1. Insanely independent: An adult with a rough childhood tends to be independent way too excessively. They tend to feel obligated to deal with their issues all on their own, and not bother anyone else. This is usually because they have learned not to trust anyone to help them, so they do everything themselves. Because of this, they always appear to have it all together and definitely don’t need help from anyone.

2. Self-isolation: An adult with a rough childhood tends to self-isolate. Despite making only a couple of friends, they sometimes tend to stop contacting friends for seemingly no reason or a minute reason. This is sometimes due to the fact that they tend to get easily heightened emotionally.

3. Trust Issues: An adult with a rough childhood tend to have severe trust issues. As a result of this, they tend to have no or very few friends as adults and self-isolate.

4. Low self-esteem: An adult with a rough childhood, most of the time if not all the time, tends to have low self-esteem. They tend to develop people-pleasing behaviours such as apologising habitually, compulsively, and for everything, even for things that are clearly not their fault. They also tend to allow themselves to be bullied by others. They also tend to develop feelings of inferiority or worthlessness. Low self-esteem is almost always the root of every other toxic behaviour they build up into adulthood.

5. Poor Sense of Judgement/Decision making: An adult with a rough childhood tend to become uncertain when it comes to making decisions. They tend to make poor choices with friends and lead unhealthy romantic relationships. Although they have a keen sense to read people very well, they still have poor judgement when it comes to choosing close relationships. And this can be attributed to their low self-esteem where they either pour out all their love on someone undeserving and don’t know when to stop or don’t give a shoot at all.

6. Poor emotion check: An adult with a rough childhood tend to have very poor emotion checks. They tend to self-regulate their emotions in a very poor manner. They often depend on others for validation or use substances as a way to check their emotions. Sometimes, this tends to lead to bad behaviours like addiction or frequent overdose of harmful substances.

7. Self-sabotage/Negative self-criticism: An adult with a rough childhood tend to self-sabotage a lot. They criticize themselves negatively and have a hard time believing in themselves, therefore they tend to set no goals or lower than they could achieve. As a result, they usually have no motivation to make anything of themselves, because they tend to believe they would only fail anyway).

8. Inconsistent hobby: An adult with a rough childhood tend to have inconsistent hobbies. For example, drawing. They would draw rarely and then, dismiss what they drew as not good enough. They usually do not practice their hobbies because of low self-esteem and negative self-criticism.

9. Feeling insecure: An adult with a rough childhood tends to feel insecure. This is mostly because they lacked security as a child. Most of the time, while growing up, parental was conditional, mood-dependent, and not guaranteed, so they learned to always earn it. And because of that, they grow up to always feel insecure which tends to affect their close relationships.

10. Using jokes as a coping mechanism: An adult with a rough childhood tends to use jokes to cope excessively. When something serious happens, they usually make a joke to hide their emotions and insecurity. They also tend to overcompensate with laughter during conversations.

11. Defensiveness: An adult with a rough childhood tends to get super defensive, even about the slightest error. This is primarily due to the fact that they grew up in environments where it was not okay to make mistakes.

Other signs include:

1. They tend to become hyper-aware of everything that is happening and everyone else’s actions when situations get tense and uneasy.
2. They come off as mature, even at a young age.
3. They tend to have haphephobia, the fear of being touched.
4. They tend to flinch at loud noises or quick movements.
5. They always want to work or do something. They cannot stand being idle at any moment.
6. They want to do good all the time.
7. They are good conspiracy theorists. They can’t live without a sense of impending doom, and so, will always unconsciously find one.
8. They are extremely nervous when they are doing things in front of others.
9. They find it hard to accept compliments.
10. They have barely any memory of childhood, and when they do, they have little or no happy stories of childhood.

Do you show off any of these signs?
What other signs do you know of?

1. The name Yehoshua is written in the popular Hebrew text of the Holy Scriptures that was produced by a group of Yehudiym (Jews) who were known as and called THE MASORETES.
2. The name YEHOSHUA is in accordance with the inherent grammar of the Hebrew language that was used in writing the Masoretic Hebrew Text of the Holy Scriptures.

Every language has its own peculiar inherent grammar, and it is very unfortunate that almost all the people who talk about the Hebrew language do not care about the inherent grammar of it.

But when we engage ourselves in studying other languages, we begin with the inherent grammar of it especially the letters of the language and the parts of speech. We do not try to contradict the inherent grammar of any language or fight against it. Rather we study and learn it.

The name YEHOSHUA is a Hebrew compound word just the name CHUKWUEBUKA is an Igbo compound word. As a Hebrew compound word, the name YEHOSHUA is composed of three different Hebrew single words. The three different Hebrew single words that make up the Hebrew compound word YEHOSHUA are:

1. YAH, which is the name of the Almighty God according to Psalm 68:4/5.
2. HU, which is the Hebrew singular masculine/neutral pronoun with present tense verb. So the Hebrew word HU means HE/IT IS. This Hebrew masculine/neutral pronoun HU also simply serves as the verb IS.
3. YESHUA(H), which is the Hebrew single word that means SALVATION.

First of all, the Hebrew single words YAH and HU were joined together as a Hebrew compound word according to the inherent grammar of the Hebrew language and so they became the Hebrew compound word YEHU which means YAH IS HE or simply YAH IS .

YAH plus HU cannot be either “YEHO” or “YAHU”. It is rather the Hebrew compound word YEHU that can become both YEHO— and —YAHU when it is used as the prefix and suffix of Hebrew compound words.

YEHU plus YESHUA(H) equal to YEHOSHUA and YASHA plus YEHU equal to YESHA’YAHU.

The Hebrew name YEHOSHUA is the same as the Hebrew sentence YAH HU YESHUAH.

Adherents of Sabbatarianism think that YAH plus HU should be “YAHU” but they use Hebrew HALLELUYAH without thinking that the Hebrew singular HALLAL should become the Hebrew plural “HALLALU” and that “HALLALU” plus YAH should become “HALLALUYAH”

The joining together of two or more Hebrew single words must be according to the inherent grammar of the Hebrew language. We must handle Hebrew letters, words and sentences according to the inherent grammar of the Hebrew language.

יְהוֹשֻׁ֣עַ
YEHOSHUA means YAH IS SALVATION

Recently, I read a book that wasn’t a best seller, it wasn’t on Bill Gates or Barack Obama’s reading list. Right now, I can’t even recall the name of the author but the book: “A compendium of jokes” written by a professor of survey and geoinformatics was as funny as hell that I couldn’t drop it. It contained jokes that are appropriate for corporate settings. Jokes that would make co-workers laugh with you instead of at you or be displeased and assume you are mocking them.

Reading that book surprised me, it opened my eyes to the fact that whenever someone puts pen to paper, it often means they have a story to tell, love to give and laughter to share.

Books are a great way to expand knowledge. And many of the best books in history were written by authors who are not particularly well known and were not among the best-sellers of their time. Yet, these authors provide a lot to be learned from, as they were experts in their own fields.

Here are 5 reasons why you may want to consider reading books that don’t make it to the best-seller list or get included in lists of famous people’s favourite books.

1. Wonderful gems are waiting to be discovered: Discover a world of beautiful writing, well-structured prose, beautifully written poems, become one with the antagonist or the protagonist, reveal in a world weaved by wonderful authors instead of allowing their lack of promotion to stop you. One of the best books I have ever read was WHAT SAYING YES DID TO ME. This book was so wonderful that I read it from beginning to end in one sitting. It was morning and then, it was night, time flew so fast. The authors weren’t popular and the book isn’t a bestseller, could only be found on Miray Books, and it was so captivating that I discovered a gem.
2. You can build a relationship with the author: Sometimes reading a bestseller book can feel like eavesdropping, you hear what they are saying, you understand it and feel it but as the curious person you are when you want to ask questions you discover that it is really difficult to get the attention of the author because a million other people are asking their questions and the author might not attend to you because of time. An unknown author has a lot of time for his fans and you can build meaningful relationships with them. (Get in touch with one of our authors here.)
3. Become an advocate: There are many joys in this life but very few joys are greater than having people say these three words “You are Right”. Helping people discover what you have discovered, giving a recommendation that your book friends enjoy is such a good feeling that some of us ride it for months and it leads us into the temptation of being masters of everything. What better way to add value to your friends than to introduce them to quality books that will transform their lives.
4. Acquire diverse Knowledge: Learning from people who are on their way up is different in my opinion from learning from people who are already on top. While it is easier to see people who are way ahead of you, it often is the footstep of those climbing that you need to follow in other to get to the top. Knowing authors who are unknown and moving to known helps you understand more and see how sometimes a writer’s style evolves.
5. Motivates you to write a book: Inside all of us is the desire to tell our stories, to let people know about the funny things that go on in our heads, the castles we have built, and the people who live in them. But one of our biggest drawbacks is our fear that no one will read our books. When we meet and develop a relationship with authors who had the same fears and have gotten past those fears to produce great works. Your question changes from: What if nobody reads my books to what do I do to get people to read my work?

With a support system like Miray Books, becoming an author has never been easier.

Written by Johnbosco Ezeani

For without words in friendship, all thoughts, desires and expectations are born and shared with unacclaimed joy. And with words in friendship, all thoughts and desires and expectations are communicated with brutal and raw passion.

When you part, grieve not; for that which you love most may be clearer in absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain. When you return after a while, let the absence make the heart grow fonder and the joy of sight return the peace of the mind.

Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit and the exaltation of the soul. Seek your friend always with hours to live. For it is your friend to fill your need, but not your emptiness. For emptiness of the world will make you empty further still.

In the sweetness of friendship, let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little moments, the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. And let your friend be your friend.

Millennials are tough to manage, accused of being entitled, being narcissistic, self-interested, unfocused, lazy, but being entitled is the big one. And because millennials confuse leadership so much, few leaders tend to ask them: What do you want? The answer usually comes like this: We want to work in a place with purpose, we want to make an impact, we want free food and more holidays. So, someone will see some sort of purpose with free food and two weeks holiday every month, whilst making impacts too yet for some reason, they are still not happy. And the truth is because something is missing, there is a missing piece.

Throughout my life, since I was born in 1998 till this day, with lots of experiences. And when I say lot, I mean a whole lot. I figured out or I think I figured out this missing piece, but this missing piece is broken down into four pieces, four things, four challenges, four major problems:

• Parenting
• Technology
• Impatience
• Environment

This generation I call millennials is subject to, not my words, failed parenting strategies. And that is to say; most, if not all, grew up with bad parenting. Let me give you two cases of parenting almost every millennial grew up with

Case 1: The extremely good parents. Always tell their kids that they are special, that they will have anything they want in life just because they want it. Ridiculous, isn’t it?

These set of kids grew up being told they were the best every time, praised for everything they did no matter how stupid the actions are. Some of them get promoted to higher classes, not because they deserved it, but because their parents complained. Some get A’s, not because they earned it, but because their teachers didn’t want to deal with their parents. Some get participation medals, like medals for coming last.

And all these, as pretty clear as it is, devalues the medal and reward for the ones that actually work hard moreover, it makes the person who gets the medal feel embarrassed because they know they didn’t deserve it, so it actually makes them worse. And the ones who actually work hard are now less motivated to do so because at the end of the day, you can actually get a medal through various means. Plus, what do the parents care for if not the medal? Don’t parents care for the result instead of the actual learning? They want to see the A’s not literally see the education in your behaviour.

Case 2: The extremely not good parents. These set hardly or never praise their kids for anything the kid gets to work harder than a work horse and still get nothing to prove for their hard work. They can study, put in everything, work hard, and might not be the very best although they are excellent.

For example, they might come second or get all A’s and one B. Then, the only thing they get is blame. “Does the person who is first or got all A’s have two heads?” their parents are never proud of anything they do, and they almost never receive any reward for their efforts.

Now, put these two sets of millennials into the society. They graduate and get a job, or they graduate and don’t get a job. Anyway, they are now thrust into the real world. In an instant, the first group find out that they ain’t special, nobody is getting you a promotion, you get nothing for coming last and you can’t have it just because you want it. Their entire self-image is shattered and then, you have a generation growing up with extremely lower self-esteem than the previous generation.

The second group are already growing up with low self-esteem, thanks to trauma from parents all in the name of training. Then, they realize life is unfair. Your boss would want you to give in your 100% for his 1%. And since the low self-esteem is already there, they can’t speak up to demand what they want, fear of being shunned, criticized, reliving the trauma, so, they turn into a work horse. Their entire self-image is shattered and then, you have a generation growing up with extremely lower self-esteem than the previous generation.

And today, we live in a facebook-instagram world, and that means you have to put filters on things. We are good at showing people that life is amazing even though we are depressed. So, everybody sounds tough, everybody sounds like they have it all figured out. But the reality is that there’s very little toughness and most people don’t have it all figured out. And when the most senior people ask: What are we going to do? They sound like: This is what you are going to do, and they have no clue whatsoever. So, you have an entire generation growing up with lower self-esteem than the previous generations.

And this is no fault of their own. They were dealt a bad hand.

Now, let’s add technology. Millennials are the last generation to grow up in a world where there is a transition from a world struggling with technology to a world dominated by technology. So, that is to say, millennials were at the peak of this transition.

Engagement with social media and phones releases a chemical called dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, hormone, chemical, that is associated with movement, learning, attention. And it is associated with the brain’s pleasure and reward system. That is why when you get a text, you feel good. We’ve all experienced it, when you are feeling down or lonely and you send ten texts to ten friends, hi, hi, hi. It feels good when you get a response. It is why we count the likes, why we go back to see if my followers and likes are growing slowly. And then, we start questioning ourselves. Did I do something wrong? Don’t they like me anymore? The trauma for young kids to be unfriended on social media is serious. When we get to hit the dopamine, it feels good. So, it is why we like it, why we keep going back to it. And it is none of their fault, they were dealt a bad hand. Like these things occur without us realizing it, it is part of our world now.

Dopamine is the exact same reason why we feel good when we smoke, drink or gamble. So, to say, it is highly addictive. We have age restrictions on smoking, gambling and alcohol but no age restriction on social media and phones. And this is equivalent to opening up a liquor store and saying to teenagers, if this whole adolescence thing gets you down, try this. This is basically what is happening. We now have an entire generation that has access to the addictive numbing of dopamine through social media and phones as they get through the high stress of adolescence. Why is this important? Almost every alcoholic discover alcohol when they were teenagers.
When we are young, we needed only the approval of our parents. As we go through adolescence, we make this transition that we now need the approval of our peers. Very frustrating for our parents because they can’t seem to control us anymore.

Very important for us because it allows us to acculturate outside our families to a world bigger than us. It is a highly stressful and anxious period of our lives, and trust me, I have been an adolescent, and we are supposed to learn to rely on our friends. Some people, by accident, discover alcohol and the numbing effects of dopamine to help them cope with the stress and anxiety of adolescence. Unfortunately, it becomes hardwired into their brains and for the rest of their lives, when they suffer significant stress, they will not turn to a person, they will turn to the bottle.

Social stress, financial stress, career stress, academic stress, love stress. That’s pretty much the primary reasons why an alcoholic drinks, right? What’s happening is that because we are allowing unfettered access to these dopamine producing devices and media, basically, it is becoming hardwired in our brains. And what we are seeing is that as we grow older, too many kids don’t know how to form deep meaningful relationships. Many people do admit to me that many of their friendships are superficial. They admit that they don’t count or rely on their friends. They have fun with their friends, but they know that their friends will cancel out on them when something better comes along.

No wonder why we have many broken relationships, failed marriages and fair-weather friends. Deep meaningful relationships are not there because they never practice the skill set, they were never taught the skill set. Worse, they don’t have the coping mechanism to deal with stress. So, when significant stress starts to show up in their lives, they are not turning to a person, they are turning to a device, social media, they are turning to these things which offer temporary relief. And it is a fact that people who spend more time on social media suffer higher rates of depression than people who spend less time.

Now, listen carefully, I am not saying these things are bad or evil. Alcohol is not bad, in fact, alcohol has health benefits but too much of alcohol is bad. Gambling is not bad, in fact gambling is fun and often recommended as therapeutic measures but too much gambling is dangerous. There is nothing wrong with social media and phones, it is the imbalance. The imbalance of these things is the problem. When these things are now the source of hitting dopamine, that is the issue.

If you are sitting at dinner with your friends and you are texting someone who is not there, that’s a problem, that’s an addiction. I could remember one time I went out with my friends to watch a football match at a viewing centre. It was champions league final, Real Madrid vs Liverpool. And there was this guy, he was focused on his phone almost the entire time. What message was he sending across? The match ain’t important to him. Someone told the guy to leave there but since everyone paid for a seat, you can’t chase him away.

That’s what happens, the addiction, the dopamine hit. Texting your friend is okay, there’s nothing wrong with it but when you are doing it while sitting opposite someone you are supposed to be listening to and talking to is wrong, end the conversation and go on with the texting. If you are sitting at a meeting with people you are supposed to be talking to and listening to, and you can’t put away your phone, you put your phone on the table, face up or face down, if you can’t put it in your bag or your pocket, it sends a subconscious message to the room: You are not just important to me right now.

That’s what happens and the fact that you cannot put it away is because you are addicted. If you wake up and you check your phone before saying good morning to your girlfriend, boyfriend or spouse, you have an addiction. And all addictions, in time, will destroy relationships. It’ll cost time, money and make your life worse.

So, you have a generation growing up with lower self-esteem, that doesn’t have the coping mechanisms to deal with stress.

Now, add the sense of impatience. Millennials are growing up in a world of instant gratification. You want to buy something; you go to Amazon and it arrives the next day. There are a lot of ‘food is ready’ and fast foods. You want to watch a movie, log in to Netflix and watch a movie, no one is checking movie times anymore. You want to watch a TV show, binge, it’s available, you don’t even have to wait week to week. I know people who skip episodes of a show so that they can binge at the end of the season. Instant gratification. You want to go on a date, you don’t even have to learn common courtesy or table manners or date tips. Like ‘Hey’ or conversation starters like ‘How to start up a conversation with a girl or your crush’. You don’t even have to learn and practice that skill. You don’t even have to be the uncomfortable one who says yes when you mean no and no when you mean yes and maybe when you mean no. Just log in to Tinder, swipe right and bang I’m a stud. You don’t have to learn the social coping mechanisms, worse no one teaches them anymore, not at homes, not at schools.

Everything you want, you can have instantaneously. Everything you want, instant gratification, except job satisfaction and strength of relationships. There ain’t no app for that, they are slow, meandering, uncomfortable, messy processes.

So, I keep meeting these wonderful, fantastic, idealistic hard-working smart people. Just graduated from school, in entry-level jobs. And when I talk with them like ‘How is everything going?’ They go, ‘I think I’m going to quit’. And I’m like ‘Why?’ And they go ‘I think I’m not making an impact’. Then, I’m like ‘You’ve been here only six months’. This is like that they are standing at the foot of a mountain and they have this abstract concept called impact they want to have in the world which is actually the summit of the mountain. What they don’t see is the mountain. I don’t care you climb the mountain quickly or slowly, there is still a mountain and you have to climb it. What these millennials need to learn is patience. That some things that really matter like love, job fulfilment, career goals, happiness, joy, self-fulfilment, love of life, self-confidence, a skill set. Any of these things, they take time. Sometimes, you can fast track pieces of it but the overall journey, is arduous and long and tedious and difficult.

And if you don’t ask for help or learn that skill set, you will fall off the mountain or the worst-case scenario, which we are already seeing. We see increase in suicide rates, deaths due to drug overdose, more and more kids drop out of school or take leaves of absence due to depression, more and more depressed people. There was a time these things were unheard of and it is really bad.

These are all bad cases, but the best case scenario among millennials is that we have a population growing up and going through life and just never really finding joy. They’ll never really find deep fulfilment in work or in life. They’ll just walk through life and it’ll be like “It’s fine”.
How’s your job? It’s fine, same as yesterday. How’s your relationship? It’s fine.

I don’t care whether you are a lawyer or a doctor or an engineer or a trader or whatever. If you can’t find fulfilment or joy or satisfaction in what you do, what there is there? So, essentially, what you have is a generation that is just existing and not really living.

And this leads to the fourth point: The environment. We are now taking these amazing group of young fantastic kids who were dealt a bad hand, no fault of their own, with low self-esteem and lack the skill set. And we put them in corporate environments that care more about the numbers than they do about the kids. They care more about the short-term gains than the long-term life of this young human being. That care more about the year than the lifetime.

And so, we are putting these kids in corporate environments that are not helping these kids build their self-confidence, that are not helping them learn the skill set, that are not helping them overcome the challenges of the digital world and finding more balance. An environment that is not helping them overcome the need for instant gratification and teach them the joy and impact and fulfilment that you get from working hard over on something that cannot be done in a month or even in a year.

And so, we are thrusting them into these corporate environments and the worst part is that they think that it is them. They blame themselves. They think it’s them who can’t deal and so, it makes it all worse. It is not. It is not them. It is the corporate environments; it is the total lack of good leadership in our world today that is making them feel the way they do. They were dealt a bad hand, and I hate to say but it is our responsibility. It sucks to be in this position, but we have no choice, this is what we got.

I wish the society and their parents did a better job, but we now have to pick up the slack. We have to work extra hard to figure out the ways we can build their confidence, to find ways to teach them to be social, the social skills they’ve been missing out. Even if it requires no phones in conference rooms. We have to create mechanisms where we allow those little innocuous interactions to happen.

We now, whether we like it or not, it is now our responsibility, it is up to us to make up the shortfall, to help these amazing, idealistic, fantastic generation build their confidence, learn patience, learn the social skills, find a better balance between life and technology. Because, guite frankly, it is the right thing to do.

A 4.8 percent rally in Tesla’s shares on Thursday vaulted Musk past Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Elon Musk’s net worth was $188.5bn at 10:15am in New York (15:15 GMT), $1.5bn more than that of Bezos. Bill Gates is now a distant third at $132 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Although the broader market was up sharply Wednesday, Big Tech stocks, including Amazon, fell on concerns that Democratic control of the Senate could mean greater scrutiny and regulation on the industry. Another gain in Tesla (TSLA) shares Wednesday lifted Elon Musk’s net worth by $4.1 billion to $165.4 billion, according to Forbes’ calculations. But Forbes does not appear to be giving Musk credit for the value of options he received in 2020 to buy an additional 33.6 million shares of Tesla.

Elon Musk is also the primary shareholder and CEO of SpaceX, though SpaceX is privately held, so its value does not fluctuate as much as the value of Tesla. Bezos’ stake in Amazon shares increased by $75 billion in 2020, to $173.3 billion, given the huge increase in sales driven by the Covid-19 pandemic. But that was nothing compared to Elon Musk’s holdings in Tesla. The 170 million shares of Tesla he already owns increased in value by $106 billion during 2020, as shares shot up 743% during the course of the year.

The value of his stock options he held at the start of the year increased by $14.2 billion, while the new options he received during the course of the year as part of his pay package had a value of $21.5 billion at year’s end. Musk caught Gates for the title of the world’s second-richest person in late November, but Tesla shares have increased in value by 45% since then, lifting Musk’s net worth by $53 billion over the past couple months.

Tesla shares are off to a good start in 2021, rising more than $90 a share, or 13%, since the start of this year, including the gains early Thursday. That has lifted Musk’s Tesla holdings and options by about $20 billion this year. Meanwhile, Amazon’s stock was down slightly for the year as of late morning Thursday.

Musk is set to qualify for options to buy another 16.9 million shares of Tesla early this year, according to company filings. Those options would be worth $12.3 billion at the shares’ current value, after taking into account the exercise price.

Bezos does not have any Amazon stock options, only the 53.2 million shares he has as the company’s founder. He would have had more if he hadn’t given 19.7 million shares to his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, in his divorce. Bezos has also sold off or has given away shares as part of his charitable donations. Musk has never disposed of any Tesla shares.

With Bezos now in Musk’s rearview mirror, Musk can look ahead to closing in on another rival, ExxonMobil (XOM), the United States’ most valuable oil company. It has a market value of $192 billion. So, Musk, who is a leading advocate of switching drivers around the world from gas and diesel to electric vehicles, is within reach of being worth more than one of America’s largest oil companies.

How Elon Musk rose to his current wealth

The South Africa-born engineer’s net worth was $188.5 billion at 10:15 a.m. in New York, $1.5 billion more than Bezos, who has held the top spot since October 2017. As chief executive officer of Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, Musk is also a rival to Bezos, owner of Blue Origin LLC, in the private space race.

The milestone caps an extraordinary 12 months for Musk. Over the past year his net worth soared by more than $150 billion in possibly the fastest bout of wealth creation in history. Fueling his rise was an unprecedented rally in Tesla’s share price, which surged 743% last year on the back of consistent profits, inclusion in the S&P 500 Index and enthusiasm from Wall Street and retail investors alike.

The jump in Tesla’s stock price further inflates a valuation light-years apart from other automakers on numerous metrics. Tesla produced just over half-a-million cars last year, a fraction of the output of Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. The company is poised for further near-term gains as Democrats captured both Georgia Senate seats and handed control of Congress to the party that’s advocated for quicker adoption of electric vehicles.

Musk, 49, has benefited from Tesla’s stratospheric rise in more than one way. In addition to his 20% stake in the automaker, he’s sitting on about $42 billion of unrealized paper gains on vested stock options. Those securities come from two grants he received in 2012 and 2018, the latter of which was the largest pay deal ever struck between a CEO and a corporate board.

Despite his astronomical gains, Musk has said he has little interest in material things and has few assets outside his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX. He told Axel Springer in an interview last month that the main purpose of his wealth is to accelerate humanity’s evolution into a spacefaring civilization. “I want to be able to contribute as much as possible to the city on Mars,” Musk said, “That means just a lot of capital.”

The world’s 500 richest people added a record $1.8 trillion to their combined net worth last year, equivalent to a 31% increase. The gains were disproportionately at the top, where five individuals hold fortunes in excess of $100 billion and another 20 are worth at least $50 billion.

Less than a week into the new year the rankings have already been upended by extraordinary rallies. China’s Zhong Shanshan has vaulted past Warren Buffett to claim the sixth slot after shares of his bottled-water company surged, adding $15.2 billion to his fortune.

Source: CNN, ALJAZEERA

Miray Books is currently calling for submissions, to give everyone the chance to breathe out the story within. We accept poetry, fiction, nonfiction, plays, essays, articles.

We accept all genres but works that reflect the culture and tell the story of everyday Nigerians and Africans at large do get special attention.

Entries should be sent in .doc or .docx format. Poetry submissions should not be more than thirty (30) lines per poem. Files should be saved with the title of the work.

Entries should be sent in by mail to the editor at: [email protected] with “Miray Books Submissions” as the subject.

Only previously unpublished works would be edited (if the writer wishes so and should write a short memo to notify the editors beneath his submission) but every work sent in will be reviewed by the editorial team. Reprints are NOT allowed.

Do inform us if your piece has been considered or is being considered for publication elsewhere. All intellectual rights revert to the authors. 

Our website offers visibility to the works of our contributors. Authors can choose the pricing of their books.

We would respond as soon as we review for publication.

Origin of the Charlie Challenge

Various articles and tweets claim the game’s origins are in Mexico. The game originates from Spanish-speaking countries mostly Mexico and was called Juego de la Lapicera. For instance, one of the vastly retweeted videos about Charlie Charlie Challenge indicates a prominent Mexican beer category and the Spanish words for “yes” and “no”.

There’s just one dilemma. The event has nothing to do with Mexican folklore.

“There’s no demon called Charlie in Mexico,” says Maria Elena Navez of BBC Mundo. “Mexican legends often come from ancient Aztec and Maya history, or from the many beliefs that began circulating during the Spanish conquest. In Mexican legend, you can discover divinities with titles like Tlaltecuhtli or Tezcatlipoca in the Nahuatl tongue. However, if this legend started after the Spanish triumph, I’m sure it would’ve been named Carlitos (Charlie in Spanish). Mexican demons are usually American inventions,” she says.

How to play the game

We can see how many people are participating in this game with the hashtag #CharlieCharlieChallenge. For those who don’t know how this game is played, here is a detailed explanation of the game.

Charlie Charlie is a game played with two pencils, in a form of a cross, balanced on top of each other and placed on a piece of paper bearing the words, Yes and No. When played, it is believed to invoke a demon who answers all your questions, causing the pencils to move to face either of the two words

.

You first draw an X on a piece of paper, and label two of the resulting quadrants “no,” and the other two “yes.” Thereafter, you place two overlapping pencils on each axis of your grid, crossing them in the middle. To begin the game, say “Charlie, Charlie, are you there?” and ask a question. An example is will I pass my exams.

The demon will shift the pencil to the position it wants giving the player the desired answer.

Thoughts on the game

Whether a demon is really invoked is yet to be known, but interpreting the event as a traditional Mexican means to summon a demon is possibly a means to make it sound dreadful or meaningful.

Maria Elena Navez of BBC Mundo says that there’s no demon called Charlie in Mexico and suggested that Mexican demons with English names (rather than, say, Carlitos) are usually American inventions.

Urban legend expert, David Emery, says that some versions of the game have copied the ghost story La Llorona, popular in Hispanic America, but the pencil game is not a Mexican tradition.

Joseph Laycock, a professor of religious studies at Texas State University, argued that while Charlie is most often described as a Mexican ghost, it appears that Christian critics reframed the game as Satanic almost immediately, due to their desire to claim a monopoly on wholesome encounters with the supernatural.

Andrew Griffin wrote in The Independent that the game is perhaps scarier than a Ouija board because it doesn’t have the same explanations. With those boards, players have to keep hold of a glass while it moves around the table – so it’s not difficult to imagine that people might be pushing it around without knowing it.

David Emery argues parsimoniously that when simple scientific explanations can sufficiently explain why a phenomenon occurs, there’s no reason to assume supernatural forces are at work. Despite simple scientific explanations being offered by science journalists, these are less readily available in mainstream news outlets.

Kate Knibbs, writing in Gizmodo, described the game as a Vine -ready pastiche of kitsch occultism that has the familiar pull of pareidolia where people interpret patterns as having a meaning.

Psychological suggestion can lead people to expect a particular response, which can result in thoughts and behaviors that will help bring the anticipated outcome to fruition – for instance by breathing more heavily.

Chris French, head of the anomalistic psychology research unit at the University of London says that human agent detection leads people to see patterns in random events and perceive an intelligence behind them. He argues that divination games involve magical thinking, saying “Often the answers received [in divination games] might be vague and ambiguous, but our inherent ability to find meaning – even when it isn’t there – ensures that we will perceive significance in those responses and be convinced that an intelligence of some kind lay behind them.”

What are your thoughts on the game? Let us know in the comments below.