Anonymous
Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
It is literally a sea of faces. Picture the popular Balogun market on the 23rd or 24th of December. A mammoth crowd that essentially has a mind of its own- my Mum used to joke that if you were too tired, you didn’t need to walk. The crowd would simply move you to your (or better yet, a) destination. Imagine yourself in such circumstances and someone began to yell ‘Ade’ or ‘Ola’; it is akin to standing in Tiananmen Square and shouting ‘Lee’- an exercise in futility. I read a story once about a father and his estranged son named Paco. After many years of being apart, the father decided to mend things and put out an ad in the local papers saying “Dear Paco, all is forgiven. Meet me at XYZ (Can’t remember the name now…) train station in two days by 8.00 p.m.- Love, Papa.” Well, Papa arrived at the train station to meet 800 men named Paco who were seeking forgiveness from their fathers!
These days, we may not all be ‘Ades’, ‘Olas’ and ‘Lees’ or even ‘Pacos’ for that matter, but you have to admit that it is pretty difficult to tell people apart by things other than physical appearance. Not that this is bad, but have you ever considered the scenario where there was absolutely no differentiation? A world where you couldn’t tell anybody apart in any way whatsoever! Think about it for a second…what if we all looked alike? What if we were all the same height, weight, colour of skin, colour of eyes, shape of nose? What if we all had the same names and surnames? Worse still, the same character and mannerisms? That would add so many shades of creepy to life as we know it.
Do you ever get the feeling that you’re lost in the crowd? Feeling a little bit nameless or perhaps faceless? May not be too large a crowd but you feel lost anyway? It appears that there are so many of us wearing Guy Fawkes’ masks that it looks like an audition for a part in the movie ‘V for Vendetta’, only that in place of the white plastic, we have a variety of substitutes. The crowd of Mac Maniacs, Android Addicts, Colour-blockers, Human hair wearers, Toyota Corolla drivers (Kia Rio, Hyundai Accent and a few others are in with a shout here). How about Cinema-goers, Mall strollers, Consultants or Entrepreneurs?
The list doesn’t end there, there is more….2.1, 2.2, Master’s degree holders; Singers, Rappers, Actors, and Producers. We trudge on, making our press through the throng as we go through this mystery called life. A few words come to mind that I am pretty certain are quite familiar: ‘Vogue’, ‘Trend’ and even the more colloquial ‘Reign’. It appears there is some gravity-like force pulling us to join the crowd like we are destined to become a part of this organic whole, a collective consciousness of sorts. We sometimes get the feeling that failure to do this will precipitate dire consequences. Being left out may sometimes be an issue of survival, and at other times it may just be a matter of plain old acceptance- after all, in our street parlance- ‘Who wan carry last?’ It has actually become a thing these days with FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).
We are told that Man is a social animal; this is not just a popular statement, but it also quite profound in its depth and simplicity as it captures large swaths or meaning regarding human existence. Sometimes though, I find it is quite difficult to figure out the keyword to emphasize - Social or Animal? I believe it is this fear of being left out, our obsession with acceptance and our perception of the likely consequences of such that spurs us on to seek our place in the herd. Consciously or subconsciously, we move towards being a part of a picture perhaps too large for us to see. As theorists such as Abraham Maslow opined, a sense of belonging is a very strong motivation for us, we want, no, need to be part of something.
It is not unusual for us to look around and sometimes feel satisfied and accepted. But there are other times when we feel like ‘There’s gotta be more than this’; when we get this gnawing sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo and begin to kick against the goads. At these times, we clamor desperately for individuality and uniqueness. We want to find ‘our place’ and do ‘our thing’. Here is what I find to be another interesting dilemma- In our bid to mix and mingle, we sometimes get sick of all the high drama and decide we want out. We decide we’ve had it and pack our bags to hit the road. Only that the weird thing is, even then, when probed deeper, ‘this wanting out’ might just be our way of joining another pack, another social order. We have heard of this other group of people who dare to question the establishment, and things appear to be way cooler on their side of the fence. We desire to be a part the club of the iconoclasts- those who seemingly, against all odds, have decided that they want to be ‘me’. This is very funny because the question that follows usually has no answer; it is the simple ‘who are you’?
Isn’t it interesting that we almost always answer that question by saying our names? Sometimes we take it a little bit further and get into such details as what we do, where we are from, who our parents are, our tribe, our race, and tongue. At other times, we feel the need to enumerate our accomplishments or detail our flaws and weaknesses. All sorts of things come to mind but rarely are we able to clearly answer the question. Is it because it is a difficult question? Or perhaps, it doesn’t have an answer? Or maybe an answer exists but we simply do not know it. Maybe we are all suffering from an identity crisis. If you doubt this, drop this book right now, take a sheet of paper and a pen and write down your answer to the question. There is no restriction in terms of words; neither length nor brevity will score you any extra points but in your own words, tell yourself and perhaps the world who you are.
Strange exercise, right? I guessed as much. Now, having labored (as I believe you must have) to answer this question, how would you feel if I told you that your answer is very likely wrong? That you copied? ‘Dubbed’? Used ‘Orijo’? What if I said that the person you just described is not really you but someone else, maybe even a lot of people! At this point, I am pretty sure that many of us will swear by everything we hold dear that we are ‘Original’, that we are the genuine article. What we do not realize and will refute passionately is the fact that upon closer scrutiny, we are usually just very elaborate replicas, well-made reprints. At this point, I can hear all the arguments screaming in your head ‘What does he mean?’ ‘He can’t possibly be talking about me!’ It may be time soon to duck in order to avoid a lynching.
Here is the catch: a lot of times, it all happens outside the workings of our awareness. It is what the psychologists call a subconscious thing- sub meaning ‘below’ or ‘beneath’ the conscious state of mind. So, is it possible that you are just a copy cat and you aren’t aware of it? Might you be trying to live somebody else’s life without even knowing it? In the deeper recesses of your mind (Up to 90% of your mind according to psychologists) are you different from the person on the outside, the one that your co-workers, friends, family or even spouse know and interact with? Is it really a case of ‘there is more to it than meets the eye’?
Research in psychology and sociology will certainly say a resounding Yes! A lot of things from our taste in music to our purchase patterns and choice in restaurants are more often than not decided for us by those around us, even people who we do not really know and usually without our knowledge. As of the time of writing this, I cannot think of anybody in my circles, even to the most distant degrees of association, who would wear ‘Bell Bottom’ pants. It’s just not their style. It might be in 6 months though. Many would turn up their noses at such a hideous notion now; but if in 6 months Bell Bottoms become the fad? I can almost guarantee that the same people will be amongst the first to get a pair (or three!)
Take for instance something that happened to a while ago: A couple of years ago, someone offered me a Blackberry with free subscription valid for a month for N20,000- I turned it down. A few months later, I bought a used one (albeit a newer model) for twice that amount. What changed? While I would really love to say it was the basic functions and features of the device, I know that it is not true! I would like for you to believe that all of a sudden, the importance of email on the go became very apparent; that constant access to the internet and instant messaging assumed greater importance to me in pursuit of greater productivity, but again that would be false. Or maybe I could try the “It was just the choice that ‘made sense’” route — you know, it suddenly became ‘what I really needed’ in a phone.
In truth? I bought it simply because it felt like everybody else had one! All of the logic that suddenly became clear to me was illuminated by the lamp of my desire to join the bandwagon. It was not new, but it was now “the thing”, it was hip, cool. Having one conferred some kind of status to me. So, what I had turned down only a little while back had become a ‘must-have’ for me. I was being ‘me’ when I didn’t want it, but I also told myself that I was ‘being me’ when I eventually bought it. Which ‘me’ is really me? Which ‘you’ is really you? If you are ‘you’ but change each time the crowd does then it begs some questions, right?
Consider this other scenario: on a cool Lagos evening, a couple is taking a drive past Allen Avenue. They are hungry and are looking for a nice place to eat. They arrive at this intersection where there are two eateries on opposite sides of the road. They park, do a little ‘eenie meenie minie moe’ (or mini mini mani mo if you grew up in my neck of the woods) and pick one. They go in and settle down to a meal. The next group happens along and wants to pick a place as well. They find eatery A is totally empty and B has the couple inside…they figure it must be better so they go in. On and on, it happens. Not necessarily because of better food or service or ambiance, just the fact that there were others there. In sociology, this is often referred to as an information cascade.
You’d be genuinely surprised if you found out how many times you have made a decision based on situations like these. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing at all times, but it sometimes is. If we follow our basic programming to the letter, how do we guarantee that even very critical and life-changing decisions are not made in auto-pilot mode? In the end, we’re just a mish-mash of references collected along the way…nobody, really! It only becomes sad when this affects us negatively and not only are we ignorant of it, but we actually believe the opposite to be true.
It is weirder still because we are generally very critical when we observe this same trait in others to whatever extent. You know how we all dislike the very ‘fake’ folks? Those very annoying ones, who grate on our nerves with all their needless forming? The ones with the irritating cocktail blend of accents and misplaced airs? We all would rather not deal with people like this, preferring others we can tag as ‘real’, ‘down-to-earth’ and the likes.
They disgust us with their specks whilst we are totally oblivious of our beams, to borrow a parable from the good book. In the end, we are in some way or the other just like them. The bad thing is that while they suffer from the more ostentatious variety, you, my friend, are probably a victim of the more insidious and deadly kind.
