Current leaders can learn plenty from Lincoln

The book Lincoln, the Biography of a Writer by Fred Kaplan is an encouraging and a good read specially for those who have big dreams and are faced with life challenges.

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of United States of America, was born in a dirty log cabin near Hodgenville, Kentucky. His parents separated when he was at a tender age. He struggled in life, yet he still made it to the highest office in the US. With determination, one can achieve a goal in life.

The current youth the world over has shifted to reading online-based material for nearly everything. As a boy, however, Lincoln’s “household text” was the Bible, although he never accepted it as an infallible religious document. He treasured many of its parables and proverbs, with this influence later emerging in his essays and speeches, especially his famous “House divided” speech.

He also read the Dilworth’s speller which has been reprinted several times. It teaches theology and moral behaviour as well as grammar and spelling. Inspired by some of the verses in the Dilworth’s, he started writing his own poems as a pastime and thus creativeness is vital in life.

Language is also an instrumental bridge for civilisation and culture. Lincoln had specific interest in written language. He once said: “Writing — the art of communicating thoughts, to the mind, through the eye, is the greatest invention of the world.”

Hence good language is needed in order to reach an audience, deliver the message and meet the targets and intentions.

In the contemporary society, careful writing has fallen into disrepute. We now have lower-case e-mails, short mobile-phone text messaging and advertising idiocy. Its impact may well be greater than ever, especially when one contemplates the debased state of political discourse.

We can be certain that Lincoln wrote every word to which his name is attached and whose character and standards in use of language avoided the distortions and other dishonest use of language that have done so much to undermine the credibility of leaders worldwide.

Some of our leaders have been well served by their speech writers.

However, the challenge of a leader is himself struggling to find the conjunctions between the right words and honest expressional use of language that respects the intellect, truth and sincerity.

This has largely been abandoned. Lincoln wrote his speeches by himself.

It is an opportune time for us all as patriots of this country to consider Lincoln’s devotion to words and change the ways we communicate with each other. We need to be clear and honest to make comprehensible speeches and avoid use of obscene and unworthy language to propel our country forward.

In life, we should discover who we are and use other abilities we are endowed with. In 1846, when he was practising law in Springfield, Lincoln decided to try his hand in writing literature, attempting to use language as a vehicle of self-exploration and pleasurable expression in a way different from the writing he had done as a political man addressing public issues. This also shows that everything that we come across in life is very important and will help us in one way or the other.

He was a son of ‘Enlightenment’, one who had little time for transcendence and rhetoric. To him reason, logic and experience seemed the best guide. It is not only by going to institutions of higher learning that we can prosper in life.

All the life challenges he faced modelled Abraham Lincoln to be a great writer, poet and an avid reader of everything he could lay his hands on.

The whole book shows how determination, resilience, risk-taking, hard-work, modesty and honesty could make one prosperously live in a globalised world.

Lastly, this book is worth reading for any person who has ambition and probably living the hard way in life.

The writer works with the elite General Service Unit’s Recce Company that is based in Ruiru.

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