Chapter 3: People Are Generally Good Until Life Happens
I am a Freelance ICT and Business development evangelist. We provide online services for individuals and small businesses in Kenya. You can reach us on https://www.bitcademy.com.
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How We Have Worn Masks our Entire Lives
This is a series from my upcoming book, ‘The Road not Taken’. Coming Soon!
During the COVID-19 epidemic, it was discovered that the best way to beat the spread of the virus was for people to start wearing face masks. This was a novel disease, and we were learning new things every day. Much of the confusion around masks stemmed from the conflation of two very different use cases. The debate was whether the masks would protect the individual wearer or the other person. Masks could be worn to protect the wearer from getting infected or masks could be worn to protect others from being infected by the wearer. Protecting the wearer was proving to be difficult and is difficult: It required medical-grade respirator masks, something which was out of reach of the larger population, a proper fit, and careful putting on and taking off. All these were big individual challenges. A medical research seemed to suggest that people touched their faces 16 times in an hour. That’s averagely 5,000 times a month. And so the debate continued.
The average person touches his or her face three to five times every waking minute. In the meantime, we’re touching doorknobs, water fountains, each other.”
Dr Erin Mears in the Movie Contagion (2011)
As human beings, we have been wearing masks all our lives, literally. Way back from the Roman empire where a lot had been done to persuade the population, who were often reluctant to fit into society, to accept the educational integration programs. You had to go to school to fit into a particular class in society. Those who were educated were labelled. They had earned it. They deserved better things. They could sit at proximity with the King. The king’s cup-bearer had to be educated. As so the battle for education began, as it is today. We have used education to segregate instead of uniting. So and so’s son went to the university. He deserves better. He thinks better. He’s educated, after all. But what if it’s just a mask he chose to wear? These are the different masks we wear in our lives to deflect people from our real selves.
You see, people wear different protective masks to fit into society. I have never understood this precarious fight to achieve a label. This mimicry continues, from childhood into adulthood. We often knowingly but unintentionally alter our speech patterns, our expressions and even the tone of our voices, depending on who we’re talking to. Familiarity is the social glue that bonds people together, and we deliberately seek out the similar and the recognizable in order to feel secure. If we’re doing the same as everyone else, we must be doing it right, and finding a reflection of ourselves in those around us is a form of validation. The need for validation is a basic human instinct, all the way from Adam and Eve. Here are the only two people in the world, but they needed to fit in. They needed each other’s validation. It was important.
These are the numerous editions of ourselves we have as human beings, just to fit in. I have always been amazed at our desire to be accepted. The lengths we go seeking acceptance, wanting to be recognized, appreciated, honoured, talked about, lauded…
This duplicity works very well for most of us, but some people only have one version of themselves to present. They are unable, or unwilling, to sandpaper themselves down to fit society’s expectations, and because their behaviour or appearance doesn’t quite match the bigger flock, they are pushed further and further to the periphery of a community. These are the goats all around the sheep, stitched into the landscape of everyone’s day, waiting at matatu stops and standing in line at the local supermarket. We use very strange criteria to separate the goats from the sheep. Their hair might be a little too rough, their clothes a little unconventional, probably not so expensive, their approach might be weird. They are weird people. “You’re being weird,” they say. However, they may have chosen to live their lives in a way we don’t recognize in ourselves. They may very well also have mental health problems. They might be a deeper reflection of ourselves, for what we hate in others is what we actually are. However much we pretend, there’s always that one thing that we dislike in others, but we know deep down that it’s actually who we are. Why do we hate ourselves that much? Why would we want other people to notice at disgust what we are from other people. Is it worth it? Is it just a mask we are wearing? Who are we protecting. Are we protecting ourselves or the other people?
Her mask was intelligence. She wasn’t as intelligent as she made people think.
My basic life principle has always been that people are generally good. Everyone wants the best for their lives. People want to do good, be good.
What mostly happens is that situations present people with different challenges which alter our individual desire to be good. Someone who goes hungry until they opt to pick something that doesn’t belong to them to beat their hunger is labelled a thief. Someone who lost their job and is struggling to make ends meet is labelled mentally ill. He lost his job, and their wife left, he must be the bad one. He’s untrustworthy. He is sick.
I’ve always had a debate about morality and perception. People present many versions of themselves for public scrutiny. There’s Version A, the person everyone knows, wants to associate with, because of who they are, rather seem to be. This is not always the initial version of the person. It’s Version 1.0x after alteration, education and societal manifestation. Version 1.0 is the real person. Everyone wants to appear good. Does it mean that because we display our good faces in public, that we are good people. Our duality is a classic example of a personality disorder. Stories have been told of people who did horrific things to other people. Nobody believed it. They never showed signs, because they always display a good public profile. This is the kind of life we live in, a judgemental life, where image is everything. But does image mean that we are good people. What if we do good things in public but we’re the evilest people when no one is watching.
I am an affluent reader, and I have read Dianetics, The Modern Science of Mental Health by L. Ron Hubbard, which is a modern classic book, arguably a scientific read. I am not a Dianetics follower myself, but I agree with most of the floated scientific believes. Dianetics demonstrates the basic nature of Mankind and that basic nature has been found uniformly and invariably to be good. This is claimed to be established as a scientific fact, not an opinion [sic]. The basic believe is that our nature as human beings is basically good, modified by observation, education and viewpoint, which I tend to agree with wholesomely.
In 1996, or thereabouts, I came across a famous advert by the Sprite brand of Coca-Cola. A great company. My local dialect called it Koko-Kola. A great company. Soda was reserved for the rich those days. Soda was in some solid glass bottles by the name Coca-Cola, there was no plastic. The common soda itself had the brand Coca-Cola by the bottle, now Coke, and there was a classy feeling about the brand. We knew the rich families by name, for they weren't that many. A soda was reserved for special treats during a visit to the local market, which was always once per year, during Christmas, when our parents would give us a pat on the back and let us roam free in the market. With full freedom and the lack of parental accompaniment to the market, you were the boss. You could make decisions. You could decide to buy a local movie ticket at the extravagant cost of KES 5 (USD0.05). With inflation, the value should have been cheaper then, but it was an extraordinary expenditure for the wonderful bosses we were, and again am not an economist. However, you got the opportunity to watch Hollywood with the aid of the DJ-Afro irk. Our local DJ Afro was called Kiting’i. The studio brand was Tree-Shade. This was Hollywood. They would interpret the pictures, not the English spoken words for us. It was amazing! The translation was in epic Swahili, though the transcription didn’t match with the few unintentional English subtitles displayed on the screen. I noticed that! But it was fun, home away from home. I always remember that experience.
Enter Sprite™. Coca-Cola actually registered for a trademark of the name. I was barely 10 years old. I do not remember the exact media channel I got this information from. I believe there were billboards that time. But the image stuck in my mind. I did not know about adverts. At that age, content was content, so I sort of believed everything that I read. To me, there was no distinction between real and perceived. Everything was new information to me, and I was glad to consume it. Everything was written by learned people, or so I thought, and it was true.
Growing up in the village, I was amazed by content. I wanted to know more. I was always the kid who knew. Curiosity killed the cat, well, it didn’t kill me. I was as curious at it can possibly get. I wanted to belong. I wanted to understand. I wanted to be connected. Information was powerful and I knew this. My playmates knew this and always counted on me for information. I was the little pecking bird. I do not really remember how I really knew things, how I connected the dots. I never actually used to read a lot, but things made sense to me, faster than the average kid age mates. At thet age, by just looking at a newspaper headline, I could understand the whole context. I never felt different. As a 10 year old, you don’t know much about perception, stress and expectations. You're just a honest kid living it out. It is what is it. The world is yours. At that moment, you’re capable of the unlimited abilities as a person. You can do anything you dream of. You can be anything. The mind of a child is the purest thing, I bet that’s why God loves children. The innocence is dumbfounding.
So here I was, a ten year old, staring at these images and the magic phrase, ’Image is nothing. Thirst is everything. Obey your thirst.’
I had always known image was everything. This was taught in class; and this is how education changes our perspective. I had seen this contradictory phrase in an earlier media piece which claimed that ‘Image is everything’. This seemed different. I remember in school when we were forced to wear school uniform. Back in nursery school, what you call kindergarten, I was the only one who wore school uniform. My mother, being a teacher herself, was tough. The other kids, most of them, probably could not afford school uniforms. School uniform was to be bought when one was entering Class one. It was a privilege. In such an area, even the basic things can be privileges. In addition to the school uniform, my mother always insisted I wear an underwear. It was odd for me. Other kids did not, they could not afford it. So I felt awkward. I remember one day when I dirtied my underwear on my way back to from school, and I was so embarrassed that I threw it into the bushes. I must have been pretty young to be going to school, or maybe I was precocious.
Then the biggest company in the world altered my believe that image was everything back in 2016. As a kid, Coca-Cola was everything you could dream of. The soda brand was a preserve for special occasions, and when our aunts visited the village from the city. Soda and bread, dream come true. If they told you ‘Image is Nothing’, you believed image was nothing.
And so I grew up in the conflicted world. School would tell you one thing, the world would show you another. Kitau, the village mad man, was once the brightest student from the area. He went to the University in the city to study, and a well-known witch bewitched him. So however friendly he was, his days were spend collecting trash allover and speaking impeccable English. I would later, very many years later, learn about mental health and how far it can get. The world expects us to project ourselves as different people, for perception. It’s an image society. People believe what they see. You are defined by what people talk about you and mostly it’s what they can see. In the famous mnemonic, WYSIWYG, what you portray is what you get from people.
In life, it’s as if basic knowledge teaches us to project our false-self. That projected image allows us to dissociate our true self from the exterior. As noted by neural scientists and psychologists, the end result of projection is not good. Because of perception we become a generation that hides their inner thoughts and feelings from others, subsequently concealing our true being. This eventually becomes a habit as a we assume new roles and responsibilities in society, further alienating our true nature and self from ourselves. Bluntly speaking, everyone walking around is a liar, and the greatest lie is a lie told to oneself.
Paulo Coelho, in his book, The Alchemist describes the world’s greatest lie in this encounter between the boy and the old man.
“Everyone believes the world’s greatest lie…” says the mysterious old man. “What is the world’s greatest lie?” the little boy asks. The old man replies, “It’s this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie” (quote_no).
We have lied to ourselves until we have accepted that lie. “I am a man who doesn’t cry,” we say to ourselves. “ Crying is weakness. Weakness if for emotional people. I am not emotional,” we continue, “I am strong. I am struggling but the world needs to feel my strength,” we lie to ourselves further. “I am a believer, a conqueror, I am happy, I am everyone’s darling.”
I have always thought of the image that most of us project on social media channels; Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, Pinterest, Twitter, and others. This false-self is always a projection of how a person wishes to appear to people in the world. It includes and confirms that “image is everything” attitude while the true-self remains well hidden. When a person hides something away long enough, they tend to forget it until one day it implodes. The fact of the matter is that we hide our true self when nobody really cares in the world. Like my grandmother always said, people will and must find something to talk about. We are social beings, and the group construct is shaped around stories, and stories mostly originate from fellow human beings. Whether you’re projecting your true self or pseudo-self to the world, the world will find a reason to talk. You could actually forget who you are, but not for too long. It will come crushing some day, on you, and the world will not crush because of you, it will pass like nothing happened.
And from a simple advert, I have changed my favourite soda from the famous coke to Sprite. Image is that powerful.
As human beings, we crave to be different, we put on our masks and are always pretending to be someone else. The point we miss is that we are already naturally different. If each of us could be ourselves, we’d have so much difference in the world. Each of us is created uniquely, with amazing qualities, strengths and weaknesses. The idea of life from the creator is to complement one another. Patience meets Temperance. Charity meets Diligence. Temperance meets Kindness. Chastity meets Humility. At the end, everyone meets Kindness. If only we could be ourselves, we could be so difference.
In 2005, during the political fever surrounding the 2005 Kenya Constitutional referendum, I moved to the City. I was a young brain with ideas, shaping my destiny. Politics was a preserve for the few, people who could make decisions. The mood in the country was split, and eventually, given two options of a yes or a no, the proposed new constitution was rejected by 58% of voters. I do not remember which side I was on. All I know is that politics should be left to politics.
Armed with my ticket to freedom, the pink in blue admission letter, I joined the University of Nairobi, the prestigious university at the centre of the capital, Nairobi.
I had met a girl. The most amazing girl. Tiny with extravagant smiles and an aura of intelligence. Attractive with an adaptable yearning to explore the world. My first word was cute, I believe she was the cuttest little thing I had ever set my eyes on. I was stuck by her candid demeanour.
I have heard a lot about this girl. I have never met her. Every descriptions about her leaves a jolt of excitement in my heart. I am not yearning to meet her yet, I just want to hear more. There’s something about mysteries which always give me an attraction, an excitement. Mysteries are solves, and that’s the end. I never want to solve them, they should remain as is.
TBC….
Watch out for my new book, ‘The Road Not Taken’. Coming Soon
I am a Freelance ICT and Business development evangelist. We provide online services for individuals and small businesses in Kenya. You can reach us on https://www.bitcademy.com.
Find this content useful? Support my content by buying me a coffee.
Next Chapter: Chapter 4: The Village between Two Rivers
