We learn everything we know how to do because we arrived here only with an empty disc. Not knowing how to even crawl or walk. Even the crying we arrive here with, is learnt here. It is a product of the fear that overwhelms us on arrival in a strange environment. When we arrive here, we begin to learn.

We are told by those who arrived here before us billions of years ago, through their customs and traditions, their writings and arts and other forms of legacies that, this and that is that. We begin to accept and assimilate what we are learning into our empty disc.

As our senses continue to perceive, our disc too begins to populate itself with the things we are learning. The disc is also equipped with capacity to refuse saving some files it detects to be corrupted with malware.

But as the disc keeps filling it’s space, when there is no more space again, some of the saved files will have to be unlearned so the disc can relearn or better put, accommodate new files.

In other analogy, it’s like having grown to become a student, you progress to become a teacher too someday, and grow to become a professor in what you are teaching and begin to profess.

You have learned, unlearned and relearned. You become an authority because you can now propound your own prognostications arising from your own research and proven ideas.

Today, I believe in God not because any person or any book or any philosophy told me so. Yes I was told all my life that there is God. That Christ is the only way to God.

I was told about the angels and devil also, as well as heaven and hell.

I have also read about the esoteric concepts of the universe and the cosmic. But as I grew up, I climaxed by doubting the existence of God.

I challenged everything that told me earlier that there is a God and wanted to believe that there is God only if it was from my own personal conviction based on my experience in my sojourn in this world. I wasn’t asking for evidence. I was unlearning.

In that course, simple things both in life and in nature, that will not even matter to you or someone else and even the big things that are unimaginable and inexplicable became part of my awe-ing experience.

I began to relearn that there is a “something” that is remotely controlling the affairs of this green planet and the rest of the stars. That thing is greater than all things perceivable. It is my conviction now.

I don’t see God through the eyes of anyone again. Not Mathew, not Mark, not Luke, not John, not Paul, not Mohammed, not Buddha, not Jesus etc. I see God through my eyes. Through the simple things that astound me. I have relearned.

I learnt all my life that Mongo Park discovered River Niger. I have unlearned and relearned that too.

I learnt that the devil is black and the angels are white, I have relearned and unlearned that too.

I learnt that “Ojuju Calabar” is coming and will run under the bed, I have also unlearned and relearned that too.

In this life, there is nothing that cannot or should not be learned, unlearned and relearned, including questioning the existence of God, your nativity, your belief systems.

Question taboos, poke your fingers in the eyes of age long cliches and paradigms. Don’t swallow anything hook, line and sinker, including what you are reading now, unless it is born out of conviction based on your own experience.

The truth is that heaven will not fall if you do. Even if it does fall, it won’t fall on your head alone.

Citizen Agba Jalingo is a citizen journalist, political and human rights activist, entrepreneur and critical thinker.

Source: StreetReporters.ng

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