Exclusive: It doesn't have to end; keep learning


By Boluwatife Ezekiel Olaleye

When you get me feel high: I know that I am not what you say I am. Common stop! Heaven and earth knows you are only teasing me, trying to blow my mind, probably out of hatred or likeness, hate or envy, I can’t really decipher but I can’t help it but feel pleased within myself and dream high when you call me An Expert Pianist even when I am not.

When  you get me feel happy: It kinda feels weird to you but I know and you know that I am not all that fantastic yet and in fact, I am not the type that gets invited to concert, churches, wherever and I don’t make money from what I do, do I even have an album of songs to my name but nevertheless, what everything means to me is that I am getting better at it, I have improved but not enough to be called A Professional Pianist.

When you get me feel insulted: Am I an expert? Oh that is Hell NO! Alright, I will ask you again, “Are you a professional?” Common man, NOT YET! But don’t you ever dare ever bring me down or else, we are no longer buddies and trust me, you will regret not being on my good side. I might not be all what you think I am or tease that I am but whether serious, confused, joking, I don’t like it when you call me An Amateur Pianist.

When you get me feel red-hot angry: I kick you in the balls; give you a super sonic punch that lands you on the ground lying flat making all kinds of annoying sound that English calls... GROANING! Grr, it freaks me out and I lose all control. For what damn reason should you mention that to me? JEEZ!!! I am way beyond that level, you sycophantic enemy of progress. Let it ring in your thick skull...I Am No Beginner!

Alright tell me, if you are not an expert, a professional, an amateur or a freaking beginner, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?!

What can I tell you, I don’t know who or what I am, all I know is... is that I am still learning.

You sigh in frustration, “learning?” cut the crap, what do you mean learning?
                    
...Then you are a learner!

I can’t measure the joy and excitement in me, the idea that we are finally in consensus with each other...Yes, I Am A Learner and so are you.

Common what do you mean me, not everyone can be as foolish as you. I am not one learner. I am A Super Professional Pianist.

Yeah, yeah but...at least, you can’t deny the fact that you learn new skills, new styles of playing the piano everyday or do you want to tell me chord progression you used in praise and worship today was invented by you. Everyone knows you stole that idea from Nathaniel Bassey’s Onise Iyanu.

You open your mouth to show that you are dumb stricken, “how’d you know? My God! Well, okay, you got me and I accept, yes I am still learning even If I know I am a professional. Everyone is still learning, alright? So are you satisfied now? Let’s end this conversation now, I have other bigger fishes to fry”.

Alright, hope you learnt something from that short scene. I hope it inspired you because you have to know this...never rest on your ores in whatever you do even when you feel you are already a master at it.

Somebody say Frank Edwards is a wonderful pianist, I will tell you that Don Moen is his master. However that’s not to say that they are not still other people out there better than Don Moen, alright, I will tell you that Don Moen will bow when he meets Tokio Myers ( winner of Britain got talent 2017). It is that simple, all you just have to do is...keep learning no matter how hard it is, keep at it. Learning is what never stops even after one might have acquired "all the degrees in the world".
                                                                               
 
 Yours might not be about playing the piano like me, it might be drumming, sowing, knitting, dancing, football, and every other thing you love doing oneand can do very well but the burning issue is for you not to stop learning because the essence of it is for others not to catch up with you and overtake you making you remain old-fashioned in a world whereby trends develop every day.

Michael Jackson will forever be respected but if you are a dancer and you base all your dance steps on those unique to the Pop legend, my friend...I reserve my comment.

Even dancers that do late Jackson’s dance steps have modernized it greatly, adding their own innovation to it, look at Chris Brown, Bruno Mars and many others, so what are we saying?

Note this and let us meditate in it every day of our lives: Anyone that stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty, but anyone that keeps learning is young.

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