by Eromose Ileso
Life is a bundle of what you
experience, and what you never get to experience. The things you do not
experience, you can only imagine, and while there is actually no limit to what
a person can imagine, imagination not wrapped in the willows of experience,
remains like an inactive volcano.
It is mostly in the wheels of experience that
you get to grasps the meaning of certain things in life. The scientific
exertion of Newton’s
third law of Physics that for every action, there is an equal and opposite
reaction holds sway when you consider how weighty any experience could be. The
reaction of any action could either vary in size or direction.
There is nothing in life that is
not relevant. Without which it would be difficult to actually bring yourself to
attach true importance to such a thing.
The relevance of anything is directly
proportion to how often you get to use such a thing. Be it an animate or
inanimate substance. The frequency at which you use it accords it a measure of
relevance. Such relevance extends to our everyday life, our inter-personal
relationship with others and those within our immediate environment.
There is
always this sub-conscious nature in man that is inbuilt that copious attention
is paid to anybody or anything that is relevant. If a vehicle is important to
the fortunes of a delivery outlet, there is a tendency that the vehicle would
be maintained with the highest of standards to prevent anything that would
prevent orders from being met.
The same extends to a human relationship, when a
person is relevant there is that tendency that communication would naturally
flow all the time. Either one of the parties would be meant to carry out a job
for the other or to get something that would be of benefit to the other person.
It just like two lawyers, one lives in Benin,
and the other in Abuja,
when there is a Corporate Affairs Commission job. The one based in Benin would call the other in Abuja to aid in fast tracking the necessary
searches and documents to get the papers done in good time. It is the relevance
of the lawyer based in Abuja that elicits
him/her to be contacted by the Benin
based lawyer. This also extends to other professions in the circle of life.
Taking it further from another
angle, the question then is assuming the other person on the end of the street
or phone is not relevant what would happen? Certainly the call to a lawyer in Abuja would not be based
primarily on just an exchange of pleasantries; there is a hint of business
relationship in there. However, when the former is not relevant to the fortunes
of the party that made the call, would he/she still make the connections?
In today’s world, it is what most
relationship are premised on, be it in friendship, family or in communities and
the larger society. The way and manner you are handled in some ways is based on
whether you are relevant for the relationship to last the distance or whether
you are relevant in a community to warrant being called upon when something
wants to hold.
Going back to the question: what
happens if the person is not relevant? Naturally, there is the tendency that
such a person would be forgotten. And he would not be remembered when anything
is to happen, no matter the occasion.
This is where agape comes in. It is agape
that makes the natural human mind to look beyond the fact that a person is irrelevant
and has nothing to offer. It is the same agape, that makes you call that friend,
family member, community neighbour, group member and colleague of yours to
check how he/she is faring not because you intend to request for anything, but
to exchange and extend pleasantries.
How a person that is not relevant
could be forgotten can be gleaned from the Biblical account of a poor man,
whose wisdom saved a city that came under attack, he was forgotten because,
according to the Bible, he was poor. And being poor means he was seen as
irrelevant. Assuming he was somebody that has wisdom that was wrapped in
riches, and riches that the city would benefit from, he would never have been
forgotten. It is however the manner of men to become easily amnesic to one that
does not have a corresponding facet of relevance in terms of what he or she can
offer.
A cursory look at the Newton’s third Law of
Physics, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction reveals
some observations.
In the first instance, there is a mention of equality in the
first action. In such a scenario, it means both parties in such a case have the
same equilibrium of relevance, and as such their actions are equal in their
site. The professional that picks up his phone to call the other in the Capital
for a job engages in an action that is equal which brings about the equilibrium
of relevance in their behavioral patterns and communications.
However, on the other hand, the
other part of Newton’s
law mentions an action that has an opposite reaction. This is also apt because
when a person is seen as not relevant, the action that would be taken about him
would be opposite to his person. Just like the poor man in the bible that got
an opposite reaction of being forgotten despite his action of using his wisdom
to save a city.
In hindsight, it takes agape for
any relationship to go beyond the formal circles of relevance that is common
place in the business world. The importance of relevance in any relationship is
not being relegated to the back burner here, relevance is the key to making
choices.
But the message being passed across here is that sometimes, it becomes
imperative to modify the rose tainted spectacle of relevance, by using agape as
another standard to measure a relationship. Notice the use of the phrase
‘another standard’ because for all intent and purpose, relevance would remain
the standard of the world as it is an inbuilt human behavioural pattern.
