A WORLD WITHOUT RULES

A WORLD WITHOUT RULES

scolded child

My childhood was full of rules; rules of which I am not still sure if I should be grateful for.

Every adult or youth I had met have a childhood worth talking about no doubt, just recently some of my friends were sharing their childhood and the rules they broke uncaught. Unfortunately for me I couldn’t contribute much, not even when they mentioned the days of playing with sand, building sand castles or using it as food to be cooked and eaten.

I am not a prophetess but I can guess the question on the lips of every reader will be: How boring must have your childhood been? However this write up is not for sharing childhood stories but the point here is that, considering how stubborn my siblings and I were, we could have turned out as undone products had rules like “don’t go out and play, don’t beg for other people things, don’t play rough play in school, write all your corrections if you fail any class work, date all your work etc not existed. (Now these last 2parts are serious, Saturdays are inspection days. Dad checks our books for dates, corrections etc. so for every missed date or correction, you can be rest assured of a stroke! God helps you if it is up to 10).

prison yard

Every society sets up a system of do and don’t with sanctions for defaulters which has never stopped the idea of rules breaking or criminal activities! Go and ask Saudi Arabia, at least that is one of the strictest nations where broken rules like stealing could attract amputation of one hand while adultery/fornication; stoning to death. One might say “That harsh! Everyone in that country should be a saint” but like we say in our local parlance “I PRAY O”. If despite the stringent punishment attached to every wrong act, we still have prison yards filled with people then imagine would happen in an “imaginary free world”.

When fantasising about your world of no rules, it is easy to be the producer, cast, director with no other person playing any major role and even if they have to feature, we create them as easy going people who are only concerned about pleasing us, attending to our needs when in reality every human being has a selfish tissue in them. A selfish man in a world of rules and regulation is unbearable enough but at least pastor can read some scriptures to persuade him to buy a new shoe for his wife, who he might listen to but what happens when there are no rules? Bible and Koran inclusive (at least they are one book of rules which humans try to adhere to).

the law

Our politicians and legislators; makers of rules who are also serial rule-breakers, fall into this category of selfish people. Create this mental picture: you elect a man to lead you for 4years, provide jobs for your kids when they are through in school, give you good hospitals, construct good roads etc. after the four years, this man who was thin and gangly four years before is now fat and pot-bellied with enough investment in different countries of the world. You send EFCC after him because there is a rule that says what he has done is wrong, he is prosecuted and after about 7years of legal battle you get justice. Now, the justice might not be what you bargained for quite alright, you probably wanted him sent behind bars, he got one million naira fine instead, and the bottom line is you got justice because there is a rule that says so.

That same picture we have just created should be transferred into a system of no rules or laws, this is what we get: peace loving people like you and I will be mad with anger for years but will do nothing. People with little patience will take to the streets protesting; singing solidarity songs, while people with no patience at all will just plan his assassination!!! Mind you this will be carried out in broad daylight after all there are no rules so murder is allowed.

symbol of justice

As human beings, we sometimes don’t know the through extent of ourselves until we find ourselves in situations where no one is watching. Your belief that adultery, fornication, pilfering, drug addiction and other vices is bad might change in the world of no rules! This alone is scary because there is no telling what you might do! At least the devil you know is better than the angel you don’t know. Your rate of adultery might not just be cheating on your spouse with a single lady; it could go all the way of snatching other people’s wife. For others, a world of no rules could bring out the traits of lesbianism, homosexuality and paedophilic (which had hitherto remained dormant). God have mercy on you if any of your kid class teachers falls in this category.

Sometimes in life when we find ourselves with people who restrict us, it could be in terms of our dressing, whom we hang out with, use of our time etc. so we can’t wait to get out! We feel like we are in bondage. Actually, in real terms we could be right but on a deeper thought, freedom actually brings responsibility, responsibility which few can handle, responsibility that requires maturity. When you are not matured enough for freedom, you get bondage instead, ironically you might not realise this truth until it is too late to turn back the hands of time. Rules might mean bondage while no rules might mean freedom but the former might just be ideal.

When exercising ones freedom, it is important to respect others’ freedom too. Freedom in this context “this is my land, I choose not to put a no trespassing sign outside, you choose to walk through it claiming you are exercising your freedom, well I could also choose to have your face disfigured”.

If I wake up and find myself in a world of no rules, I will go back to bed instructing people to wake me up when sanity is been restored into the earth. A world of no rules is scarier than a world of rules because in actual sense when we think we have the freedom to exercise our rights we are actually losing them.