I read the dictionary of obscure sorrows, here is what I learned.
NOTE: Tola’s note is a journal about some activities I engaged in during the week. Let's dive in!
INTRODUCTION.
Sneaks into the room filled with my pissed off audience. My hands seemed tied to my back, and my eyes had suddenly found love with the ground. How do I explain where I’ve been for the past three weeks without sounding like I’m high on flood water? I raised my head to meet their gaze and began.
“Where have you been?” Geekcoder asked.
This seems to be a simple question with a simple answer. The simple answer would be that, I was facing chronic electricity issues whenever the day to write the newsletter came around, but I got a generator to screw nepa, then I joined a writing gig I couldn’t passover, then when I decided to come back to write the newsletter, I didn’t have a project to show as an excuse for my absence so I procrastinated further till everything I was working on was completed.
“I got served.” I said.
“Breakfast?” Pelumi said from the corner of the room. Breakfast is the street word for a heartbreak. Technically, I suffered an electrical heartbreak so yes, I will ride along this wave of her response. My chest fell and I nodded.
“awww. ” Everyone in the room said in unison as they came around to give me a big hug. I hope I’m out of the room when they find the real meaning behind my words.
CODE
I enjoy programming now. After learning OOP, data and methods have structure in my head. I’m not exactly breezing through the problems I face while building, but I have the stamina to find solutions to my problems because I know what I want, I just need to find how to solve them. I worked on three small projects.
1 Built a simple calculator using OOP. This was a 100devs assignment and it was the easiest to accomplish. It laid my foundation of working with objects and I felt a superman after it worked. You can check it out here.
2 Built a tic-tac-toe game.This is also a 100devs project.This project was a test of patience. There are several conditions to make the game work so I spent a chunk of time trying to make it work. I got some help from Dray when I was in a very tight spot. I don’t reach out to him as much as I used to because I’m intentionally trying to develop my endurance for problems. You can try out the project here.
3 I worked in a team of three to build a simple edutech platform. The goal was to know how to work with data from the backend and display on the frontend. Note, as we didn’t have a UI/UX designer, manage what we cooked here. I’ll advise you to view it on a laptop.
BOOKS
During the break, I finished Power of Now and Sex at Dawn: How we Mate, Why we stray& What it Means For Modern Relationships. I’m currently reading the Dictionary of obscure sorrows. I will summarize what I learned from Power of Now, will give a detailed explanation about the Dictionary of obscure sorrows, and in the thoughts section, I will touch on Sex at Dawn: How we Mate, Why we stray & What it Means For Modern Relationships.
Power of now.
Power of now is a must read for anyone that breathes oxygen. I learned that our problems stem from thinking about the past or future. We feel regret at the thoughts from the past and feel anxiety about the thoughts of the future. Now, is where we can find peace. Before reading this book, quieting the voices in my head seemed like a supernatural thing to do. Now, I do it on a whim and feel very relaxed. If you’d like to do the experiment, you may stop reading and think about your next thought.
I found it impossible to think about my next thought as nothing came to my head. That way, I felt peace. Let me know if it also worked for you. Everyday before I go on my evening walks, I tell myself to think about my next thought. The peace in my mind allows me to enjoy the grey clouds, tinged with the colour of orange from the setting sun.
Dictionary of obscure sorrows.
I logged on to whatsapp last week and checked a few statuses when I saw some excerpts of a book on Dami’s status. I was laughing my head off because I could relate to those emotions. They had happened to me or happened to someone I knew but I didn’t quite know the words to properly describe them. For example, if a word like Ubuntu didn’t exist, how would we adequately describe the idea of “I am because we are”? It would be difficult as we would have to combine words to convey its meaning. The dictionary of obscure sorrows tries to define several human emotions with just a word. I will be posting some of them with situations when I felt like that.
Waldosia.
I felt this when I had a crush on a girl and attended some church event. For some reason, I was looking for her in the crowd when I knew she had no course to be there. A word I’d have called then was “Ment” but thanks to this dictionary, we have a word for it.
Lilo.
My friend, Posi and I hadn ‘t spoken in close to five years. About two months ago, we got on the phone and it seemed like no time was lost.
Fitching
I think this is why I haven’t finished reading Game of Thrones and Harry potter. I read the first three books of Game of Thrones and the first five books of Harry potter, and they were such beautiful pieces of art that I couldn’t bring myself to continue.
Immerensis.
This did not happen to me, but I know a few women that spoke this way. They felt damaged when in reality, they could pass for one of the most beautiful creatures that ever touched earth.
The kinder Surprise.
This emotion was what I saw and decided I was going to read the whole book. It made me laugh a lot because the kinder surprise is the reason I stopped listening to the adults in my life and I was termed stubborn. I realised most adults weren’t experts at living life and were just figuring things out on the go.
You can read the book and see more interesting definitions for how you have felt in the past.
A big win
Before I stopped writing fiction, I was listed to be published in two anthologies. One national and one international. The national anthology, Toyin Falola, just came in yesterday, and I’ve been giddy with excitement.
Will I go back to writing fiction? Yes, when I get older, and I don’t need the money to survive(laughing emoji). I appreciate the organisers for putting in the work to make the published work a reality.
Thoughts
A few weeks ago, there was an uproar about the Yul Edochie story of marrying a second wife. I saw many reactions on the appropriateness of polygamy. People were bringing both religious and cultural explanations to explain the basis of polygamy but I was more interested in the evolutionary/scientific explanation for human tendency towards polygamy so I went ahead and found a book that could give me answers. Sex at Dawn: How we Mate, Why we stray & What it Means For Modern Relationships was an answer to my question.
Please note, these are my personal research and do your findings before you act on any information you find here. Let’s go.
Apparently, ancestral humans lived in egalitarian societies where men and women were equal and shared everything including mates. Paternity wasn't a problem because the community took care of the children from such egalitarian relationships.
The invention of Agriculture stopped the egalitarian nature of humans, and our ancestors went from being hunter-gatherers, to settlers. Man carved his territory and that included the woman in his life. The roles of women changed from being equal providers along with men, to just child bearers and house tending. This relegated them to a weaker position in the society.
The invention of agriculture came with its merits. Humans didn't need to go long distances in search of food and get eaten up by predators anymore, but the problem was, men and women stopped the egalitarian sharing of mates. This arrangement did not attend to the reason why people shared mates in the first instance. Women have a sustained sexual drive while men have a high libido but in short bursts.
Therefore during the egalitarian times, when a man climaxed on a woman, other men were available to attend to her sustained libido. This is why Ancestral women evolved the moaning sound during pleasure to attract the attention of other men around them.
How does this relate to polygamy in men? Ancestral men tended to have more women in their clans to cater for their high levels of testosterone. Now, if we believe humans evolved from pre-existing humans, this gene did not disappear from the physiology of a man. Because a man is the dominant gender in modern society, he can force himself into having more women even against what a western civilized society would consider decent.
Now that a man has been able to get himself more women(polygamy), did the women’s gene of having more males around to satisfy her sexual desires disappear from her gene pool? No, it didn’t. Since modern women evolved to be physically weaker than men, and couldn't protect or provide for their children, they had to make sure they selected a man that could provide resources for protection and survival. This man didn't have to be the most physically attractive, the criteria was, he was dependable. They would bear children for the man that could provide, and during ovulation(Ovulation is a phase in the menstrual cycle), they would go to the men that have the physical qualities that they wanted and sleep with them. Summarily, women would cheat and men would be polygamous or cheat, if the opportunity to be polygamous doesn’t present itself.
The idea of polygamy and cheating is the foundation of the marital problems of modern society. Many believe that, because we are civilized, old genes die and everyone should stick with monogamy. This may be true, but it hasn’t worked so far because why do we still have cases of people looking outside for more sexual partners? Am I saying polygamy is the best solution for humans? No, why? I don’t have the answer.
What are my thoughts? Many people, male and female have found a way to be monogamous, even if it is forced by the economic realities of the nation. But to address the chunk of people who are trying to be in committed monogamous relationships but can’t, society may have to make provisions that cater for the sexual needs of both genders.
Plans for next week.
Build front end for a card processing platform
Complete 100devs videos
This was soo niice, like new things overload!
Noo not too much in a bad way, like the kind that makes your eyes widen...