Many of us seem to be afflicted with this curse of taking people for their appearances. I tell you this is one problem, and a crucial one too, which eats at the ropes holding the social fabric intact. And the sly ones (some would say the smart ones) make the most of it.
There is something we notice these days. We saw these guys because they were on some TV channel and on a few YouTube sites. But everywhere we go the self-acclaimed geniuses are so many you can’t help asking, “Is this I-know-all,” feeling some sort of a virus-induced health problem our scientists have yet to discover! I’d have no problem if people felt somewhat up the stairs for what they believe is their IQ level. The issue here is that most of us have the wrong notion of our own capabilities; so much so that we’ve closed the doors on experience-gathering and learning. So we’re left stuck in time while everything around us moving, and moving really fast.
The answers they gave to simple questions concerning the AU, African countries and the like were not only shockingly flawed but outrageous too. You’d be pardoned to muse “Don’t tell me these people are representatives of the society!” You know what makes them shocking. The confidence you witness as they gave the answers was so much so you wonder how they manage to be so sure. If you said “No Jamaica isn’t an African country.” I tell you the response would be that angry stare which you feel digging right through your thick or thin skin.
It was sometime back when I found myself among a couple of friends who were trying to discuss certain issue with two gents and a lady they knew casually. Now, other than the local happenings, they also talked about international issues. Well, I can tell you , for me , that was one of those amusing moments in all the wrong ways; amused at discovering even people of better status all round were so uninformed of even the most basic things! Much of the time the argument for the failure of people to be informed about the world around them that many of us totally given up reading.
The critics of the social media would argue that it is making morons out of all of us. Though it isn’t evidence-supported I’d up to a limit agree with that replacing ‘morons’ with some non-controversial term. What’s more, these days the social media being one vat wilderness of total confusion the argument is not without merit. But then blaming that particular sector for all our ills and failures would not be such a good idea.
It’s great to believe in oneself! I mean believing in oneself is the groundwork for going with life in this increasingly difficult and even scary world. The problem is that we might confuse outright arrogance with believing in oneself. After all, there’re ways and there are other ways!
While we are at it do you feel the time actually just zooms by without us noticing the process of nature? It’s Monday and before you know it the next Monday is knocking on the door. What! What the hell have I been doing the whole week? Or was it actually a whole week? You know these days technology is fast changing you feel if the AI robots are messing with what we’ve been taking for granted. We have this notion of time actually running. They tell us we’ve much less time than we imagine. Maybe is that why we feel that the weeks and the months are in some hundred-meter dash Hussein Bolt style!
Yes, that is general feeling. But then you are forced to notice the days and the hours when things in your life go down south. Somedays, things just fall off your life’s superhighway and you are left wondering, “What in the world is happening to me?” The fridge has malfunctioned and you need at least ten grand to kick start again. That is what the repair guy tells you with little or no emotion. “Ten grand! you must be kidding me! If I had that much money, I’d have been on cloud 9!” Really! Cloud for ten grand?
The past several days the way your immediate boss is looking at you is giving you the creeps. That very guy whose smile radiated an entire room is frowning; that very guy who never, even accidently, lets out words and concepts which would offend quite a lot of people, that very guy who shook the hands of even the lowest clerks with both his hands! And you thought his nerves could have never gone into frown mode. Your usual reaction would probably be “Him frowning! You must be out of your mind!” So you can’t help feeling a little edgy even mentally playing out some awful scenarios. “They must be cooking something for me behind the doors!” “They’re going to give me the marching orders. The letter is already signed and sealed!”
Your parents have called from the region where they live and told you they need money. (Incidentally they didn’t say for what reasons, only that they need it fast. All of a sudden so many things go wrong that you start feeling the end of the road is nearing or you. The household expenditures have spiraled due to if the terrible rise cost of living. You were already between the rock and a hard pace and now this comes!…
It would feel terrible; You try to sooth your nerves arguing with yourself that you were not the only one on the trouble waters. “Well, almost everybody is in deep financial troubles and I shouldn’t take things personally.” Nice guy. But take this from me and your nice words are only that nice. “The guy sees reality directly into the eyes and there are not many people like him. At least he’d keep his mental machine intact.
Sometimes you wonder why we are facing so much trouble to do things with efficiency in most places when the country seems to be bursting with so many self-crowned geniuses!
Ephrem Endale Contributer
The Ethiopian Herald March 17/2024