As one author so astutely described, “Mandela always appeared happy and accepting of having much of his life robbed from him while he was in jail” (Fregni, Kimberly: “Rule No. 6.” FRO Blog. 8 Oct. 2014). (See that in-text citation? Take that, Entes!) But how happy could he truly have been? Was he merely masking his scorn for humanity and loss of faith with the curved lips of an X^2 parabola that Professor Cihan wouldn’t dare to differentiate? I’m sure that during the dull, listless, mind-numbing, antagonistically agonizing, seemingly never-ending hours of that dark, dank, dusty, musty, moldy mildewy prison cell, even Mandela found himself questioning his beliefs. After all, constancy is the clue of carnivores and only Siths deal in absolutes. Maybe, had Mandela been given the opportunity, he would have fled to the canary islands, inhabited solely by birds of paradise and utopian cocktails of patience and peace, or he may have opted the monastical route and Nirvana’d himself to a parallel multiverse of void and vacuity. Now, I’m not supposing he was weak in his commitment to values and suave style (have you seen him on the cover of Time? Hubba hubba!), but I’m merely addressing the fundamental core of nature intrinsic to us as evolved packs of monkeys. Mandela understood, perhaps even more than anything, that we are sacks of meat floating inexplicably on a blue rock in the midst of eternal and unceasing blackness. His devotion to defending his rights, lefts, straights, and gays was as paramount as The Godfather, and twice as likely to finish a quadrilogy, despite the vapidity of his crushing existential dread.
In all seriousness, though, I cannot feign comparison to a man as great as Nelson Mandela. It was indeed a tragic loss when his soul ascended, and to claim similarities is nothing but hot air. Yes, Mandela proudly pontificated that appearances matter and that we ought to smile more, but what do we make of that? Do we smile and move on, or do we challenge the man? A smile is nothing but slanted cheeks; true happiness is born of sterner cast. Perhaps a man like Mandela achieved true happiness despite such adversity, not because inspirational role models told him to smile, but because his dedication was unwavering and strong in the face of all who frowned upon him. To be a human of unswerving devotion is bound to reveal the teeth.
