Sensemaking with Wolé and Tobi

S8E7 - The Canadian Japa

Our podcast is no stranger to the exploration of pre- and post-migration life stories. A while ago, we touched on this with a friend that migrated to Germany.
On this episode, however, we turned our attention to a #migration destination that’s very common among us Nigerians, that is Canada.
The common view that we often get of immigration to countries like Canada is as a comparison of two fixed points: the harsh and undesirable point pre-migration, and the joyful and successful post-migration one.
Often forgotten and neglected in social media ‘japa’ feeds, and perhaps immigrant success stories too, is the phase of transition, integration, and acculturation, if at all they even occur.
For someone moving to a new country like Canada, we can imagine this transition phase is anything but brief and trivial; it can even be so hard that in some cases, people return to their home countries.
Based on these, we were joined by another friend, Olamide(@lammykate), to have an exploration of the Canadian migration experience.
We have to note that we certainly don’t think all migration stories can be generalised to everyone, but each story is worth listening to nonetheless. Enjoy the listen!
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p.s.You can listen to Olamide's latest single, "Love over me" using the link here 🎧✨

S8E6 - Cohabitation

Cohabitation is a practice on the rise, particularly in the western world.
It has become so prevalent that the majority of marriages and remarriages now begin as cohabiting relationships, and many young men and women are likely to have cohabited at some point in their lives.
As you might imagine, cohabitation is not without its wicked problems.
First, it does not help that in the eyes of the law, cohabitation is not the legal equivalent of marriage or common-law marriage and this tends to have some overlooked implications for the relationship.
Second, people around the world have different views on cohabitation, depending on their background, culture, or religion.
Also, the thought process of cohabitation is an interesting dilemma for many young adults, especially since research shows the ‘sliding vs deciding’ position toward cohabitation can have many effects on the relationship down the line.
Now, given our Nigerian roots, we definitely acknowledge the western influence on this topic.
But there is some evidence that the practical norm of cohabitation is seeping into sub-Saharan Africa despite the continent's religious leanings.
And so we thought this was a wicked problem worth discussing.
Massive shout-out to Bunmi(@akintola.eth) for making this an episode one to remember!
Enjoy the listen!
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S8E5 - Happily Single?

Once upon a time, we had little autonomy in our ability to pick potential partners or follow romantic interests, with the regulation of this ability laying in the hands of parents, politics, economics, and handshakes.
Fast forward to a couple of decades, and the current norm is that most of us have autonomy in finding romantic interests. Yay🙂.
Because of this autonomy, some individuals choose a single life and prefer such a lifestyle. At the same time, for real or imagined reasons, others wish for a partner but are unable to find one that suits them.
This creates the binary phenomenon where singlehood exists voluntarily or involuntarily.
What @abiolaayanleye and @deolamako helped us do in this episode was to uncover and remind us about the existence of a multifaceted view of singlehood ✨
Enjoy the listen!
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S8E4 - The Peter Pan Syndrome

Have you met this person? He’s a man based on his age but a child based on his actions.
The man wants your affection, but the child wants your sympathy; the man hopes to be close to you, but the child is scared to be touched.Heck, his body grows, but his mind does not. He's at a peak physically, but his mind is immature. He is a man-child and suffers from the Peter Pan syndrome (the magical boy who never grew into adulthood).Many of you might have met a man-child. He could be your friend, lover, husband, cousin, brother, uncle or colleague. He could also be your ex. And if you are a man reading this, he could be you. He could be us.Whether or not you know of such a man, and whether or not you may be that man, we think identifying traits of immaturity early in its tracks is still essential for everyone.So this episode was about opening up to share some simple paths toward maturity, and sincerely evaluate ourselves in terms of how close to or far away we are from the “peter-pan syndrome”.It is an episode relevant to everyone, whether for wives/lovers to better understand their partner, for friends to find empathy and more willingly offer support and for victims of immaturity to ponder on the situation and find the courage to escape "neverland".
Enjoy the listen and remember to share it with one person!
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S8E3 - A Gaze into Islam

This episode arose out of our continuous desire to explore different systems of belief, and this time around, the focus for us was on Islam.
We felt this conversation was important as many of us live in societies comprised of diverse religious landscapes, of which Islam is a key part. Looking at the facts, as of 2015, Islam was said to be the fastest-growing religion in the world and projected to be the world’s dominant religion by 2070.
With that in mind, it can't really be debated that gazing into the world of Islam is key to coexisting harmoniously with our Muslim brethren and understanding the people behind this religious identity.
To help us with this gaze, we invited an old friend, @yettyb_ who is a practising Muslim.
Now, a couple of disclaimers.
We (Wolé and Tobi) are both Christians and grew up in Christian homes, and if you've followed this podcast for a minute, you can be sure that we did not arrange for this “conversation” with the ulterior motive of highlighting any perceived ‘deficiencies’ of a religion different from ours. Neither did we point the conversation towards a hint of evaluating the two religions against each other. That, for us, is what we would call intellectual child's play.
What was important was highlighting the core themes that characterised the spiritual systems relating to Christianity and Islam.
In doing so, we touched on how a person's Islamic identity may be developed and on the pillars of Islam. Also, given that we exist in interfaith societies, we discussed how we manage relationships despite the boundaries of our religions, common stereotypes of Islam, and how religion shapes our self-presentation online.
Enjoy the listen!
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S8E2 - The Sense of Humour

We do not only like funny people; we love them!
There's no doubt that humour plays a prevalent part in life. When things are bad, we use humour to give a voice to complex thoughts or emotions and to cope with challenging situations.
Humour also helps ease tensions we face in awkward social situations; it helps us bond with people (We’ve all heard that joke about laughing all the way to... 🌚), and of course, it is no secret that men and women prefer romantic partners who have a good sense of humour.
So in this episode, we explored and talked about the role of comedy/humour on two levels: society and the individual.
It was definitely a fun episode and we were glad to have been joined by David (@davidzoaka), a comedy writer, screenwriter, and entrepreneur, but above all an old friend!
Enjoy the listen!
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S8E1 - The Gender Spotlight

As many of you are aware, our world (mostly western tbh) is making strides every day in being more progressive and advanced. This shift from history to the future seems to be hinged on one issue in particular: #gender.
The gender subject is one we can all agree to have permeated lots of domains, whether political or social, whether family or society, whether arts or commerce and the list goes on.
Now one may ask, and perhaps rightfully so, why is this such a big deal in our culture? Why does there seem to be a gender spotlight?
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References
Butler, J., 2004. Undoing Gender. Routledge
Chodorow, N., 1999. The reproduction of mothering: Psychoanalysis and the sociology of gender. Univ of California Press.
West, C., 1993. Reconceptualizing gender in physician-patient relationships. Social Science & Medicine, 36(1), pp.57-66.
West, C. and Zimmerman, D.H., 1987. Doing gender. Gender & society, 1(2), pp.125-151
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S8E0 - The Story of Season 8

Hey Yellow Pill fam, your podcast boys are back at it again! 
A new season of the pod is here, and you don’t want to miss the heat we are bringing this time around.
Coming back for another collection of wicked problems to tackle for our 8th Season has not been easy, but nothing worthy of value is easy 💪🏾
In this bonus episode, we break down our creative process for the new season including a little teaser of what to expect.
We cannot wait to share our mental canvas with you all again 🙌🏾So tell a friend to tell a friend to tell another friend, the Yellow Pill is back again 🚀
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Opinion: The Inventions that Made Us

As promised, in this final off-season episode, Wole and Tobi talked about something a bit more lighthearted.We hope this offers some breath of a different kind of air.Enjoy the listen ❤️

Opinion: Guns, Bad News, and Empathy Roulette

Thanks for tuning in to another episode from our off-season, where we discuss trending issues at home and abroad!
N.B.
A little trigger warning: This episode centred around some heavy themes, and we're aware that spending an hour listening to content like this might be a bit too overwhelming; there's already enough going on in the world as it is.
So feel free to pace yourself or skip this episode altogether if you think that might be a better idea.We realise that deciding to focus our off-season episodes on trending issues has left us exposed to focus quite a bit on the negative. And so after recording this episode, we decided the next off-season episode will be a deliberate attempt to have a conversation about more upbeat things happening across the world.If you still decide to give this one a listen, we hope you enjoy it and come away from it with more than just an awareness of what's wrong with the world today.
 
❤️
Wole and Tobi

Opinion: High Value Gospel, Love Gurus, and Grief Respectability

Thanks for tuning in to another episode from our off-season, where Wole and Tobi discuss trending issues at home and abroad!
 
Enjoy the listen.

Opinion: Domestic Abuse and the Courts of Public Opinion

Another bonus off-season episode.Enjoy the listen!

Opinion: Billionaires, Takeovers, and Saving the World

Thanks for tuning in to another episode from our off-season, where Wole and Tobi discuss trending issues at home and abroad!
 
Enjoy the listen.

Opinion: Our Relationships with Slaps and Celebrity

Thanks for tuning in and welcome to the off-season, where Wole and Tobi discuss trending issues at home and abroad!

Recap: Season 7

Wole and Tobi sat down to have a conversation about the just-concluded season, highlighting key ideas they took away from each episode in two-minute lightning rounds and wrapping things up with a small peek into the upcoming season.Before you go, please take a couple of minutes to give your feedback about Season 7 by filling out our survey!
 
Enjoy the listen!

S7E10 - What is a Good Life to You?

It's the Season Finale People! And we're wrapping up the season with the notion of building a good life in an unsteady world.
I’m guessing you were born in the 90s like we were. Many of us are still waiting for the fairytale adulthood to begin, even though we are physically there. 
For many, rent consumes half or most of our income, and many of us delay ‘life plans’ waiting to be more settled (which keeps evading). The 2008 crisis, Covid, energy crises, insecurity, terrible government, lack of bare necessities etc. are just some of the frequent stop gaps that we’ve experienced.
Then there are the pressures of social media, the reality of the gig economy, and the rising western ideologies that are demeaning the important traditional values such as loyalty and family.
Amid this noise and chaos, amid all the anxiety and worries that we young adults contend with, how then can we define a good life?
What kind of life would we be okay with?
How can we balance ambition without the tradeoffs that can come back to bite?
How can we all have optimal human functioning when we cannot all have the best ideal functioning?
We hope that as you listen, you realise that we are all in this life journey together, and the journey towards a good life begins with having these same conversations with your friends and family.
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S7E9 - Bullying

How many of us are strangers to experiences of bullying? Either as the bully or the bullied?
If we were to guess, we’d say not many.
We say this confidently because bullying in all forms is rampant in all societies. It is also a very complex experience and hence, a complex topic.
First, bullying can occur in many forms whether through physical, verbal, social, or even online means.
Because of these different shades of bullying, which can also often be done in combination, bullying becomes a more difficult experience to be a victim of.
Second, there isn’t much evidence to suggest that bullying has an age limit. Kids, middle-aged adults, and the elderly can all be victims of bullying.
Third, the effects of bullying on the victims can be difficult to predict and assess, especially in the long term. This becomes problematic because the scars of being bullied can either show up later in adulthood or even shape one's entire journey into adulthood.
For us, this was what made the experience of bullying a wicked problem to try to break down.
We felt that a complex topic like this one required an understanding of as many realities as possible, and we were lucky to have six people share their stories with us.
This episode was presented in narrative form and not like the typical episodes you've grown accustomed to.
We hope you enjoy the listen!
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S7E8 - My Online Persona

Who are you?
What is your real self?
How would your close friends describe you?
Forming our ‘selves’ is a lifelong, intense process, especially while we're young. It is also heavily influenced by our physical environments & the people in those environments.
To establish our ‘selves’, we all experiment with different interests, ideas, and, above all, self-presentations.
By self-presentation, we mean how we package and edit ourselves for our social interactions.
You see, self-presentation is not a bad thing, but quite normal.
It is the reason why your tone might change when speaking to a stranger, the reason why your appearance may change when going on a blind date, and the reason why you might list out all your qualifications before giving a public speech etc.
We are social beings, and we always want to present ourselves to others in ways that are favourable. That seems fair.
But here is where the wicked problem lies.
Unlike face-to-face settings, our self-presentation on social media cannot be applied to one-to-one conversations.
Instead, our self-presentation on social media has to be broadcasted and publicised to everyone at once, in a one-to-many form.
This can be a problem because if we are inclined to present a favourable ‘self’ that can cater to our huge, diverse social media audience, this means that we may exaggerate and dramatise the way we package and edit ourselves.
So in this episode, we spoke about our personal experiences of self-presentation online.
We spoke about how social media provides us with a whole lot more ways of experimenting with ways of crafting different ‘selves’, whether or not our online self and offline self hugely differ, self-presentation gone crazy, and self-presentation in online dating.We think this is a very important way of looking at our digital hygiene, and understanding its impact on ourselves and those we are connected to.
And this is why we deliberately put ourselves on the line to evaluate our self-presentation. And we did so in the hope that our (attempted) transparency will encourage you to make your own evaluation.
Enjoy the listen!
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S7E7 -The Black Box of Forgiveness

"To err is human, to forgive, divine.” ― Alexander Pope
Forgiveness seems to be one of those complex events that we take for granted and assume we understand to the fullest. 
We all know that saying “forgive and forget”. 
Right, like it is that simple. 
Sometimes we equate forgiveness with pardon, condonation, and/or excusing bad behaviour. 
Many times we don’t even know who the act of forgiving is actually for, us or our transgressors?
Many of us espouse its importance, either socially, mentally, or religiously. Yet practising forgiveness in real everyday life often eludes us, and that’s just because it is not a natural reaction.
Trying to unpack forgiveness is a wicked problem but at the same time a necessary one to unpack as it is the start of many other necessary conversations.
In this episode with Mishael, we unpacked what forgiveness means to us, what happens when we forgive, why we forgive, the role of vengeful personalities, forgiveness and wellbeing, forgiveness in cancel culture, and lots more!
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S7E6 - Ghosting as a Breaking Strategy?

Damn, breakups are hard, and we don't mean just with romantic relationships.
If we consider the deep influence couples in relationships, 'situationships', talking stages and so on exert on each other, it is not too surprising that ending relationships can be one of the most emotional, distressing, painful events adults can experience.
One thing that contributes to the distress we experience during breakups is how we communicate the breakup message or experience.
In general, how people break up tends to vary in the level of directness or in the amount of care or concern they express towards the other person.
Some breakups happen directly, with open expressions of the desire to break up. Others involve indirect communication, typically by avoiding the partner.
With our increasing reliance on online communication, people now have new indirect ways of terminating connections, one of which is Ghosting.
Ghosting is unique. It is not like every other breakup strategy because when we do it, it happens in the absence of the ghosted partner immediately knowing that it has occurred.
The immediate impact on them - the ghosted partner, then becomes ambiguity, uncertainty, pain, and hurt.
Now, we aren’t suggesting that ghosting just began in recent times. We can imagine that ghosting has been around since the times of Romeo and Juliet.
But we argue that the ‘ease’ and ‘normalcy’ of ghosting is more prominent today than it has ever been. And that shift is because of the current norm and proliferation of online communication.
Since many of us initiate, develop, and maintain our relationships through texting and social media mostly, terminating our connections with people by ghosting then becomes a way of avoiding these communication channels with a particular person.
But should ghosting be normal? And should it be considered an appropriate way to end relationships? Can any motivations for ghosting be justified? How can we deal with the inevitable uncertainty, pain, and hurt that ghosting brings?
In this episode, we brought back one of our day one guests to tackle this wicked problem of ghosting.
Have you been a 'ghoster' or a 'ghostee'? How was the experience? Let us know!
 
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