Why you need a pioneering spirit to go where no one has gone before

What you need to know:
- There is a stubbornness here promoting unconventionality over conventionality. The hard-headed non-conformity poetry collection probes and searches, questions and answers, frowns and smiles in equal measure several subjects.
Bucking convention to ensure invention is not easy. How many of us can swim against the tide? Most of us find safety in the numbered majority that populates the road most travelled. We are too frightened to be eddies against the impersonal movement of the times. That is why so many of us are conformist.
Sure, we delight in quoting the words attributed to Steve Jobs: “Here is to the crazy ones. The misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They are not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo.”
However, we often quote this non-conformist message not because it to conforms to our true beliefs. We quote it because Steve Jobs’ ideas and point of view are conventions which bind us to a deceptively rebellious stance. Thankfully, this is not the case for all of us.
Balunywa Ibrahim, a poet who celebrates non-conformity is in his poetry collection “To those whose parents’ heart sunk when they chose the road less travelled”, belongs to the tribe of true rebels.
His poetry thumbs its nose at mores and values which diminish the value of our individuality in favour of our collectivity. It falls neatly into the literary tradition, paradoxically, that gave us the narrative poem "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost, Morgan Scott Peck’s book “The Road Less Travelled” and, yes, "If—" by the English poet, Rudyard Kipling.
To properly express its hard-headed non-conformity, this poetry collection is divided into several sections under the subjects of family, country, love, conflict, passion and career. In the process, the author helps the reader process their thoughts on each subject.
It probes and searches, questions and answers, frowns and smiles in equal measure. Subsequently, Balunywa’s poetry further agrees with Robert Frost’s approach to verse as the “art of having something to say.” So he expresses, evokes, and addresses everyday concerns which resonate with everyday people. And subtly challenges you and I to reject the conventional wisdom.
The four-line poem “What my son told his teacher after failing his exam” is right up this alley, so to speak: “I didn’t study/Because my father said/I’m the smartest child/To ever walk the earth.”
There is a stubbornness here promoting unconventionality over conventionality. After all, we go to school to learn. We do so to fill that knowledge gap separating us from our full intellectual potential.
However, the persona in this poem seems to be cocksure that school does not have a patch on their mental faculties. In fact, it might reduce them in the estimation of a parent who believes the persona is too smart to learn.
Sure, this might seem like arrogance. But individuality often comes across as haughtiness because of its unwillingness to be cowed by convention. Also, this poem made me think about the poem “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks: “We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
azz June. We
Die soon.”
The last line is often tragically the fate of the non-conformist. That is because they tread uncharted territory, which is often fraught with danger. And because nobody has taken that road before, they have no lessons to draw upon except their own experiences that teach them how the unknown can be a forbidding place to venture into.
Although it takes a pioneering spirit to go where no one has gone before, it essentially requires obstinacy to embark on that journey.
“Have you looked into what we are entertaining?
I am sure your family has shone a light on it,
I guess it is hard to see when you are part of the act;
Except, I know you. You are a rebel,” Balunywa writes in the poem “Different Worlds”. And it reminds that maybe, conformist or otherwise, our lives are not that different after all.