The Brown Sunset dream
As a kid of about five years of age, I remember sitting down one day while watching the little 12 inches black and white television we had, and dreaming of seeing those black and white pictures in full colour. Full or true colour display on a TV set meant more than just an advancement in technology, it meant something very deep that I could not put in words for a long time.
During that period, Michael Jackson as an icon of entertainment represented a longing I couldn’t express until decades later when things began to get clearer. This was the beginning of a search for meaning in life for me. Through my search and discoveries I’ve come to believe life is beautiful, and life on earth a beautiful and wonderful experience; though several conditions and situations we have being through or will go through must have or will challenge this. Join me in taking a journey into the past, using your imagination...
Things used to be a little different, a little better, for instances; we used to have dads and mums at home; we used to grow up to marry well brought-up girls; we used to have homes to go to after the day’s work; we used to have a nation; we used to have a family, but now...
The following is just a brief description of what we have: empty houses, parents that are no longer dads and mums because the challenges of life have taken the fathers and mothers out of them; girls that we marry that are no longer wives; men we long to live with only to discover, they are not husbands, but drifting men with no roots; dark streets that used to have couples walking hand in hand with street lights shining; universities full of people whose faces mirror the hopelessness in their hearts, where years ago walked Nigerians with smiles chatting about their plans for contributing to life; children on the streets being battered by life with no voice or hand to echo or point to a life of hope. As you should know, this is just a modest way to put the challenges which we face in our sojourn on earth. Do you long for such a future, or desire it for your children? If you are wondering why all the examples above only portray our lives as social beings, the answer is that all human beings seek for three(3) things all their lives, whether they know it or not: acceptance, recognition, and love. So Brown Sunsets is an organisation which is taking a stand to join others to do something about our lives and the lives of those that will come after us. This is an opportunity for us to restore the sense of belonging to a family, a nation, a friend, to be loved, to be accepted, to belong to someone else and something big: To live life; to be meaningful. This is the Brown Dream: To see life in full colour, to live life through all of its seasons with meaning, purpose and passion. Friday Ola Akuma
