Finding Your Way To Heaven Without a Smartphone

Joe Obidiegwu

Description

In efforts to understand the human being, our history, and our future, the story takes the reader through three different continents, gleaning cultural well-being and malaise of different races. The book highlights the common bond between all human races, while exploring reasons for the perceived outer differences our modern world hurtles forward, driven as it is by powerful technological engines of change, characterized by an obsessive and often idolatrous worship of intelligence, ruminative men and women all around the world ponder in the silence of their soul the fate of humanity. In the West, depression, suicide, incomprehensible mass shootings and myriad psychological disorders litter our cultural landscape, while abject poverty ravage developing nations. We have become highly intelligent beings that cannot solve our problems, yet we inhabit a natural world created out of wisdom and much of that wisdom is not reflected in our thoughts and lifestyle . Modern man's obsession with intelligence and the material world has left him a stranger to spiritual things and wisdom. Consequently, humanity is left vulnerable to inexplicable and undiagnosed suffering. in an attempt to diagnose what ails modern man, this book presents a convincing and thought-provoking argument that we have forgotten who we are, and in so doing, have built a world terribly out of order with our divine nature. By walking the reader through my Nigerian upbringing and subsequent arrival in the West, I reveal some timeless wisdom that I believe can serve as a cure for some of the things that trouble us today. This inimitable book lights a path directing us again to who we truly are. It is a timely and deft clarion call to all of us. Review from Don Burness, Ph.D., Professor of Literature at Franklin Pierce College Author of Echoes of the Sunbird and WanasemaFinding Your Way to Heaven Without a Smartphone is a mixture of autobiography, cultural inquiry and philosophy. Joseph Obidiegwu, an Igbo from Nigeria, has lived on three continents. He has the necessary perspective and wisdom to look at the world's masquerade from different angles. There is no romanticization of traditional African village life, nor is there blind acceptance of the hectic to and fro of modern life on planet Smartphone.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Popular psychology
• Mind
• Body

Informations

• Publié par: First Edition Design Publishing
• Date de parution: 25 août 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781622879809
• Langue: English

Extrait

Finding Your Way to Heaven
Without a Smartphone

First Edition Design Publishing
Finding Your Way to Heaven
Without a Smartphone
Copyright ©2015 Joe Obidiegwu

ISBN 978-1622-879-79-3 PRINT
ISBN 978-1622-879-80-9 EBOOK

LCCN 2015946856

August 2015

Published and Distributed by
First Edition Design Publishing, Inc.
P.O. Box 20217, Sarasota, FL 34276-3217
www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com



ALL R I G H T S R E S E R V E D. No p a r t o f t h i s b oo k pub li ca t i o n m a y b e r e p r o du ce d, s t o r e d i n a r e t r i e v a l s y s t e m , o r t r a n s mit t e d i n a ny f o r m o r by a ny m e a ns ─ e l e c t r o n i c , m e c h a n i c a l , p h o t o - c o p y , r ec o r d i n g, or a ny o t h e r ─ e x ce pt b r i e f qu ot a t i o n i n r e v i e w s , w i t h o ut t h e p r i o r p e r mi ss i on o f t h e a u t h o r or publisher .
Foreword

As our world careens forward, driven as it is by powerful engines of change characterized by an obsessive and often idolatrous worship of reason, simple men and women all around the world pause in the silence of their soul and ask, "What is it that disturbs me so?" In the West, depression, suicide, incomprehensible mass shootings and myriad psychological disorders litter our cultural landscape, while in emerging nations a disturbing poverty has emerged from beneath the shadow of a stillborn industrialism that leaves millions aware of illimitable riches, even as they lack the means to access even a fraction of a fraction of that wealth.
In many ways, modern man’s obsession with the material world has left him a stranger to spiritual things. And like a bloated weightlifter infected with a yet undiagnosed tumor, modern man faces untold suffering even as he drinks up the fruit smoothies that he believes are the rightful rewards for his labor. His miasma is frightening.
Joe Obidiegwu, in an attempt to diagnose what ails modern man, presents a convincing argument that we have forgotten who we are, and in so doing, have built a world terribly out of order with our divine nature. By walking us through his Nigerian upbringing and subsequent arrival in the West, Obidiegwu reveals an ancient wisdom that he believes can serve as a cure for those things that so disturb us. His book is a timely and deft clarion call to all of us. By remembering who we were, Obidiegwu lights a path directing us again to who we truly are.

John Heers,
Founder and Director of First Things Foundation
Acknowledgements

While writing is a mostly solitary task, garnering life’s experiences to write about is necessarily communal. Before I begin, then, I would like to thank some of the many people who helped inspire and realize this book. I first would like to thank my biological family for teaching me from an early age the preciousness of life, through the endless love and compassion they showed me. Thank you also to Mary Lou and Don Burness for becoming my family when I moved to the States as a young man and my biological family was so far away in Nigeria. Thank you to my extended family of friends around the world for the invaluable experiences I have shared with you. Thank you to Jeremias Andersson, who is like family to me; without him this book would not have been published. Thank you to all the wonderful people I met during my years as Tennis Director at the Royal Port Club in Naples, Florida, especially Regina Noch, John Gussenhoven and John Reisman. Their boundless generosity kept me hopeful and made me wiser. Thanks to MaryZoe Bowden for her insightful, meticulous editing. As I try to articulate in this little tome, wisdom is the sum total of life experiences seen from the perspective of love . All of these people and more have contributed to my realization of this principle.
Note to Reader

While this is clearly autobiographical, and I have done my best to record things as accurately as my memory allows, I have changed the names of most of the people included in my account, and altered the names of several of the places I lived. I did this out of respect for the people and communities I wrote about.

--Joe Obidiegwu
Finding Your Way to Heaven
Without a Smartphone

Written by
Joe Obidiegwu
Table of Contents
Introduction . 1

Part I: Who am I? 4
Chapter 1
I Am More Like the Things I Dislike Than the Things I Like . 5
Chapter 2
The Night My Body Split in Two . 10
Chapter 3
“What a Teacher Writes on the Blackboard of Life Can Never Be Erased” . 14
Chapter 4
Leaving Africa and My Family, but Not Life’s Problems 18
Chapter 5
Intelligence is Not a Substitute for Wisdom .. 23
Chapter 6
“If horses could draw, they would draw their gods to look like horses” . 35

Part 2: Why am I? 39
Chapter 7
The Five Problems of Life (What is the Essence of Life?) 40
Chapter 8
Out of Darkness Came the Light 50
Chapter 9
The Tree of Life (My Theory That Human Soul is Found in Nature) 57
Chapter 10
Worrying is Not the Same as Thinking . 61
Chapter 11
We Are All in the Gutter, but Some of Us Are Looking at Stars 72
Chapter 12
A Sheep that Craves Steak is no Sheep What is a Human Being? What is God? 77
Chapter 13
“When the Lion Feeds, Something Must have Died” . 90
Conclusion, Part II . 94

Part 3: The Way I Am .. 96
Chapter 14
The Impulse of Afterthinking in Ibo Culture . 97
Chapter 15
Rebirth of Forethinking in the Second European Civilization . 102
Chapter 16
The Perils of Giving the Devil a Ride in Your Car . 105
Chapter 17
Blood is Thicker Than Civil Liberties in Afterthinking Cultures 109
Chapter 18
The wisdom of Not Going to an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet 119
Chapter 19
Different Sides of the Same Coin . 124
Chapter 20
Show Me and I’m Inclined to Learn; Humiliate Me, and I Will Stop Cooperating . 132
Chapter 21
If Jail Doesn’t Break Your Spirit, it Makes You a Philosopher . 140
Chapter 22
“Justice Isn’t About Fixing the Past; It’s About Healing the Past’s Future” . 147
Chapter 23
Sometimes Things Change Only to Remain the Same . 150
Chapter 24
“The Evil That Men Do Lives after Them; The Good is Often Interred With Their Bones” 153
Chapter 25
Integrity is The Ability to Do the Right Thing Even When No One is Watching . 158
Chapter 26
History Repeats Itself 164
Chapter 27
”We Are in The Universe, And The Universe is in Us” . 169

Afterword . 176
Bibliography . 177
Introduction


When asked to comment on the state of modern society, comedian Louis C. K, replied, “Well, everything is amaaaazing right now, and nobody is happy." We all laugh at his humor; partly because we recognize that there is a kernel of truth in his joke. Despite all the comforts and technology of the 21 st Century, it is becoming more difficult to be happy, especially in the West. And since we cannot buy happiness, we instead fill that void by buying things that entertain and create excitement, at least for a time, in our lives. As a result, we have become a consumer driven society, a society that shifted from teaching the value of gratitude to a society that teaches the value of self-promotion and entitlement. We began to rank intelligence ahead of wisdom . Even our everyday speech warns us against such an ordering, as we say, "Use your intelligence wisely" but do not say, "Use your wisdom intelligently."
It is important, then, to start off with a clear distinction between intelligence and wisdom. For the remainder of this book, intelligence will be considered the faculty that gives us the wherewithal to solve a problem , while wisdom is that which helps us understand that every problem has a meaningful purpose . Happiness can only come from living life with wisdom.
The results of this societal shift from gratitude towards entitlement will become more prevalent as the younger generations mature and become the leaders of our nations in the not so distant future. This should be of concern to all of us. And so, to better understand the cultural transition from gratitude towards entitlement, I examined my own life and my own maturation as a part of two distinct cultures: the Ibo culture in Nigeria, and the Western culture in the USA. I examined these two contrasting civilizations that influenced my development as a person because I believe we can learn a great deal by comparing and contrasting these two cultures.
In one civilization, where I was born and raised, I experienced an Ibo culture that was based on what I will call Afterthinking . In this culture, things did not change very much and time moved slowly. People’s decisions and actions seemed irrational at times because the culture was based on the wisdom of being human. In the other (Western) civilization, which is where I have since lived as an adult, the culture is based on Forethinking . The lifestyle is sophisticated, characterized by rapidly changing fashions and ways of doing things. People tend to be in a hurry because they believe that time is everything. Intelligence and rational thinking are extolled over wisdom. I will begin my thoughts with my childhood experience in an Ibo village.
Although my life was not perfect as a child, I experienced a sense of fulfillment in the Ibo culture. My individual rights were not of foremost importance to the Ibo, yet I had a comforting sense of security because I belonged to something bigger than myself. I belonged to a people, a land I could forever call home. The culture unambiguously defined the roles of people within the society. Men, women, children, the elderly, and even the animals knew their place, and for the most part, each person embraced his or her role because of a tacit belief in the wisdom of their ancestors and their gods. This wisdom taught them to respect the inherent differences among peoples, animals, and things. It would be absurd for a typical Ibo person to call himself an activist, because that would mean placing himself ab