Perceptual Blindness: Why you got used

Late last week I receive this call from a close friend of mine. Says that another good friend of hers has a job that really needs to be done ‘urgently’ and she thinks I could do it. So being the enthusiastic me, loyal, and slow to disappoint, I assured that I was at her disposal.

I quickly rescheduled my Saturday. The job was transcribing some 45 minute voice clip. A first one for me, and following my non-disappointing nature I assured that I was up to task. Surely, what could be hard about listening to someone speak and writing down what they say? Right?

I mean, we've been doing it since nursery school! I confidently, gave a one hour timeline (I realized I sometimes write faster than a lecturer can dictate, so this was just childplay!). Something I was to regret saying two hours later when I was still stuck on the 15^th minute!

What I hadn’t anticipated was the whole recording was in some lingo similar to Swahili, I mean the dude was so bad at it that it took a whole five minutes to fathom one minute of his speech. And with a speech rate of three words per minutes I was looking at literally eight thousand words to translate. Most dumbfounding was that I was to keep the original word sequence, but now in English. Almost unintelligible!

When I was done six hours later I seriously hated the dude interviewee on tape. I think I still do.

Am not whining about the verbatim translation as such, since it’s usually done (for whatever reason), but the fact that I didn’t get my dues for the painstaking work I so devotedly did, despite the pay being extremely unreasonable.

Clearly, I admit, I was used.

In my blind, actually naïve trust, I failed to ask the questions that mattered. Even when I was halfway cursing and lamenting my poor decision, I still urged myself on to finish.

You might be wondering how I could have been so gullible. How I could not have seen it coming. Some friend actually told me he could have e-mailed half the job and half after the pay. Very simple, he said. But is it really?

Is it that easy to know when you are being used? I bet you’ll say yes, but take a moment and look at that day you did a favour for a friend, a colleague, your boss, your parent or even a stranger and then in a split second you realized that it wasn’t that much of a favour.  Have you had that moment where at the back of your mind a thought beckons, “this is not fair”?

A friend of mine had been in relationship for two years with this dude that she truly loved. At the prime of her youth, and running her own salon, she was sure to commit. She literally gave it all, her time, money and all

those other things that accrue to love relationships. The dude, a typical ‘hustler’ enjoyed it all, talked of the future, assured her she was the one and only, and all was bliss. Until he got a job at a multinational, that’s when her ‘flaws’ became conspicuous. The relationship trailed off to a sour end, from constant squabbles to utter contempt. Turns out that all along to the dude, she was a lucky catch for the moment.

Or even take the extent of this dude who in high school had fallen for this girl from a neighbouring school. During all the events that frequently happened they hang out together, girl gave sufficient attention to the dude enough to make him believe the feeling was reciprocal.

The subtlety of their relationship didn’t allow the dude to achieve full cognizance of his friend-zone misadventure, or so it seemed. Turns out the chic had serious esteem issues and the dude offered convenient escape.

Well, it is agreeable that there’s a lot of such exploit that goes on in relationships. Men use ladies feigning all manner of justifications and ladies too do so in equal measure.

Actually ladies exploit men much more than men are willing to admit. You will find that in most relationships it’s a tacit battle of who uses the other most. Sometimes one is shocked to realize that he was the one being used rather than the other way round. In fact the measure of how successful a relationship is can be put on the extent of disequilibrium between the two.

Parents too have not been spared, the sacrifices that they have to do to meet there children’s selfish expectations cannot be overstated. Interestingly too, some parents have learnt how to get back at their kids when they start fending for themselves.

Exploitation is almost some kind of a rite. At some point in your life you have been in a situation where you feel that whatever is happening to you is unfair. Maybe you realized it later or in the process, but most probably you let it pass. Maybe out of respect, probably fear or most admirably you bitterly borrowed the ‘once bitten twice shy’ adage.

The most disturbing thing about all this is that, most of the time the signs are all over around you. It doesn’t happen like that carefully orchestrated plan that you only realize after it has happened as some may want to believe. The fact is that the human brain is a superior processor that receives thousands of stimuli relating to all manner of issues. It is capable of generating doubt, suspicion, trust, hope, fear, love, compromise, hate, anger and several other emotions that steer our decision making process.

From this you’d presume that I am purporting that we are supposed to be these perfect beings who only make the right choice no matter what the situation. Well, we all know that doesn’t happen. But, is it possible?

Well, Yes and No.

Just like any other exemplary thing, the human brain has a flaw. It is not self-sufficient, in that with the mechanics being standard in all humans, it is the ability of each person to train the brain to process stimuli to their advantage that differentiates good and well-calculated decisions to poor and mediocre ones.

The Bible calls it looking without seeing. Arien Mack and Irvin Rock called it ‘perceptual blindness’; inability to perceive something that is within one’s direct perceptual field because one is attending to something else. The event within which an individual fails to recognize unexpected stimulus that is in plain sight.

Whilst this in its literal sense it relates to actual sight, it actually applies to our cognitive competencies. Save for the case of slavery where people are presented with no choice, all other situations of exploitation have to do with cognition.

Assuming that every human is out to look after their best interest then it is paradoxical that with availability of relevant facts people end up making self-destructive decisions, or in the least, put themselves in the line for exploitation.

It is suggested that, inattentional blindness can occur in any individual, where it simply becomes impossible for one to attend to all the stimuli in a given situation and as such one becomes blind to certain stimuli. The choice of which stimuli to give attention to is what distinguishes a good decision from a bad, or a plain lame one.

Interestingly, when you get used, most probably you’ve been blind to the most salient of the stimuli!

Think you’ve been used?

What’s there in a name?

Its Friday again, and am surprisingly almost on time!

So I decide to go conventional and start with a ‘saying’ like my able Primary English teacher taught me.

Guti riitwa ritikuria mwana

That’s a Meru colloquial dictum that loosely translates to “there’s no name that can’t raise a child”.

Quite true, right? Unless you have those kind of names that making a short form out of is quite impractical that the sound of it is traumatizing enough to make you stick to the original. Like his dude we went to school with called Kiambati!

Even worse is if you were unlucky to bear the name of an animal. Following proven wisdom of traditions, your parents (or whoever named you) decided to ward off the evil spirits of infant mortality and tactifully named you after the ugliest animal they had in mind or fate had it that your surname is exactly that. So when you introduce yourself in a group, especially if they know what it means your name not unforgettable. Coincidence could also have it that you actually hae traits (physical or behavioural) that rhyme with the animal, like this young gal whose surname was Ngurwe (Pig), and she was really plump and pale that calling her that was enough insult at primary school, you didn’t need to elaborate on her conspicuous appetite.

Or were you that kid that nobody knew their real name since you had a horde of nicknames? Nasty ones for that matter. Maybe you mispronounced a word while leading out aloud a comprehension like say, “tsetse fly”, or its close relative “trypanosomiasis” and a host of many other reasons. You detested them, they didn’t define you, but the more you cringed you face at them, the more they stuck, or even worse they evolved and the bullies enjoyed every moment of it.

I had one that I inherited from my brother which I seriously hated. It was derived from his silky, Cushitic hair that rarely Bantus have. So they called him Msomali (a Somali), quite a fair label and definitely harmless today but then it almost brought me to tears (it actually did!). They sniggered at how we apparently used to drink raw blood from all kinds of animals. One boy during a visiting literally came to check if my mom had brought me some raw meat from home!

But I bet you were one of those kids who got normal names that you easily turned into some cool, almost-English short-forms. Like Kimathi, who proudly calls himself Kim.

Mark you am talking about our real names, African names, not those imposed by the clever Christian missionaries who ensured that they came first.

Even truer is that your name borrowed from some famous sportsperson (a rally driver maybe), a president or some movie character, like Rodger, Ian, Williamson, or just plain fancy like Valentine, Alex or Kimberly and Sheila. You were proud, it stood out and everyone remembered you.

You might have even got a notch higher and invented a real catchy pseudonym and introduced yourself as such with pride. Like this dude called Guantai who was only known as “G”, there was much speculation over his name and he liked it. Even the principal at the time of his expulsion borrowed from the name labelling him a ‘Gangster’.

All this sounds vain, right? just a façade to raise esteem and on the flip side naïve under-appreciation of real-self and mostly childish temperament which most people outgrow later in life and inadvertently prove the Meru saying right.

But is it? What of a name like Blackberry, Samsung, Iphone or even Omo? Don’t they immediately trigger thoughts of exclusivity, quality and style? Or at least high recall? It might not be intrinsic to the name itself, but really Tecno, Gental and Acma don’t evoke the same feeling.

What if Samsung was say, “Pinksam” and Blackberry “YellowCherry”? Would they be as famous? Most probably yes. But probably it would have taken a many quite more number of years to reach the level of success they have. So careful choice of a name is important to create favourable perceptions on people’s minds towards the person or brand.

So perhaps that why a neighbor of mine named her daughter Melody! and some colleague named her son Denzel, then from now on address me as ‘GT’.

Interestingly, Obama, a very dull name which probably none of you knows what it means, is arguably the only human name in Kenya that has businesses and products (in fact a beer) named after it. I guess the Ondiekis (Hyena), Mbogos (Buffalo) Nchooros (Baboon), Njogus (Elephant) Kirais (Monkey) of this world are envious.

What’s your Name? Type it down here and let’s see how it makes us feel…

Or you agree, it’s just a name?

Yes, Betrayer of Hope. So have men named me, just as they named you Dragon, but unlike you I embrace the name. They gave me the name to revile me, but I will yet make them kneel ad worship it. - Robert Jordan, The Dragon Reborn

We are All Lazy

Did I promise to post weekly?

And did weekly . . . by any chance,  mean every Friday?

Well, I guess we all know why promises are made . . . you know like why rules are made…. Get it?

Am sure you’ve already flagged that an excuse, a terribly lame one for that matter. And if you are kind enough to be candid with me, you’ll most likely say; lazy or slothful!

You are probably right, I was actually watching this meticulously (I totally stole that!) scripted TV serial, Mixology, and I may or may have not been carried away as time ‘flew’ past. Some faint thought, though, gave me solace in that I really needed some time to unwind… you know it’s been a really crazy week… take your time…that kind of stuff?

You should totally watch it by the way. Unless you’re the kind of guy who strongly feels Holywood brainwashes us and subjugates ‘African’ Culture.

Truth of the matter is I couldn’t narrow down on what idea to pen down and am not really a fun of drawing the outline. You know that plan we used to write just before beginning compositions in primary school? So I decide to watch the first episode as ideas come to mind. Turns out, the scriptwriter was way focused than me.

Now that I have publicly admitted to that bout of laziness you might be wondering why I think you all too are no dfferent.

It’s intrinsic to all of us. No one says it aloud but, how many times do we feel it every day?

“I’ll do it later…”

“I don’t have to do it now…”

“I will do it when I wake up in the morning…”

“I will do it when I get home…”

Familiar, right?

Or even that ever-notorious snooze button they deliberately decided to include in your alarm app.

We all want to have a good time; leisure is our best and only hobby. Responsibility though sweet at times we’d would gladly give away and while away time sipping coffee (or any other favorite drink).

While at this level it might not be really that harmful, the same procrastination is carried on to important issues and in its subtlety things fall apart without our realizing.

It’s been fifty or so years since independence and what are stuck with? The same ills that we were fighting on independence day; poverty, illiteracy, and ethnicity, in fact we’ve been so poor at it that we have even invented a greater ill that incessantly keeps proliferating them; Corruption.

The simple solution to all this is voting; but what did we do the other year; we voted in the son of the very man who was the architect of disintegration. Proud weren’t we?  And some still are!

Or take the example of choosing whether to lie or not; or even asking for forgiveness. We all agree that telling the truth would really fell good, compared to carrying the burden of always being wary of their realizing the truth. But we lie all the time, even when it really doesn’t benefit us in any way.  

The relief that comes with being forgiven cannot be overstated, but we all know of guys divorcing or already divorced, battling issues in court etc. just because they couldn’t apologize and admit they were wrong or unfair or guilty. Some could call it pride, but it is actually laziness…unwillingness to do right.

In college there’s this friend of mine who offered to do our group work one time and we were thrilled. Only to bring a 32 page document complete with footnotes and hyperlinks direct from Wikipedia, and the CAT was worth ten marks!! Dude thought he did us a favour. Oh, but he’s not alone, the lengths to which students are willing to go just to complete that degree is sickening. Shockingly even undergraduates do it.

Then there’s the habitual latecomer trait that I believe lies somewhere in all of us that once triggered has no off button. You don’t have regular sleeping hours, deadlines are your sworn enemies, you bite more than you can chew and you believe you are good at what you do. But then time is resource that you cannot have monopoly over.  You might say you keep time, but if you’ve never been late raise your hand, and then tell me what motivates you?

Most probably your life depends on it, your children, your grades or your social status. So does that make you hardworking? you are afraid, you have to follow the rules. If you had a choice would brave the chilling morning? You probably would very much love breakfast in bed and maybe laugh away at Kingangi’s jokes and walk your kid to school.

This one am sure; you’d love to just pop in at your employees at mid-morning and see all is in control; bully them a little so they know you’re the boss and then head off to handle some other “business”.  But now you’re on the other side of the ring. So you aren’t lazy?

This couldn’t be complete without bashing the “writer’s block”. That’s what they call it when they can’t create time to write or have the balls to put out there their untested ideas for people to consume and give their own biased opinions. Some pseudo-writer somewhere gets lucky and writes a few inspired pieces and when suddenly he realizes he can’t match up the previous, he claims he suddenly can no longer write. Like one day your creative tanks just run dry!

Speaking of which, did you guys watch Larry Madowo ‘interviewing’ Babu Owino on the Trend? Really, did we need to have been treated to such a spectacle on national TV? Is that why he was excited to be back on our screens! National TV should have programs that embrace our collective interests not some crap about a squabble. Hilarious it was I agree but really? That’s super lazy Journalism

Proudly Wordy: To Write for All

I am wordy!

Yes, I admit. Positively using too many words to tell just one little, simple, probably lame, ludicrous thing; pay attention though,

I want to write, but it happens such that sometimes (well, honestly, most of the time) I have particularly nothing catchy to pen down. So I just pick my keyboard and start punching. Often I delete a whole paragraph, sometimes the whole page and start again. Other times (I have particularly found this one very effective) I just let my thoughts flow. I write no outline, I don’t restrict my imagination, I don’t really subscribe to any particular style, and if I jump arbitrarily from one thought to another I don’t freak out.

I try to make sense though, probably trigger some odd thought and in the process keep you interested or better still, make what to the simplistic mind would be a preposterous touché  but to the liberal, erudite mind, highbrow fodder.

That means I in no way intend to be brief or what the conventional observer would term, ‘clear & concise’ but rather put it down as it unfolds and hope that I will align the spontaneity of my thoughts with the extemporaneity of your zealous mind.

I can’t say that I always resist the urge to conform myself to the rules of keeping it short and simple. Contrary to popular belief, it is quite easy to restrict yourself to a single idea and creatively flesh it out and buoyantly exhaust it. But that is at the expense of the beauty of wholesomeness, the patching up of different aspects (products of imagination) of reality into some awesome cocktail that the mind fervently feasts on.

Brevity is so limiting and sour, at its best it’s a sham. Synonymous to serving a five course meal, each course a day later! Or never! It’s on the egis of conformity to space limitations and perceived readers' concentration span that time-starved writers ride on to inadvertently mutilate wonderful life experiences and exceptional propositions. The consequence therefore, is half-told stories, intellectually malnourished audience and unimpressive repositories.

On the other hand of the long-winded few, the possibilities are infinite. You take charge of what your audience will know, have to know and need to know. In the process you create a new ‘want to know’ package that able-enough readers will adopt rather than concentrating on perceived audience information wants which most writers do and christen ‘relevance’ or the unfortunate ‘gate-keeping’ concept that the traditional writer still is deluded with.

When we think, we never draw an outline for the path that our thoughts take. We can choose what to think about, but there’s an auto-generated, albeit intermittent sequence in the brain that guides the stream of thoughts. It’s a supercomputer, the human brain, capable of handling simultaneous thoughts and sends the processed ones for our utilization.  This unrehearsed and impulsive nature of our thought processes can be married into writing so as to fit naturally with the readers' expectations which now will be analogous to the writer's.

So anyway all I wanted to say is; I get verbose for a reason and it’s awesome!

Crucify me now, down here