Of Insanities We have been Sold to Believe.

One person remarked that insanity is doing the same thing the same way and expecting different results. I trust this person must have been a scientist. Well, my use of science has to do with the research and innovation it entails more than other fields.

At the core of a scientist mind is research and development. This means an ever-inquisitive approach towards changing the methodology with a singular aim of achieving better results. The person at the center of this irrespective of the industry becomes the ‘scientist.’

I am often saddened by the fact that we have always done things the same way as a country until our DNA developed a chromosome for repetitive modus operandi. The approach we give national discussions in terms of inclusion, age after age, becomes the defining moment on how we approach issues even in our personal lives.

For example, we have a political discourse that seems permanent with us. Where I live for instance, smells of rotten promises sold to the electorate but ones we are comfortable with. The last MCA had laid the foundation for the carpeting of roads in the estate.

As a matter of fact, only the last part of the carpeting was remaining. Unfortunately, he didn’t manage to defend his seat and as such lost to the bitter competitor. The new leader came in with a promise to finish up from where the friend had left it. It has always sounded the same year in year out and we expected something different this time round. Unfortunately, we are lost in the clamor of our last MCA.

Another is the case of commissions of inquiry which are formed every time things have spilled out of control. For sure, our politics rides on a very predictive model where you can spell out four moves in advance by our leaders even before they make the very moves.

Why is it so? Because for ages now, we have seen the same politics now and again. In fact, we have always had the protagonist, the antagonist and the spoiler. The spoiler is that man who walks right in the middle sniffing for the opportunity to cast the die that determines the direction of sail.

This thing has been so engraved in us such that we can even foretell when a scandal will come and what it might unleash at that very moment. We understand the state of operations until we become apart of them mentally and soon or later, we become a part of them physically.

A while ago, a friend narrated to me the case of a guy who was called for work but on grounds that he ‘shakes’ the hand of the ‘kind’ benefactor for calling him for the job. Suffice it to say that this person will have to toil while working.

But who do we blame when all we see around is the theory of hand shakes election period after election period to paint us as united but one whose test of time often proves us seriously wrong? That is the same case we are seeing with people trying to align themselves into movements whose sheer motivation is selfish gratification.

People take sides depending on where their voices will be heard and noticed so that they won’t be on the dry spell side post electioneering period. We are then made to believe that the voice and energy under work at this time is genuine. Ole Wetu!

The same has gone to our very lives. We have a bunch of greed individuals of whom the words loyalty and trust can never be credited to their account of integrity. People are wearing a face value kind of mask with hidden agendas trying to justify their diversification approach to life.

We then forget that time is the healer of all things. Because we have been sold the narrative of five-year timescales and ones in which we are never sure of what becomes of us after the years go by, we simply copy paste it to our lives. We live simply for the moment. We cannot set our goals on a longer timespan because even we ourselves aren’t sure of time itself.

One thing however remains true for ages. And that thing is time. Time always unmasks the order of things. Time always proves us either way; right or wrong. The theory that we are at the mercy of the politicians, or the theory that we are the mercy of others has always been set straight with time.

Because we equate false promises and lies to politicians, all of us have become ‘politicians’ so to say. We are liars middle, left, right and center. We lie to everybody and anybody including ourselves. And we wonder who bewitched us. We became our own enemies right from the time we found ourselves here.

Our wise forefathers said that the company you keep determines the person you become. Again they said, ‘Show me your company and I will tell you your character.’ Then Solomon the wisest man who ever lived nailed it on the cross that, Surely, bad company ruins good morals.

As a country and as a people, we have had bad company for as long as we would remember and then we have often turned a corner to the illusions that changing things to the default would give us different results. We are like the ostrich which only buried its head in the sand and got the illusion that the enemy wouldn’t see her.

Let us change how we do things, how we approach things, what we do and when we do them. Only then can we expect different results. Otherwise, it will always be insanity.

End