Mehkurydiaries

The body is a terrible motivational speaker. At first, it shouts. Begin lifting after a long absence and every staircase becomes a personal enemy. Sit down carefully. Laugh carefully. Even sneezing begins to involve negotiations. Then the body adapts. The same training can stop producing dramatic soreness—not necessarily because it has become useless, but because muscle and connective tissue have learned the insult. Exercise scientists call part of this the repeated-bout effect: after unfamiliar work, later exposure to similar exercise usually produces less damage, weakness and soreness. The body has not stopped listening. It has stopped screaming. This matters because we have built a small religion around pain. If the workout did not hurt, we assume it did not work. If life is not visibly punishing us, we suspect we are not progressing. Pain is evidence that something happened. It is not a calibrated receipt for growth. Delayed-onset muscle soreness is influenced by novelty, ...

The Church can avoid political parties. It cannot avoid politics. The moment faith says a human life possesses dignity, somebody will eventually ask what that dignity should cost the state. A hospital bed has a budget. Palliative care requires policy. Poverty survives through decisions. War arrives carrying official signatures. Even silence must pass through a polling booth. During his recent visit to France, Pope Leo criticised the country’s new assisted-dying law. Asked whether he had entered politics, he drew a useful distinction: he had not joined French party politics; he was teaching what the Church believes. That distinction matters. A pulpit should not become a campaign office with better acoustics. Clergy should not baptise candidates, launder corruption with prayer or convert congregations into voting blocs for whoever donated the loudest generator. But neutrality can also become a costume for cowardice. When laws concern life, death, poverty, disability, migration, p...

Nigeria is 66 this year. At 66, a person is called an elder. A nation is still permitted to describe every failure as growing pains. History is a generous landlord. On 1 October 1960, the British flag came down and Nigeria’s flag rose. Political control changed hands. The harder work began: turning sovereignty into capacity. That work remains unfinished. In this year Independence Day address, President Bola Tinubu said the struggle was never merely for a flag or anthem. It carried the promise of opportunity, dignity and a better life. The Constitution is even less poetic. Sovereignty belongs to the people. Their security and welfare are the primary purpose of government. Not a charitable side project. The primary purpose. A country may control its borders while its citizens remain tenants inside it. When families must privately provide electricity, water, security, education, healthcare and sometimes the road leading home, the citizen carries a small government on his back. The...