THINK BIG: BEN CARSON

At Poets United Thursday Think Tank, there is a prompt to write a poem inspired by a book one has read or is reading. I have read hundreds of books now from as diverse areas as possible but the one that will always stand out is THINK BIG by Ben Carson.

I read the book after I had finished form four.  I wish I had read it earlier.

Never have I been influenced by a book than THINK BIG. The acrostic stands for:

T -Talents/time: Recognize as gifts from God;

H -Hope for good things and be honest;

I -insight from people and good books;

N -Be nice to all people;

K  -Knowledge: Recognize as they are key to living;

B -Books: Read them actively;

 I -In-depth learning skills: Develop them;

G -God: Never get too big for Him.

I also read Gifted Hands (perhaps contrary to what should have been expected since it came first). You see, in the village where I grew up the danger was that there were a lot of uncertainties about the future one had on education and being “different”.  So, we read because that is what we had been told to do. And when one finished form four, one knew that that was it.

Then THINK BIG came into the picture.

I was opened up to a world of a thousand possibilities. I was given a pedestal where I could stand and say, ‘yes, folks, I am here to rule the world’.  So, urged by Ben Carson, I grew from that timid, cocooned village boy to one ready to take the world by storm. I wasn’t very sure about doing Law then. After that, I believed it earnestly. In my learning at Campus, I read intently. I never read to pass exams (though that was the ultimate goal, unfortunately). I have always tried not to be narrow in my reading. So, I don’t read Law only. I read spiritual books, I read biographies, I read proverbs, I read history, I read novels ( classicals come into mind such as Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, John Grisham, African authors notably Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Kenyan authors especially Meja Mwangi, David Mulwa, Dawood—honestly, I cannot name all of them). And there are philosophical books which I admire a lot. The thinkers such as Ralph Ewaldo Emerson, Voltaire, Friedrich Nietzche, and many others, in their books, expand our minds to such elasticity they can never be the same again.

Well, now to the poem, inspired by the book THINK BIG.

So, someone thought that by holding a gun he is so powerful?

Fingers on trigger, ready to rip, where is power in that?

I say a book in somebody’s hands is the most powerful

I know of countless little frames who with books

Have wielded so much power by thought

Their fists are this small, their bellies are these small,

If you met them in the train station or somewhere near a mall

They will be your ordinary guy

But verily verily I tell you

If you measured their minds by ounces

The kilo of their thoughts will break the weighing machine

Such are books, such are thoughts

I don’t know of any other way

To improve one’s welfare than through books

Believe me, I tried mediocrity and it didn’t work

I would watch flat-out dimwittedness cascade before me

And I would swat it hard only for it to taunt me

Been years now, I hear she lives in another town

Well, I confess, I can’t fight

So, for a few hours reading

Brushing through what others before me thought and said

I am called a genius!

The other day, I ran through the inventory of my wealth

Hardly any apartment nor car

Just stacks of books

When time comes I will tell my children,

“Children, I was a wealthy man, of that be sure,

Not your ordinary trappings of wealth

No, in these books I leave you, search for Truth,

Rub minds with the great sages, aim for greatness

Ordinary people strive for food, clothing and shelter

Great people strive for Essence, Spirituality and Higher Realms”