SONGS OF SOLOMON: YOU ARE VINTAGE CLASS

The vintage you

1:5 I am dark but beautiful….1:6 Don’t stare at me because I am dark. The sun has darkened my skin, my brothers were angry with me, they made me work their vineyards so I couldn’t care for myself.

Over time, humans have been in this age long competition to conform to the popular. We are constantly trying to change to be more acceptable by parents, friends, colleagues, boyfriends, girlfriends. And we have been subtly encouraging the younger generation to follow suit especially in the media.

A lady asked on radio yesterday what the most difficult thing to find is and a lot of people responded by mentioning happiness, honesty, love, peace etcetera. I think the hardest thing to find is oneself. But then again, is that what’s hard to find or the actual acceptance of self? Until Beyonce and Kim K came along, if you are not skinny, you are not beautiful and thus not acceptable. Until folks like Big Daddy Kane and Tupac came along, rappers always had feature in a song to get heard. Now thanks to these guys, rappers can stand alone without hanging around to be accepted by a singer.

Here in our text of the day, the girls admits to being black even though being black is supposed to be ugly. She did not try to change or deny it, rather she embraced it. She has been scarred by her experiences, yet she embraced her scars. And despite her seeming ugliness, she was loved by a great man. Why try to blend in when you were created to stand out? Celebrate your difference, your weirdness, your idiosyncrasies and above all, celebrate your scars. They are proof that you fought and won. You look for someone better than your ex believing that that shows that you are doing great. But does that solve your problem? And maybe it’s okay to not do great all the time.

After reading this verse in Songs of Solomon, I made a decision to take a stand and start loving my imperfections. I have lots of scars, both on my body and on my heart. And that’s just great because it proves that I survived. I am going to enjoy being different, not having what the popular girls have and I am going to be grateful for this chance to discover me. Let’s do this folks, embrace you scars, you just might start a trend. A toast to the VINTAGE YOU.

CLASSY BREAK-UP GONE BAD

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You know that awkward moment when you want your boyfriend to bend to your whim and you calmly tell him ‘If you don’t agree, I’m gonna break u with you’ and he promptly replies ‘That’s fine by me’

SONGS OF SOLOMON

‘How fragrant your cologne, your name is like the spreading fragrance. No wonder all the young women love you’

Most people I know avoid reading the songs of Solomon and I keep wondering why. This guy is supposed to be the wisest, most romantic guy that ever walked our planet, right? So I decide to dig into the guy’s words left for us thousands of years ago and find out what his deal was. So here goes.

Here, in the sentence above, this babe was waxing poetic about what the dude smelled like, it must have made such an impression, so much so that it got documented. I imagine he must have poured on his royal self some  high-profile perfume, probably custom-made and all.The use of perfumes have been thought/limited to fashion statements. You wear Hugo Boss and you are badder than the guy that wears DKNY (or whatever). It is definitely a fashion statement, proof of financial standing yea, but beyond that, what is it? What does what you smell like depict of u?

It has been noted that our sense of smell is the strongest of all the five senses. Stronger than sight or taste. This is because it is the one that is most intensely connected with memory. You will most likely remember what an ex smelled like even when you don’t remember the face anymore just by getting a whiff of the fragrance the person wore. One could argue that even taste which we mostly think of as providing us with pleasure, can warn us of food that is spoilt or keep us from ingesting harmful substances. But unlike the other senses, the olfactory nerves go to two destinations in our brains. One is the frontal cortex where we consciously recognize a scent and the second is the limbic area of the brain which deals with emotion, motivation and types of memory. And for this reason, smelling a fragrance will not just give you the deja vu feeling, it will take you to the actual memory, either with fondness or with sadness/disdain/annoyance, depending on what the person represented to you.

Can the importance of what we smell like be over emphasized? I imagine King Sol must have smelled like a million bucks for what he smelled like to have made such an impression. People will remember us more for what we smelled like long after we are gone than for what we looked like, yet we pay more attention to what we look like. If you know you have the dreaded BO, why not take a cue from one of the most romantic dudes of the past times and douse yourself with the most expensive fragrance you can lay your hands on. Stop complaining about not being able to get a girl/guy and take action. Even for married folks, smelling good isn’t just for when we want to go out. Smell good around the house for your family. Your children will go out, get a whiff of your fragrance and instantly remember you with fondness. Smell good in bed for your spouse, have a special fragrance for ‘bed time’ . Practice it for a week and that fragrance becomes printed in your brain as the night/rest/lovemaking/cuddling smell. Imagine getting a whiff of that during a stressful day, boss biting your head off and all, it will instantly trigger that memory of ease and comfort, with an accompanying improvement on such a day. Smelling good is not overrated, it is worth paying attention to. Not just to the use of perfumes, after-shaves or deodorants but to the actual fragrances that aptly defines us.

So get cracking folks, lets shake things up!