You're never going to get over it

I'm wiping tears off my face right now.

The last time I shed tears was when my uncle, who was the doctor in charge of my father's treatments, announced to me that he had passed on.

Before then, the last time I remember shedding tears was in 2007, when my dad announced to me that my closest cousin, Ikemefuna Ezeokoye died at a car accident.

So why is tears streaming down my face now?

I was trying to decide if I should grow my dreadlocks again or not, then my thought wandered to what my father thought of it when he was alive.

He didn't like it. But he let me keep it anyway.

When I first started trying to grow the locks, my mum complained incessantly about it, but he always calms her down, while trying to make me see reasons to cut my hair. I didn't give in. In 2012, one Sunday morning, as I was waking, he came and handed me some money and said "go and cut your hair immediately after church today." I did without any hesitation. I knew pressure from my mum had forced him to do it and I didn't want to be the a cause of any issues between them.

So after cutting it, I moved out of home for good and went to grow my dreadlocks elsewhere.

When I had it on, every time we see, he says one or two things about how, as a gentleman I shouldn't be wearing dreadlocks, as it is usually associated with area boys. But he never tries to force me to cut it. When I took the Interswitch job and decided to cut my hair, he expressed his gladness. When I left the job and started growing the hair again, he just let me be.

The next time I had to cut it was when I had look normal, in honour of him, at his funeral.

That was the person he was. He won't force anyone to do something that they didn't want to do, especially once he believes that they have come of age. When we, his kids, were all going into the university, he expressed his deep desire to have a lawyer in his family. But none of us was interested. After saying it a few times he let it slide, but gave us his support nonetheless.

-----

When I told my friend Temitope that my dad had passed on, she said,"You're never going to get over it". She had lost her father a couple of years back, so she knew what she was saying.

Now I wonder how many future decisions would bring back the memory of my father and make me wish he was still alive. I now need to learn to be a man about it and not shed tears like a baby whenever those memories come.

My father usually said: "When you look around and you don't see me anymore, what would I have taught you?"

-----

I've decided that, in honor of my dad's memories, I'd not grow my dreadlocks anymore. I'd miss it and I'm sure my mum would be very happy (as I, and my dad, would like her to be).

A Life of Service: A mini-biography of my late father, John Asiegbu Ezeokoye

My father passed away on the 6th of August. He went into coma, after 1 week of being admitted with stroke. Despite all the efforts to revive him, he didn't make it. His wake keeping was held on 2nd October 2014, at Oke-Odo, Alimosho Lagos, his community of residence. While the burial ceremony held on October 15th at my hometown, Aguluezechukwu, Aguata Anambra state.
 
It's really painful burying my father at 26, especially when he's aged only 61. I see his influence in many things I do and I wish he stayed longer and saw his future grandchildren before passing.
 
The composition below was done by me, based on personal discussions with my father, experiences of living with him and words I've heard from other people. It was recited by my elder brother, Francis Ezeokoye, at his funeral.
 
Enjoy.

--------------- 

John Asiegbu Ezeokoye (DE-JOHN) has passed on. A gem in the eyes of many and a foundation for many successes. In his not-so-short life, he affected a lot of people in several ways and the result of his impact will last for a very long time.

Born in AguluezeChukwu in June 1953 to Nkwonwe Eze-okoye and Antonia Eze-okoye, as the fourth of eight children, and the third son out of seven boys. He was a bright young boy who, in his own words “was always available to help out with chores whenever required”. He was baptised into the Catholic faith at his hometown, 7 months after his birth. In 1963, he received his first holy communion. The following year, he received the sacrament of confirmation.

After losing his eldest Brother Marcel at the Biafra war, and having lost his father earlier, his education had to be cut short after standard 6. After the war, he joined his immediate elder brother Late Dennis Ezeokoye (Nzedile) in Lagos to learn a trade, help elevate the living standards of the family and provide support for the education of his younger siblings.

With hard work and doggedness, he put in his all into his apprenticeship, doing several task at different times, in order to find a perfect fit for his personality and to diversify his income stream. He usually said that, at a point in his life, he was serving 3 masters at the same time and was delivering at all fronts, stretching himself beyond his comfort zone. In the end it all paid off and he made a consistent stream of income as a young man, operating under the business name “DE-JOHN”.

At the peak of his business success, he ran businesses ranging from sales of electrical & electronics materials to plumbing materials, and a small restaurant chain. His businesses were spread across different parts Lagos; from Oshodi to Ojo, from Idumota to Iyana-Ipaja. In all these places, he brought in apprentices to assist in running the business. At its peak, there were 7 shops and 12 boys learning trade under him.

John never joked with education. Being himself a collector of books and magazines, he had a personal library where he stocked popular novels written by popular authors during his days. These novels were going to whet the reading culture which he imbibed in his children in the future. He also ensured that every apprentice he brought in completed primary school at his supervision, if they hadn’t before he took them, to enable them manage his shops better. At the graduation ceremony of his younger brother Ernest’s set at Aguata Boys High school, he offered clothing materials to the best set of graduating students in order to encourage them to pursue their education further.

John was a family man to the core, sacrificing personal comfort most times, for the growth of his family. He contributed immensely to the education of his younger siblings. When required, he offered his siblings key positions at his business, in order to cushion the rigour of them having to build their businesses in the tedious manner he went through building his. After his younger Brother, Dr Ernest Ezeokoye, finished his housemanship and was ready to run his medical centre, he was one of the foundation instrumental to the setting-up of Esteem Medical clinics, which has helped saved life over the years.

The year 1984 was a bittersweet year in the life of John. It was in this year that he completed the completed the traditional marriage ceremony for his heartthrob, Miss Roselyn Nkechi Ezeilo. It was also in this year that he raised his decked building in AguluezeChukwu, despite losing the original architectural plan of the house. Unfortunately, he had to stop the project half-way due to some issues in his business.

In the following year, he wedded his sweetheart, taking the vows of holy Matrimony at St John’s Catholic Church Oshodi and a new chapter began in his life. He went on to father four sons: Chukwunonso Francis Ezeokoye, Chukwubuike Celestine Ezeokoye, Obumneme Anthony Ezeokoye and Chima Emmanuel Ezeokoye.

To his sons, he was an available father. Being there to sing poems, tell bedtime stories and help with basic arithmetic, when they were kids. He was also a strict disciplinarian, never failing to discipline his sons when they veered off the right path. Despite the collapse of his business post-marriage, he ensured that he imbued in them tenets that would be instrumental to their growth as useful citizens. He often promised to ensure that they are educated to any degree they desire. Unlike the prevalent nature of fathers, he also tried not to force them to pursue any discipline just because he wants it. Instead he gave his children the freewill to make their choices, trusting God that their upbringing would direct them in the right path. He lived long enough to witness all his sons acquire Bachelor’s degrees at some of the best Federal Universities in the country. They were trained as mechanical engineer, computer scientist, architect and biotechnologist respectively.

To his wife, he was a backbone and moral support. Even though, like every human, he erred once in a while, he always ensured he settled any differences they had in due time. He never drove her out nor considered leaving the marriage when they had misunderstandings, instead he showed love and brought an aura of peace into the marriage. He supported her business drives and in return, she supported the growth of the family where required. He created an environment where both were shareholders in family growth and proper upbringing of the children.

In his later years, he was actively involved in the building of a new catholic community at Oke-Odo, Alimosho Lagos, being his area of residence. He was an active member of the Catholic Men Organisation (CMO) at his community at St. Christopher’s Catholic Church and volunteered for causes which The Church needed services for, both in cash and in kind. He enjoyed the company of friends in the community, where he was respected as an elder and he never fails to lead by example wherever needed.

Dear John, you were a husband, father, brother, uncle and friend to many, before death plucked you from our midst. Even though we are saddened by losing you, we take solace in the Word of God which says:

“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even if he dies” – John 11:25

And we believe that you are living and resting at the bosom of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

 

Bittersweet Week

Chiamaka, my pretty, not-so-little cousin, who's a going-on-200Level Accounting student of Covenant University, has been one of biggest critic during development. She'll criticize my U.I., my app approach, and worse, the colours on my code editor. As I woke up on Monday morning and concluding internal testing on my new product, I was impressed that she liked it, then I got a call from my mom. She said my dad was ill and admitted in the clinic. She said it was serious.

My joy was cut short and I had to suspend everything I was doing to go visit him and care for him. The last time I've had to care for someone who was admitted was when I was in 200L at UNILAG. One of my closest friends, was ill and had to go to the clinic. But my dad's case was worse. According to the doctor, he's been having HBP for some time and hadn't paid much attention to it, so it had developed to something more serious -- partial stroke.

He's in his 60s and has been very active. He runs a store close to home, where he resells plastic products, supplied from major factories, such as Nigerian Breweries. So this was a major shock to me. Well, long story short, a majority of this week, I've spent with him and my mom at the clinic. He's partially lost the ability to use his left-hand-side, so we've gotten a physiotherapist. However, he's responding positively to treatment.

In the meantime, I had planned to put my new app in the hands of alpha testers this week, and I went ahead with the plan irrespective. That has gone tremendously well. My gratitude goes to every one who took time off their busy schedules to test the app and gave me valuable feedback. I'm also impressed by the reception and the thoroughness. Thanks most especially to Ope Obembe of Callbase, Adeyinka Amurawaiye of Meditell, Bezaleel Ashefor of DIUS studios, Victor Obiator and my friends at Interswitch. Also to my oga at the top, Gbenga Sesan for the confidence boost!

I'm closing testing and development this weekend, after integrating selected feedback from the alpha testers. Next week, I'll announce the application URL and official release date. I'll also work towards closing partnership talks that are ongoing, ahead of launch.

I'm excited.


P.S.

1) I've been a one-man team, from concept creation to app and business development. Only working with feedback gotten from kind-hearted well wishers, who are genuinely interested in my activities. The tasks have been overwhelming. This week, I felt the pressure most. So I've invited a former classmate of mine to join-in on the project. As soon as we conclude proceedings, I'll announce him.

2)



Those who know me closely know that I'm a big fan of dreadlocks. Well, I just acquired mine. I like them, but I wish my hair was really longer, so the locks can fall over my shoulders. They're cuter that way. I had to do it now though, because my hair was getting too rough and untidy. Anyway, I'll gladly watch them grow and fall over my shoulders, like they should really be. Now I have to buy several fashionable headwear in order to protect from people who judge at first-sight.

I'm launching a new startup. Anticipate.

Yes, anticipate :)




In May, I resigned my position as a software developer at Interswitch to try to get out my dreams again. A number of things inspired this, but most notably was my friend, Abiola Olaniran's return from Nairobi after his business Gamsole's successful incubation with 88MPH.

I'm working on an idea I began working on last year, before I accepted the Interswitch job. I had built a working prototype, but due to my low morale which accompanied the outcome of Tiketmobile, I decided to shelf it and pick-up a regular job. I'm very grateful to Babafemi Ogungbamila, the CIO of Interswitch and to Chinenye Mba-Uzoukwu my indirect mentor for giving me great options at that time, when almost every other thing I heard/read about myself wasn't palatable.

The idea?

I'm building a marketplace which lets people organising occasions -- birthdays, weddings, etc -- easily find and pay for services and service providers that they need. I call it an occasions utility service. I'll keep the name off for now, until I'm ready to open it up.

Between the last week in May and now I've reworked my original idea from last year, and iterated both the concept and UI design 3 times, after creating and seeking feedback from a closed circle of people. Now I'm doing my internal testing and QA. By the first week of next month, it should be available for the first set of external users, the alpha testers. The MVP and current value proposition targets graphics designers. If you're a graphic designer and would love to be an alpha tester, please do send me an email at celestocalculus@gmail.com. I plan on keeping the number really small, so the sooner the better. Thanks.

It's the much expected comeback from the Tiketmobile Fiasco and, like Tiketmobile, I'm putting my all into it and looking forward to building a successful business that would gave massive value to the adopters.

P.S.
Much regards to Anthony Ezeokoye, Ope Adeoye, Mark Essien, Chinenye Mba-Uzoukwu, Emmanuel Oluwatosin, Depanka Rustagi and Abiola Olaniran, among others; for the inspiration, criticisms, feedback and belief I'm honoured to benefit from you guys. And for listening and giving advice too.

Most especially to my brother Anthony. Thanks a lot for being there always.

Impressions from the moderated discussions on Africapitalism held at The Guardian GDP website

Yesterday, The Africapitalism Institute engaged some members of the public in a discussion about the ideals of Africapitalism (check it out here). Being an advocate for capitalism, I was looking forward to it, but for reasons beyond my control, I missed the discussion. However, I took the pains to study all the arguments and there was a lot to learn in them.

My personal impressions are summarized below:

My personal summary of Africapitalism

Africapitalism is an improvement on traditional capitalism in that it advocates “inclusive growth”, such that “social good” is considered as a pass mark for corporations, along-side making profit.

Personally, I think that true capitalists, operating in societies where there is less corruption and better scrutiny should know this. Bringing it home in an African context is because the capitalists operating on the continent are mainly foreigners, who pay little mind to the state of the environment. They mainly want to extract all the values available and leave. This is made worst by the corruption in the land and the fact that government officials prefer to enrich their pockets by collecting bribes, as opposed to creating proper guidelines for operations of these foreigners.

Africapitalism wants to put an impression in the mind of the African business owner, who has the opportunity of side-stepping the government & maximizing profit as the foreigners do, that they are responsible not only for making profit for the shareholders, but also for ensuring that they don’t do this at the detriment of the society which they operate in. And where possible, they should make conscious and sincere efforts at bettering the lots of the consumers of their services.

The biggest questions are: Where does this leave the government? Do these theories absolve the government of responsibilities to the people who elected them? Should important functions of the state, such as security for instance, be left in the hands of Africapitalists due to government’s perceived incompetence? If this is the case? Won’t the common people suffer for these, as capitalists try to exploit them?

Real life scenario:

In Nigeria, everybody is their own government. Even though we have people in elected positions, each family is expected to handle every necessities on its own. A family would face certain difficulties if it doesn’t think about:

·         Its source of privately generated power (even though they pay a regular bill to the government);

·         Its source of water;

·         A small neighbourhood community that fills pot-holes on the road with sand or stone, when it goes bad;

·         Private security bill for the estate where they reside;

·         Etc.

All these issues exist even though the average Nigerian worker, who’s employed somewhere, pays tax regularly.

These are social issues that a capitalist – with happy shareholders and making decent profits – operating within the neighbourhood of such family can decide to take-up. But then, if this is the case, why don’t we just build a country filled with basic units of capitalists, instead of having elected government officials?

I have a few answers to these questions, such as advocating a “thin government”, whose major functions is the creation of policies that ensure inclusive actions from the Africapitalists. This would then result in a 3-step responsibility cycle, where the people hold the government responsible. The government in turn holds the corporations/capitalists responsible. And the capitalist look to the people to provide officials for government positions.

However, I’d rather that the drivers of the Africapitalism movement enlighten us on how they intend for this to go. 

What are the challenges facing Africapitalism?

From my point of view, the most obvious challenge is the dearth of influential businesses owned and operated by Africans. Or maybe just lack of local businesses which operate with these inclusive, Africapitalism mind frame – African owned or not!

The most obvious solution to this is to build more African businesses, operating with this mind-set. Either build a new class of business people, or try to integrate these ideals into existing businesses. Or both. There doesn’t seem to be a shortcut to this.

But the participants of this discussion run “social ventures”

Being more attuned to businesses that focus on profit, I couldn’t help noticing that most, if not all, participants of the discussions introduced themselves as running “social ventures”. By social ventures, I mean ventures that are “impact first” other than “profit first”. Not that all ventures shouldn’t be driven by making impact, but to clarify better: by “profit first”, I meant businesses whose activities directly influence their bottom-line.

This brings some pertinent questions.

·         Is Africapitalism meant to be attractive only to these kinds of ventures?

·         Can the concept be sold to a “Gabros & sons” who runs a chain of electrical/electronic supply stores in a number of neighbourhoods and want to maximize profit?

My thoughts on this is that, these kinds of venture — which depends on well-meaning foundations and people to funding their operations — may not be influential enough to push the true values of Africapitalism. Mainly because they aren’t meant to be self-sustaining. They could be the arm, through which bottom-line focused capitalist, looking to operate inclusively can give back to the community. But putting “social ventures” as the flag-bearers of Africapitalism might be a limitation to its adoption by bottom-line focused businesses.

 Conclusion

At the moment, these are the thoughts that occupied my mind after reading through the discussion threads. I know that if I immerse myself more into this, more thoughts would surface. However, I’ll like to conclude at this point for now.

I need to go back to building my soon-to-be-launched businesses. Thanks to all the participants for sharing the knowledge they shared. It was worthwhile and helped improve on the basic ideas I had about the Africapitalism movement.

Cheers.

Kudos to ABSOLUT

Last weekend, I published a post about how Absolut vodka took artist who took part in the Open Canvas and their work for granted. And how they kept using the works of these artist for marketing, without duly compensating the artists nor actually finishing the competition.

I'm glad to publish this post to let you know that they have made concrete moves to correct their errors. I think I'm responsible for letting the public know what the outcome of that post was, after literarily slaying the brand.

In an email reply sent to Anthony, they indicated that they only got to know that they're owing the artists from reading my blog post and they fixed a meeting to talk about it. The meeting held last Wednesday, where they apologized, explained the situation which led to the neglect and promised to remedy the issues.

Part of what they promised to do include:

1. They actually offered all of the artists present at the meeting a pass to the "Road to MAMA" party which held last Friday night. As a compensation for not inviting them for their "Art party" which held last weekend.
2. The promised to settle the stipends for transportation and logistics, which the artist used-up during the Open Canvas competition and also to give them certificate of participation.
3. They promised to integrate the artists better in their activities in the coming months/year by collaborating with them as brand ambassadors and stuffs.

Aren't we all happy about this?

I love me a brand that is sensitive to the public perception of their activities and take corrective steps when they make a mistake. Brands that don't see themselves above the scrutiny of the public and once they discover they're wrong, they don't get defensive. Instead they reach-out and create an inclusive policy.

If they keep to their promises, they might just become one of my favorite brands. Wish them all the best and success in the Nigerian market.

Kudos to ABSOLUT. Well done.

ABSOLUT Scammers

The video below begins with a voice over from Anthony, my talented artist brother...



When Anthony told me last year, that he was invited by the Absolut people to join a number of other artists in an art project around Lagos, I felt like: "Finally, a solid brand takes art seriously."

I was wrong. The ABSOLUT open canvas (Lagos Edition) is a scam and a ploy by the folks at Absolut to get free creative marketing contents, using lies and trickery.

Since December last year till today, not a single one of the participating artists have been compensated for taking part in this project. Emails have been sent back and forth. Phone calls have been made. But NOT ONE SINGLE ARTIST has been compensated. They didn't follow through with their promise of increasing the visibility of any of the artists, neither did they pay any of them off for their efforts. 20 artists in total.

The worst thing about this is that they use these materials for EVERY SINGLE MARKETING they are doing. EVERY-FUCKING-SINGLE-MARKETING!

NONSENSE.

Yesterday, they had a party with MTV Base, as a build-up to the MAMA awards and the artworks of these 20 creative geniuses was everywhere. The idiots didn't even think it was necessary to send out official invites to the artists.

I don't know why MTV would drag their brand in the mud by associating with these idiots. Dear MTV, Ciroc is both a better vodka and a better brand. See what they are doing at Rhapsody and Kudetta Lounge. They are better than the fuckers who call themselves Absolut.

Anyway, I've advised my brother to take legal actions against them. Get all the artists who took part in this to come together and sue these guys and make sure they pay with their last penny. We are educated enough not to allow some set of stupid people to come here and pull a fast one. That era passed away with the period of slavery, and intellectual rights MUST be respected. If that is how they do it, make them hold their kai kai, we no want!

P.S.
To try get some more free contents, the guys hired an unprofessional joker to side talk one of the artist to come and do another free art work at the party. This joker contacted my brother. Halfway into negotiation, the joker eloped without saying a word when the invoice was sent to him... and went on to restart negotiation with another of the artist involved in the open canvas project. The joker didn't know that they were all friends, so story went round.

Moral of the P.S.: These Absolut guys want contents but aren't ready to pay for it.

ABSOLUT Nonsense.

UPDATE:
The guys at Absolut read this and acted accordingly, to which all parties involved are grateful. I blogged about it here: http://ezeokoyecelestine.blogspot.com/2014/06/kudos-to-absolut.html. However, we are all looking forward to them keeping their promises.

I'll re-launch better

So on Tuesday, I had a meeting with the products arm of Quickteller team, along with the Founder/CEO of a very notable local start-up. It was actually a negotiation session, not a meeting per se.

Over the last couple of weeks/months, I've been the middleman trying to make a great deal happen between the good folks at Quickteller and this friend of mine, whom everyone acknowledges runs a kick-ass service. I try my best, being the mutual friend, to put a soft cushion for both parties, majorly because I believe it's a great deal and this person in particular has offered really great listening ears to my wahalas. One night, on the week of Jan 14th, 2013 after we officially opened-up Tiketmobile, he called to congratulate me and I think we spoke for an upward of 40 mins. That meant a lot to me. We speak a lot from time to time after that. So when something of this nature came-up, and I thought it could help his business make better headway, I tried my utmost best to make things happen.

Now this meeting/negotiation session isn't just about making a great deal happen between the awesome company which puts food on my table and my good friend. Nah. It's also an important drill for me, to keep myself on my grind. To pick-up as much as I could. To take my head out of the engineering hole I bury it in every workday and, once in a while, remind myself that my comfortable position should be at the intersection of engineering, business, teams management and strategy.

The entrepreneur in me is brewing stronger. Taking notes and nodding in acknowledgement.

I'll definitely re-launch better.

I have an eye for good technology tools ;)

The following are proofs that I've got great eyes for technology tools (A.K.A, I'm not your cheap-ass tech dude!):

1.

Yesterday, we had some folks from Microsoft came around to discuss with my development team (Quickteller team) about Windows Azure Notification Hub. It went so cool that the Quickteller product manager concluded on the spot that we were going to use it and started wondering why we hadn't adopted Windows Azure since.

I felt great!

Having used Windows Azure for Tiketmobile for almost two years now (since 2012), I'm the most experienced Windows Azure developer in my team. But that's not why I felt great. I felt great because, being responsible for the technology decisions on Tiketmobile, I had seen the prospect of Windows Azure and adopted it for our product. Even then, it was against the advice of our supporters, who suggested we go with Rackspace or AWS, because everyone in the hub was using those. Also it came with little local support... in fact, when we first started using it, it wasn't even available for Nigeria yet. I had to figure-out a lot of things, including roping-in PHP to the Cloud Service, from Visual Studio.

I'm glad that that skill of mine won't suddenly get redundant after all... Well, I would have used it during my nightshift anyway!


2.

My CIO shared a professional report with TechQuest yesterday which listed the frameworks that are in-vogue for developing web applications in Java, with their pros and cons, using several metrics. On the top 3 was Play! Framework. Vaadin was first, Grails was second and Play! was third.

Apart from me wondering why the fuck I hadn't heard of Vaadin before yesterday, I also felt great because, when I move to my nightshift (which is every night, after my 9 to 5), I'm mostly hacking off on Play! Framework... with Scala programing language though, not Java.


3.

CIO (of life!) also shared a great article about Reactive Application Development, which argued that it wasn't just hype, but would help applications better handle stress/load. I had earlier tried to bring-up the discussion of reactive programming with some of my colleagues, as a means of better understanding it, being a learner myself. Reception wasn't so great, so I relaxed my learnings to my personal space and when I'm on my nightshift.

I guess this is a little blessing of some sort to talk about how TechQuest could adopt Reactive app development in our methods... even if it's only talk we talk about it. Understandable, old systems might not need to be touched, I mean, why fix something that isn't broken? But new systems could benefit from the new cool ;)

Alternative title of this post:
Why it pays to have a CIO who's in-vogue (A.K.A hippie CIO aiye!)

I'm quite the adventurer

Whoever knows me by now, knows that I'm a software engineer, a proud one at that! I love my job, I mean, I love what I do, it's a passion... I sometimes can't imagine how it would be if I wake-up and I don't look forward to writing computer programs.

However, I haven't always been like this.

When I was a kid, in primary school, it used to be drawing that I couldn't imagine letting go of. I have a faint memory of me swearing that I would never stop drawing! Everywhere in Air Force Primary school 1, Ikeja, I was known by my peers. Not just me, my brothers too, all of us: Francis, Anthony & Chima! We defied all caution by my Dad, who would rather have us focus on school, to engage in this...

Well you can see the results in Anthony's Insecta + him being nominated for the future awards last year. Chima is also another person who would take everyone by surprise when he arrives  from his just concluded NYSC, having been second runner-up at the Commonwealth Art Competition in 2007.

As for me, as soon as I got to my senior secondary school, I dropped drawing for sciences and mathematics. I enjoyed advanced mathematics so much, I used to be the best in further mathematics. I loved it so much I added "calculus" to my name, hence "celestocalculus".

But then, after secondary school, I left it for programming.

Last weekend, I actually started learning to play the guitar I bought myself as a new year's present. I'd looked forward to playing a musical instrument for a long time, and this is just it. Now I'm wondering if mastering the guitar would (re)define my next 10 years.

The trend shows that I'm an adventurer in this life. I chase interests and master them, then I move on to the next. However, I love software development so much, I don't look forward to letting go of it anytime soon. I doubt I would, it makes me feel like a creator.

Besides, I  haven't even gotten to my perceived apex of software development: building world-class technology companies... Still I've got my guitar skills to learn.

We might not be alone

I believe in evolution.

I just saw the video below on my Facebook feed and it re-affirms that belief:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10200216167421304&set=vb.1065819989&type=2&theatre

And then I shared it with the caption:

"See this bird using bread as a bait to catch a fish. If the earth survives subsequent stages of evolution & man haven't hunted this bird till it's extinct, they would create tools & be far more advanced!"

While typing it, I began to have a stream of thoughts and imaginations.

1. What would the earth be like, if in billions of years, this creature evolves to a highly intelligent being?
2. Where would the human race be by then and how would they be reasoning? How intelligent would we be by then?
3. What are the chances that we would even still be on this planet? Maybe we would have discovered how to survive at other parts of the galaxy and we would have migrated there, then leave the earth as a desolate land for other evolving species.
4. What are the chances that there aren't other highly evolved species, who after evolving past a certain level of intelligence and migrated out of this planet to other places in the galaxy, leaving earth as a desolate land for evolving mammals which later became us?
5. If this is the way it goes, then chances are that these highly intelligent beings won't even be mammals, or maybe they won't look anything like us, but they would be monitoring us over some "purple matter" (like Frank Ocean would put it).

On a parallel thought train, I imagined that dinosaurs were the most intelligent beings of the times when they reigned supreme. Maybe they didn't build computers, but they found a way to subdue the other occupants of this planet. However, they didn't understand or try to figure-out how the elements of this planet works, hence they were wiped away by natural processes.

The seed has been planted and the thought process is still executing.