Information and Communication Technology; Blessing or Curse?

As I write this, this Sunday happens to be communications Sunday in the Catholic church. For those who do not know, I am a Catholic and each and every last Sunday of the month of July Catholics all over the world reflect upon communication.

Among other things, on this communications Sunday the Pope chooses a theme that people need to reflect on. I usually do not pay much attention to these communication Sundays so the only theme I remember from the previous years was that of using modern technology to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. Something worth thinking about for the "Android Generation".

The reason I am writing this, however is to echo the theme that Pope Francis chose this year. This year the Pontif appealed to all the Catholic faithful (and I am extending it to everyone) that we need to reflect on communication in the family.

So, why communication in the family? Well. This is simple.

As I pointed out, we are in a generation in which smartphones are no longer a luxury and this has simplified communication to an extent that some of us would think that communication has been over simplified. What this has done is that it has made everyone get the applications of their choice in a bid to make communication more fun and above that cheaper.

All about this communication is, by definition all nice but it has not come without any repercussions. The negative element of this has come up in that it has taken away the personal element to communication.

To illustrate what I mean, I will cite an example of something that you might be able to identify with. It is not strange to see a group of people who claim to be chatting all busy with their phones texting someone who is on a far end of whatever network they are using.

The problem with this? Well. What it implies is that at the end of the day people communicate well when they are doing it over the tablet or smartphone than when they are in the same physical proximity. Already it shows that there is a flipping in the roles of communication because ideally technology is meant to be a means to an end in that it should be used to bring people together so that they can interact meaningfully when they are in close proximity. The modern generation has turned the internet and its applications to be the end in itself and the family has not been spared of this chaos.

This is what gives the Pope's words credible, relevant and worth echoing. Communication breakdowns that arise from an overuse of technology to communicate (with someone far when there is someone in close proximity) could be a potential threat to marriages across the world. Of note is that this threat includes but is not limited to the family. Friendships and other relationships are also endangered with this attitude the modern generation has towards communication.

The Holy Father started the show, so I will give it my own tailor made finish. It is high time we all realized that human to human interaction is the best mode of communication which surpassed all technology. We need to rise above this thing of never leaving our phones to rest in our pockets when we are with a group of people. This habit is getting out of hand and people have rendered it normal. The issue is that something does not become good because a lot of people are doing it.

Albert Einstein once said that he feared for the day when technology surpassed human interaction. I am not sure if this generation wants to be the one to make Einstein more than what he was (Theoretical physicist) to a prophet.

Technology is good with proper use, but an overdose thereof will be a danger to the society.

She who has ears, let her hear.

Post script
As we reflect on communication in families, let us extend this to little couple called relationships. Most of them are nowadays disbanding due to lack of communication. This is something that can have an easy and reasonable fix.

He who has ears let him hear this.

The "Richard Kamwezi" Classification of People.

Yes. Classifying people in the true way; my way,  and in case you are thinking that this is the same divisive things we have always had for ages, tone down for a moment and read to the bottom before judging me to be a racist, tribalistic or whatever you want to call me; with the word idiot at the end.

Before I lay down my own classification of people, I would like to outline the limitations of the previous parameters people look at when dividing themselves into different groups and barricading themselves with surrounding walls; tribes, professions, race and religion being the most important.

Tribalism is one of the commonest and rampant ways in which people are segregating each other to the disadvantage of many. In our own country, Malawi, tribal extremists have resorted to building up of barriers surrounding themselves and letting everyone else out in the form of nepotism. People would single out some tribes, but let us face it; everyone is doing it. I will cite an example of what happened in my class.

One day we were told to identify themselves by the tribe, say their own opinion on their tribe and then let others say what they thought about their tribe. You can guess what happened. It was only one tribe that received positive comment from the others and the heat was so much in the house that the only reason people didn’t exchange blows was that it was a class full of intellectuals. The word nepotism was not in short supply for that and it reflected the situation on the ground. This is how tribalism has taken root among us. People are getting jobs not based on competence but on their surname and every person smart enough to read this knows how detrimental that is.

Racism. I don’t have to talk much about this as it is clearly present everywhere. It is only here in Malawi that this ”racism” works to the best of expatriates in which case we give them an unmerited high regard than fellow Malawians. Elsewhere things are different and the there are various forms of racial segregation.

Talking the issue of religion, I don’t have to cite examples to avoid portraying an image that I am attacking someone else. The world has become so messed up that people can have dedicated institutions aimed at castigating a religion or denomination. For centuries people have killed and slaughtered one another in the name of God, and I am not talking of the time before Christ.

So, what common limitation does this segregation bring? It ignores the fact that there is beauty in diversity in the human race and ignores the existence of diversity itself. Big mistake. We have to understand that diversity exists and will always exist and it is not only wrong, but also impractical to force others to be like us in ideology and everything else.

Having laid that ground I would like to lay down this classification of people which is completely flawless. One which takes the existence of diversity into consideration.

How are people classified, then? Issue is that there two groups of people in this world. Only two namely ordinary people and extraordinary people. I must say that however you think of people, whatever grouping you may put them in, you will always find some ordinary people and some extraordinary people.

Ordinary people? These ones look for people who are leading things in the group they think they belong to and they follow. The hardly contribute to anything in the societies they belong to, be it religious, academic or tribal. They live and do the routines and that is all.

Extraordinary people on the other hand are the ones who shake up things in any sort of grouping. They might not be the ones in positions of power but they always make sure that they contribute something to the things that concern them. They are the think tanks who lead the blind followers called ordinary people.

Why should you bother knowing this classification? The undeniable truth is that there are these people in any grouping you can think of. When you are in any grouping of people you also fall into either class of people and it is good to choose to associate with and above all to be in any grouping.

Being extraordinary means that you can be a leader even when not in a position, but when the ideas go to the extreme or when the grouping is not formed for the good intent, being extraordinary can bring fanaticism which brings the issues I talked about as limitations to the other classification. People lose a sense of diversity. When people use these awesomeness of being extraordinary the good way, however, they impact many lives breaking the barriers that others may lay down with their segregative minds

The implication of being ordinary is the exact opposite. Leaders can either bring you up or exploit you depending on the cause or reason of association.

It is good, therefore to know where to be ordinary and where to be extraordinary; when to associate with the ordinary and when to associate with extraordinary. When to use your status of being ordinary or that of being extraordinary.

Main message: in everything good, refuse to be an ordinary person.

Lesson from the Man from Ulumba

Keeping an open mind is one of the things that help one to accumulate knowledge. Some people would argue against this but some of the invaluable knowledge I have was gained from unlikely sources. What I am about to share now is an example of such.

So, what do we want to talk about? Relationships and dating of course. This is an issue that has gotten so delicate in our society and it is getting out of hand. Out of our poor attitude towards relationships has come the adverse action of breakups and later in life divorces. The sad thing is that nowadays if people have a breakup they would laugh it off and move on with life, probably getting the next partner in the next week which raises the question as to whether they were in for the relationship in the true sense or not.

The cultural and religious view of a relationship takes it not just as a mere relationship but courtship. Many a modern day young person, filled with modernistic and secularist views has moved on and despised everything the society and church we belong to has preached. So here we are. Breakups everywhere. They are not a perceived "big thing", anyway.

As I suggested in my previous articles, relationships should be initiated with the big picture of marriage in mind. I know that some of you have a problem or two with this statement. Don't worry. This article is specifically for you.

If you don't agree with the notion that relationships should be for marriage, but rather for fun, then you at least have to make them fun. My only prayer is that through the commitment to making it fun you will see the light that will point you towards marriage.

The main issue we have nowadays is that we are not committed to relationships and as such they are not fun so they die a natural death. Most of us have grown to think that everything has an expiry date and do not believe in a relationship that can last. I shouldn't say much. All I should say is that breakups, fashionable as they look and usual as they have become are still not normal. If you are, however not for that, at least make sure you are committed to make it fun as you argue relationships are for, and that is where the man from Ulumba comes in.

To begin with, I met the man from Ulumba at a "chap" (that is what we call a bicycle repair shop, where I am from) where I was getting something fixed. Ideally these are places where you find young men throwing verbal jabs at each other, but this day was different; everybody was listening to the man from Ulumba. The man was old, but he looked energetic, probably going home from Zomba town and fixing his bike which has a puncture, issues with the spokes or whatever it was.

I am not sure about how the whole thing started but he started talking about how nowadays young people have degraded the value of a relationship. He was telling the young men around that they need to be treating their ladies as queens and to respect them always and the reason is the one that got me interested.

If I look at the background of this man, he was not the "marriage oriented" type. To him, all he was looking for was to make his lady happy for the moment so that even when they break up she should always remember that there was someone in her life who used to make her feel like a queen. His main point was the sort of "legacy" you leave in your partner's life at the start, through and after the relationship.

I imagine the man from Ulumba had his relationship in the moment when people were sort of transitioning from the traditional sort of courtship to the modern. So far it did work out for him. Fast forward to this decade, young people have no principles for managing a relationship at all. If if is not the random thing in which case the partners just look at what will happen by the day, then it is the sort of opportunistic sort of relationship in which one wakes up thinking of how they can harvest from the other. No intention to give at all, and that is the society that we have now. I fear for the future of the family.

The man from Ulumba looked to be in his late fifties. I met him at a bicycle repair shop. He was talking to the people around, obviously not me, but I grabbed a tip (and experimented it on someone. He he!). It does work and it might just be what we need to heal the society.

Young people need to get into the habit of thinking about giving when getting into a relationship. Somehow, automatically the thing gets reciprocated and the relationship becomes fun and changes are that they do graduate into happy families. How I wish most of us saw things this way.

Worth the reading? I hope so.

In summary, the philosophy of the man from Ulumba entails that we give our relationships and partners the best that we can.