Fractionating the Human

Friday.

Last week I posted what others thought was controversial. Anyway. I don't think I will do that again.

I always assume that I write to a diverse readership but I am sure that there are a lot of things among my dear audience, the most important of which is that most of you are many things as opposed to one. I personally happen to be a lot more than the medical student others see me to be. To some I am a writer, to others a leader, to others a partner in crime (for whatever reason), to others a classmate and all. The most important and my favourite roles, however are familial. I happen to be a brother, son and an uncle.

I am sure that most of us bear these roles without active awareness and we just hazard our way through them without paying attention. We are here now to condemn that act and to help you learn how to fractionate yourself so that you can fit where you are supposed to fit depending on the situation. Flexibility.

Fractionation; organic chemistry 201 has it that petroleum products are drilled as crude oil. They are, however put in some sort of fractionating tower where through some magic (or science) various petroleum products like gasoline and diesel (I am told even achina Vaseline) come out. All from the same crude oil.

I somehow believe that the human works in a pretty much similar way. In a way. The same human holds different roles and our lives need to be taken like crude oil which can be fractionated into many things to do a whole lot of different things.

In the first place, we are born in families. Families provide the first and most basic of social interactions. It is however sad tat most of us begin to lose touch with the family as we grow. It is important fornus to learn to fractionate ourselves into the family, however big or small we might be elsewhere. It is important to remember our roles as parents, children or as siblings and relatives of any kind. Very important.

Then comes school and career. This forms an important part of our lives and the importance of school and career cannot be overemphasized. We need to be in some sort of trade to make a living and most importantly a difference and more often than not that required some sort of education. Point? Even if you don't want to work in some office (what others call white collar jobs), you still need some education. Ndiye enanu mukamasiya school.... Basop!

Continuing with fractionating, we need to realize that there will be another to.e that we will need to have a spouse after (or maybe before) sorting out family and career. No further details koma izizinso ndizofunika.

Then comes the crucial part of spirituality. Being raised a Catholic, I was taught that "munthu ndi thupi ndi mzimu pamodzi" (man is both body and spirit). I am not trying to convert everyone to Catholicism but I am just driving home the point that we all need to be aware of our spirit as part of us. This is where the issues of faith do come in. There is a need for us to have some sort of spiritual belief and to make sure that we live in line with it. For those of us who believe in God; Christians and Muslims alike (if I have any outside those, please e mail me at rgkamwezi@gmail.com) do need to take their faith and relationship with God seriously. Believers also need to take into account the concept of community and to learn to live with others.

Probably those are the major things you can fractionate yourself into, but there are many that you can think of. The idea is that there should be nothing that takes an  proportionately large proportion of our attention over the other. We need to pay attention to family despite focus on career and the other way round. Izi zomakhala opanda mkazi kapena m'muna nkumanamizira sukulu zichepe ndipo zitheretu. If you are a pastor know that you are a pastor at church but at home you need to be a husband and dad; who follows Godly principles, but is still a dad. Know where to do what. Very important.

I have every reason to believe that our lives become a complex overlap of things for a reason. These shouldn't be pulling us among themselves but should be complementary as they help in making us complete beings.

Ndiye ndati izi zosiya sukulu for full time ministry izi... Sindimaziona bwino kwenikweni.

Blessed weekend to all.