Hello Muses,
Lately, I’ve been doing quite a lot of personal counseling sessions with a few mentees and friends going through one form of personal
problem or the other, ranging from job losses, financial issues to problems
with their spouses and/or children. Most are not at a good place emotionally,
spiritually and physically too as some of the issues are beginning to affect
their health. As usual I get so emotionally invested in some of these friends
and I spend long hours talking, discussing, listening to both spoken and
unspoken words just to understand how and where to give help or give counsel.
As I sat thinking through some of the issues this evening, I
began flipping through several online platforms I normally visit to read up on
current issues and trends and I stumbled on a video of an interview that Dave
Chappelle had given with Gayle King a few days ago. In that part of the
interview, he tried to explain why he had to step away from the spotlight and
he used an analogy of a nature show he watched. It was about “how a bushman
finds water when it is scarce.” Chappelle relays the episode: “They do what
they call a salt dance. I didn’t know this but apparently, baboons love salt.” Chappelle
goes on to talk about how they (the bushmen) put a lump of salt in a hole and
wait for the baboon. When the baboon comes, and sticks his hand in the hole and
grabs the salt, the salt makes his hand bigger and he’s trapped. He can’t get
his hand out. Chappelle says, ‘If he’s smart, he’d just let go of the salt.”
But he’s not. The bushman comes, grabs the baboon and puts him in a cage and
gives him all the salt he wants. When the baboon gets thirsty, the bushman lets
the baboon out and follows him to water. In that analogy, Chappelle says, “I
felt like the baboon.” He however said something else: “but I was smarter, I
let go of the salt.”
I listened to that part of the video twice and something just
went off in my head. Boom!!! That is it! I began to read more on baboons and
salt and I just could not stop shaking my head.
Let me share what went off in my head. So many people are
stuck with their hands in a water hole, just like the baboon, because they
won’t let go of the salt. They become slaves to the bushman because of the
salt. They sell their worth and life because of the salt. They give up their conscience
for a block of salt. They lie, cheat, defraud, defame, slander, kill, steal and destroy because of the salt.
Salt is meant to give food flavour but over-salted food cannot
be eaten. In the human body, excess salt is a killer. As sodium accumulates,
the body holds onto water to dilute the sodium. This increases both the amount
of fluid surrounding cells and the volume of blood in the bloodstream.
Increased blood volume means more work for the heart and more pressure on blood
vessels. Over time, the extra work and pressure can stiffen blood vessels,
leading to high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke. It can also lead to
heart failure. There is also some evidence that too much salt can damage the
heart, aorta, and kidneys without increasing blood pressure, and that it may be
bad for bones, too.
Let me tell you something.
The baboon will give an arm and a leg for a block of salt. They will
fight viciously to hold on to that salt in their hands, inside a hole. The
baboon’s obsession with salt is just like the human obsession with ‘salty’
pleasures – wealth, fame, men, women, status, Instagram and Facebook likes and
validations, the ‘my home is better than yours’ foolishness, the number of
clothes and shoes I have, the school my children attend – and such and such.
Yes, just like salt, these pleasures seem to add zest and
spice to life but as with all earthly pleasures, when not curbed, comes with
their attendant bitterness and brokenness. Like the baboon, we are attracted to
those things that will take our life, our freedom, our common sense, our
humanity and we risk it all to be enslaved and ultimately lead to our
destruction. All the baboon needed to do was to release the salt, let it go and
then it can remove its hand but nah!
I reasoned here and then, that most of the problems we have
are personally inflicted when we begin to live lives that are full of lies because
we want to present a particular image to people who don’t even know us, or even
bother about us. The salt is a representation of burdens. Unnecessary burdens we put on ourselves. Financial
burdens, emotional burdens, success burdens, marriage burdens, family burdens,
people burdens, etc. We all have them or have had them or will have them.
Burdens have a way of stressing us out and not allowing us to see the bigger
picture. We sometimes see the end of the foolishness we are indulged in but we
refuse to let go. The baboon saw the bushman who set the trap for it, coming
towards it and still refused to let the salt go.
For others, the burdens can be other things – guilt, shame, self-worth,
failure, etc. I know this personally but
you will only become enslaved if you refuse to remove your hand from the hole
by letting go. These are just excess luggage and as with every excess luggage,
you pay for it and sometimes, heavily too.
I won’t say the baboon represents us humans, but I will say
as humans we need to let our burdens go; especially when we see the effects it
is having on our lives – becoming emotional wrecks, health – inexplicable health
concerns, finances – trying to keep up with the Joneses; the effect on our
marital life and homes – living unhappily yet presenting a happy image; on our
children – bringing up badly behave, untrained, unmannered and ungodly
offspring.
We need to let go of the salt. Let go of those salty obsessions. Let go! Let
go!
Just let go.
Mother Muse,
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