Before We Know

There is a scourge ravaging society.

A monstrous one.

It destroys families, breaks hearts and, with frightening ease, turns innocents into something else.

So you can imagine what happened when I went for a haircut and noticed some young men sitting around, speaking in coded language.

My alarm antenna went up.

What could they possibly be talking about?

And the more they quibbled, the more suspicious I became.

Then I heard something about getting the “stuff”.

My indignation arrived fully dressed.

These young men too?

I was already getting incensed.

You mean they are caught up in this thing too?

Then came the description of a woman.

Apparently, this woman sold the stuff under the carpet while running some innocent-looking business as camouflage.

I was disappointed.

Sad, even.

But also determined.

After all, someone had to say something.

Someone had to stand for something.

And I was prepared to be that someone.

In my mind, I had already appointed myself investigator, educator, counsellor and moral intervention committee.

I was ready to pounce.

Then the package arrived.

And suddenly, the entire prosecution collapsed.

There was no drug.

No illicit business.

No sinister operation.

No secret cartel.

It was garri and sugar.

That was it.

Garri.

And sugar.

My pride quietly packed its bags and left the room.

😂

There is a particular humility that comes when you discover that the story you have constructed in your head has absolutely nothing to do with reality.

I had heard a few words.

I had seen a few gestures.

I had filled in the gaps.

And before the evidence arrived, I had already reached a conclusion.

How often do we do this?

Someone says something.

We hear half of it.

We see one expression.

We notice one behaviour.

We receive one piece of information.

And then the mind, wonderfully efficient and occasionally reckless, completes the rest of the story.

We judge motives we have not examined.

We assign intentions that were never expressed.

We condemn behaviour we have not understood.

We build entire cases on evidence that would barely survive cross-examination.

Sometimes, the problem is not that we have bad intentions.

Sometimes, we are simply too eager to make sense of things.

We want the picture before all the pieces have arrived.

And once the picture forms in our minds, every subsequent detail begins to serve the conclusion we have already reached.

Until, of course, the package arrives.

And there is garri.

And sugar.

And suddenly, you are standing there wondering where exactly you got your evidence from.

Perhaps there is a little wisdom in learning to pause.

To ask one more question.

To listen a little longer.

To leave some room between what we saw and what we think we know.

Because sometimes the thing we are preparing to condemn is not what we think it is.

Sometimes the stranger is not sinister.

Sometimes the conversation is not coded.

Sometimes the woman is not running a secret operation.

And sometimes...

the package is just garri and sugar.

Perhaps we should all keep a little space in our judgement for the possibility that we might be wrong.

It is a humbling space.

But it is also a very human one.