Have you taken the oath?
This will be the most important decision of your life.
journal entry. 27/08/2024. 10:22 AM
2025 is going to be my year of obsession. I have chosen to use writing as my weapon. As my oar, as the tool. As my gun, as my spoon, as my walking stick.
If I obsess over becoming the most persuasive and compelling writer ever, I’d eventually achieve it. If I write one short essay every day for a year, that’d be 365 essays. Churning out 30 essays a month would make me proud of myself.
I know great writing can open all the doors I desperately need to enter. And I’d do my best. Amen.
The sheer force of will
Yesterday, G told me he’d introduce himself as Ike-Ake henceforth. And that if anyone asked why he chose to be known and addressed by his surname, he’d tell them that he’d be so great in the future, and that it’d be best for them to know the name now.
He’s cultivating it. That cocky, arrogant self-belief. And it is both beautiful and frightening to watch.
Beautiful is the blazing flame in his eyes, the anger in his voice; an anger at himself, at his unpreparedness for the future he deeply desires.
And this smouldering resolve, this fierce oath to kill and cremate the person before me, so that god Ike-Ake can arise from the ashes, is terrifying.
It is terrifying because I have felt the sheer force of that will. I feel it now. It can break all 206 bones.
All those who take this oath are beasts in human skin.
Goal-getting, never-quitting, impossibility-defying machines.
The miles they will travel barefeet, the sacrifices they’d gladly offer, the deft patience in honing their craft would be enough to make your heart sink.
You shouldn’t ever watch them at work. Its pure insanity defined.
They’d chase their dreams, no matter how grand or delusional. Or they’d die trying.
These are the people that win the world. They are the ones that rule the world.
Those who worship their work.
The obsessed.
The oath-takers.
So, what do you want?
Do you want to live out your time? Get degrees, work your job, raise a family and die old?
Or do you desperately desperately want more? Do you feel a pang in your chest, a yoke on your neck? Do you want to be more than yourself, achieve what no human has ever done and become a god?
Do you want to live and die a divine, with your name proudly adorning books and buildings? With the stories of your godlike exploits spewing like water from people’s hearts and lips?
Do you want to be worshipped? For the whole world and generations unborn to know that you were here? To see the lasting contributions you made to humanity? Are you so afraid of mediocrity or the thought of never really amounting to something?
Do you want to be immortal and live forever?
OK.
Then, you have to swear. You have to invoke the deity in you and make the solemnest pledge.
But before you do, know this:
You are about to make the most painful decision of your life. One that may likely cost you everything else that you love.
You are about to commit to insane levels of excellence.
You are about to make a promise to your soul and the most cardinal sin is a sin to the self.
Never do this if you don’t mean it.
Ever.
If you want to go forward on this path, say this to yourself with all your heart:
My name is Emmanuel Ntitoobari PaulMaah (insert your name), and I make this oath today, the 27th of August 2024 (insert date).
I am God-breathed and so I have the essence of divinity in me.
I swear that I shall keep learning and improving myself as long as I live.
I swear that I shall expend all my gifts and skills in the service of humanity and die empty. And that I shall create and build with the utmost level of excellence.
I shall be true to myself and stand for the truth and my principles to death or to the death.
I swear that my life and everything I do shall be an expression of divinity and that I shall live and die a god.
So, help me God.Do you miss those short short stories? How about we do that for the next issue?
Thank you for reading. And until next time,
A stirring and provocative piece. Took the oath, and it felt like kismet.
Here’s to becoming a god🥂