This ‘Covid Season’ is indeed a season of innovation and creativity, among others. In one of the numerous video messages on social media, I saw one guy demonstrate how to make nose masks from socks. It was so simple. He gets his scissors and simply cuts, and a cheap nose mask emerges. I was impressed so I excitedly decided to do the experiment with a brand new pair of socks. Friends, this is the result. On the 2 different occasions I tried it on, the result is disappointingly the same. My children jabbed at me and told me if I ever went anywhere wearing this contraption, I’d be refused entry for not wearing a nose mask. For real? I couldn’t argue for too long ‘cos it sure looks like anything but a nose mask!But it was such a simple procedure that the guy demonstrated. Or so I thought. Where did I get it wrong? Is my scissors blunt? Did I cut in the wrong place? Is it the socks’ fabric that is not suitable? Or am I such a dummy learner? I still don’t have the answers!My nose mask became for me a sermonising parable. I kept thinking; but the more I thought, the more clarity I got: that innovation is superior to imitation. People may steal your idea, but never your ingenuity. They may shoplift your product, but never your genius. Your style may be pirated, but never your talent. This is why, one of the biggest tragedies that can befall a man is to be bereft of residual imagination. Such people will always remain condemned to the footnote of destiny in the process of trying to counterfeit men of vision and creativity. The act of a thing is subordinate to the way thereof. While the former is seen, the latter operates in the realm of the soul and it is original and invisible. Where would you rather play: the league of trail blazers or blaze trailers?