On Conditioning

And then came Friday.

Been a hectic week with academic work and all. At some point this week I was reflecting on the things I have been learning ever since I stepped into the corridors of college and one thing I found interesting is the fact that I have learnt a lot of things that I never imagined coming before coming into this place. I could write a list, but that is not necessary.

On interesting thing I have learnt over time, however is human development. The cool thing about it is that you get to hear different things depending on whether you are learning it from a pediatrician (child doctor) or a psychologist. On the other hand, the two do intersect as they both highlight that human development has a lot to do with the environment someone grows in. That might not mean a lot, but there is something to it and that is what I want the Richie Online’s esteemed readership to be aware of.

Based on the theories of development, a child is born like a blank slate… more or less. They know nothing and they tend to learn from the guardians around. The point is that if you were to take some David Banda at a tender age from Mchinji and to raise him in some western family, he will grow up with the culture of the westerners. That is obvious, but one thing most of us overlook is that the formatting David (and any other child growing in any culture) takes is deeper than just language and dressing. The environment someone grows in will also influences their thought process; the way they are wired to think.
How this comes to work is a matter of something called the subconscious mind. In simple terms, there are some things we do with our conscious mind. We are aware of them. The whole idea of you coming to this page to read this article this far (thank you for that, by the way) means that you are giving it the attention. You will register that in your conscious mind and will come to remember it because you put some effort to it. On the other hand, if you are in the minibus from Limbe to Blantyre and see a Beautify Malawi Trust billboard somewhere along the way (can’t remember where I saw it, but there is one), you might not pay attention to it, but somehow it registers into your mind that there is such a thing. You might be able to relate to it actually if someone talks about it. I hope some of you would relate to these rough explanations. If you want good ones you might want to use Google because I did not read about these things.
The important thing I wanted to share from this is that right at a tender age we get conditioned about the environment around us and how to handle ourselves around it based on many things. Most of this conditioning happens at home and in various learning institutions and day after day the blank slate (or is it hard drive) gets filled with information about the surrounding and begins to apply the information, until it produces its own offspring and begins to transfer the same. The interesting thing is the diversity of the sources of infomarion that one gets conditioned with. It literally comes from everywhere. Advice, disciplining, classes and lectures, other people’s conversations, church, media and pretty much every other thing that a person may get exposed to.

As said, most of this happens at home thus it should not be surprising that usually traits are passed from parents to children. People would always relate that to genetics, but really it is about the conditioning. It should also not be surprising that when people go to college they tend to change a lot in behavior. It’s about the shift in the source of information for conditioning. At first they used to spend much time at home with parents but now much of it is spent in college with the rest of the ung’ono ung’ono generation. Result? Change of conditioning and change of everything. Change in dressing, hair styles, beverages, denominations, language, food and everything else I haven’t included on the list.

Theories.

Having talked about that, one might be asking as to why we should bother about this. Some of the important traits in human life will be controlled by things that we register subconsciously. Some of us have grown thinking that it is hard to find money just because every time we asked guardians for money for a sweet they yelled at us, saying we shouldn’t ask for money for stupid things because money is hard to find. Some of us think it is difficult to defend a thesis because the first day we stepped into college we heard it was difficult. Do you need a Man of God to release you from the curse? I guess not. I have, by virtue of writing this post.
My point is that we need to learn to filter what sort of information comes into our already occupied brains. We have some reasonable control of what we can load in the little discs called our minds and this control can come in by having control of what we hear (includes who we talk to and share our dreams with) and see (this includes watching). Everyone should always think of keeping negativity that comes in to the minimum, but more importantly for those of us that have children (or those that plan on having some) should learn to feed our children with proper information if we are to have a proper society. If children grow in a family in which there is no happiness or peace no one should ever expect them to grow and have families that have the same attributes.

On the other hand, many will say a lot about our situations be it as a person or as a group of people. Learn to distinguish someone’s opinion from the absolute truth and do not let someone’s opinion of you be your absolute truth lest it becomes a prophecy. Other than that, associate yourself with the good. If you n find friends who can prepel you forwards, talk to them. Read a good book and attend a motivational talk. Above all go to church and hear the Good News.

I shouldn’t talk more. I guess you now have an idea as to why your mum denied you the luxury of watching movies at the local video show or why your spiritual father told you to stop chatting with your previous friends (azinzako akudziko aja) and why he told you to delete all the secular music. I also hope you now know why Pastor always gives hope that all will be well and that you will be rich. It is all about conditioning us to think positive and to make a positive impact. A lot of us need that if we and our communities are to change for the better.

The Principle of Planned Accidents

Friday.

Having received a lot of positive and none of negative feedback for last Friday's post, I have been desperate to maintain my record. I mean, call me what you want but I, like any other person who is not weird likes a pat in the back.

That was a digression. So... I have been busy trying to figure out whose toes to step on in this post so that I can get higher ratings (seems like that works; from observation). Of course that would have been way easy. Some MPs got injunctions banning the sale of some agricultural equipment (you could take a swipe at either the government or opposition on that), overzealous lawyers and MEC stuff, suicides, more Bushiri songs, Dr Chilima putting on boots and jumping in swamps and many other things. I mean, you could easily develop an article that could get you a few enemies out of each of those. I, on the other hand have decided not to do that, so I will stick to fact based opinions.

Accidents. For the purposes of this article, I think it will be better if we agreed on the definition of an accident as an undesirable happening. It is an undeniable fact that accidents do happen a lot in our lives. I mean, in one way or the other some things we didn't desire or we didn't plan for do occur in our lives; to different magnitudes and with variable results. Most times we go into something with some utopian thinking that we will achieve something only to end up either not achieving anything or "achieving" the opposite of what we want. A quick example? Starting a business and not making a profit or worse still, making a loss (mwaswera bwanji anzanga nonse a geni?) The point here is not to demean business, but these things do happen and it has it's own equivalents in the other trades.

Again, the main point is that not everything will turn out the way we want it to be. Some would wonder as to what I am driving at. In case the title of the article hasn't yet given it away, my point is not that you should fold your hands and gratefully receive whatever life throws at you. On the other hand, my point is that we should all take things head on, but we need to keep in mind that accidents may happen and thus need to be accounted for. These are real life issues.

A good part of my readership comprises of intellectuals in various colleges. You might relate to the fact that most of us started out in primary school thinking that we will all go to some "national* secondary school. A quarter or less made it and then we had another stressor of getting to college. After writing UEE or whatever exam others wrote (osati izi za NCHE zomangopita ku college ndi mapazi) 6000 of us qualified but there was space for only 2000 of us. Tells you something about the plans we make and their materialization. Even with the best effort there is only so much we can achieve, so we have to put that in mind. That accident. I don't have to emphasize on the issue of jobs from now. Another accident ahead.

Having said that, the main lesson of this whole piece, really is that we need to cast our nets wide in case the thing we are working towards doesn't work out due to issues beyond our control. I have been making noise here about goal setting, but even with the best goals and plans sometimes things may not work out. What do you do in that case? Cry like a baby? Of course... If you didn't plan the accident. If you did, you might as well move from option A to E without issues. Nanga si umadziwa kodi?

Of note is that it is not too late to start planning for accidents. Everyone who is reading this has a future ahead and it is never too late to plan for the future accidents.

Having said that, the whole thing of accidents gets interesting when it comes to social circles. Most times we get in contact with various people. That is inevitable but whether you continue interacting with a new person or not is purely a matter of choice. Some have gotten into bad habits, lost money, backslid in the LORD (nanenso ndine mtsogotu paja, eti?) and even gotten into bad relationships because of not planning their accidents well.

The moment you meet a new person in life, you need to realize that they have a potential of affecting every single dimension of your life. If it is someone from the opposite sex (at Richie Online we don't recognize homosexual unions) it is even worse. Anything might happen and you may end up marrying each other. The sermon from that? Before you get into constant communication with some new person you got to think of all the possible things that may go wrong (or right) and think of whether you can live with them; otherwise we only have so much control over some things when they get to an advanced stage. The only control you can have is to prevent them in the first place.

I have probably exceeded my word limit but I guess the message is clear. If this never crossed your mind before, well, here it is. If you have constantly been a practical user of the principle of planned accidents without knowing it's name, I have named it for you. Consider this a refresher and keep using it.

All in all, accidents do happen so plan for them. If you can't, at least plan for the consequences. That word called contingency, remember?

(Stops typing and puts phone in pocket).

Fractionating the Human

Friday.

Last week I posted what others thought was controversial. Anyway. I don't think I will do that again.

I always assume that I write to a diverse readership but I am sure that there are a lot of things among my dear audience, the most important of which is that most of you are many things as opposed to one. I personally happen to be a lot more than the medical student others see me to be. To some I am a writer, to others a leader, to others a partner in crime (for whatever reason), to others a classmate and all. The most important and my favourite roles, however are familial. I happen to be a brother, son and an uncle.

I am sure that most of us bear these roles without active awareness and we just hazard our way through them without paying attention. We are here now to condemn that act and to help you learn how to fractionate yourself so that you can fit where you are supposed to fit depending on the situation. Flexibility.

Fractionation; organic chemistry 201 has it that petroleum products are drilled as crude oil. They are, however put in some sort of fractionating tower where through some magic (or science) various petroleum products like gasoline and diesel (I am told even achina Vaseline) come out. All from the same crude oil.

I somehow believe that the human works in a pretty much similar way. In a way. The same human holds different roles and our lives need to be taken like crude oil which can be fractionated into many things to do a whole lot of different things.

In the first place, we are born in families. Families provide the first and most basic of social interactions. It is however sad tat most of us begin to lose touch with the family as we grow. It is important fornus to learn to fractionate ourselves into the family, however big or small we might be elsewhere. It is important to remember our roles as parents, children or as siblings and relatives of any kind. Very important.

Then comes school and career. This forms an important part of our lives and the importance of school and career cannot be overemphasized. We need to be in some sort of trade to make a living and most importantly a difference and more often than not that required some sort of education. Point? Even if you don't want to work in some office (what others call white collar jobs), you still need some education. Ndiye enanu mukamasiya school.... Basop!

Continuing with fractionating, we need to realize that there will be another to.e that we will need to have a spouse after (or maybe before) sorting out family and career. No further details koma izizinso ndizofunika.

Then comes the crucial part of spirituality. Being raised a Catholic, I was taught that "munthu ndi thupi ndi mzimu pamodzi" (man is both body and spirit). I am not trying to convert everyone to Catholicism but I am just driving home the point that we all need to be aware of our spirit as part of us. This is where the issues of faith do come in. There is a need for us to have some sort of spiritual belief and to make sure that we live in line with it. For those of us who believe in God; Christians and Muslims alike (if I have any outside those, please e mail me at rgkamwezi@gmail.com) do need to take their faith and relationship with God seriously. Believers also need to take into account the concept of community and to learn to live with others.

Probably those are the major things you can fractionate yourself into, but there are many that you can think of. The idea is that there should be nothing that takes an  proportionately large proportion of our attention over the other. We need to pay attention to family despite focus on career and the other way round. Izi zomakhala opanda mkazi kapena m'muna nkumanamizira sukulu zichepe ndipo zitheretu. If you are a pastor know that you are a pastor at church but at home you need to be a husband and dad; who follows Godly principles, but is still a dad. Know where to do what. Very important.

I have every reason to believe that our lives become a complex overlap of things for a reason. These shouldn't be pulling us among themselves but should be complementary as they help in making us complete beings.

Ndiye ndati izi zosiya sukulu for full time ministry izi... Sindimaziona bwino kwenikweni.

Blessed weekend to all.

On the issues in the air

Friday.

I have for a long time resisted from commenting on the hottest issue of the moment and that is the controversy surrounding the man of the moment, Major Prophet Shepherd Bushiri. Oh, yeah! Today I am not dragging anything and what has to be said has to be said.

Ever since his emergence into ministry he has been surrounded by bad (and recently good) publicity with others citing him as a false prophet, fraudster, Satanist and any other things people thought of calling him. Of late he has however been seen as a savior; a provider in the time of need after providing maize to those in need and sharing a bit of his miracle money to our underperforming national team (what a misplaced donation. Anyway. I am just being Richie). Rumor has it that he has truckloads of cement coming in to help with the construction of secondary schools. I find that very commendable (when I leave the issue of sustainability aside, that is). To that, I say, all of us should pop champagne to the Major 1.

It is clear that we all come to agree that the prophet is a good and considerate man when it comes to his humanitarian side. The issue is different when it comes to the discussion about his ministry with some calling him names, in line with him being a false prophet (akutitu). Some of them discuss it in their circles, just like all of us do criticize the president when we are chatting with the Tadala Rambikis (a Tadala Rambiki is defined as an overly critical friend) of our circles. Others on the other hand seem not to be keen on keeping it to themselves… if you know what I mean. Again no comment.

When I reflect on this issue, I wonder if it is the later day exponential increase in televangelist that is contributing to these open challenges we have on our men of God. Sometimes I tend to wonder whether it is that the Pentecostal movement is outgrowing itself.

When I think of the moment when it was predominantly the mainstream churches (matchalitchi a boma; achina Katolika, CCAP, SDA ndi anzawo) one could hardly point a finger to a man of God (we used to call the church leaders, priests, bishops and pastors then) and say he is a Satanist or something in that line. Of course there were a couple of people who pointed at others and interpreted scriptures in their own way and called others the antichrist, but it wasn’t that significant. Now we do have people writing pamphlets, singing songs, tweeting and facebooking about false church prophets, pastors and apostles, Boldly, actually. That brings in the question of the relevance of the scripture that says we should not judge. While conservatives say that this bold “exposition” is more or less like judging, liberals have it that exposing a false church leader is not judging but is rather biblical. Akutitu.

Having heard all of this, I tend to wonder as to who is right or wrong. I just hope that our reasoning and opinions of other people’s religious practices will not lead us away from the will of God.

I believe that it is high time that every person who believes in God concentrated on their belief in and relationship with God while propagating the same in a peaceful manner. There might be (and there surely are) who are getting lost because of misleading teachings from their leaders. I always believe that there are some better ways of rescuing people without causing preponderant pandemonium by throwing public slurs at other religious leaders. I mean, what is the conservatives are right in saying that doing so amounts to judging? Even if not, does that do the trick? Those are the questions I am yet to find definite answers to. Meanwhile, I feel like everyone should hold their peace and focus on their lives and their vertical relationship with God.

Again, that was just being me, but I would say again that we need to learn to hold our peace especially if our actions do not have any promising good outcomes.

Ndiye izi zonyozana mmisonkhano, kuimbama nyimbo ndi kumanenana pa bukufesizi; titazisiya zitha kukhala bwino. Ine ndikuona ngati choncho. (Somebody should translate this in the comments).

Controversial? Well. You say it.

NO! Wait! Keep that to yourself too.