What’s Going On is one of my favourite ever Marvin Gaye songs. It’s such a deep and meaningful song that invites one to reflect on the state of the world around them and appeals for some sanity to return to proceedings. Gaye’s mellifluous voice over a soothing tempo laced with the soft cries of a saxophone with the power of the Pied Piper, makes such a powerful combination when his deep lyrics are added to the mix. It’s like relaxing you with a glass of wine before breaking down some bitter truths about yourself and your various behaviours, to which your response can only be to take it in and reflect on what you are doing wrong and endeavour to make changes after the dawning of your negative behaviour has properly sunk in. When listened to in the right mood it has the power to make anyone, no matter how belligerent, to stop their madness and try to get back to sanity and reasonableness.

Now, it’s a very well documented fact that violence in the world has drastically reduced over the millennia, even though sometimes we may see or hear of some horrific atrocities every now and again in the news. Violence used to be a fact of everyday life where you could be killed or seriously injured as a matter of course by simply accidentally stepping on someone’s toes or maybe spilling your drink on their shirt, so the mentality has significantly shifted over time and we are now more able to control our animalistic instincts and treat one another with a bit more delicacy. When I left my salubrious and affectionate peppy, American primary school for a Nigerian military secondary school, flogging was par for the course amongst other things that I sometimes see being described when they talk about places like Guantanamo Bay on the news. I think to myself, that’s not so bad, we had that in secondary school too! These days such violence could never occur in that secondary school. The mentality has shifted.

When looking for a trend on a graph you won’t just see a straight line but you will see a line that goes up and down in a jagged manner along the X axis. You then identify a trend by looking at the bigger picture of the general direction of which the line is moving, so the line may be moving up and down in a jagged manner but overall the trend appears to be moving say, downwards for example. In this instance when looking at it from a violence point of view we are horrified whenever the jagged line moves in an upward direction and it is instances like that which often make the news. But most people can be rest assured that the chances of them going through life without suffering violence is the highest it’s ever been and continues to increase.

What breaks my heart though is the specific kinds of violence that seem to be upping the ante these days and it’s things like that that make people feel things are getting worse, despite the facts. I remember as a teenager the very worst that could have happened to me when I had a row with my peers was to have a physical fight of blows and wrestling. Our parents would never even know about it. But I don’t know what it is now that makes people feel they must go a level higher just to show how badass they are. The thought of inserting a knife in another human’s body is something I find incomprehensible and to think I can shoot someone to death because they disrespected me is actually quite laughable if not for its seriousness in the reality of those that have suffered it. The latest craze now in London (I don’t know yet of other global cities) is pouring acid on people.

My God! Is this the height of demonstrating a lack of empathy among our younger people? I think to myself, do they not imagine what it’s like to have acid poured on themselves for them to feel hardened enough to think it’s a great idea to pour it over someone else? I truly despair because the ante seems to keep being raised as far as violent methods are concerned amongst younger people, and the advent of 24 hour news cycles and social media spread the word like never before because it’s not just being reported days after the fact, but in some cases incidents are even being live-streamed to the world in full graphic HD. Is this part of the desensitising process? I don’t know. Quite possibly.

I don’t know how many teenagers read my blog but I want to appeal for empathy. Please, please, please have empathy. Because if you feel something so horrific can never happen to you and you are invincible then you will find it hard to imagine the agony and life changing effect that such actions will have to both the victims and their families.

I don’t know how to best encourage people to develop their empathy but what I know is that it doesn’t matter what your circumstances are, there are things around you that you can experience to help however rich or poor you are. Music, theatre, galleries, dance, travelling, reading! No matter your socioeconomic background reading is something that everyone should be able to do, and the more likely you are reading the less likely you are being stabbed or stabbing someone else. These things, among many others help you think more and imagine what things can be like for others, enabling that milk of empathy to flow from within your heart.

What happened to those good ol’ days when you would have a breakdance battle with your fiercest rivals and everyone will go back home in one piece? I know I’m sounding old now, but seriously it’s a much better prospect than having acid poured over you or being stabbed or shot. If I were to be stabbed or shot it really shouldn’t be because of disrespect. At least it should be for something more worth it like defending my family from a robbery or something horrible like that. Otherwise we might as well bring back duels!

So please try to immerse yourself in productive things that will bring out your imagination and unlock your empathy. No matter how hard you feel you are today, you will still need a job to survive in the future. Even if you own your own business you will still need to kiss someone’s arse in order to get work coming in. So, if you are angry at being disrespected now, how many people are you going to stab, shoot and pour acid over when, not if but WHEN it happens in the future and you need to eat and survive and possibly look after your family too? Think about that when someone disrespects you now.

On a lighter note let’s try to make the world more like in this link. Seriously, this is what we should be aiming for. A world where everyone goes back home in one piece. Stay safe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2guxhefWrQ

You can also indulge in a bit of Marvin Gaye here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbZYRZpNc64