First Gentleman with Wilson Orhiunu
Email: babawill2000
It was one of those conversations. You know the type. The ones where words flow freely and soon the participants lose control of the direction or speed in which the conversation travels. It was almost as if the conversation assumed a life of its own, put on a three-piece suit and a nice pair of shoes and checked into first class. We the participants, both ran behind it breathlessly, as fast as our words and imagination could take us.
‘Doc my mind races every night. I find it hard to settle down’
‘What is the problem with a racing mind?’ I asked.
‘Everything’
‘So where does your mind race to?’
‘Maybe thirty places till I terminate the progress with half a bottle of something strong’.
‘Tell me more’ I implored.
‘Dad left when I was three. Didn’t know him much but I always wondered what life would be like; every night. Then I think of how I was mugged thrice on the same street!’
‘Same street? Which one?’ I asked in self-preservation.
‘The high street. I think about my bills, my lover who ran away with my friend and that nasty boss of mine. Everything is just messed up’.
‘What if a racing mind is not the problem? Perhaps it is where your mind races to’
‘Hmmm’
‘What if you thought about your life’s best moments. Race from the holidays to the victories, from the small pleasures, your prized possessions, to anything good you have experienced’ I suggested.
‘How would a holiday taken five years ago help me when I have bills?’ He asked.
‘Well, is that not why we hang pictures on the wall? It is all about sweet past memories to help appreciate the good things in life. Tell me what pictures do you have on your living room wall?’.
‘Well, there is a picture of my son; I love him to bits; my graduation pictures; my Spanish holiday pictures, that was so nice. Yes, and the one I took with my girlfriend in Cornwall. She pulled a silly face; the best of the lot’.
‘You smiled when you talked about the pictures’
‘I have not smiled in weeks’ he said ruefully.
The gentleman I spoke to was like so many others. We all do it. We hang up pictures of the good times around the house but never look at the pictures. They all blend in with the furniture and tomorrow’s ‘to do’ list takes up all our thinking time.
I have visited many patients in my time and have never met anyone who put up a framed picture of a mishap, say, a car crash or x-ray picture of a broken leg. No one wants to spoil the ambience of their homes with pictures of calamities hung on the wall. Rather, we frame pictures that bring joy.
Well, the exception was my dad who photographed and framed his Peugeot 504 which had gone off a bridge and landed in a river. He miraculously escaped and the picture was meant to remind him or us about the great escape and the Good Lord’s benevolence. With time the photograph disappeared from its vantage point. That picture looked good the first and second time around but after a few weeks of listening to him explain the picture to inquisitive visitors, the story lost its gloss.
The pictures most hang up are usually of children, marriages, birthdays and various joyful anniversaries. Now, if the living room walls can have a bit of joy hung on them, what about the great wall of our minds? Why make it a wailing wall? Most people can rustle up forty to fifty images that are positive to think about if they tried. Really tried! Like writing them out and having the list by the bedside or recording the list on the phone and playing it just before sleeping. There is always that point in the night when you lie in darkness with your head on the pillow and the mind comes alive. That is when the framed pictures that adorn the mind’s wall come alive. Like a man with starving eyes in a magnificent art gallery, there is a frantic race from picture to picture and the emotions are carried along.
Over the years I have been privileged to visit the homes of ill people and I always look at the pictures on the wall. A transformation occurs in the aged when you point at a picture and ask, ‘is that you?’ Suddenly they are transported to the emotional state they were in years ago when the picture was taken. The pictures on the wall speak to us. They are drugs with powerful healing powers that can influence our state of minds. Hanging up these therapeutic visuals is a good first step but unfortunately they get ignored for the television.
Even God told His people to write His words on their gates and door posts for a constant reminder of His blessings (Deuteronomy 6 verse 9). Moving out of the living room into town you get bill boards everywhere. Advertisers know that the psychological influence they need to relieve the public of their hard earned cash can be exerted through beautiful pictures. Proof that framed pictures really do speak a thousand words.
