The art of knowing when to close the curtain

Literature and art, just like science, gives us a lot of inspired insights into the wisdom of a life worth of self respecting citizen. That of not overstaying one’s welcome and having the wisdom and intellectual discernment to know when to bid adios to the gallery, no matter how sweet and exhilarating the show was moving.

Chinua Achebe and William Shakespeare, geniuses of modern day and medieval literary excellence succinctly captures and articulates this point in Things Fall Apart and Macbeth, respectively.

About Josiah the uncouth grocer, Chinua talks of how he ended tragically because he had taken too much the owner had seen. Kind of what the ultimate philosopher cum reggae legend Bob Marley sung that “you can fool some people sometimes but you cannot fool all the people all the times”, the party came to an end for Josiah the shop keeper.

Similarly Shakespeare, in Macbeth, talking about the non permanence of fortunes; positions and time illuminates to us about the poor player that shouts and struts his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.

Everyone that ever flirted with the performing arts and had an indulgence in theater or any stage performance of any guise are familiar with and accustomed to the phenomenon of the Curtain closing on the stage; when the actors, performers and company take a bow and the performance is over. That act is usually greeted with a rousing ovation by the audience. Even a circus, no matter how exhilaratingly spell binding, comes to close its curtains and the lights go off.

The list and manifestations of calling time on the stage are pervasive and occur with such ubiquity in every dynamic and activity in nature and in life. It is all around us to such extent that one would assume that it is so common for everyone to get to grips with the reality that any attempt at eternity of tenure for anything by any mortal runs in stark contradiction to conventional wisdom, known as common sense.

But then I once learnt that common sense is not common and since then I have accepted to sympathetically understand the unfortunate instances and occasions when even the most gifted are deficient of the simple discernment to the obvious.

All the same we have to spare some thought and sympathy to understand that while the world was gifted in most times with the example of the likes of Nelson Mandela, who when he had all the reasons, the overwhelming charm and right and entitlement to stay on the stage and keep strutting his stuff that was so mesmerisingly loved by all and sundry, friends and foes alike, advocates and those who were naturally expected to be his detractors, Madiba left the stage at half time. He was not only perfectly entitled to stay the whole course but was abundantly loved and revered by all as well.

Mandela could have said” I am so good and abundantly loved and therefore my people deserve and need only me because I am the best”. No, to the contrary he shocked the whole world by quiting and getting a lesser known and decorated Mbeki to take over.

The rest is history as they say. Madiba became and remains the most revered human being of our times not only for his legendary bravery, selflessness, courage, humility and tenacity in fighting the apartheid regime and all its wickedness but because of the magnanimity of his ways when he was in charge of the levers of power, the impeccable pursuit for doing the best for all the peoples of South Africa and beyond and because when he had all the opportunity and implements to exact revenge on those that tortured, maimed and killed his people, he chose forgiveness and reconciliation.

A lot has been written and said in attempt to explain how Mandela acted in such uncommon manner. We can say that at best such was the amazing spell of charm that Mandela created and a lasting legacy he left that his legend motivates and inspires everyone to ponder at the how and why he did it. We will remain contented with one belief that we take the liberty to hold that Madiba loved his people in particular and humanity in general and that is he did what he did.

He will always be remembered as the greatest gift of our times in demonstrating that in the abundance of all the greed and self centered egos of today where most players refuse to depart the stage and let others carry on the baton of the race called life, he did it with graceful perfection and wrote his history permanently in the ages of humanity.

There is, therefore, a chance to read the writing on the wall and write our own piece of history.