Busayo Akanro - Light does not shine in light » Movies

My Own Sounds of Music…1

bussee — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 23:43:02 +0000

I had an exciting weekend. I undertook a road trip to Ilorin (South West, Nigeria) to meet with over 500 youths at a camp. I travelled with my mentor and along the way he suddenly discovered he had the lovely movie “Sound of Music” starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer on his new iPod. He showed it to me and we both smiled knowingly almost as if one was daring the other to watch it. Instintively, he clicked on it and pronto – the movie started.

We sang along and I watched the whole movie (2+ hours) while in the car on the road. I was moved with emotions at different times as I saw some scenes again and I couldn’t help but understand why it is and will continue to be one of the greatest movies ever shot.

I noted a few things quite pointedly and some of them are from the lyrics of some of the songs.

1. CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN

Don’t be afraid to venture out. Don’t quit because you tried once and failed. Don’t run away from your fears. Maria went to the Capt Von Trapp’s house as a governess and she fell in love with him. She ran away from the fear. She went to the abbey to hide and then the reverend mother sang this song for her.

Climb every mountain,
Search high and low,
Follow every highway,
Every path you know.

Climb every mountain,
Ford every stream,
Follow every rainbow,
‘Till you find your dream.

A dream that will need
All the love you can give,
Every day of your life
For as long as you live.

Climb every mountain,
Ford every stream,
Follow every rainbow,
Till you find your dream

A dream that will need
All the love you can give,
Every day of your life,
For as long as you live.

Climb every mountain,
Ford every stream,
Follow every rainbow,
Till you find your dream.

For as long as you have breath, explore all the possibilities and opportunities that come your way.

2. WHEN YOU ARE DOWN….

Many of us have as excuses the current situation of things we are facing. We believe that things are bad and so we are sad. We place attention on the negative things that surround or happen to us. We concentrate on what is wrong. But listen to what Maria tells us to do when we are down, and things are bad.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings, these are a few of my favorite things.

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels, door bells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles. Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings, these are a few of my favorite things.

Girls in a white dresses with a blue satin sashes, snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes, silver white winters that melt into springs, these are a few of my favorite things.

When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I’m feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don’t feel so bad.

It’s because we are sad that things are bad. What are those things you love? Can you just remember your favourite things or moments? Or your loving pets or children? If we look around enough, we’ll see enough reasons not to feel so down or so bad for no situation is really that bad. We can choose internally to affect our external conditions and situations positively and we will. The other lessons will come up in the sequel…Don’t miss it!

Everyone has “something the Lord has made”

bussee — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:56:19 +0000

I was watching the movie “Something the Lord made” and I got moved with emotions. I’ll say why. The movie was based on a true life story of one Vivien Thomas who became the first African American without a doctorate degree to perform open heart surgery on a white patient in the United States and who developed the procedures used to treat blue baby syndrome in the 1940s. He was a surgical technician.

The story, quite an interesting script highlighted the beginning of his sojorn into the medical technology in a laboratory run by a legendary Dr Alfred Blalock in the vanderbilt University. The stock market had just crashed in the 1930s during the Great depression which resulted from the economic imbalance caused by the first world war. In fact, Vivien had to put his

education on hold (he was planning to go to medical college) because all the money he saved in the bank for seven long years went up in smoke as the bank he had his savings in failed and packed up. He couldn’t recover even a cent.

He decided to look for a job which was not in surplus in those days especially for a black man and ended up getting an appointment to work as a janitor in Dr Alfred’s medical laboratory in the Vanderbilt University. Ofcourse, Dr Alfred was white. Not long after he started working, Dr Blalock found that Vivien possessed an extraordinary eye-hand coordination and a sharp

intellect as well. His passion for medicine was quite evident as he quickly moved from janitor to laboratory assistant. When Dr. Blalock got appointed as Chief of Surgery and Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, the number 1 medical university in America at that time and arguably till now, he requested for Vivien to accompany him and become his assistant in Johns

Hopkins. The race segregation was so bad in those days that Vivien wasn’t allowed to go into the hospital through the front door. He had to use the back door. Needless to say, he was the only black person in the hospital staff who was anything more than a janitor or a cook and his paycheck wasn’t better than the afore mentioned categories. While some of his black colleagues respected and almost revered him, others despised him and were quite jealous.

Vivien refused to go to medical college at the time because he enjoyed working with Dr Blalock and achieving record breaking feats in the field of medicine helping to save many lives. Unfortunately, because he was black and not a doctor, many of the feats that were achieved largely because of his input were never merited to him. In fact, he was never mentioned in the news

as having had anything to do with it. At some point, after getting the manouver to heal the blue-baby syndrome, he felt quite left out when he wasn’t invited to the party done in honour of those involved in making it happen. He sneaked into the party and when he didn’t hear his name mentioned while Dr Blalock was thanking the team that worked with him to achieve the feat,quit his job and went to do other things. He later came back because of his love for the work and ended up becoming the

Direcor of Laboratories in Johns Hopkins(the first without a degree).

The most touching part for me was when after the death of Dr Blalock and 34 years after Vivien had started working with him, he was given an honorary doctorate degree and his portrait was placed on the hospitals walls of fame next to Dr. Blalocks. I almost couldn’t control my emotions on watching this scene and noting the look on the new Dr. Vivien’s face that seemed to say “At last, it has been proven that it was worth it” and I thought to write a few lessons I got.

1. Find your “something the Lord has made”

In one of the surgical manouvers, Vivien executed such a flawless procedure that the suture line was almost invisible prompting Dr. Blalock to remark that the medical intervention looked like “something the Lord has made”. We all have our talents and gifts. we all have our areas of core competence. Find your talent and gifts and let them make way for you. Many comedians in Nigeria now earn more than oil workers because they found their talents and using them.

2. No setback in life is an end, it’s just a bend

The great depression and racism combined with Vivien’s loss of his college tuition in the bank was enough to kill any aspiring black doctor’s dream but it didn’t kill his. What setback have you had that is making you feel like a loser? Have you lost all your money or your job or your benefactors or have you failed some qualifying exams? It’s never over until it’s over. Don’t let situations and occurences around you kill your dreams. You can still be YOU according to your destiny.

3. Out of sight can be out of mind and out of greatness

Never lose sight of your goal. Vivien could not get a decent job and couldn’t go to college. He decided to get a job even though as a janitor but with a doctor because he wanted to be close to his dreams. He wanted to be surrounded with the tools and pictures of his dream. What are you surrounding yourself with? Why wouldn’t you rather volunteer in an organisation that looks like your dream than work for money in one that looks against your dream. How are you positioning yourself? He couldn’t

have moved from janitor to lab assistant if he was a janitor in a supermarket. Who are your mentors? Who are your colleagues? Do whatever is necessary to keep the vision in view.

4. If you are not having fun, then you are doing the wrong thing

Many people will do anything once they feel the price is right. They have no niche or key area or skill or even dream they have discovered. They exist in the same sphere as 93% of people who don’t achieve anything in the world. What would you do even if you weren’t paid for it that adds value to other people? For Vivien, he was so consumed in the work and the opportunity to change the world by solving one medical mystery after the other that he couldn’t leave it and go to medical school despite the fact that the pay was poor and the environment hostile. If you’ve not found anything like that, start a self-soul-search today otherwise the whole of life will be a struggle for you.

I’ll continue the lessons in the next post.

GIVER or TAKER; which are you in 2010?

bussee — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 19:12:35 +0000

Hi Everyone, I wish you all a very prosperous new year. I saw a news flash this morning that stated that Americans were not optimistic at all about a good 2010 but I assure you that if you trust in God and do His word, He’ll single you out for outstanding revelations on what to do in a failing world economy that’ll guarantee your immense success this year without a shadow of doubt. I watched a movie in the last few days of 2009 and want to share my thoughts about that movie.

The title of the movie is “Flawless” and I’m sure you may have watched it. The actual plot of the movie had to do with a very senior executive played by Demi Moore who kept getting passed on by the management for promotion in a Diamond producing company and a janitor played by Michael Caine who assumedly wanted to retire rich. Both of them colluded to rob the company of a few pieces of diamonds, at least that was what Lara Quinn (Demi Moore) thought until she found out with shock that every single piece of the diamonds had been stolen – about 2 tonnes of diamonds. The details of the plot I won’t go into now because that isn’t where the major lesson I learnt was.

After the theft had been successfully carried out by the old janitor (Michael Caine), Lara really got jittery and remorseful begging him to please return the diamonds because they were going to be caught by the insurance investigator who seemed to be gaining ground in his investigation especially with his interest in her as a prime suspect becoming more intense. She regularly required to meet with the janitor at different nondescript places to express her fears and to implore him to give up the diamonds but he wouldn’t budge.

Eventually, she determined to find the diamonds where they were stowed and started her own parallel investigation. She finally stumbled upon a clue that led her to the diamonds but before she could alert the company, she was held hostage by the janitor for a few hours until the insurance company paid the sum of $100million to an account the janitor had anonymously demanded they should pay into. While he held her hostage, he asked if she had been thinking about what she was going to do with her own part of the ransom ($10million). ARE YOU GOING TO BE A TAKER OR A GIVER?

The janitor apparently had a grudge to settle with regards to his dead wife and simply wanted to take it out on the insurers who had refused his wife health insurance when she was ill may years ago. The CEO of the insurance company eventually committed suicide which seemed to satisfy the janitor as revenge for what that CEO had done to his wife several years ago. The janitor disappeared before the stash of diamonds were found and was never seen again by anybody.

Lara Quinn didn’t go to prison for helping find the loot and confessing to the conspiracy and the company got back all its diamonds. She retired later to find out shockingly that an account had been opened in her name in an offshore account with a balance of $100million. She then decided to dedicate the next 40 years of her life to ensuring that every single penny of that money was used to help other people around the world either regain their health or find a new reason for living. She paid for organ transplants of different kinds for different poor people all over the world through a foundation she opened; she paid for education for several indigent students and built schools. She kept empowering poor and rather unfortunate people till she had spent every last penny.

40 years later, she felt at peace. “At least and at last”, she told herself, “I have turned a previously criminal and very bad situation into a very beautiful solution”

The Moral:

In 2010, God is going to give you a lot of opportunities and resources; those we plan for and those that happen along our way without our pre-knowledge; those we think are negative and those we are sure are positive; those we imagined and those we didn’t dare imagine; those that are just sufficient, not sufficient and more than sufficient. Let me ask you the same question?

ARE YOU GOING TO BE A GIVER OR A TAKER?

…Ponder on these things. The year will tell.