I’ve this question; is there anything more frustrating than being misunderstood? Especially in these difficult times for all humanity being misunderstood is that last thing you want to happen to you. It is not nice that all your good intentions and nice words don’t do the job you expect to do; the human mind could be so elastic in every way possible you don’t even recognize your thoughts when the reactions come. They’ve been so viciously mauled, pulled face down across the deserts and all inhospitable terrain and practically denied of any air what you see isn’t your original thought but some lifeless caricature from which ever whiff of life-supporting oxygen has been drained.
As we turn the pages of the calendar on the wall the days are becoming stranger, weirder and more unpredictable. Unpredictable in ways where what happens and what’s supposed to happen are things you never expected to witness; you know on one hand it’s like taking a couple of paragraphs from some golden age classing literature and on the other hand a few paragraphs from one of those full-speed-ahead supermarket novellas.
The fact is that the things you knew about yesterday are altered so much that you find yourself back on square one in many instances. More and more questions hound you and you feel that all of a sudden your IQ has gone into the red! You could say most of us are in no man’s land and feel entirely alien to things we use take for granted as the recycling jobs are so through.
I can tell you that especially when it comes to old acquaintances you run into by accident or whatever things could push to the edge of losing all hope on humanity.
Say you meet a classmate whom you haven’t seen for three or more decades. For all you can see he’s as happy as you are. Well he should be, and there should be no news in that he’s happy to see you! After all, there are all the adventures (they were ‘adventures’ weren’t we? You know the little secret fling you had with his little sister and you never told him about!) As most of you must have experienced by now especially politics of the last few decades has made people change so drastically you don’t know how to react.
No wonder that people side on the different sides of the political universe. In many places, from the avalanche of news you’re subjected to, it’s safe to think that in most parts if the world the last thing the so-called politicians know is politics. That’s one reason why things are so muddled up is that the very last thing you expect from the fatally uninformed is reasonable, content-rich debate or discussions. The tattoo of that famous Che Guevara picture on your arm makes you no more a politician than the number 10 jersey you’re fond of makes you a Messi. Going to back to what I was trying to say, socializing with old acquaintances is becoming more difficult I that there seem to be issues more urgent than politics.
Now when you run into your old friends and acquaintances after years or decades few could be as comfortably enlightening daily experiences. Of course on many issues you could be on different sides of the spectrum. Say in the old says your friend might have been a soft spoken intelligent guy; you know; the sort of guys with whom a half hour small chat could match an hours-long of best lectures on subsequent issues.
But when you run into him again he’s a nonstop talker with tons of words and practically no substance and you have to give him all kinds of nervous signs that he was talking too much. Or he might have been someone who took life as it comes and never tries to dump his frustrations on others who are already frustrated about a lot of things. This time he’s a complainer about everything even his so-called economic woes. Mind you we’re talking here about someone who has joined the rich club God knows and he complains about the economy to poor you who tested the last bite of real meat almost two months to the day!
And of course don’t forget your life partner back in the house and if you decide to rekindle strong relations with an old friend you better tell your partner because you never know how the story unfolds. I know people who regretted bonding up with old friends for reasons which usually come from the other side; reasons which force you to conclude, “This guy had it all planned before he even me! The meeting wasn’t accidental but intentional!”
You know since more and more our lives have been embroiled in the tsunami of rising prices of food items and basic household necessities we can’t be expected to play it nice when the nicer things are practically melting into the air. So when you come across and old friend maybe the first thing to think about is the fact the guy is in the same boat as us, because he is! The simple fact of being in the same boat while not telling the whole story means there are thing common for us. So the 140 birr per kilo onion affect his household too. Hmmm… does it really! I mean there are examples of people in roughly the same economic condition as you but still manage to have it all and seldom talk about the fewer dishes on the table.
While we’re at it a question frequently raised is that how is that the bars and drinking holes across the city are crowded at most hours of the day (even not much later than daybreak in some places!) Isn’t that what all of us are asking? We’re sorry we couldn’t adequately answer that question to our diaspora friends. In fact someone told me even Western prominent economists are struggling to convincingly analyze the whole economic thing back here.
Anyways we were talking about an old friends and acquaintances. Don’t despair if you face conditions you never expected. That, dear Sir/Ms, has become the way of the world. Just be on the lookout for the unseen quicksand spots because there might be a lot of them across the way!
Ephrem Endale Contributer
The Ethiopian Herald January 28/2024