Behaviourists still have a lot to study on humans. Little wonder many studies attached to human behavior still have a heyday with the Nobel yearly awards. Check this out in prize awards in Economics in the last decade.
It is interesting to observe the ‘obvious’ in universal behaviors. The man of yesterday is not exactly the same man of today. In days, weeks, months and years the man or woman has changed from what you know. What a high wind thrust on human behavior! Some would say it is nothing new but a kind of a roller coaster of times and seasons being implicated. True, perspective gives meaning to the reality of living,
Well, there are things that affect our common humanity. These may not be popular issues of leadership at governmental levels. It may not be the way we react to riches, wealth and success. It could come in the form of observing what could be termed nadir of life, found across the world.
The nadir is sometimes obvious but not always a simple thing. One may assume one knows them but it may not be as perceived. The nadir have peculiarities that are disarming. Yet, they are contradictory similarities falling out from familiar attitudes and behaviors in seasons and climes.
Let us pick up courage to look at the phenomenon again and seek its uniformities in variances. Uniformities in variances? Interesting mind play in reality. All of us cannot see them. But a thorough examination of both sides if possible, takes us to their chambers of knowledge and understanding.
The birds story and our mathematics teacher espousal of universals readily comes to mind. He points to what happens when birds on a tree are shot. Usual reaction is for all the birds not shot to fly away. One hundred birds flying away at the sound of a gun shot plays out everywhere in the world. This exactitude in mathematics shows regardless of the location.
But that is not where it ends for birds. Birds take a little time before regrouping at the same tree. Often, the hit and experience are lost on the moment of the incident. Anyway, men act somewhat differently.
There are shared behaviour with birds and animals. For some men, this incident may be etched in mind forever. It could shape subsequent behaviors. But for others, it is a pass. In a lingo, life goes on. “How many things are we going to cry on or ruminate as sad tunes of life?” Either way could have its place. Two sides of a coin.
Indeed, it only shows the nature of human behaviors. A pause at the way we behave. If there is anything one could do to review them and improve the mind as well as our actions, then, count it as something.
A singular but greatest event in life is death. All cultures seem to recognize or intone its recognition. Cultures and languages may try to cushion the hard kernel of feelings of loss and void by creating words and psychological palliatives. Celebrations of death often come in places as a decoy – tranquilizer for pain!
What is the hard fact? Death is pain to the living, the dying and sometimes the dead who knows no pains. To understand this is not simple.
Following the way we behave, the news of death triggers some emotion for those who are still human in flesh and spirit. But it is not so for creators of death and their disciples. For their human emotions decline even freeze if one is death dealing. Ajo nwa si owelle ba nne ya na afo! There are many ways to be death dealing. It could be physical or spiritual. Whatever form, it tends to negate human emotion of a loss and accompanying deep pain over passage of life.
Outside this realm of emotions, time and space affect the fall out of death. Widows and orphans are left to strewn in encounters and trajectories that death spawns. Like a politician who lost an election and perhaps lost his lofty place in the eyes of others, the journey of recovery could be long.
Unlike birds that instinctively recoup and regroup after a boom of a gun, humans tend not to regroup easily. When they do, it is only for a while. It is for this reason that those who build themselves to be comfortable to accommodate widows and orphans over a long period of time can be seen as spiritual rather than fleshly. Evidently, it is not the way we behave. At death we all gather. But after weeks, months and years, what happens? Everybody goes his way. The way we behave.
Running away is a font of human behaviour and it has been long with us. It is not changing significantly. It is thought to be easy way out.
But acting differently is supposed to be a enriching way for humanity. It is spirituality. A writer of old did not only recognize this challenge. He called for a rethink. James tells us what is to be done to orphans, widows and the “differently abled” Let there be a change on the way they are treated.Popular ways of neglect are not the beautiful way.
Take a look at how societies degenerate hopelessly. Here, the weak hardly appear in the weekly, monthly or annual agenda or calendars of the powerful. The sick, old people, differently challenged, children and women – already disadvantaged are made to slip deeper into misery index of life.
Many in high places hardly notice the needy. Yet, they take note at night different colour indicators and sounds of their electronic gadgets as these announce presence in their sitting and bedrooms. But same persons find it difficult to act in awareness that could elicit action on variants of human conditions and tragedy.
Is it not strange that men and women of power are usually disturbed by occasional tan-tan dropping of water from a faucet at night in a hotel room? 
On hotel complaints book same is reported. Change and repairs are quickly sought. Moreover, such men and women even the ordinary are worried by a crying baby altering the rhythm of their quietude. Then, a trigger of wonder on the complexity of human heart! What gives the heart such twists and absurdities? It is nothing but treachery.
In our communities, there are no old people’s home. You cannot dump any old man or woman anywhere. Families care for their old and sick. Those without children are cared for at old age by relatives. Umuada take turns to visit dependent family members. Childless old men and women are catered for to a reasonable degree.
Differently abled (crippled) are taught to work at home or nearby farms. Some are carried on the head or assisted to the farms. Others are carvers, basket weavers. Good numbers of them become responsible to marry and raise families with the support of family members. The old are not left out hence the truism: Old person well cared for would not hesitate to remind you that their family members do not die until they are grey headed. Even without mechanized assistance for the old, crippled and handicapped, immediate family cared. Care is the underlying word here expressed overtly by action and good deed of such society.
Now consider our new society without old people’s home. Yet it has lost what gives it a comparative advantage over so-called advanced societies. The way we behave has messed the way from whence we come. Where we are currently going does not provide the same advantage. Moreover, a new one is yet to be clearly designed and acquired. This flux is leaving many in a desert of regret and pain. Mindless loss of the essence of a worthy beginning is a lasting loss.
Ifugo nwata jeko Afor Isee mana ogbana mmiri.
The way we behave can be illustrated by a proud young man going to a waterless region without carrying water along. The geography of the location demands that water should be essential pack. Getting there involves trekking even exhaustion. Time is spent for the day’s activity under the sun.
Such journey needs forethought. But the proud young man put aside the inherited advantage of history. He visited without water and returned dehydrated and famished.
Quel leçon?
Wise counsel hidden in a quarrelsome voice can still be recognized by the prudent. When such are sprinkled with unfamiliar words, the wise still tries to crack them. A reader has a responsibility to read beyond words.
Modernity can prune relevance of some old saying, but locating its time and geography could enrich life. They inform and query our values – the way we think and behave.
Imaife.com 💻 2/9/202.
