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Ancient African thinking abilities were the envy of the entire ancient world. Evidence of the timelessness of their genius is that their poetic synthesis thinking remains the method of choice for solving any type of problem faced by today's Black Americans.
Although I strongly recommend teaching the method to Black youth, it is not easy to lay it out into a clear and easy process. Furthermore, it requires hard work to understand and internalize.
But the reward is wisdom -- a type of wisdom you can use every day and in every way to help you get what you ought to have and not get what you ought not to have. The student intent on being successful in life will have to fill in the gaps, strengthen the weaknesses, and expand upon what I will now present.
We start together to eat this massive and complex elephant of a subject by taking one bite at a time. The first bite chosen, African proverbs consist of a mental pearl alloyed with the gold of African wisdom. Furthermore, proverbs are a Sample of the whole process of poetic synthesis thinking, reduced to "postage stamp" size.
African proverbs are found in the Hebrew Bible and their ancestors came out of the period Egyptian text called the Instructions of Ame-em-Opat (10th century BC). Proverbs and acorns are mirror images in one respect.
Whereas the inside of an acorn contains its destiny to grow into a tall oak tree, the little African proverb contains "bits and pieces" of most all the situational experiences of prior African ancestors. African proverbs are Philosophical because they deal with Values (i.e. life-shaping principles guiding choices, decisions, and solutions).
The material found in the core of a proverb may range from the oldest forms of African religions and philosophical wisdom (Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy p 86, 2) all the way over to African traditional beliefs and observed facts. Usually the contents refer to feelings, emotions, attitudes,and habitual co-operative activity.
Proverbs serve as guides to instructing children; as releases for pent up emotions; or as a display of eloquence in speech. A capsulized example of African poetic synthesis thinking that produced a proverb is: "what an old man sees sitting down, a young man cannot see standing up."
One meaning is that properly interpreted experiences and features of maturity enable one to see hidden or invisible links of similar or opposite things -- known as the Law of Sympathy. On the way to achievements, such vision increases one's range of options concerning choices, decisions, or solutions.
The key to expanding one's philosophical vision is to assess a proverb in all of its planes of existence and meanings.
For example, before wisely reacting to the arrogant youth, the "old man" considers the whole situation from the perspective of the ancestral spirits; of the African magico-religious life; of the circumstances the youth faces; of the proper message to convey; of the effects his message will have; and of the kind of message most likely to be received by the brash youth so as to be acted upon. Then the old man chooses a special poetic synthesized proverb to counsel the youth because of its smoothness, subtly, indirectness, and depth of penetration.
Since it originates out of African tradition, the proverb has been repeatedly tested by going through the African society filter and has shown its ability to help create, enhance, and maintain harmony in the community. In other words, out of the filter of societal poetic synthesis thinking, a distillate drop of the best of African thought emerges. To do this requires all of one's mental faculties.
Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D
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