In 2007 my family moved from Lagos to Abia State because my dad was transferred at work.
Moving meant changing school, making new friends and adapting all over again. And for a shy person like me it was like making bricks with straw.
I didn't make much friends till I graduated. I had only three close friends.
After I graduated from high school, I was chatting with someone from my school and he told me people were scared of coming close to me then because they felt I was proud as I never smiled and kept to myself.
I felt bad. Their perception of me as a proud person hurt so much because I wished I had more friends but shyness wont let me be great.
They thought because I had returned from Lagos I felt I was better off. That was how they saw me. The reality was that I was a very shy introverted human being who would sooner die than initiate a conversation.
A friend of mine narrated a story of his growing up years in Lagos. He said there was an Alfa ( a muslim teacher) who lived on their street. People used to visit this man with gifts of goat, rams and cows and it was suspiscious how by the next morning all those gifts of livestock were no where in sight. Perhaps he sucked their blood or ate them raw or did something diabolic with them.
Many people who lived in that street were scared of this man because he was always seen during the day wearing red, strolling and muttering inaudibly to himself. There was an old myth in that neighbourhood that anyone who heard a word of whatever it was he was muttering, the person's destiny would be stolen.
One day, my friend was playing outside and the Alfa was walking towards him and muttering as usual. Fear gripped him and he ran home. As he was running he bumped into his dad.
His father asked him what the problem was and he narrated his ordeal. The father laughed and wanted to know why he was so scared of the man and the boy replied because everybody else was.
"But I am not scared of him", said the father.
" Everybody can't be wrong about him, dad", replied the son.
After a deep sigh the father went on to tell the boy how people brought gifts to the Alfa because he met their needs daily according to his ability. How the cows, goats and sheeps were no longer there the next day because his son was a butcher. Sold meat for a living.
He went on to explain to his son that the Alfa wore red most times because green, white, black and red were the colours of Islam. He explained that talking to one's self was called soliloquy and the Alfa was only one out of millions of people who think better when they walk around and think aloud. No destinies were stolen from the leisurely stroll.
Only then did the boy understand.
It was Roberto Bolano who said people see what they want to see and what they want to see have nothing to do with the truth.
When we learn to stop summarizing people only from what we have chosen to see and believe,
when we learn to understand that perception and reality are two different things entirely,
when we stop condemning what we dont know and hating what we dont understand,
when we learn to make the effort to go closer to people and verify, make the effort to understand why they do the things they do,
Inter personal relarionships will improve, the world will be safer and more habitable.
There are bad people out there, yes, but there are also good people whose images we consciously or unconsciously murder with twisted perceptions.
Let's try to stop complicating things for the sake of each other.
Let's make the effort. Be vocal. Communicate. Do not be rude about it.
We'll be happier for it.
Love and Light.
Kachee.