Because of people's unpredictability it's very difficult to tell a person from his appearance.
"The scene was a beach front. The characters were two: a sporty fellow in a yellowish track-suits and of course, a beautiful female. Did I say two characters really? I forgot the main player - a glass full of glittering beer!"
It was my friend Ondiek telling me of an overseas television commercial ad for a particular brand of beer. The well-known sportsman sits sipping his brew and watches the beautiful girl swinging her hips as she walk along the beach. You can see the dilemma he is in: will he go with the girl or will he stay on with his beer? (A real East African beaches life issue being portrayed here).
Well, I guess you guessed it. The sportsman stays on with the beer! After all, the brewery is paying his salary. My friend Ondiek added his commentary: "Hi, he’s a wise man that. He chose the beer - that’s smart. You know exactly what that will do to you"
The beer is more than 100% predictable compared to woman. It enters the mouth with a pleasant taste; it goes to the stomach then the blood, and the body eventually breaks it down after having various effects on the central nervous system.
Today we can even predict how much we can consume in an hour before we risk turning a set of crystals in a bag a new color and so turning our license over to the nice officer in white. It is predictable stuff we know exactly what is coming to us as we sit by the beach swallowing those few quiet ones.
Mr. Ondiek thought the woman was not such safe bet. I don’t know your view on this my reader, but I did not press the issue with him. These men of the world - the wananchi are best left alone with their beers. We don’t want them to get upset, do we? But it makes sense, the way you sit nodding as if you understood his comment first off. It’s not just women either!
People are not beers-now there is a profound thought to take home. People are not like liquid that they pour down their throats on a hot day at a beachfront. People are unpredictable. Ah, Ondiek, you are a wise man that is what you meant!
Whenever you meet someone new, you really don’t know what you are in for. Every person; a child or aged, man or woman, boy or girl brings something new to your life. Every new person brings a new area of unpredictability. It is the newness of people that makes
meeting them exciting. It is the unpredictability of each individual human being that adds new dimension to your own life. As people bring themselves into your little world, so your world is expanded. (That’s if you do not try to predict them and so squeeze them into an image of your own making).
But hang on, if human unpredictability is so exciting, why did our hero choose to stay with the beer? Forget the fact he was paid by the grog men; what is it that make the beer more attractive than the female on the beach? Ondiek, I need to nod again while I think about this one.
I do not know whether my friend saw my lights suddenly come on or not but it clicked as I nodded my head wisely. The fact is; there is a negative side to relationship, isn’t there? As we meet new people they gradually become acquaintances, then may be friends. We enjoy each other for sometime before something seems to change. There seems to be a natural lifecycle for human relationships. It is the decline that is the negative side. For as we get to know people we find that we often get our fingers burned. With initial excitement over, the newness fading, the hard work of relating begins and the friendship goes from a glow to a smolder. Then comes the realization that ever a smolder can hurt the fingers.
At this stage, we find that we are let down, betrayed, laughed at, gossiped about; we find at last that we are burned. Sometimes we are merely scorched. Yes, there is a side of relationships that is risky. For just as the pleasure from a person is unpredictable so too is the pain. Getting to know a person is a risky stake; the beer seems to represent conventional wisdom.
It is a sad result of a bad world that we all to some degree choose the beer instead of people. For in order to ensure we win, we actually end up losing. We try to avoid the negative side of relationship and also lose the positive in the process! So there is our choice in life: risky stakes or predictable beers. With humans we often do not know enough to make the risk worthwhile, so we prefer the beer. The only question in the end is whether we really do prefer sitting in our solitary little circle with our beer? Now, I don’t know what my friend Ondiek would say I might ask him next time he is pondering an ad! Have a good day.
About the Author
freelance journalist, district political party secretary and african cultural advocate.
Written By: Osoro P.J. Nyawangah
