like Aristotle. His teachings about virtue have had an immense influence on me. Aristotle defines moral virtue as a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are vices. At times I have worried more about being virtuous than being Christian and yet the Bible teaches us that ‘seek ye the kingdom of God and the rest shall come unto us’. This implies that we should put God first in all that we do. The two teachings are not necessarily contradictory. However, it is nevertheless hard to reconcile them. Since Christianity condemns a lukewarm approach to salvation i.e. being neither hot nor cold.  This has been one of the greatest philosophical puzzles I have had to overcome in my whole entire life. Though my faith is strong and deep rooted, my curiosity for other worldly disciplines has served as an opium to my mind.  In my study of law I have also encountered two different world outlooks in Marxist jurisprudence i.e. idealism v materialism. Idealism emphasizes that the spiritual is prior to the material and therefore affects the outcome in the material world whereas Materialism emphasizes the material as prior to spiritual and therefore affects the spiritual. I have come to appreciate these two world views. They represent two parallel world outlooks that people have in this world. For some people achieving material wealth is seen as an end in itself and they will do anything to achieve this in order to have a sense of fulfillment. For others, achieving material wealth is not an end in itself. They look at life from a moral lens. That is not to say that materialists have no morals. Their moral conscience is determined more by what advances their material gain rather than spiritual gain. Conscience is what determines right from wrong, not necessarily what is good or bad. We all know what is good or bad but our sense of right and wrong differs. For idealists, material gain has to come incidental to their value systems and beliefs. They cannot sacrifice their values for material gain. Materialism in itself implies selfishness. To idealists, everything in the universe is seen as an extension of the Supreme Being that is God. They therefore have to love others as they love themselves. In this world of ours that is increasing becoming materialistic, we also see crime rate increasing for example robbery, prostitution, murder, poverty, social strife brought about by our selfish desires. Materialists are more likely to be corrupted by material gain to bring about any undesirable outcome. As for myself, I find inspiration from the words of former Supreme Court justice, Kanyeihamba: “character and integrity are my riches both here and in the afterlife”.  I believe more in the ideal than the material.  It is who I am at the core. However I also see myself as an idealist as realist and look at how the world can be changed in an ideal way without being lost to reality.

My love for artistic and creative work is one of the things I identify with. I find honesty in expression through art and craftsmanship. Which makes me endeared to the artistic. I have had love relationships, some good some not so good. I have lost in love and also won (if there are indeed losers and winners in love). Love between a man and a woman is a beautiful thing but also hard to realize all the time. Love is the best part of me. My whole life has been a story of love. All our lives ultimately, are about love. My mother taught me loving and kindness. In my heart, I have never been envious of anyone. I love my friends and my enemies (if any). Other people I neither love nor hate them.    

OF FRIENDS AND PAYING THEIR DUES

There is this classic movie I watched called the God father. In the movie, Michael Corleone the main protagonist coins a phrase “friendship and money, oil and water” to the wicked catholic priest who was eager to receive a cheque from him. Of course, it was later realized that the catholic priest intended to defraud the boss of the Cosa Nostra.

Michael Corleone in the Godfather movie by Mario Puzo.

Enough of the movie. However, the phrase builds on the point I want to make in this article. I have come to appreciate the deep philosophical view from that phrase. Ask yourself. Why it is that people we consider to be our friends, almost always never pay us back when we lend them money and yet those people with whom we have less acquaintance to always meet their payment obligation when we lend them? For some reason, when we ask our friends to pay us back, we become a problem to them. The request becomes more of a bother than a deal to be honoured.  They start to tell us how they are well aware that they owe us therefore not necessitating any ‘constant’ reminder on our part and yet take forever to show any signs of paying us back. They even castigate us for being so demanding of them that we feel like the proverbial foolish wicked man whose master forgave his debts but murdered his comrade in cold blood when he could not pay him. We become nuisances, self-centered people that do not understand their ill-plight and struggles. They forget that in the day of their distress, they ran to us and we gave them reprieve from their problems. When their problems are out of the way and their immediate interests served, we become part of their future problems.  One friend of mine (name withheld), in justifying his nonpayment, even went as far as telling me that when I lent him money, it became his and so he could give it to me back at his own convenience. Imagine the temerity!!! They expect us to always be understanding and empathetic when they say they don’t have money due to many problems they are facing. And yet if one looks closely, they are merely pitting their own selfish interests against ours. And in concentrating on their own needs, ours become secondary. They do not realize that human needs are so endless and can never be completely fully fulfilled at any one time. They forget that at one point, we may have foregone our immediate needs and helped them go through a hard time. They forget that we showed them loving and kindness when we selflessly helped them. Besides that, when men of good sense make agreements, they must hold them in sanctity. Good faith must always be kept at all times - fides sit servanda. This is a universal principle of fairness and justice. Even though obligations might not always be strictly performed, a good friend acting out of goodwill always extends time for the other party to meet their obligations. But alas, unscrupulous men still won't meet their obligation to pay simply because doing so, is and cannot be regarded as being in their immediate self-interest. On pure principle, no matter how pressing their interests are, they ought to keep their word and pay up. Nevertheless, they will make excuses and become angry when we remind them of their obligation to pay. Can these people really be our friends? Machiavelli writes in his book, The Prince;

“Friendships that are by rewards and not greatness and nobility of soul, although deserved, yet are not real, cannot be depended upon in time of adversity’’.

These people we sacrifice for in their times of need and then forget us when we want them to repay the favor cannot surely be our friends. They later alone cannot be expected to help us in our times of adversity when the necessity for our friendship is far off.