S H E V A HOLDINGS & CONSULTANCY

“This lasted a minute
It could have been more.
This lasted some seconds
Guess now we’ll never know.”

Sheva was still considered a child according to the laws of her nation; but she knew more than any grown up not just what was happening to her but why it was happening to her too. If you heard the full story, you’d definitely credit other factors and give reasons contrary; but Sheva knew in the end it was especially because of her.

It was her fault she expected good in the world but found none, for what was good about this world that wasn’t marred by some sort of evil? It was her fault she had taken all that she was surrounded with as the pattern and print of each and every other person and society, yes it wasn’t so; for what does each and every person and society crave but individuation and distinction? And how can such individuation and distinction by imperfect and fallible creatures be nothing but dangerous, destructive and self-appeasing? It could never be so. Such credulity. Such naivete. No. Never again. It would never happen again. Atleast not to her. She had learnt her lesson for the first time and this first time would be the last time too.

Sheva was an Elderly, the first born in one of the most renown child gardens of their small nation, Kindred. Her principals ensured by all costs that their kindergarten stood out and indeed time told that they would, because somehow by their circumstances, it was easy to. It came easier than other things. Than many other things.

As part of the creme de la creme of her middle class society, it was no surprise that Sheva had been exposed to alot of Kindred History and teachings. She knew it all in her head and could recite it all by heart. She was however yet to properly understand it all but she was beginning to inevitably do so. She had to be a good example to her fellow Kinder. She was expected to lead and guide according to the sacred principles of the nation kindred; teachableness, wonder and obedience. She was of a social and academic pedigree where entrance into maturity was not just a guarantee but an expectation. When the time came, the Principal Council would grant her passage to  kindred heaven- adulthood. That was the dream of every Kindred; to be declared an adult. Life was not worth living aprt from that possibility.

Her country had enjoyed peace for many many years and her time was the reign of High King Principal Rex Garalius. There had been the great war where many were lost amongst the three nations of Druid Nations United, Africa and her own, Kindred.

The war was begun by the Druids who claimed that the only way to complete and whole living was through philosophical enlightenment. Their greatest pursuit was therefore knowledge. They were the biggest, strongest and most sophisticated nation  because so vast was their knowledge. In great conviction, they set out beginning a miltant crusade for the forceful conversion of the other two nations that unfortunately saw things differently.

The Africans believed one lived to uphold their cultural and familial legacy. To them the best end was employment; a way to consistently earn a living and be successful in life providing for your children, that they would want for nothing and that they would in old age support you too. That was the dream; their dream- the African dream.

To them the philosophical pursuits of the druids were unhelpful and deterred them from their blessed tradition, not to mention that the Druids had militantly impressed their beliefs of destination in such a way deemed complete sacriledge. The violence was unimaginable, the bloodshed never ending and spanning over years and years; the death toll to levels wiping out tribes and African traditions. Remnants of such African tribes are referred to a hybrids with a compromised and polluted African culture; bearing the dark melanin skin of African, being referred to by rich and meaningful African names, but being nothing like a “True” African was supposed or expected to be.

In the end, the Spears and Arrows of the Africans could not defeat the sophisticated technology of the Druids. They were a rich culture of interconnectedness and community, but there are so many other things they didn’t know. Like the existence of vibranium. They were killed in the thousands.

The militant crusade of the Druids came to the nation Kindred a few years later after Africa was subdued. The Principal Leadership abhorred it completely for they alone had the power and authority to declare a child learned, wise and knowledgeable; fit for adulthood. No such attainment of knowledge would do such a thing. This was their stance and from it they declared war. They alone declared a child to be an adult; otherwise, that child remained a child, damned to dwell in a literal Neverland. The Druid philosophies would puff the children up to deem themselves of understanding apart from the declaration of the Principal Council. They had to protect their authority for the good of the children of the nation. Generations would be lost. The order or life destroyed and eventually forgotten. The sacred principles were sacred for a reason after all. They would not have it.

So the Druids killed the children of Kindred by the thousands too for even knowledge that they had, the Principals did not seek to apply.

Sheva didn’t need to be an adult to understand what she had learned already through the story that is life. A child, an African and a Druid all experienced it. Empiricism was also a source of knowledge, no? What the devastation caused by such a war as the great war told you in the history books was the same thing everyday experiences did- that the war, the true war was inward, existential and spiritual not physical and territorial. It was human nature to want. It was human nature to avoid the learning from the lessons that taught you the discipline of discerning what it is you actually needed. She knew this struggle in herself. She saw it in every principal’s obsession with power over the gullible and credulous kindred. She knew the cycle. She knew its sure result.

You hope for the recurring symbols, motifs and people in life to get you through it. You always imagine yourself the protagonist on some great mission and purpose awaiting their archetypal sidekick- the Samwise to your Frodo. The Principals looking out for you the way they should, garnering understanding in those they governed; not just promoting accumulated knowledge through an unhelpful authority and a purported activation spell unlocking the wisdom in that knowledge they claimed to have.

Sooner or later you understand that bestfriends are over rated, love is chemical process that coincides with the considerations of social and economic compatiblity as well as a mutual self interest because even those you love succumb to societal constructs. There is safety and certainty. Outside the authority of the principals, life is wasted and dangerous afterall, it is indeed dangerous to remain a child; and if that is your fate what a life wasted yours is.

It’s about self not others most times therefore, because people have to survive. After a war, generations knock it into the next that peace at all costs is imperative. It makes people afraid and controlling. They act like the war they are trying to avoid is already going on.

In the end people are more Smeagol than Samwise, for the same reason Smeagol evolved and turned out to be himself. All humans are as greedy, as afraid, as self- preserving, false hearted and perfidious as Smeagol was; druid, African and Children alike.

All that’s eventually left is the bitterness, despair, anguish and defeat from it all. You reach the point in life where you aren’t just feeling completerly and utterly alone, you are.

Sheva had distanced herself from so many people and things over a long period of time, it had become the irrevocable norm because of these realizations. All these notions formed alone in her mind and it was treason to share or claim that she understood what she was not declared to understand. She was lost in her mind; in how she felt like the only one going through life in its expression to her- completely absurd.

Why was everything around her so irrational and she the rational being trapped in the disparity within the contradiction, to act like she does not see it or feel it as acutely as it existed? Or was she the irrational one instead? She needed human connection; a conversation, a social context, event, gathering; anything with someone, with something that saw what she was seeing and feeling. In desperation and on many ocassions she interfaced with some that weren’t as desperate to see or understand what she did. They weren’t like she was; serious about deep and fruitful connection.

She felt and knew the Smeagol in herself now because someone had the Smeagol in them, and the cycle goes went on. It shall go on. Like them she had to survive too because of the social construct.

“There are no more Samwises in our life stories” it seemed to her. It is an inevitability. Frodo never gets to Mordor, never throws the ring into the fire because that is life. Maybe that’s  that’s why the story is a big deal after all the years Tolkien wrote it. Because it was the exception.

But life was the norm. All because we constantly fall for the archetypical fallacy we now endure and are eventually maddened by the torture of constant relational impasse. It sucks and you’d blame the pretender; you’d blame their uninvolvement, their uninspirtaion, their indifference. You’d also blame the lack of control you have over the whole situation.

But most of all you blame yourself. She blamed herself. Like Smeagol blamed himself, he didn’t even care anymore. He just wanted the ring.  Even when it was in the fiery lakes of mordor. Like Frodo blamed himself and seemed unhappy still; even after his greatest achievement, even with Samwise telling him exactly what to do in that moment, he had still failed in a way. He couldn’t stay in the shire. Life and its cumulative choices could be that intense.

She should have known and seen it coming because she had everything she needed to, to see it coming. Just like Druid, African and Kinder, she knew what she needed but always went for what she wanted and the truth is the two rarely coincide.

She wanted Freedom; but freedom came with responsibility and the responsibility were the consequences of her thoughts.